Dave Canales gives initial thoughts on the Panthers' embarrassing week 1 loss

Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales understands he has a lot of work ahead of him to get this thing back on track.

Schuyler Callihan | Sep 8, 2024

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Carolina Panthers

The start of the Dave Canales era in Carolina got off to a sour start as the Panthers suffered a lopsided 47-10 loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday afternoon. Following the game, Canales met with the media for a few minutes to give his initial thoughts on the game.

Opening statement

“We learned a lot about ourselves today. A group of guys that haven’t played a lot of football together. The communication, the working off each other, those are all things we got to get to as we look at the film. The positive that I can take out of it is the way that the guys stuck together and just kept playing hard. There’s nothing more I can ask for when you’re faced with a situation where you’re so far behind already in the first half.”

Only giving the starters one series in the preseason

“Yeah, it all matters. It all counts and that’s something that we got to think about. But again, we had an opportunity today to play football. We played a lot of football, particularly on defense, so we’ll learn a lot just from being able to get this group together and work off each other.”

Any positives from Bryce Young’s performance

“Just the pre-snap operation. That was kind of my biggest concern and I thought we did a really good job. We had one delay of game I think. We were pretty close and up against the clock there a few times, but I think from that standpoint give us a chance with a good starting point to be able to have success in our plays.”

Processing this game and not being overwhelmed by it

“A loss is a loss. The nature of the loss, it matters. It’s a factor. We look at it, but whether we lose by three points or as much as it was today, you have to just count them as a loss and then move forward to the next challenge. That was the message I gave to the team. Weeks from now, it’s not going to matter what the score was. We lost. Let’s go to the truth of it and let’s move on so it doesn’t have that carryover effect.”

Initial thoughts on the defensive play

“We got a lot to figure out. We’ve got a lot to work on. Can’t speak specifically to anything, we’ve got to get to the film and see the breakdowns of the different runs and the different actions that got out there.”

How he plans to help Bryce Young learn from this game and move on from it

“Just make it about the basics and look at each play as isolated incidents. Look at the play, what was the breakdown? Was it timing? Was it footwork? Was it protection? There’s a lot of factors that go in and I think if you can be objective about looking at the breakdown of the play itself, then it allows you to improve.”

Message to Panthers fans who think this is the same old Panthers

“It’s a long journey. It’s a long journey to become us. I truly believe that. I knew that whether we started 4-0 or 0-4, whatever that is. What I knew was this is going to take a long time to become us. I can’t help but know that you have to have adversity for you to become who you’re going to be."