Last week, Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales stated that he was looking forward to the challenge of constructing his first initial 53-man roster. So, how is he feeling now that it’s over with?
He was asked that on Wednesday, following his team’s second practice of the week.
“I just really feel like we owe it to this team to look,” Canales said of the roster changes. “We looked across all the league and kinda compared it to the roster we had. And we’ve been talking about challenging our roster from the beginning. Really started off with the secondary room. And so, that was a place we really wanted to see if we can start trying to get a look at a lot of guys.”
After getting down to their first 53 on Tuesday, the Panthers turned around and claimed six new players off waivers earlier this afternoon. That secondary room is set to welcome in three of those hopeful additions—cornerbacks Keenan Isaac, Shemar Bartholomew and Tariq Castro-Fields.
But those additions resulted in some subtractions. Over the past few days, the Panthers have been forced to part ways with many of their guys—including a few summer standouts at the corner spot.
“The guys that were here—D’Shawn [Jamison], Dicaprio [Bootle], Lamar Jackson—all those guys. They did a fantastic job showing who they are,” Canales added. “We know who they are, we know what they look like. It’s gonna be a long season, but we wanted to make sure we got eyes on a lot of people to see who can help us this year.”
