According to David Newton of ESPN on Thursday, the Carolina Panthers have hired Dave Canales of Los Angeles, California, as their new head coach. This is the second big announcement for the Panthers this week, as on Monday, they hired former Panthers linebacker Dan Morgan of Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania as their new general manager.
This is Canales’s first head coaching job in the National Football League. He takes over from Chris Tabor of St. Joseph, Missouri, who was hired as the Panthers’s interim head coach on November 27, when the Panthers fired Frank Reich. In six games, Tabor had a record of one win and five losses.
Despite never being a NFL head coach before, Canales has plenty of NFL coaching experience. He was with the Seattle Seahawks from 2010 to 2022, and with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2023. While with the Seahawks, Canales was Seattle’s wide receivers coach from 2010 to 2017, their quarterbacks coach from 2018 to 2019 and again in 2022, and their passing game coordinator from 2020 to 2021. This past season, he was the Buccaneers’s offensive coordinator.
Canales was a Super Bowl champion while with Seattle. The Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey by a score of 43-8 over the Denver Broncos on February 2, 2014. In the game, two Seahawks receivers caught touchdown passes. They were Jermaine Kearse of Lakewood, Washington, and Doug Baldwin of Gulf Breeze, Florida.
It should be noted that Canales does have head coaching experience. However, he has not been the man in charge for almost two decades, and when he was it was at the high school level. Canales coached Carson High School in Los Angeles in 2004 and 2005.
