Carolina Panthers Hires New Coach

The 42-year-old Canales was most recently employed as the offensive coordinator for the Panthers’ NFC South rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In his first and only year on the job, Canales helped lead Tampa Bay to a third consecutive NFC South title.

Many experts anticipated that the Buccaneers would take a step backward in light of the retirement of Tom Brady — who is widely viewed as the greatest quarterback of all time.

However, Tampa Bay improved on their 8-9 record in 2022, going 9-8 en route to winning the division and upsetting the defending NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card before losing a tightly contested game to the Detroit Lions in the Divisional round.

A large factor in Tampa’s surprising success was the play of quarterback Baker Mayfield, a name Panthers fans are rather intimate with.

Mayfield struggled mightily in his six starts for Carolina last season going 1-5 in those games with very poor passing statistics before he requested his release from the team and the Panthers obliged.