The first NFL game day for Panthers head coach Dave Canales? ‘He’s built for this’

As Dave Canales prepares for his first real test as the Carolina Panthers’ head coach at 1 p.m. Sunday at New Orleans, he’s got big, big plans.

Many of them are listed on the call sheet that will be his coaching Bible for the day. He will always be holding it, ready to talk directly to the radio inside quarterback Bryce Young’s helmet. Among the hundreds of variations of plays on that call sheet, there are 25-30 plays that Canales, Young and the coaching staff have picked out as “must runs” against New Orleans. Canales said he won’t script the Panthers’ first 15 plays in order, as many NFL coaches do, but he also won’t leave the Caesars Superdome without calling those 25-30 plays.

To help him decide when to use them, Canales is planning to implement a specific routine on Sunday and every game day that follows. He will get to the stadium three hours before kickoff and first immerse himself in some physical exercise.

“The minute I get to the stadium, I work out,” Canales said in our interview. “I just love to get any nervous energy (out)... I just want to get my body moving, so my mind is calm.”

After that, Canales plans to ride the elevator up to the coaches’ box atop the Superdome to take a bird’s-eye view of the field.

Even though he will be coaching the game from the sideline, he said this helps him visualize what he’s going to do. He literally calls out the plays, in his own private dress rehearsal, in part to think out a tough situation, and in part to literally say the words aloud so they’ll come easier in the heat of the moment.

“I just love going to the coaches’ box, seeing the field and just picturing a drive,” he said. “And I just love getting up there and putting myself in difficult situations. ‘OK, we’ve got second-and-20. What are we calling here?’ And different third-down situations. Work it all the way to the red zone, kind of visualizing the calls.”

For Canales, this sort of preparation has worked so well that he’s made it to his first NFL head-coaching job at age 43. He is an energetic puppy of a head football coach compared to most of the men the Panthers have placed in this position over their 30-year history — instantly likable, constantly engaging and still so youthful that his players have sometimes found it hard to believe that he’s the main man.

When new Panthers wide receiver Diontae Johnson first met Canales in a group of people, he didn’t think Canales was the team’s head coach. The guy had so much vim and vigor; he had to be a young assistant on his way up, right?

“I didn’t really know, to be honest,” Johnson said. “So when I found out, it was kind of a shock…. Like, he’s got all this energy. ”

Canales walked into Charlotte that way, booming “Good morning!!” into every room he walks into.

Surely it’s an act, right? Surely no one can stay that enthusiastic for that long — can they? Does that firehose ever turn off?

“Oh no,” Panthers center Austin Corbett said. “It’s full gauge. Coach is getting maximum PSI out of himself. But it’s authentic. I’ve been around plenty of coaches where it’s that fake juice, that fake energy. And you can pick up on that easily. But with him, it’s true to who he is.”

Much of this can be traced back to Pete Carroll, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks from 2010-23 and a longtime mentor to Canales.

For instance, you’ll never catch Canales wearing a hat or sunglasses on the field. It won’t matter Sunday in New Orleans, since the game is indoors, but he also didn’t do it during a 90-degree training camp practice in Charlotte and he won’t do it during the home opener Sept. 15 against the Los Angeles Chargers in Charlotte.

“Honestly, I learned it from Pete,” Canales said. “Pete was really big on connection. He wanted the players to be able to see him. And the other part, for me is there’s a humanizing element to just kind of being the way they always see me. So I didn’t want that to shift for them on game day. So as the craziness and the emotions of the game happen, I come over and say: ‘It’s just me. It’s Coach Dave, and we’re talking.’ It’s something that has been really meaningful.”

For all that, Canales admitted: “I’ve been chastised by doctors who say, ‘Well, you should think about wearing glasses during practices, because eventually it’s going to take a toll on your eyes.’”

Canales is older than all of his players, but not by so much that they won’t rib him. They tease him sometimes about the tight-fitting workout shirts he favors.

Of Canales’ first game as a head coach, wide receiver Adam Thielen laughed and said: “I’m sure that he’ll be showing off his muscles a little bit. But I think he’s built for this. He’s a process-driven person, and he’s proven that day in and day out…. And usually, someone who is so driven by the process doesn’t let a game or a situation affect them, because they’ve prepared for it.”

Coaching your first game at New Orleans, one of the loudest environments in the NFL, isn’t ideal. But Canales said the team will be ready. His pregame message to them?

“It’s just us,” Canales said. “Whether it’s home or away, it’s just us. It’s our energy that we create…. Starting on the road, the way that I always like to pose it to the group is this: Someday when you play in the playoffs, at some point you have to play on the road.”

Playoffs?! Are we talking about playoffs?!

What Canales meant, of course, was somewhere down the road. Not necessarily this year. But some year.

Because at some point — hopefully in our lifetimes! — the Panthers are going to be in the playoffs again after a postseason drought that stretches back to 2017.

He’d like to be the one to get them there. And if the Panthers do that, you better believe Canales is going to climb up to the coaches’ box in the pregame, look down on the field and dream.