Dave Canales issues warning to Carolina Panthers players over camp discipline

Dave Canales is a positive guy who finds the good in almost everything. The Carolina Panthers are benefitting enormously from the head coach's unrivaled enthusiasm and glass-half-full outlook. It's exactly what this franchise needs after how things descended into chaos under the two previous regimes.

The former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator has adopted the traits of his mentor Pete Carroll. Canales knows there are a lot of problems to fix, but he's going to give it everything in pursuit of getting the Panthers off rock bottom and back to some semblance of order.

When things aren't going well, Canales sees them as teaching moments rather than getting overly aggressive with his players at this stage. This resonates better with the modern-day player, but standards were not what the coach anticipated during Carolina's latest second padded practice at Fan Fest.

Dave Canales bemoans Carolina Panthers' lack of discipline at Fan Fest

The session was littered with penalties and costly mistakes according to those in attendance. Carolina's scrimmages were sloppy and stuttered as a result. This is a reality check everyone needed of how much more needs to be done despite some encouraging signs throughout the offseason.

Canales wasn't happy after practice based on comments via the team's website. He wants discipline on both sides of the football to improve - and quickly - before the Panthers take the field for their first preseason game at the New England Patriots on Thursday, August 8.

"We had a bunch of pre-snap penalties. We got to address that. We got to make sure that we, whether it's the cadence or we going early, whatever the thing is, we got to talk through that. That's part of the fans being here and creating that extra energy. A little bit of that, you know, that game day excitement that might have gotten to some guys, so we needed that for sure, just to get a litmus test of where we're at because we'll be playing another game in about a week here."

- Dave Canales via Panthers.com

This was as close as we're going to see to Canales giving his players a public warning. Standards have been raised and he expects more. The old ways are not going to cut it anymore. Either those around get their act together, or the Panthers will find others capable of fitting into the new way of thinking.

Getting a gut check at this stage of the summer isn't a bad thing. It's better to get the kinks out now rather than things cropping up when the regular season arrives. Any players that were feeling themselves heading into Fan Fest have been brought back down to earth. This should improve their concentration and communication at the line of scrimmage instantly.

Carolina averaged 6.1 penalties per game last season - ranked No. 26 league-wide. That's unacceptable and another reason why they won just two games. Canales is looking to make this a more fundamentally sound football operation, but it's going to take time they don't have with Week 1 at the New Orleans Saints on the immediate horizon.

There is much hard work ahead, but nothing Canales wasn't already aware of.

Being undisciplined isn't going to help get the Panthers where they want to go. Reaffirming this ethos to his players with a warning - albeit with his typical vibrant demeanor - was the right course of action.

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