Canales Reacts to Panthers Getting Shutout of Primetime

Another tool for motivation? Not necessarily...

Off the heals of a two-win season, you can't expect the league to give you much respect.

The NFL wants to put its best teams and its best matchups in primetime and can you really blame them? Primetime kicks are earned, not handed out to just anybody. Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales fully understands that which is why he's not phased by the NFL shutting his team out of the primetime window in 2024.

"You got to earn it. You got to earn primetime games. Those things just don't come along. They don't start out that way, they don't just throw you on primetime games for no reason. We have to build a version of football that we're proud of and be able to accentuate that talents and strengths of the guys that we have and then I think the world will want to see that at some point. But we got a long way to go and we got to earn those types of opps."

As far as using this as another tool for motivation, Canales doesn't really operate that way.

"I'm not a negative motivator. I'm about possibilities. I'm about how good we can become. I think some guys would be naturally motivated that way if they do (great), that's just never really worked for me. I don't know who the teams are, I look at the schedule, and I can't tell you whether I'm excited about it or not. I'm excited, it just makes it more real for me now that it's on paper. This season is going to happen whether we like it or not, here it comes. My expectation for our group is that we take it one week at a time and we just get better the following week by working hard and by working together."

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