CHARLOTTE — The very first coach to lead the Panthers onto the Bank of America Stadium field for a playoff game walked across the practice field this week, where he met the next one who'll do so.

And for a few moments early in practice, the team's past, present — and believe it or not future — came together in a way that sustains both of them.

For Panthers head coach Dave Canales, having senior defensive assistant Dom Capers on hand as a daily resource has been a help for him through his first two seasons on the job, since Capers has lived so many of the experiences he's going through now.

Dom Capers was 46 years old, in a surprising-to-many second year on the job, when he took the Panthers to the playoffs for the first time ever.

Dave Canales is 44 years old, in a surprising-to-many second year on the job, when he brought this Panthers team to the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade.

"Dom and I have talked," Canales said earlier this week. "And it comes down to the same thing, it's about the basics, being consistent. That's been his biggest impact on me as the head coach is be consistent with your messaging and be consistent with the things that are most important to you, because you get what you emphasize, and you can't emphasize everything, so you have to be very selective.

"And that's how you build culture, that's how you build identity, and coach Dom has been an amazing support for me."

These two don't appear to have very much in common on the surface. One is SoCal cool, out there stretching with his team, and bouncing through practices. The other one is Mdiwestern solid, though after recovering from an offseason injury, has resumed his workouts that are the envy of younger men.

But because they're at different places in their coaching journeys, the similarities can be hard to see.

"I can't think of anything," veteran long snapper JJ Jansen said with a shake of the head when asked this week.

But the things they've taught in their coaching careers do present some common threads.

For Canales, it's an everyday accountability. The thing that's most important is the thing right in front of you. You can't make the playoffs by taking the correct stance and being in the correct alignment, but you can definitely not make the playoffs by doing those basic things incorrectly.

For Capers, his attention to detail is legendary, from the meticulous daily notebooks he kept, months of assignments spelled out in advance, to the discipline he expected from a team that was chronologically old (the roster), but organizationally young (second-year expansion team).

The Panthers started that first season 0-5, but then came Sam Mills' interception return against the Jets and the first win in franchise history, and something began. They won seven of their final 11 games that year and carried that energy straight into the next season when they won the NFC West, knocking off the legacy 49ers to do so. For Capers, that's a lot like the second-half surge last year that allowed Canales to steadily take this team from two wins to eight in just two seasons, and supplant the Bucs' four-year run of NFC South titles.

"Well, I think football is a game of momentum, and you always want to try to keep that momentum building in a positive manner," Capers said. "With our team last year, you saw the first half of the season was not good, but the second half of the season, I thought we were a totally different team. We became competitive.

"I think that this season, you start 1-3 in the first quarter of the season, and we've seen the team improve, OK. And to me, as a coach, that's what you're working for, that you feel if you're doing the right things, that over a period of time, those things take over, and you see gradual improvement.

"You always want to keep the arrow pointing up. So I think that's one of the keys with this team, that you've seen guys grow together, and you see the belief develop into trust, and trust is the bond that holds any good team together, especially when you're going through the ups and downs of the season.

"I've seen it happen with these guys — the confidence level. And to me, it's a real credit to the players, the way they've hung in there, shown a lot of grit in terms of they've had a relentless drive to continue to get up and prove themselves when things haven't gone well. And I think you see a bond with this group and that's what you're always looking for as a coach, right?"

There are some pretty obvious differences in the two teams, though what Canales walked into in 2024 wasn't that far removed from an expansion rebuild. He and general manager Dan Morgan were determined to build some stability, and that was going to come through the draft and a gradual acquisition of players.

The 1995 expansion Panthers dove into the deep end of the pool, as expansion GM Bill Polian and Capers were directed to get into free agency and build immediate credibility. That led to an older team to start with, and in the second offseason, they added Hall of Fame pass-rusher Kevin Greene, star cornerback Eric Davis, and Hall of Honor tight end Wesley Walls, among others.

So while there are a lot of differences in the teams they coached, as much as the differences between the coaches themselves, the things they taught are remarkably similar.

"Well, it brings a smile to my face," Capers began, when he considered what this current team is doing. "Because over the last 30 years, the X and O part of the game has changed tremendously, but the principles of developing a good team and what wins for you doesn't change. And so you're always looking for those principles and having the right chemistry on your team and your staff. And I think that's what enables you to grow and your goal is to bring a group together to where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

That's definitely true here, as the Panthers have spent some money in free agency the last two years — namely the $100 million contract for guard Robert Hunt, who returns from injured reserve today — but not in the same way Polian and Capers spent 30 years ago. A lot of what Morgan and Canales have done is invest in their own, like extensions for Derrick Brown, Jaycee Horn, and Chuba Hubbard.

And those guys recognize that, too.

When Hunt was asked what made this team better, he pointed to things beyond simple acquisitions, to the kind of structural things Capers created 30 years ago and Canales has instilled today.

"Because we got better, obviously; We brought more people in," he said. "I think we already had good players. I think we had to believe in what was being coached, and we saw that at the end of last year, we started to kind of believe in that, and that's what it is, man.

"You get a group of guys, you push them in the right direction, and they all go in the same direction at the same time, then good things can happen. I think that's where we're headed. And the thing is, man, I think we're still early in this process, you know what I mean? So I'm excited to see what the future holds."

Likewise, Brown said the improvements here — he wasn't able to take part in last year's late-season surge since he was on IR — transcend human talent and speak to the kind of project Canales is building here. And it's no accident that the kind of process-driven mindset Canales preaches meshes with the head-down work of cats like Brown, Hubbard, Horn, and more.

"I just think that guys bought into the process, and you know we're having a better year," Brown said, when asked if that was directly attributable to his head coach. "Yeah, I mean it's definitely that. Like I say all the time, the coach's message is to get to the team, and then as leaders, you're supposed to echo his message, while also being able to decipher between the different things.

"Coach definitely leads the way. So, just spending time getting to know him, understanding him, and what he wants out of us. I mean, that's just been the biggest thing. He's not a fusser. He's not going to go out there and go crazy. There's some things that'll make him tick, but pretty much lets us govern the team as is."

And now, that team has reached its first home playoff game in 10 years.

When Capers thinks about this chapter, he can't help but smile. Yes, it does remind him of the '90s, when everything was new, and it felt fresh, and the energy in a still-growing Charlotte was palpable. And the fact that second season led to a playoff win here against a heavily-favored Cowboys team, well, there are some parallels. He laughed and said that if the Panthers beat the Rams tonight, and he can't find the team in the locker room, he'll know where to look — unlike when his team shocked the Cowboys, and went back out for a lap to thank the fans, leaving him with no one to give a postgame speech to.

Now, he walks to practice, and some of the old-school autograph seekers will call his name, and he'll feel those familiar feelings from 30 years ago.

"There are a few things that I've learned, all right, just being able to be involved here for the last three years," Capers said. "To see the excitement that comes with having a home playoff game brings back so many positive memories of that second season, the first season in the stadium, and the energy in the city. The energy of the players and just the whole atmosphere, OK, it's a real feel-good situation.

"I have a lot of flashbacks. I have so many positive feelings from those first couple of years, and the same principles now apply. I look at this team, starting at 1-3, and being able to do what we did. Where we started at 0-5 and being able to come back and have the best record in expansion history, and then that momentum carried over into the next season, where we ended up winning 13 games and beating the Super Bowl champs.

"That's what I say, it's about momentum. It's about keeping the arrow pointing up. And all the stuff has changed, those principles don't change, right?"

And when Capers thinks about working for Canales, a man at a similar age and on a similar journey, he does see a few similarities.

The things Dave wants to build now are the things Dom wanted to build then.

"Dave is the ultimate, I think, in positivity; You never see Dave down, OK?" Capers said. "He's always positive, looking for the positives, and building on that. I mean, his enthusiasm is contagious, you see that everybody around him, OK?

"And, the speed of the leader becomes the speed of the team, you know."

If you were here in 1996, you might have said the same thing about Capers then. These two may have more in common than we think.