Canales served as the Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator this season and helped the team, with Baker Mayfield at quarterback, to win the NFC South. The Buccaneers beat the Philadelphia Eagles in an opening-round NFC playoff game before losing in the divisional round Sunday to the Detroit Lions.
Canales, Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris and Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero each interviewed twice for Carolina’s head coaching job. Mike Vrabel, the former NFL coach of the year whom the Tennessee Titans fired earlier this month, reportedly had been scheduled to interview Thursday with the Panthers. It’s not clear whether that interview took place.
The Atlanta Falcons chose Morris as their head coach later Thursday, according to a person familiar with the leaguewide hiring process.
Canales, who is Mexican American, and Morris become the third and fourth minority coaches chosen as head coaches during this NFL hiring cycle, along with the New England Patriots’ Jerod Mayo and the Las Vegas Raiders’ Antonio Pierce.
NFL leaders said they hoped for improved diversity results during his leaguewide hiring cycle for head coaches.
Last offseason, only one Black coach was hired among the five NFL teams that hired new head coaches. That was DeMeco Ryans by the Houston Texans. This offseason, the hirings of Mayo, Pierce and Morris have given the NFL six active Black head coaches; the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, the Buccaneers’ Todd Bowles and Ryans were already in place.
The Panthers’ choice of Canales and the Falcons’ selection of Morris give the league nine active minority head coaches. That includes the New York Jets’ Robert Saleh, who is of Lebanese descent, and the Miami Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel, who is biracial.
The Buccaneers do not receive draft-pick compensation under the NFL’s system for rewarding teams that develop minority head coaching candidates hired elsewhere, however, because he spent only one season with the organization.
The NFL’s team owners ratified a proposal in November 2020 by which the league awards a pair of third-round draft choices to any team that develops a minority candidate hired by another franchise as a head coach or general manager. Under the provision, the minority candidate must have been with the team for at least two years with no break in employment and cannot have already been the team’s head coach or general manager.
The Panthers and Falcons join the Patriots, Raiders, Titans and Los Angeles Chargers in choosing their new head coaches. The Titans hired Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan. The Chargers reached a deal Wednesday with Jim Harbaugh, who returned to the NFL after coaching Michigan to a collegiate national championship. The Washington Commanders and Seattle Seahawks continue their head coaching searches.
Chris Tabor finished the season as the Panthers’ interim head coach after team owner David Tepper fired Reich 11 games into his first season in Carolina.
Canales, 42, spent 13 seasons as an assistant coach with the Seahawks before the Buccaneers hired him as their offensive coordinator. He had stints as the wide receivers coach, quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator in Seattle. He gained recognition for helping Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith to revive his NFL career last season, then did the same with Mayfield this season with the Buccaneers.
He worked in Seattle with Dan Morgan, the former NFL linebacker who was a scout and front office executive with the Seahawks and now is the Panthers’ newly hired general manager.
Now he and Morgan must attempt to turn around a team in Carolina that’s coming off a 2-15 season. Canales becomes the fourth full-time head coach to work for Tepper, the hedge fund manager who purchased the franchise in 2018. Canales follows Ron Rivera, Matt Rhule and Reich. The Panthers also have had three interim head coaches during that span: Perry Fewell, Steve Wilks and Tabor.
“My reputation away from this game is one for extreme patience,” Tepper said at a late-November news conference the day after he fired Reich. “There’s no reason why that doesn’t come here, too. It does. Now, that patience comes with good performance. … I would like to have somebody here for 20, 30 years. I’d like to have somebody that would say [the] eulogy at my funeral in 30 years — okay, maybe it’s 40 years.”
Bryce Young struggled as a rookie after the Panthers used the top selection in last year’s NFL draft on Young rather than on C.J. Stroud, who went second to the Texans and became an immediate standout. The Panthers lack a first-round draft choice this year after trading it last year to the Chicago Bears in the deal that enabled them to move up in the draft order to get the No. 1 pick they used on Young.
There was speculation early in the interviewing process that the Panthers were targeting Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to be their coach. He interviewed virtually with the team on Jan. 19, but Carolina turned to Canales before Johnson became eligible to interview in person. The Panthers’ move with Canales could signal Johnson might be headed to the Commanders.
