If you’re looking to wager on NFL Coach of the Year, you have to wait until the page loads more options before Panthers coach Dave Canales’s name comes up. And while it’s true that this is a uniquely crowded field and that the current favorite—Mike Vrabel—has a team that won four games last season at 10–2, barreling toward a first-round bye in the playoffs, and Ben Johnson has the Bears sitting as the NFC’s current No. 1 seed after an outright collapse a year ago, I think many are discounting the totality of what has occurred in Carolina.
This is especially true if the Panthers, 7–6 after Sunday’s 31–28 win over the Rams, reach the postseason. Carolina has odds slightly better than 30% (through the early window Sunday), though the team has one of the more difficult opponent strength of schedules from here out, with both Buccaneers games remaining and a date with the Seahawks. Given that the Panthers and Buccaneers are tied with seven wins apiece and Tampa Bay is clearly struggling, I would venture to say that the current odds on Carolina’s postseason bid are a bit conservative.
It cannot be discounted that, in two consecutive weeks, the Panthers have forced three turnovers each against teams coached by Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay. The Panthers have logged wins over both the Packers (Week 9) and now the Rams. And while there are weeks when this team can revert into the previously established narrative version of itself—a blowout loss to the Bills and a 10-point loss to the Saints come to mind—I think it’s worth making the case that what Canales and his staff are doing is perhaps the most impressive job in the league.
For example, with some of the other coaches in front of Canales, such as the Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald and Colts’ Shane Steichen, you can pinpoint a large part of the team’s rise to critical coordinator changes in the offseason. The Colts went from being 14th in EPA to an undisputed top-10 unit. While not ignoring the team’s uncanny offensive efficiency, the Colts are one good game away from tying the number of quarterback hits they had all of last season. The Seahawks, in addition, went from the 10th-best defense (Macdonald’s area of expertise) and the 18th-best offense, to a top-10 offense that has set a standard for deep-shot, game-altering plays, and the fifth-best defense. Certainly, Steichen’s handling of Daniel Jones and scrapping the Anthony Richardson offense are excellent achievements attributed to the play-calling, former-quarterback head coach. But the Colts have lost three of four, looking suspect against the toothier portion of their schedule.
Vrabel, while undoubtedly fantastic, has thus far played a schedule with a combined strength of schedule under .400. And while New England has performed well against the top-tier competition it has faced to this point, we’re flimsily building that case on a win over the painfully inconsistent Bills. I don’t know if we can say, with any degree of certainty, how New England would perform in a second-round playoff matchup
With Johnson, there was an offseason personnel overhaul, especially on the offensive line. The new players—Jonah Jackson, Drew Dalman and Joe Thuney—have all played between 97% and 100% of the team’s offensive snaps this season. Caleb Williams, while uneven during his first year under Matt Eberflus, is an undeniably talented quarterback with the potential to become a perennial top-five player in the NFL. While we absolutely cannot discount Johnson’s genius as a play-caller, Chicago ranks very highly in many of the NFL’s luck-adjacent metrics, such as fumble recovery percentage and third-down conversions over expectation (stunningly, the Bears have faced more third downs this season than any team except for the Giants). Six of the team’s nine wins have been one-score victories.
Juxtapose this with Carolina, a team that won five games last year when Canales first took over, after a two-win season that preceded Canales that was arguably one of the most ill-conceived blends of a mismatched coaching staff, overzealous personnel department and over-involved ownership in NFL history.
Carolina’s big free-agent addition on offense was a one-year, $3 million contract handed to Rico Dowdle. This season, Carolina has a bottom-third fumble recovery percentage and one of the worst red zone touchdown percentages in the NFL. Outside of the growing threat posed by first-round wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, the Panthers have been almost singularly dependent on a running game with a top-10 efficiency rate and … not much else. The Panthers’ defense, while buoyed by a handful of Band-Aid free agents and a resurgent campaign from Derrick Brown, moved from dead last in EPA—and one of the worst defenses in recent NFL history—to 24th.
While we can utilize these numbers to say whatever we want—statistics are the grist for manipulation—I see an extraordinarily hard-capped roster with almost all of its “star” power on the defensive side of the ball grinding out wins on the shoulders of a journeyman running back. This is different from an offense that, say, already had Jonathan Taylor finding its footing with the addition of a former first-round pick at quarterback. This is different from a team that already possessed an ascending star quarterback (Drake Maye) adding a top-five pick at left tackle, a multi-time Pro Bowl wide receiver and a new offensive coordinator to the fold.
This, you’ll find, after watching the same Young whom many have given up on time and time again, throwing picture-perfect balls in a diving rain on critical third and fourth downs against the best defense in football, is different from almost anything we’re seeing in the NFL.
And that is why we should consider a coach talented enough to orchestrate it befitting of an award.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Dave Canales Has Been the Coach of the Year Through 13 Weeks.
