CHARLOTTE — Veteran offensive lineman Austin Corbett was talking in general terms about the just-completed Panthers season, in which they continued their steady climb from two wins to five to eight, and won an unlikely NFC South championship in an unlikelier way.

"We won the South, and yeah, it wasn't how you dream of winning in the South necessarily," he began. "But it's like, all right, the process works, and we got there for a reason, and we did right longer, and we made it. So that's just where you gain confidence that your process does work."

That's how you can tell what head coach Dave Canales is doing here with the Panthers is beginning to work.

Not the 8-9 record or the backdoor division title, or the fact that they've added three to their win total for two years running. But the fact that Austin Corbett conjugated "do right longer" into its past tense, and dropped it casually into his everyday conversation, like it's the kind of thing he'd say to his son.

Canales' words are becoming their words.

The message is sinking in.

And a personality is beginning to form here.

Dave Canales is big on language; he chooses his words carefully, and he doesn't like synonyms.

"Do right longer" is just one of the entries in his phrasebook, along with "all about the ball" and "finish."

And having everyone speaking the same language is central to what he wants to do here, and two years in, the word is beginning to spread. So now that they've seen this message in action for a couple of years, they are learning what those words look like on the football field.

Running back Chuba Hubbard, one of the cornerstones of the culture Canales is trying to build, pointed to the fact the Panthers led the league in fourth-down conversions this year (27) as an outward sign of the trust Canales is going to put in them.

But mostly, the Panthers have gone from a team constantly changing tunes to a unified voice — one band, one sound, as it were.

"I mean, when you're trying to build a culture, I think people expect those things to just come overnight, but culture is born and made over long periods of time through highs and lows of things and just consistency of continuing to harp on certain things," Hubbard said. "I think, yeah, you're starting to see guys really buy into it and be the face of the culture in their own way, and then as time goes on, it'll just get better and better in terms of that.

"I definitely think Dave's a genuine guy. He's a good person overall. He's the same guy every day, doesn't change, very optimistic and positive at all times, and I think that's a good thing to have, especially the head coach."

Few people in the Panthers organization have had more exposure to that message than wide receiver David Moore. This is his third team with Canales, having been with him in Seattle and his year in Tampa, before coming back here.

And even though Canales has had different job titles at every spot — from Moore's receivers coach to coordinator to head coach — Moore said the things he saw last season were very familiar to him.

"I wouldn't say he's changed anything about himself," Moore said. "I'd say he's changed this whole organization around, though, by being himself. He's just steadily, consistently being himself every day. I've seen the change that he's had around this building and in this community for sure."

But Moore's also been around a lot of coaches in his career, and when they come to a new place, they always talk about culture.

Talking about culture is easy. Creating one is much harder.

"His thing is actually doing it instead of just saying it," Moore said. "Some people just come in and just talk. Dave came in and just walked. He just let all that he believed do the working and do the talking. He just kept walking.

"So I think just being a man of your word, man, that's what he's been since I've known him. Players can tell that, for sure, especially when it's genuine."

Canales was also fortunate to walk into a place where his leaders are similarly wired. Derrick Brown, Hubbard, Jaycee Horn, and Bryce Young were daily process guys long before Canales walked in the door in January of 2024. So he found a group of core players who were immediately receptive and have become his messengers on the field.

But in a way, it's easy to talk to Brown and Hubbard and Horn and Young. Those are your leaders, your Pro Bowlers, and your quarterback. To see how deeply Canales has drilled into this place, it's worth hearing how he talks to the other end of the roster.

Wide receiver Dan Chisena has been in the league for six years and signed a future contract recently to push for a seventh year in the league. He's caught three passes, all of them here in 2024, when he was promoted from the practice squad late in the season. Chisena is self-aware and understands he's made his living in the NFL as a special teams player, with the kind of speed that makes a difference, even if he knows it'll never make him a household name.

The Panthers are also his fifth NFL team, having spent time with the Vikings, Steelers, Cardinals, and Ravens previously. He's heard lots of coaches talk about building. So when he's asked what stands out about Canales here, he has some perspective that some of the Panthers lifers don't.

"I think the biggest thing for me is just his consistency. He's the same," Chisena said. "He's steady regardless of situations, like outside situations, and I just feel like I personally relate to that. I've always tried to be very process-oriented, and it feels like Dave is like that.

"Win or loss, we still have to get back to work and approach the next week the same, and I feel like he communicates that very effectively, and I think that's the strength of his."

Chisena also appreciates the way Canales coaches the entire roster. He laughed and acknowledged it would be very easy for a head coach to not spend a tremendous amount of time with the practice squad receiver who plays special teams.

"All I can say is any time I've spoken with him, I feel respected and that I'm just as much a part of the team as a star player would be," Chisena said. "So yeah, it's cool. I don't think that it's a universal experience, definitely not."

Of course, coaching the whole team is part of the challenge coordinators have to take on when they get the promotion to head coach.

JJ Jansen has seen every way possible to handle that, having been with every Panthers head coach except George Seifert (since original head coach Dom Capers has been here the last three years as a senior defensive assistant).

He's seen the sweep of history in this place since coming here in 2009, and he's been a part of the highs and lows, so the current moment is a special one for him.

"There was a real appreciation of how far we've come this year," Jansen said in the aftermath of the playoff loss to the Rams on an epic night here in Charlotte. "I think there were mixed emotions, but the other thing that was just so pervasive was the genuine appreciation this group had for each other, for the coaches. We've come a long way.

"I think it elevates what we think this team can be going forward. And in a losing effort, I think we checked a lot of boxes in terms of that progress. Now, we talk way less about progress and way more about finish and winning these games and going deep, going deep in the playoffs, right? Finish is a staple of what we do here, but taking the step where we always win those games, and we win these big ones, is the logical next step."

Like Corbett, the casual inclusion of "finish" into Jansen's vocabulary — and he's a man of many words — is indicative of what Canales has built here. But it's the everyday presence that also stood out to Jansen.

Special teams meetings are early in the morning, usually the first thing on the schedule each day, since they involve players from every position group. And every day, Jansen saw a familiar face in the back of the room. If the whole team is there, the guy who coaches them might as well be too.

But Jansen said he didn't recall John Fox or Ron Rivera or any of the guys who followed having that kind of presence in their room, diving as deeply into the whole team.

"What I've really seen, especially from Year 1 to Year 2 from Dave, is he's caring more and more about being the head coach and less and less about being the play caller, right?" Jansen said.

"He was brought in to call plays, and certainly he's doing that at a high level, and he and Bryce are on the same page, and those things are really important. But the team needs a head coach. And so in Year 2, I really felt like he made it his mission to be the head coach for the whole team, not just the quarterback coach or the offensive play caller."

Jansen saw evidence of that not just in Canales' presence in the meetings, but in the way the team grew, and his increasing comfort in situational football, from going for fourth downs to dealing with the personalities involved.

"Just having a really good sense of the heartbeat of the team," Jansen said. "And he's really, really good at that stuff, and he keeps developing and getting better. That's really the cool part, as a player, is that coaches are always demanding that the players develop. So it's really nice when you have a head coach who is working so hard to continue to develop his skills, not only on his side of the ball, but in terms of the team.

"Like we're one team, and I think that that plays itself out in the, the postgame talk inside the building. It's everything that you guys see in press conferences. I think it's really, really important and he's been excellent at it."

And as last season went along, Jansen and the rest of the roster began to see the results of the process Canales talks about so much. Young authored six game-winning drives in the fourth quarter and overtime, so being down 14-0 early to the Rams wasn't daunting, because they had been in similar situations (like coming back from 17 down to beat Miami) and prevailed.

"Dave has been incredibly consistent with just play the next play, have belief," Jansen said. "Dave always says he's a dreamer, so he paints these sorts of dreamy pictures for us that look a lot like just belief. That if we snap the ball one more time, things are going to turn, and I think what you saw (against the Rams) was whether we're up or we're down, there's just an energy and a vibe. It starts on our bench, and the cool part about having a home playoff game is that it spreads to the 75,000 in the stands.

"But again, at the end of the day, it starts with coach Canales and the vision he sets for the team. And I think how the players have internalized that is one more snap. We're just going to keep doing our jobs right longer. And we've got a lot of players that want to step up in big moments, and they're not afraid of big moments. It's taking that belief and putting it into action."

For Canales, putting that into action meant being intentional about growing as a head coach.

In addition to having Capers around on defense, he has former Lions and Colts head coach Jim Caldwell on staff as a senior coaching advisor.

Caldwell has, to put it mildly, seen some things. He was Peyton Manning's position coach, and that worked well. He went to the playoffs twice with the Lions as head coach, and posted winning records there three times in four seasons, when they had one winning season in the previous 13. Jim Caldwell is not a good coach; he is a great coach.

And now at 71, he can offer the 44-year-old Canales the kind of perspective a young coach can't possess.

"He sees things from that 10,000-foot view," Canales said of Caldwell. "And while for me, because of my mixed roles with my involvement in the offense and different things like that, I can get hyper-focused at times on helping the run game, helping the pass game, different ways. Just trying to connect with the different phases, special teams, and defense.

"There is also a story being told and a messaging for the whole team, and coach Caldwell has been amazing for some reminders or anecdotes from years past where he's been – 'I've been in this situation before with this coach and this was something that we did that helped us a little bit, that was a little bit of a shot in the arm.' So that was a real blessing for me."

And that perspective is valuable, as long as you know how to use it.

When Canales was asked where he's made the most progress as a head coach, he began by talking about "listening."

"It's one thing to be able to listen and have those exchanges, but then to translate it into tangible progress, that's a challenge," Canales said. "That's something that I'm blessed to have the coaching staff that I have, to have the resources around me, to have those checks and balances to make sure that we're not overlooking anything. But I feel like it's been a place of growth for me this year."

And as he's grown and changed, the team has changed around him.

Going into Year 3, there's a belief here now that things have turned for the Panthers, that the standard has now become making the playoffs, after seven years without doing so.

That's a huge step, and it took all of them growing together, all of them adapting a little at a time.

And that starts with Canales.

"When I talk about consistent people in life, I mean, Dave's that," Brown said as the team was packing up for the offseason. "I don't know if the man has bad days, or at least not in front of us. He's super consistent, and the things that he says, the message to the team, our job as leaders on this team is to echo that. So when it comes to the coach, I mean, it's his consistency every single day, he's trying to push everybody every single day. And some days I come in here, and I don't want to smile with coach.

"But he's the same guy, every single day, day in, day out."

That kind of consistency is what Canales is trying to build. And over the course of his second season, you began to hear it in the words they said, and see it in the way his team played.