Longtime Carolina Panthers Weakness Became Surprising Strength Just In Time

Dave Canales’s Carolina Panthers will take the field Sunday at home against the Chicago Bears in a battle of reigning division champions. However, let’s flashback to 2024.

Carolina Panthers’ assistant GM Dan Morgan was promoted to president of football operations/general manager. The team hired former Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator Dave Canales to be their new head coach.

Canales benched starting quarterback Bryce Young after two games and the team got off to a 1-7 start. Young would make his return later in the season and helped the Panthers win four of their final nine contests to finish 5-12.

Carolina Panthers’ defense was forgettable in 2024

Dan Morgan — IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Unfortunately, the season was low-lighted with one of the worst defensive showings by a team in recent memory. In 17 games, Carolina surrendered 6,877 total yards—the second-most in a single season in NFL annals. The team gave up a dubious 534, the most ever in league history.

Opponents gained an NFL-high 179.8 yards per game on the ground, and Canales’s club surrendered 59 offensive touchdowns. Keep in mind that 2023 Pro Bowl defender Derrick Brown was injured in Week 1 and miss the rest of the season.

You get the picture. To aid the team’s cause, Morgan signed linebacker Christian Rozeboom away from the Los Angeles Rams. He led Carolina in tackles in 2025, just as he did for Sean McVay’s club the previous season. However, he wasn’t the solution inside. While the return of Brown was a positive and club’s run defense did improve (123.3 average), this unit faded down the stretch when it came to this crucial category.

Panthers added a playmaker this offseason in linebacker Devin Lloyd

DEVIN LLOYD PICK-6⃣

He takes it 99 yards for the longest interception return in @Jaguars history 🤯

KCvsJAX on ESPN/ABC
Stream on #NFLPlus and ESPN Apppic.twitter.com/LMcMvbqJ91
— NFL+ (@NFLPlus) October 7, 2025

The Panthers did not bring back Rozeboom and he wound up signing with the rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he is not expected to be a starter. Meanwhile, Morgan went out and added 2025 Pro Bowler Devin Lloyd, a 2022 first-round pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He signed a three-year, $42 million deal with the Panthers, and is now part of a new-look linebacking corps for defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero.

This summer, Trevin Wallace and Claudin Cherelus waged a battle for the starting spot next to Lloyd, and the winner proved to be…Bobby Okereke? Morgan added the former Colts’ and Giants’ tackling machine after neither of the other two players distinguished themselves. Meanwhile, Wallace was cut loose, and Cherelus is in reserve with 2026 seventh-round pick Jackson Kuwatch.

Carolina Panthers’ linebacker room has a lot of new faces

But wait, there’s more. This past season, veteran Tyrel Dodson was the Miami Dolphins’ second-leading tackler with 129 defensive stops. He was cut loose by the new regime in South Florida, and the Panthers wasted little time signing him to the practice squad.

Lloyd was Pro Football Focus’ No. 3 linebacker in 2025. Okereke totaled 143 tackles, three takeaways and six passes defensed in 17 starts with the Giants this past season. And Dodson is an experience insurance policy should he be called upon. It adds up to a promising new look for a Carolina defense that made strides this past season but still has some work to do.

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