What Carolina Panthers coach Dave Canales said after 32-26 win against the Lions
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From midway through the first quarter into the start of the fourth, the Panthers scored on six straight drives — four of them touchdowns — in a 32-26 win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football.
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But it looked scary down the line, with Carolina punting on its third-to-last and penultimate drives before kneeling to end the game. In between those drives, Detroit scored a touchdown to bring the game within six before ultimately turning it over on downs on its final possession.
Dave Canales was proud of his team postgame, acknowledging Bryce Young’s 329 yards and Tetairoa McMillan’s 14 receptions for 192 yards and both of Young’s two touchdowns. The run game also revealed itself, with Chuba Hubbard rushing for 122 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries.
Here’s what the third-year head coach had to say:
“First of all, just the fans. A blackout game, it was amazing. Prime time, the energy was exactly right. There was some trouble for the Lions at the line of scrimmage. A couple of false starts, some things like that that showed up for us. That’s the impact that our fans can bring to us. Especially on those last drives. The juice, the noise, really just fueling our defense. The defense having to go back out there a couple times when Detroit got a couple of stops. We need that energy to be able to finish the way we do. So I’m super grateful for everybody that turned out tonight.”
“It was great to just have a little bit of balance there with some of the RPOs playing off of the run. As as you know, we’re trying to get our run game going, and we saw that happen today. But the RPO just loosens it up a little bit and allows you to have some optionality, and you can start to dictate to the defense whether they can play zone or man, how they try to attack those things. When they went to man, we were able to hit the ball down the field and get T-Mac a huge touchdown there. Darren Waller running away a couple of times, so it fits the whole piece in on the offensive side.”
“It was just a great job by the staff coming together to make sure we were putting him in the different situations, getting matchups right, and then from there it was just Bryce and T-Mac. I got to be honest, it was not a great week of practice for the two of them. There were some misses. They had to work through some stuff and talk through it. And I’ve been a part of this before, where you don’t make a judgment on what’s going to happen on Sunday as the guys continue to work and find that, and then for it to show up like that tonight was beautiful.”
“What a great job by [Ejiro Evero] and the guys just continuing to work through with the new group with guys going out there who have played for us. But that communication is critical. It’s great to have Nick back out there. Nick Scott, you know, being able to direct traffic, and the guys were really disciplined. It felt that way this week, and I doubled down on that on Saturday just to let them know, this was our best week of practice from a defensive standpoint in terms of just playing the run game, playing the pass concepts in the different situations. And we were able to get the ball down at the line of scrimmage a couple times, which always helps.
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“Just trust the process, and that’s all we have. All we have is the work that we do, how we go about each day, making sure we have great meetings and take it out there on the field and execute. And that’s what this week looked like. The Lions did a great job battling back. I mean, that’s what happens with great teams. They’ve been in these situations before. But our guys were able to execute because of the work that goes into it. I can always lean on that. I can always point to that process because we have to be process-minded.”
“It’s just another championship opportunity, and that’s the way we sell it to our group. That’s the way we have to understand these. When you get these primetime slots, you’re playing under the lights, the stadium’s electric, all these things. It boils down to just football and our fundamentals. And I was really proud of the way the guys approached this game. Nobody lost their mind about it being a primetime and all the different things that can come with that. We just played football. And there was still a lot of stuff that we also gave to the Lions with the penalties on special teams. All those hidden yards. When you play a good team like this, you can’t afford to give them anything. We have to execute. We have to be more disciplined with those things. So that’s something that I can lean into and challenge the guys on tomorrow.”
“When the guys come together and have a disciplined pass rush, you put yourself in lanes. You know who’s got the two-way go, who doesn’t. And when you start to engage your rush, if you know that they’re sliding to you, you don’t have space, then the next thing you can do is try to match the hand of the quarterback. We knew Jared plays for the pocket. He did a good job moving out a couple of times and trying to make some extra space for himself, but the guys were disciplined about it. That’s been the challenge: let’s get the run game going on offense. Let’s get our discipline of our pass rush. I saw that happen. Those are the type of measurable things that we can do that will really help our football team.”
“It certainly is a great time for us with the amount of guys that we have that we’re trying to get back from injuries. So that’ll buy us a little bit of time, be able to press into those. It also allows us to take the first quarter of the season, take a snapshot of the things that are working well, what’s not working well. This happens every year. The things that you rep in training camp that may not be what you become, and then there are things that emerge that you say, ‘Shoot, let’s just doctor this up a couple more ways.’ So, I love this part of the process. I love all of us putting our heads together and then try to put our best foot forward.
“What I loved about Chuba tonight was breaking tackles. Running with that attitude that we want to. It all starts off with pressing the blocks the right way, making sure he’s cutting off the feet of the O-lineman. And watching that unit come together and be patient, even though there were some ones and twos. Then all of a sudden the run game started to get going. The play actions helped that for sure. But Chuba ran with violence tonight. I was really proud of him.”
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