CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Dave Canales on Wednesday had a much quieter and calmer stroll than a year ago from Bank of America Stadium to the practice field as he began his second training camp as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers.
There were no autograph seekers as construction prohibited fans from attending as they normally do. Because of that there was no opening speech to a circus-like crowd as the then-rookie NFL head coach had last year, making this feel like a midseason workout.
But there was energy.
And much of it came from Canales.
While the goal of the 44-year-old coach is to have players take on more leadership, the positivity Canales injected a year ago into an organization looking for its first winning season since 2017 has taken root and grown.
That was evident in Canales' post-practice news conference when he made a prediction he never would have a year ago.
"The sky's the limit for this group,'' he said. "This is going to be a very competitive team. I don't think people are going to want to play us by the style of football that we play. I'm expecting that.
"My expectations are really high for this group.''
Wide receiver David Moore, who was with Canales at Seattle and Tampa Bay, saw the subtle difference in his coach from last year during Tuesday's initial address of the team.
"His vision,'' Moore said. "The way he came in and kind of prepped us, it was kind of the same, but you could tell he's not a rookie anymore. Now he knows what to expect. He's all ready for it and excited.''
The excitement has permeated through the team. Call it carryover from Carolina winning two of its final three games last season and seeing quarterback Bryce Young go from a No. 1 pick who was considered a bust to a potential star on the rise.
That feeling Canales had after the final game of a 5-12 season of being "so full and so empty at the same time'' has everyone hungry for what the team had 10 years ago when Cam Newton and company surprised the NFL with a 15-1 record and trip to the Super Bowl.
"What I can say is I'm excited to see if we can surprise,'' guard Robert Hunt said.
Canales surprised many by surviving a 1-7 start under owner David Tepper, who fired head coaches Frank Reich and Matt Rhule in-season the previous two years. Canales did it because he showed the same consistency and commitment to sticking to his beliefs as a head coach as he did as the offensive coordinator for the Buccaneers in 2023 and as a position coach for the Seahawks before that.
"Dave is going to be Dave, and that's what I honestly respect about him,'' Hunt said. "This s--- gets hard, man. People typically turn to run or start doing different s---. But he's been the same guy. I respect that.''
The hardest came early for Canales. Young put up historically bad numbers during an 0-2 start following a 2-14 rookie season. Canales did what he believed was best and benched him in favor of veteran Andy Dalton.
That earned Canales respect in the locker room, even from those who still believed in Young.
"Sometimes you have to make hard decisions in power positions,'' general manager Dan Morgan said. "He made our decision last year. We are where we are now.''
Canales made the decision confidently, sending a signal to the players he's doing everything he can to help them win. He exhibited the same confidence later in the season when he stuck with Young despite mounting losses and a healthy Dalton.
"Him around the players, he has that contagious energy that we all talk about,'' Morgan said. "But you can see the players starting to take this team over and be the leaders of the team. And all the good teams around the NFL, they're player led.
"We're trending in that direction.''
That came out in Canales' speech on Tuesday.
"The main thing was relationships, and how if we have strong relationships it can take us a long way,'' Moore said. "[Last year] he didn't know. He just knew we had players. Now he kind of knows.''
Said Canales: "It feels a lot different knowing that I have a group of leaders that have my back.''
Canales enters his second year with far fewer questions than he did a year ago, starting at quarterback.
Young's strong finish -- a 111.6 passer rating with seven touchdown passes and no interceptions to go with three rushing touchdowns over the final three games -- provided optimism he finally will prove worthy of all Carolina traded to the Chicago Bears in 2023 to select him No.1.
"The pace or our offensive development, evolution, is growing at the pace of Bryce,'' Canales said at the end of a June minicamp. "And he's showing such great mastery of what we're doing that he's allowing us to the evolve and do more things.''
A part of the evolution included the benching. Young played so poorly that there wasn't any indication he'd get another chance before Dalton suffered a thumb injury during an Oct. 22 car wreck.
Finding ways to adapt his system to Young's strengths was something Canales referred to as one of the great challenges of last season. But he also believed "we'll all be better for it.''
Moore called that a gutsy move that defines Canales.
"He saw something that we all didn't see,'' he said. "He kind of told everybody what was going to happen. Then in the aftermath of how all that happened, when Bryce came back, you just felt that he was ready.
"For him to instill that in Bryce, and for Bryce to go out and showcase his talents and show everything he's capable of doing, that was kind of big, especially for Dave.''
New Las Vegas Raiders coach Pete Carroll, who worked with Canales in Seattle, called it a "masterful job'' during the owners meetings in South Florida.
"Bryce needed to sit back a bit and learn from Andy, and he was willing to," Carroll said. " ... I can't speak for them, but I would think they found out a tremendous amount of information to head into this year with the quarterback position.''
The faith Canales and Morgan had in Young after the season played a big role in the decision to use the eighth overall pick in April on wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan instead of a player to boost the league's worst defense. "I came from that environment of Pete Carroll and so did he,'' Moore said. "So when you come from that you see the things that can happen once you get that player-led team.
"Now [Canales] is there to kind of push us and keep us on board and keep us on track. So his energy is not going to change -- ever. His energy leads us.''