CHARLOTTE—Around three hours before game time, as equipment managers scurry around the sidelines and trainers begin setting up, Dave Canales walks out of the tunnel, turns toward the outside edge of the end zone, and starts his laps. For about 20 minutes, he circles the field, doing a series of exercises, stretches, sprints, and then a cool-down walk.

Sometimes he's joined by offensive coordinator Brad Idzik; other times, by position coaches; and sometimes he spends the time in solitude.

Call it tradition, superstition, or just a plain old habit. But it's something he's done since his early career as a position coach with Seattle, circling the field in quiet contemplation, using the window of time to turn his mind from game prep to game day. And even as he rose the ranks of the coaching ladder, the weight and responsibilities of exceedingly more intense jobs being added on, those 20 minutes on game day have remained.

It's the kind of steadiness that is grounding and helpful in a job that is often anything but, a microcosm of how Canales is approaching this entire venture as he enters his second year.

"Dave's the same guy every day," general manager Dan Morgan said. "I don't know that I've seen like, anything that stood out that he's just gotten better at, but he's trying to get better at everything, every single day.

"He has a smile on his face, the same guy that you see when he comes out to the media who has that big smile on his face, he's like that when he comes in my office every single day. So he's just a great communicator, he's somebody that's contagious to be around every day, his personality, and then the way that he can motivate the players and the way the players respond to him, I think it speaks volumes of the type of coach he is."

It is a foolish man, though, who refuses to adapt. And for as much as Canales' has worked to keep himself the same, consistent, steady presence every day, as a coach, he has shown a willingness to check his own decisions and evolve, such as benching Bryce Young after Week 2 when the offense needed a reset, then tailoring the offense to him after he was named starter again and the season wore on.

"Two years of building a new playbook, changing logos and doing all that, you know, now you know we have the book," Canales said at the end of the 2024 season. "And then we became some other things in the process too, which I'm excited to really look at."

And after being dissatisfied with how the Panthers began the 2024 season, Canales changed tactics this year, having the starters play at least two drives in the first two preseason games.

"We have a mix of veteran players, but it's predominantly a pretty young team and I just can't pass up the opportunities, the reps in game are valuable, but I think that it goes to the night before, when guys know they're going to go out there, they go to make a decision to play football," explained Canales ahead of the first preseason matchup.

"And so it starts the night before with the prep. You start thinking about your plan, taking care of your body, and making sure you get your rest. You get up, it's your nutrition plan in the morning, body readiness, you know, kind of just like your full game day routines. Those are so valuable."

As he heads into Year 2, though, perhaps the most significant asset to Canales' tenure is not only his own approach and decisions, but rather those surrounding him. Since arriving, the head coach has preached that this will be a developmentally-minded program, from the top to the bottom of the roster, and from coordinators to assistants.

When asked at the end of his first season what the next step was, Canales responded at the time, "just continued development.

"We're a developmentally-minded organization and developmentally-minded coaching staff, so, looking at all of our guys that we currently have and trying to find what's the next step for these players to help them progress."

That means bringing in each player who didn't make the 53-man roster and explaining the decision-making process during cut day, an emotionally draining process that left him looking a little wrung out. You wonder why they made 18 moves one day and 19 the next? Because there wasn't enough day for Dave Canales to have that many heartfelt and genuine one-to-one conversations.

"It's a really beautiful moment to be able to connect with a player and I know it's a really hard day but it's an opportunity to be able to speak some truth, at least my truth, from what I saw, from what the coaches saw for what their next steps might be," Canales explained following roster cut down day this August.

"We talk about being developmentally-minded, and my hope is that they leave this place better than when they got here, and you know, there was just a lot of appreciation for each other."

It means creating and outlining an offseason plan for those who might need one, such as the coaching staff did for Jalen Coker ahead of the summer break.

"It was just a lot of communication with the strength staff, having a calendar of what I'm going to do every day, make sure that it's evened out with tough days and then lighter days, even the load," shared Coker after the first preseason game.

The receiving corps is a good example of this approach overall. By investing in and consistently developing the group, the Panthers were able to absorb the loss of Adam Thielen, who the club traded to the Vikings last week.

"It's the nature of this thing," Canales said, "that if we coach our guys well and we accumulate the right talent, that we should see growth, we should see strides, from our players, you know, and that's the charge of our coaching staff to pour into these guys so that we get to a point where we can make moves that make sense for everybody, that we can make moves and the next guy can come in and perform for us and so it's an attribute to the to the atmosphere, to the culture."

That has extended to the coaching staff, and instead of siloing himself, taking on more and more, Canales has developed coaches that can share the weight, take responsibility, and ownership. They are allowed to push for things they are passionate about, something they feel confident doing because they've been encouraged to do so.

"Generally, as a young coach, you always want to give the head coach space, and you know they're obviously dealing with some important things," began assistant quarterbacks coach Mike Bercovici. "But the thing that's so unique about Dave—and I've been pretty lucky to work with guys like Kliff (Kingsbury) and Dave, who are just super helpful towards young guys, but specifically Dave has made it a point to really kind of tap into the exact moment that I'm in and kind of constantly give me advice.

"The cool thing about what he's done, is he's pretty much done everything from being a strength coach at USC, all the way to going through quarterback coach, passing coordinator coordinator, like he's done just about every realm of this industry, so he just has a really good unique way of checking in on where I'm at and then also kind of giving me those little tidbits of how I can develop in my area. He's so big on that kind of growth as a coach that I, whenever I've got the time, sometimes just walking around on game day, and he's just, he invests so deeply into pretty much each one of us."

To be as cliché as possible, Rome wasn't built in a day. Developing takes time. Dave Canales' first season was about pulling the pieces together and setting the pillars, such as establishing long-term contracts with Derrick Brown, Chuba Hubbard, Jaycee Horn, and Taylor Moton.

"When you perform around here, and I want the locker room to know that, is when you perform around here and you do things the right way, you're going to be rewarded," Morgan said. "And that's just going to be our philosophy around here now."

Now, this season is about building upon the foundation and seeing just how far this thing can go.