Sources: Panthers to hire Bucs’ Canales as coach

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Carolina Panthers plan to hire Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales as their new head coach, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

“It will get done,” a source told Schefter on Thursday.

The length of Canales’ contract and other details have not been worked out yet, a league source told ESPN.

The Panthers are hoping Canales, 42, can do for Bryce Young what he did for quarterbacks Russell Wilson, Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield.

Canales had his second interview with the Panthers on Wednesday in Charlotte, where he met with team owner David Tepper, new general manager Dan Morgan and others on the search committee.

Morgan spent eight years with Canales on the Seattle Seahawks‘ staff from 2010 to 2017 when Canales was the wide receivers coach. Familiarity with Morgan and being a disciple of former Seattle head coach Pete Carroll was a factor.

Canales started with Carroll as USC’s strength and conditioning coach in 2009 and followed him to Seattle.

Canales was the passing game coordinator for the Seahawks in 2020 when Wilson set career highs with 40 touchdowns and a 68.8 completion percentage and also passed for 4,212 yards.

He was the quarterbacks coach for Seattle in 2022 when Smith passed for a career-high 4,282 yards and 30 touchdowns with a 69.8 completion percentage.

He was the offensive coordinator at Tampa Bay this past season when Mayfield, who spent the previous season with the Panthers, had a career-high 4,044 yards, 28 touchdowns and 64.3 completion percentage.

Canales will inherit Young, the No. 1 pick of the 2023 draft, who had statistically one of the worst seasons in NFL history for a quarterback taken with the top pick.

The Panthers went 2-14 in Young’s 16 starts (he missed one game because of an ankle injury), passing for 11 touchdowns to 10 interceptions with a 59.8 completion percentage. His Total QBR (33.3) ranked 29th out of 30 qualified quarterbacks, better only than Zach Wilson of the New York Jets at 30.5.

Canales heads to a Carolina team that had an NFL-worst 2-15 record in 2023 and has had six straight losing seasons since Tepper purchased the team in 2018.

The Panthers entered the search with Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as their top target, per a league source. But multiple sources said Johnson favored at least one other team, the Washington Commanders, over Carolina even though he is a native of the Carolinas.

Johnson would not have been available for an in-person interview until after Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers.

Canales replaces Frank Reich, who was fired just 11 games into his first season as head coach after he received a four-year contract.

Week 1 in 2024 will mark the Panthers’ third different coach in as many years. (Matt Rhule in 2022, Reich in 2023.) Including interim coaches — Steve Wilks was interim coach in 2022, Chris Tabor was in 2023 — Canales is the fifth coach for the Panthers since 2022.

ESPN’s Jenna Laine contributed to this report.