A former college coach on the Dave Canales hire as the Panthers new HC

All right, my friend Steve Logan joins us now on The Adam Gold Show, former East Carolina coach and offensive coach to the stars.

So, sir, I want my first question to you. Dave Canales is the new coach of the Panthers, and he is going to be charged with repairing, I'm going to guess, Bryce Young. So what is his first job to get to Bryce and kind of help him turn around what we saw last year? Well, the first job really, it belongs to, I guess they hired Dan Morgan as a general manager. Is that accurate?

Yep. Well, that's where the heavy lifting is because you've got to, you got to start with the offensive line. And I mean, you can't, nobody can throw laying on their back. And we saw that all year long. I still think there's hope for Bryce Young. He made some really pretty throws. He's got accuracy, he's got timing, but you know, the offensive line and the whole football team, you know, it's just a mess. It's a mess defensively, but particularly the offensive line, you can't, you can't ask anybody to stand back there and, you know, solve the problem of throwing completions when you're under that much pressure.

And that's where it's got to start. And it may be one of those drafts, Adam, I remember, uh, you, you, I know you'll remember this draft three, four, five, six years ago, Dallas Cowboys and, uh, the Dallas Cowboys had a first round pick and they picked an offensive guard and the entire country melted down, but everybody in the football industry and me included, I I'm sitting there going, yeah, that's a, that's a good pick because a quality offensive lineman you're going to, you're going to probably get eight to 10 years out of that guy. And it's, it's kind of a safe pick, but a solid pick.

It's not sexy, but that's where the, that's where you got to go. If you're the Panthers is you got to go down that road and find good offensive lineman. And almost anybody that they get right now will be an improvement of what they had. In my opinion, it was not, it was a terrible offensive line. I know they had injuries, uh, but I think even healthy, uh, again, we're relatively healthy the year before. And it took about midway through the year that year before the offensive line looked really competent and it, and that was when they were basically running the ball 65% of the time. Uh, but pass blocking has always been a challenge for that group. Um, with, with canal is how much of what he did with Baker Mayfield, uh, this year, Gino Smith last year, how much of the stuff has to change for Bryce young? Those guys had been around a little bit longer. Bryce has not seen any success and he's obviously just in his second year.

Well, Gino hadn't had much success either. So it's right on the surface. It, it looks like can Alice is a guy that is going to come in and assess the attributes available in the quarterback? What, what can Bryce young do?

And this is going to be a data gathering adventure through OTAs, uh, many camps and those kinds of things. And then you begin to craft the offense around those attributes. That's what good coaches do. And, uh, you know, he's, he's got a track record and what he did with Gino Smith. And I mentioned this to you a couple of years ago. And even this year, you know, Gino Smith's career got, uh, revived and that's coaching it's coaching because there's talent there.

And, but when you go sticking square pegs and round holes and you get dogmatic about your approach, it's a death knell unless you get lucky and find the guy that perfectly fits your system. So, um, you know, Baker Mayfield, I always thought Baker was a, a really good prospect and what, you know, people downgrade or talk down about his time with the Browns. I thought he was very good with Brown's his last year with the Browns. He played on one leg with a broken rib and everything else and a bad shoulder and he played through a bad shoulder too. Yeah. Yeah.

He had everything. And so, I mean, that speaks well of a young man, but, uh, you know, obviously they crafted some things around him and he played some really good football this year for the Buccaneers. And so, you know, the, the, the projection of bringing in Canales is, you know, what has happened should happen in the future. And like I say, I think Bryce Young's got attributes that can be, uh, you can win with him. I believe that, but he's going to have to have some help.

All right. Now we, they need offensive lineman. They need receivers in the worst way. Uh, they need maybe a more, uh, concrete, consistent plan, but if you were Dave Canales or his quarterbacks coach, what do you, what's the first thing you do with Bryce specifically to kind of, uh, to, to, to re chart the trajectory? Well, the thing that's normal in those situations, Adam, you go in and you break down all the tape and then you take, you know, you build tape of Bryce young doing some really nice things and you give him that visual and you go over it with him. And then at the same time, you debrief Bryce young, what was going on here? Why did you do this?

How did you do this? Are you comfortable doing this? And you began to, like I say, it's a data gathering exercise. And then you began to say, well, you know, as you're gathering this data, you've got your playbook in the back of your mind. That's, that's a, that's a, it's a, it's kind of a smorgasbord, you know, NFL playbooks or smorgasbord, God knows everything in there.

All right. And so what is it that you can, uh, after you debrief and you're showing Bryce successes and you're showing him a tape of failure as well, what happened here? Why did this happen? Can we remedy this? Can you take this play and make it something that's part of what we do? And he might say, yeah, I can tell you why it didn't feel good last year. And so that's the kind of exchange that takes place at the pro level because the professional football players, and I've told you this before, it's really liberating to work with them. It was for me because you have a, you, I enjoyed the parallel relationship as opposed to a vertical relationship. Okay.

I could go in and I could ask Blaine Gabbert or Josh Freeman, Hey, what's going on here? What do you think you want to throw that out? You want to keep going with this? And it was all good information that goes back and forth. And, you know, I never felt threatened by that. It was empowering and fun to collaborate with those young men.

Yeah. You always told me it was like, uh, it was like grad school, right? The, um, uh, because those guys were all, a, they were all smart. Uh, and they were, they were searching for knowledge on how to get better. And listen, they'll do it when you introduce something to them and they embrace it. And then they have success with it.

I'm telling you right now, a professional football player will jump off of a bridge for you. They'll do anything when they see that you can help you help them in their career. They'll do anything for you and they'll, they'll play hard. They'll believe in you.

And, uh, you know, you, you gotta be flexible and I was flexible and I enjoyed, uh, like I say, I enjoyed that dynamic and that's exactly what's gotta take place with Bryce young. You gotta go in and, uh, I, I do know this every time I walked into a professional room, my opening statement to these men that would be sitting there with crossed arms because they'd been burnt before. Right. And, and there's, you know, they've been burnt. I would say this to them every time I would say, have you ever been screwed by a coach? And they would say, yeah, I'd say, okay, until I screw you, I want you to just give yourself to me. Can we start there? And they would say, yeah. And you know, invariably we would be four, six months into this journey and they would completely give themselves to me because they realized that I was there to help them get more money and a contract. And, uh, you know, that's the way the games played at that level.

I enjoyed it. You can do that in college now. I'm just kidding. I actually not kidding. It's actually, it's actually true.

I told everybody, I said, I would love to be a coach right now at the collegiate level. I've got a problem. I'm going to go buy me something.

I don't have to sneak around anymore. I was way late on that deal. I missed it. Before I let you go real quick conference championships, we have four good quarterbacks and they're all very different. Um, so, uh, Jared Goff and Brock Purdy in the NFC championship game, give me something that you like or love about each quarterback.

Those two guys are so much alike. It's amazing. They're, uh, you know, their timing, uh, of real catchable ball. Uh, they're seeing the field really well, you know, Jared Goff, the knock on Jared golf was he wasn't seeing the field well enough for the Rams. He's evolved and he's gotten really, really good. Now I'm watching him, particularly on third down. I loved him coming out of college. I wrote him up when I was the quarterback coach with 49ers and I had him number one on my board and he's turning into that. So I'm tickled for him. And then, uh, you know, you go to the other half of that thing and right now it's just the Lamar Jackson's show.

I think it's just that guy, he, what a wild deal that is. I mean, good luck. And man, Patrick, my homes are basically the same thing. I mean, you want to blitz them?

Good luck. Nobody can get them on the ground ever. You don't blitz them.

They'll just, they'll torture you. So anyway, that's high level football, man, at its finest, both those guys. One quick thing about, uh, about Purdy and I don't, I haven't noticed this about Gop, but I've seen enough, uh, film of people breaking down Purdy. Purdy to me is a very old school quarterback in that he throws a lot of his balls before his receiver makes their break, uh, and wrote. So, uh, we don't see a lot of that because college quarterbacks are not trained that way. Uh, and we have to get as much out of college quarterbacks when they get to the NFL. Uh, is that true about Purdy? Uh, is that he is very much a timing passer.

Very much so. And Jared Goff has become that. And, uh, you know, I love watching Brock Purdy play because he, uh, and forgive me for mentioning Matt Ryan one more time. You know, Matt Ryan, I had so many clips of film of Matt Ryan releasing a football and completing a ball 22 yards down field. And when he was releasing the football, I had it on tape.

The receiver would be five to seven yards down the field and the ball coming out of Matt Ryan's hands on 22 yard comeback routes on the sideline. And you can't coach that. And, uh, it's deadly. It's deadly because, uh, it's, it's such a different, um, way to succeed. Um, for instance, the, uh, uh, Lamar Jackson waits and confirms a man to be open and then makes up for the same amount of time with a BB.

That's going 9 million miles an hour. So the end result is the same, but the beauty of the anticipation of a Brock Purdy, Matt Ryan, or even Jared golf, the way they do things. I mean, that's the thing that they that's at that advantageous to those two men. I just mentioned the catchability of the ball.

It's so easy to catch. And that matters. Steve Logan, as always. I appreciate your time, sir. Uh, go, uh, go play tennis or whatever else you're doing today.

Exactly. I'm still getting over the joke of each upset, but I'll get it. I picked it. I picked it.

I picked Yannick center last night. I did too. I saw that coming. That kid is out of his mind. It is great.

He is great. I had the, I thought, I thought Zverev was going to beat, uh, Medvedev, but, uh, didn't happen. Uh, Daniel came back from two sets down. Five set tennis is a whole different set of problems. Yes.

That's why I don't play anymore. Uh, coach, I appreciate your time. All right, man. I'll see you. You got it. Steve Logan here.