Panthers won’t play in prime time in 2024. Bryce Young, Dave Canales had the same reaction

Ask head coach Dave Canales what he thinks of his team’s schedule — particularly about the fact that the Carolina Panthers aren’t slated to play any games in prime time in 2024 — and he’ll respond without hesitation.

“You gotta earn it,” he boomed to reporters on Monday, the first day of organized team activities.

He added, “You don’t start out that way, where they just throw you on prime time games for no reason. We have to build a version of football that we’re proud of, and be able to accentuate the strengths and talents of our guys that we have.

“And I think the world will want to see that at some point.”

Carolina, fresh off a league-worst 2-15 season in 2023, is the only team in the NFL without any games in prime time this season. That means the Panthers are the only ones without any Thursday Night Football games, Sunday Night Football games and Monday Night football games — a downgrade from a year ago when they had two prime time contests, including a Monday Night Football game Week 2.

The scheduling news, which arrived last week when the NFL released its league-wide schedule, reminds Carolina of its perception and place in the league. But what’s more interesting is how Canales — and Canales’ most important key to a quick offensive turnaround, second-year quarterback Bryce Young — will use such news as they enter the bulk of the 2024 preseason.

And that’s to say, more specifically:

They won’t use it at all.

“I’m not a negative motivator,” Canales said, rationalizing why he’s not going to harp on the schedule. “I’m about possibilities. I’m about how good we can become. So I think some guys will be naturally motivated that way. That’s just never really worked for me.”

Said Young, who agreed with Canales: “It’s out of our control. I’m big on focusing on us. Focusing on what I can control. I’m not huge on trying to find external motivation. If somebody slights me, or slights us, I won’t hold onto (it). And again, there’s nothing with it; everyone gets their fire and fuel from certain places. For me, I just try to be internally motivated and push myself to be the best I can, and I want us to be the best we can.”

It’s true a lot has been already said and extrapolated about how Canales and Young will work together. It’s also true that at this point in the everyone-is-still-undefeated preseason, good vibes spring eternal everywhere.

But the way Canales is approaching his Year 1 and the way Young is approaching his Year 2 reveals a harmony between Carolina’s two most public characters.

Those similarities especially come to light when you lay out how each got to Carolina.

Canales got his start in NFL coaching under the unrelentingly positive Pete Carroll with the Seahawks. He then saw his reputation grow as a quarterback whisperer of sorts after rejuvenating the careers of Geno Smith (the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2022) in Seattle and then Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay. When Canales first earned the job as the Panthers’ head coach, he made clear to the Carolina brass how much he wanted to work with Young — how the coach already had so many ideas as he watched film on the quarterback, who at that point was only nine months removed from being selected with the overall No. 1 draft pick.

Young, similarly, has seemed intrigued by working with Canales. Young is coming off a difficult rookie season where he threw nearly as many interceptions (10) as touchdowns (11) and saw the head coach who believed in him and the general manager who drafted him fired before the start of the 2023 postseason. Young and Canales hit it off quickly — as the two have said several times over the offseason — connecting over tactics and how simple concepts Canales employed at previous stops yielded such strong results.

So the fact that Canales and Young are aligned in their positivity might not be a shock. But it’s worth clocking nonetheless.

Even if it’s over something that they won’t bring up again.

“That’s something that we now embody as a team,” Young said of being internally motivated, something he and Canales share. “That’s definitely reassuring. And again, it’s been great learning the Xs and Os from Coach, but also just watching him lead, or watching him push us the way we need to be pushed: get us right for this time, and kind of set the tone, even in the early stages.

“So yes, it’s great to have that mindset.”