Panthers
Panthers HC Dave Canales spoke on QB Bryce Young and said he liked what he saw on tape and knows there’s more that can be developed out of him.
“I don’t think it’s all isolated on what I saw this year,” Canales said, via the team’s website. “The cool part is we’re just a year out of doing all of these evaluations for the quarterback position, and in Tampa, we were in a position to maybe look for a quarterback. So, I was able to really dive in and what I saw there was just that really accurate passer, a courageous quarterback, not just talking about specific pocket presence but also just critical games, the amount of games he won at every level really, as a high school player, as a college player at Alabama, this guy is just a winner. He’s got the right makeup to be able to be a champion. And so then you watch him play NFL football, and I still see the accuracy, the mobility, the courage in the pocket. All those things are still there. So now it’s just about building an offense in its totality that is a good product so that he’s just 1/11 of that process.”
Canales added the review of the offense will be all-inclusive, rather than just simply putting the whole blame of their shortcomings on Young.
“We’ve just got to learn from those experiences,” Canales said. “We have to study our tape, but we also have to study the playoff games. What are championship performances? You’re going to hear me say championship a lot, but it’s looking at those playoff games to see the winning quarterback. How did he get this done? And what we’re going to come away with, which happens every year, is a quarterback who takes care of the football and maximizes opportunities to be special three to five times a game. That’s it. You don’t have to be special the whole game; those games are not won that way. And so I think that if I can paint a picture of Bryce just playing his role, his 1/11th, then it does take some of the pressure off of this unrealistic expectation for a player to carry a team that just doesn’t exist. And so, I want to just paint that picture for him.”
Canales said he took the job because he was excited to work with a young player who he believes has potential through the roof.
“I wanted him to be able to feel my excitement coming into this opportunity. To be a head coach for sure, but specifically to be his coach,” Canales added. “And the belief that I have in him. I just pinch myself, really. Like, when I was in Seattle for 13 years, we were never anywhere close to the top pick in the draft. And for me to ever think I was going to have a chance to develop a team with a first overall pick, the best quarterback in the draft. This is a dream, and I just wanted him to feel that excitement from me like I’m ready, and I hope you’re excited too because I have something that I can bring that I can help you just take the next step in your path.”
Canales added he’s going to take what Young did well in college and will also hopefully correct his shortcomings to date in the NFL.
“The cool part is I have a whole season,” Canales said. “I have 16 games of NFL film to watch of him. My mind is combining the things that he did in pockets this season. But also for me, I just got Bryce Young from Alabama, and now he’s got NFL experience; that’s like gold. That’s gold. Because regardless of what the record was, it’s our experiences. You talk about Geno Smith going through a really rough patch and then getting into some really hard situations and then kind of having to bounce around. You know, Baker went through six or seven offensive coordinators and eight play callers for a time. Like, you talk about hardest of hard. So with Bryce it’s really, it’s one year. So, I can lean on a lot of the things that I wrote up in my (pre-draft) reports about him. In my report, I just wrote, he’s got everything you want.”
Panthers
Panthers GM Dan Morgan said that the roster overhaul will not be an overnight process but will take time to identify the players that will help them build a championship-caliber organization.
“I think first, it’s not an overnight process,” Morgan said, via the team’s website. “I think it’s going to take a little bit of time. I’m not going to put any timelines on it, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work and dedication, not just from myself, but from the coaching staff, from the scouts, we’ve all got to work our butts off, and we’ve got to find the type of players that we love, which is passionate players.”
Morgan spoke on what type of players the team is looking for moving forward.
“I think it’s all about finding guys that are passionate about football,” Morgan said. “Guys that love coming in, they love the process, they love the day-to-day, the lifting, the film, all that type of stuff. It’s guys that just love football, and it shows in everything they do, not just on the field. Guys that just play with a relentless motor, relentless effort. They’re tough, and their energy and their passion show through their actions on the football field. And those are the type of guys that we’re looking for.”
Bills GM Brandon Beane said Morgan is not afraid to make waves within the front office if he’s confident in his convictions.
“He is not afraid,” Beane said of Morgan. “You know, our owner was in draft meetings, and if he asked a question or disagreed with something, or if coach McDermott said something, or a coordinator. Like, if Dan didn’t believe that you were right, he was going to stand on the table. I always told the guys to speak up if you’ve done the work, and Dan wouldn’t speak out of turn, but if he had done the work, he wouldn’t back down from me as well if he disagreed. I’ve seen him disagree with our owner. I’ve seen him disagree with the head coach in different situations in a respectful manner. Also, understanding his role here, after you make your case, sometimes the decision is going to be made, and maybe we don’t go with you. It’s big for the GM to explain to everyone that once a decision is made, it’s the decision of the club. Everyone in the building’s got to support that. People want to be right, and that’s not what it is. It’s making sure you make the right decision for the team. And that’s where the GM comes in and has to create that alignment throughout your building once decisions are made.”
Saints
Saints QB Derek Carr responded to the criticism that he threw a bad pass to WR Michael Thomas, which caused him to sustain a season-ending injury. Carr noted that while he didn’t appreciate the criticism, he hopes Thomas turns things around in his career regardless of whether that happens in New Orleans.
“I probably didn’t throw the best ball. If that’s how he wants to view it and how he wants to see it, completely fine by me,” Carr said during an appearance on the Two Gs in a Pod show with James Jones and Amber Theoharis. “I also understand that when I came in the building we had Chris Olave, who they were trying to train to be the number-one guy. So all of a sudden, every rep and every read in practice is Chris first. And as a superstar that Mike is and as he has been, I can understand you’re dealing with all the injury noise, you’re dealing with Chris becoming the guy — and he loves Chris, that’s his guy at Ohio State and all that — but I can understand where the frustration starts to build. I understand where all those things begin to take place.”
“I hope Mike finds what he’s looking for,” Carr added. “I hope he gets everything he wants, in life, because I do love Mike. But in that moment I didn’t really like it. Just call me bro.”
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