Dave Canales made the first major coaching move of his time in Carolina on Friday, and he wanted everyone to know whose call it was. Less than 12 hours after the 27-19 loss to the Green Bay Packers, the Panthers fired defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and defensive passing game coordinator Jonathan Cooley. Defensive line coach Todd Wash is the interim defensive coordinator and will call the defensive plays. “Ultimately, this is my decision,” Canales said Friday afternoon. “This falls squarely under the responsibilities of the head coach.”
Carolina is 3-4 and has lost two in a row. The defense entered Thursday’s game ranked 22nd in yards allowed, 27th in points allowed per game and last in the league against the run. Evero is the first NFL coordinator fired this season.
“It had to come from me”
Canales said the move came from “collecting a lot of information over the course of our time,” and from looking at the calendar. “When I look at how many games we have in front of us, the position we’re at in the division, and really just wanted to get the most out of our guys,” he said. “I take that responsibility very seriously as the head coach. I know it’s my responsibility to put the players in a position where they feel confident, where they feel ready to go.”
He said he talked it through with general manager Dan Morgan, executive vice president of football operations Brandt Tilis and owner David Tepper, but he kept coming back to the same point. “As I was evaluating it and looking for what was best for the 2026 Carolina Panthers, this was a decision that we discussed and weighed in all the factors, the timing of it, the position of our group, all of those things,” he said. “But ultimately it had to come from me, and it had to come from something that I believe in and that I want for our players.”
Canales has praised Evero’s system for a long time. Evero came to Carolina in 2023 under Frank Reich after a season as the Denver Broncos’ defensive coordinator, and Canales kept him when he took over in 2024. The Panthers even gave Evero a one-year extension after the 2024 season, when injuries gutted the defense and it set a league record for points allowed. This season the injuries kept coming. Both starting cornerbacks, Jaycee Horn and Mike Jackson, went on injured reserve in September, and Carolina had only two healthy corners on the 53-man roster early this week.
What he wants to see
Asked what he hopes changes, Canales said effort was not the problem. “I just want to see the guys connected. I want to see them excited about going out there and executing the plan, playing fast, playing physical,” he said. “The effort has been there. Those things are right, but I know we can make strides with being able to get everybody on the same page.” He added that, for him, the defense “starts with the run game. It starts with owning first and second down, and being able to be aggressive and attack in different ways.”
That has been the weak spot. The Chicago Bears ran for 291 yards against Carolina in the opener, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ran for 258 in a 43-13 win last Sunday. On Thursday the Panthers held Green Bay’s run game in check, but the Packers sacked Bryce Young six times and pressured him on 48.9% of his dropbacks.
Why Todd Wash
Wash is in his fourth season as Carolina’s defensive line coach and has 31 years in coaching, 20 of them in the NFL. He was the Jacksonville Jaguars’ defensive coordinator from 2016 to 2020, and his 2017 defense ranked second in the league as the Jaguars reached the AFC Championship Game. Canales and Morgan worked with him on the Seattle Seahawks’ staffs in 2011 and 2012.
“Experience, understanding of front play, run game mechanics, how that’s all tied in,” Canales said when asked why he picked Wash. “I’ve known him for a long time. We go back to our days in Seattle, but even here, his connection with the players, he knows these guys, he knows their stories, he’s connected to their lives. He pushes them hard and trains them hard, and I feel like he does a great job. I believe he does a great job of earning the right to be able to push guys because of the emotional equity that he pours into his groups.”
Canales also pointed to scheme. “There’s variety,” he said. “There’s all this stuff that we’ve learned in the last couple of years playing this system, and there’s all these other things, just a breadth of experience that Wash can bring into being able to troubleshoot, to find solutions, and ultimately that’s what this is about.” Wash has a record with star linemen: he coached Aidan Hutchinson to 9.5 sacks as a rookie in Detroit in 2022, and in his first year in Carolina in 2023, Derrick Brown set the league record for tackles in a season by a defensive lineman.
The rest of the staff
Outside linebackers coach and run game specialist AC Carter will also coach the defensive line, which is his background, and secondary coach Renaldo Hill will keep running the defensive backs. Canales did not rule out adding coaches in the coming weeks and said that is already being discussed.
The players were off Friday after flying home from Green Bay in the early morning hours. Canales said he sent a message to the whole team and has talked with key players and the leadership council. He and the staff, Wash included, will spend the weekend building a plan for the last 10 games.
“Nothing is more urgent than today”
Canales said the pressure he feels is the right kind. “The urgency really just comes from myself, our staff, our expectations for our players, across the board,” he said. “Nothing is more urgent than today. Nothing is more urgent than the Denver Broncos game coming up this week. And so, if we can keep that mentality, we keep the focus right in front of us, that allows us to just work on things that we can control.” He added: “We have to be excellent at what we’re doing in our process, in our preparation, and how we show up for game day.”
Wash’s first game calling Carolina’s defense is at home against the Broncos on Sunday, November 8, at 1 p.m. ET, which is 8 p.m. in Cairo.
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