Comfortable with uncomfortable: How ascending Panthers assistant coach made waves in Texas
Daren Bates saw Kentucky linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson dart upfield, and the Carolina Panthers assistant special teams coach’s instincts kicked in.
Bates, as he’d done before following a Week 13 interception by rookie cornerback Chau Smith-Wade, sprinted from the opposite sideline to the end zone to celebrate with Dumas-Johnson, one of the dozens of NFL draft hopefuls in Frisco, Texas, at the annual East-West Shrine Game.
Dumas-Johnson stopped short of the goal line — a modest action for a linebacker who had just made an impressive interception off a pass to the flat by Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord. But Bates wasn’t content with a mild celebration, so he made sure Dumas-Johnson felt the turf from pay dirt under his cleats.
Bates not-so-subtly escorted Dumas-Johnson into the green-painted end zone within the field house at the University of North Texas.
Energy, passion and excitement. Bates, 34, brings those vibes to every sideline he steps on, and he’s traveled with that trademarked swag to the annual all-star game as the East team’s special teams coordinator this week.
“I see these guys, I know what they’ve been through, I know what they go through,” Bates told The Observer. “And when they accomplish a goal, or make a big play, or win the damn game, or whatever it may be … when I see it, I can’t help myself.
“I’m not being unique, I’m being myself and being happy for them, and being happy for myself, too, because we are on the same team.”
Bates, who played nine seasons in the NFL as a special teams ace, is hoping to prepare his squad in the all-star game for the next level.
Some of his pupils will be mid-round picks. Others will struggle to get drafted. But one thing is for sure: If they are a rookie in a training camp somewhere, they’ll be asked to play special teams. And Bates, along with Atlanta Falcons special teams coordinator Marquice Williams, are giving these prospects a crash course before they face the tests of the NFL.
Williams, who coached Bates as a player in Atlanta in 2021, is serving as the East team’s head coach, and he’s encouraged Bates to be himself with his unit. Bates, who typically presents to the Panthers in team meetings once a week, is leading every special teams meeting with his own brand of relatability and energy.
“I have a high standard for (former) players like Daren because there are some players that love the idea of coaching but really don’t want to put the work in,” Williams said. “And he’s putting in the work. And it’s cool just to see that and just to see him connect with various players.”
Bates is getting just eight days to coach up dozens of prospects that he will never work with again. Some, though, could land in Carolina and hit the ground running because of how Bates taught them in Texas.
From weekly collisions to coaching
It was 2022. Bates was no longer running down sidelines to knock the cleats off kick returners. Instead, he was on the couch watching games on Sundays.
He said he “got the itch” while watching former teammates take to the field every weekend. Bates reached out to a few teams to get a workout, and while he heard some mild encouragement, those workouts never came. So, with his nine-year playing career clearly over, Bates contemplated his next move.
He didn’t want to coach high school or flag football. If he was going to coach, he wanted to do it at the highest level, having mastered the art of NFL special teams. He made a list of general managers and coaches on his phone, and he reached out to each and every one of them.
Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead offered him an offseason internship during organized team activities and minicamp in 2023. Bates enjoyed the experience, and after the Seattle Seahawks reached out to invite him to training camp, the former linebacker realized he had a future in the coaching profession.
While working with Panthers special teams coordinator Tracy Smith, who then served as the Seahawks assistant special teams coach, Bates impressed enough in Seattle to be retained throughout the 2023 season. His early promise and upside during that season ultimately led Smith, who also coached Bates with the then-Oakland Raiders in 2016, to bring him along to Carolina when Smith got the coordinator job with the Panthers last offseason.
“Daren was one of my favorite players to coach of all time,” Smith said last April. “I coached him in Oakland, we had him in Houston for a couple of minutes, and he’s always been a great player. I’ve admired his play style, and then having him as a friend since then. … Out at practice, he makes an impact play to play on the guys, and they can feel that.”
Bates was among the best special teams players in the league during his career.
He wore the captain’s “C” for the special teams units in St. Louis and Tennessee. He was such a standout that he signed a three-year, $6 million contract with the Titans in 2017 to lead their special teams unit.
Bates played just 130 defensive snaps in his career. He played 2,778 special teams snaps in 125 career games, according to Pro Football Reference.
“You want to be in the NFL, so you just got to figure out: What’s the way I stay in it? How do I stay in the league and how do I make an impact? And that’s what it was,” Bates said.
With two years of coaching under his belt, Bates is still learning the ropes of his new job, and that’s why getting the opportunity to coach at the Shrine Bowl is so helpful. He’s getting a look at what the next step would be in his development.
Williams, who has been a special teams coordinator since 2021, got a similar opportunity at the Senior Bowl in 2020 when he was a special teams assistant.
“I think the experience is invaluable because part of growing is being in uncomfortable situations, and this is very uncomfortable,” Williams said. “You’re away from home, you’re not around the actual players you coach in your organization that you are accustomed to knowing, and you’re working with players from all over the nation that are coming together for eight days as a team.
“So it allows you to be more clear and concise with your teaching, find the best teaching modalities to be efficient and effective as a teacher, and I think it allows for great growth, because in uncomfortable situations, you grow the most, I believe.”
Not your grandpa’s special teams coach
It’s 6:28 on a Monday night.
Rap music is blasting through the speakers of a hotel meeting room as dozens of draft prospects file into their seats. A PowerPoint presentation is projected onto a large screen at the front of the room, as Bates bounces out of his chair, ready to unload a lesson plan to a bunch of strangers in their early to mid-20s.
The first slide reads “kickoff return” with a Panthers logo resting under blue text.
It’s showtime. And this isn’t your grandfather’s special teams meeting.
Bates is interactive, direct, and colorful with his language and examples. No one has a second to look down at their phone, and the entire room is engaged, including Williams, who has led hundreds — if not thousands — of these meetings during his career.
“He’s grown so much, just watching him,” Williams said. “From coaching against him to coaching him to coaching against him as a coach and then watching how he operates. It’s cool to just see how he works on his preparation, his organizational skills, just to get ready for a 15- to 20-minute meeting. It’s 15 minutes, but you don’t see the amount of work he put into that 15-minute meeting. Hours and hours of work just so he can be clear and concise with his messaging and give great passion.”
Bates shows footage of the Panthers’ practice drills, and then examples of other teams working in kickoff blocking. One example is of New England Patriots All-Pro special teamer Brenden Schooler laying out a defender with a decleating block.
Bates warns: If a block like that is made in Thursday’s all-star game, he will run down the sideline with the same vigor he did earlier in the day with Dumas-Johnson and in December with Smith-Wade.
And by the way, having a hyphenated name is almost assuredly not a requirement for Bates to bring the sideline strut to the field.
“It’s amazing, because you get the view of special teams from an actual special teams player, not just a specialist,” Miami kicker Andres Borregales said. “He’s helped me learn. … He’s just feeding us information into our brains, and I love it.”
The players aren’t the only ones learning here.
Bates is getting a wealth of information from Williams and the other coaches, as well as the specialists on his unit.
Borregales said that Bates has been open to feedback, and that’s helped the flow of information in a short time, preparing everyone — the coaches included — for what to expect in the all-star game.
“It’s been a very two-way road,” Borregales said. “Like, I’ll give him some information, he’ll give me some information, and that’s how it has to be. He’s learning from specialists, from us three, and we’re learning from him.”
The opportunity to evolve
Bates has spoken in front of Pro Bowl teammates as a player. He’s presented in front of Pro Bowl specialists with decades of playing experience — including his former Rams teammate, punter Johnny Hekker — as an assistant coach.
But his nerves for the first presentation of the Shrine Bowl were palpable. Bates admitted he was sweating through it, but he wanted to feel the discomfort, because it was an opportunity to evolve as a coach.
“It’s different but I love doing it,” Bates said.
During that Saturday meeting, Bates offered up a reality check.
Bates came to the NFL in 2013 as an undrafted free agent, despite being starting linebacker on Auburn’s 2011 national championship team. He told The Observer that before he got to the league, he had never really played special teams. But he was undersized at 5-foot-11 and 225 pounds, and he was unheralded as an undrafted rookie with the Rams.
Embracing special teams is how he made a long-lasting playing career. That was an important lesson for the room.
“Everybody here is 10 times better than where you came from,” Bates said. “It’s like I’m trying to implement that in their minds without telling them or making them feel like they can’t or are not going to be able to.”
The players at the Shrine Bowl are gravitating toward Bates’ messaging because he’s relatable.
He’s been there, he’s done that, and he doesn’t sound like a traditional coach. His meetings would have a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association, but not just because of his colorful language and personality. The material is incredibly dense, but Bates is offering it in a concise way that will stick to the brains of those in the room.
“I think it’s way easier — learning from a guy that not only played for a long time but is now with special teams and has been with great players and coaches, ” South Carolina punter Kai Kroeger said. “It’s been awesome to kind of learn from him and learn their lingo, same with Coach Williams. They’ve both been great. But I’ve loved it so far, and he’s been great for me.”
Eric Galko, director of football operations for the Shrine Bowl, has seen Bates’ work up close this week.
With a massive crowd of scouts, several top executives, and a couple of NFL head coaches watching, Galko said Bates was able to bring out the best of his prospects in a short period of time for the evaluators to dissect.
“He’s been incredible,” Galko said. “The high energy, the ability to work with all types of players, and his passion for learning all of these players and who they are, how they are going to be fit. And the thoughtfulness of being like, ‘Can this guy do this and that?’ It means a lot to our players, it means a lot to these guys who are trying to impress these NFL teams, and people don’t always appreciate all-star games, but scouts are watching every snap, especially on special teams, and I think Coach Bates appreciates that.”
Following the Shrine Bowl, Bates will return to his post as Smith’s right-hand man in the Panthers’ special teams room. While Bates eventually wants to be a coordinator, he says that’s not an end goal. It’s just on the list, which remains open-ended.
But the all-star week has served as a major opportunity for him to grow his coaching toolbox. And he’s embracing the discomfort of a foreign role in an unusual environment.
It’s all a part of his own development as a coach.
Said Bates: “I just like being in an uncomfortable position to make me comfortable in uncomfortable situations or uncomfortable rooms.”
This story was originally published January 30, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
