‘We gotta have that.’ Carolina Panthers want NFL spotlight for one simple reason
Two years ago, the Carolina Panthers were coming off a league-worst 2-15 record and had no prime-time games on their 2024 schedule.
And Dave Canales, the then-newly minted head coach of the team, was asked for his reaction to that.
“You gotta earn it!” he said, in part.
Today, Canales is the head coach of a team coming off its first playoff appearance in eight years and its first NFC South championship in a decade, and he now has three prime-time games on the schedule ahead of him. One Thursday night contest on Amazon Prime, one Sunday night contest on NBC and one Monday night contest on ESPN.
His reaction this year?
“We’re a fun team to watch,” Canales said Monday. “Last year, (there were) a couple of games that no one really gave us a shot at, and we were able to play competitive football and win some of those.”
He then explained why, exactly, it’s so important to have these moments in the NFL spotlight.
“For me as a head coach, I just get excited about the prime-time games because as we all know, as we get playoff opportunities, these are night games sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes they’re just standalone games, the way they stagger them. It helps us to be able to practice and be able to play in different environments: to play at night, in odd windows, sometimes it’s a Saturday game.
“All that just prepares you for the postseason. And for those opportunities. I’m excited to have that and play some excellent teams that we respect.”
The NFL released the Panthers’ schedule officially on Thursday. Among the highlights of the 18 weeks: Carolina plays Week 1 at home for the first time since 2022, in a matchup with the Chicago Bears, who the team will always be linked to so long as Bryce Young is around. The Panthers’ bye is Week 5 — advantageously early — and they close the season at home as well.
They also matchup with three other division winners by virtue of their success in 2025: They play the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 6, the Denver Broncos Week 9 and then the Seattle Seahawks Week 17.
But the prime-time contests still are understandably the focal point.
Carolina is one of seven teams with three games not on Sunday afternoons. Joining them are the Jaguars, Broncos, Bengals, Falcons, Chargers and Bucs, according to Yahoo Sports. There are then seven teams with four prime-time games, four teams with five prime-time games and five teams with six prime-time contests.
The Los Angeles Chargers have the most of anyone — with seven.
The Panthers fell in their one previously scheduled prime-time matchup, to the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football. They also lost in their flexed regular-season contest against the Tampa Bay Bucs in Week 18 on a Saturday.
To Canales, simply put, more prime-time games is a preparer for who the Panthers want to one day be — a perennial playoff contender.
“The prime-time games, championship moments — truly championship opportunities against great opponents, we gotta have that,” Canales said. “It brings out the best in us. It calls upon our best on a weekly basis.”
Here are two other news items from the availability Monday.
Timeline: Turk Wharton undergoes neck surgery
The aforementioned Week 5 bye the Panthers will have in 2026 was another element Canales mentioned on Monday. An early bye provides an early, built-in week for players to potentially recover from early-season health issues and still have a lot of the season ahead of them.
Such a statement is already relevant considering some Panthers injury news that broke last week.
The Charlotte Observer confirmed last week that starting defensive lineman Turk Wharton underwent surgery on his neck. The free agent acquisition last offseason — whose impact on the defense in 2025 was limited after being sidelined several weeks with hamstring and other injuries — is still expected to return to the field this season.
Canales didn’t disclose the exact details of the injury, nor did he offer a timeline for Wharton’s return. The head coach merely said that Wharton’s recovery from surgery is going “great” and that others in Wharton’s stead — including second-round draft pick nose tackle Lee Hunter — will be asked to pick up a lot of responsibility early.
Canales added that the team did not know of Wharton’s injury before the draft.
More scheduling news: Joint practices drop
The Panthers are participating in two joint practices this season — they’re traveling to the Jacksonville Jaguars and hosting the Houston Texans, as The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
Canales explained the advantages of participating in such practices prior to the preseason games, and why repeating the exercise with the Texans was a good call. (The Panthers traveled to Houston early for a joint practice last summer.)
“With the preseason games, they’re extremely valuable, obviously,” Canales said. “The players are out there playing games. But you don’t always get all the situations. You may go through a preseason and not get any goal-line work. You can work some goal-line in a controlled setting with that type of understanding, and really get to evaluate your team that way.”
Canales also said it is a time to see a different scheme and to maximize reps with your starters — something he benefitted from in Houston last year.
“(Texans head coach) Demeco (Ryans) and I have a lot of comfortability with each other, practicing against each other, it was a fantastic physical practice in the heat in Houston last year,” Canales said. “And we hope to bring them in here and show them the same hospitality that they did for us.”
