Dave Canales on 'challenging' the Carolina Panthers' roster, changes to secondary

Carolina's rookie head coach Dave Canales shares his philosophy on roster building after cutdown, waiver wire moves.

Carolina Panthers head coach, Dave Canales, on the field at Memorial Stadium during the Panthers Fan Fest in Clemson, S.C., on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. / McKenzie Lange/ Staff / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Carolina Panthers were the busiest team in the NFL at the waiver wire yesterday, picking up six players from around the league, with a heavy emphasis on cornerbacks. Once all the moves were made official the team held its first practice after cut-down day. After it was over, head coach Dave Canales spoke with beat reporters and talked a bit about his roster-building philosophy, especially as it pertains to the back end of the defense.

Here's what Canales shared about the changes that have been made to the secondary, and what they're trying to do long-term, per Joe Person at the Athletic.

"I just really feel like we owe it to this team to look across all the league and kind-of compared it to the roster that we had. And we've been talking about challenging our roster, you know, from the beginning. And so we started off with the secondary room... that was a place that we really wanted to see if we could start getting a look at a lot of guys, the guys that were here, D'Shawn, Dicaprio, Lamar Jackson, all those guys did a fantastic job showing who they are, we know who they are. We know what they look like. And it's gonna be a long season. But we wanted to make sure we got eyes on a lot of people and see who can help us this year."

It sounds like Canales is open to bringing back some of those guys at a later point in the season, whether they need to due to injuries or if they become unsatisfied with the results of the current group.

From top to bottom, right now the secondary looks like Jaycee Horn and Mike Jackson starting at the boundary corner spots, with Troy Hill in the slot and Xavier Woods and Jordan Fuller at safety. Backing them up will be Nick Scott and Jammie Robinson. Meanwhile, rookie Chau Smith-Wade will be Hill's understudy at nickel and Keenan Isaac, Shemar Bartholomew and Tariq Castro-Fields will play behind Horn and Jackson.

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