It seems that a decision has been made regarding Ejiro Evero’s future in Carolina.The Panthers are acting as though Evero, who was the team’s defensive coordinator in 2023, will stay in Carolina in 2024, a league source told The Observer on Monday. Despite its offensive counterpart’s struggles last season, Evero oversaw one of the best defenses in the NFL.
The decision to keep Evero on shows that the team is committed to a large portion of its defensive personnel in an attempt to preserve some continuity as the Dave Canales era approaches.
ESPN and The Athletic announced Evero’s comeback.
The 43-year-old Evero was considered for head coaching positions with the Seattle Seahawks, Atlanta Falcons, and Panthers, among other teams. When teams wanted to interview him for defensive coordinator roles, Carolina’s ownership prevented him, indicating that they wanted to retain Evero from the start. In his opening press conference, Canales expressed his desire for Evero to return, referring to him as a “huge piece of what we’re doing,” but his status wasn’t officially announced until Monday.
Evero had a successful season with the Panthers. Even though they had a difficult season due to injuries, especially in the secondary, Carolina managed to allow the fourth-fewest amount of total yards per game with 293.9. A strong pass defense played a major role in that accomplishment. According to Stat Muse, the defense only allowed four quarterbacks to throw for more than 200 yards during the season, and they averaged 171.5 passing yards against throughout the season, which was third-best in the league.
Not to mention how Derrick Brown—the Panthers’ only representative in the Pro Bowl in 2023 and the team’s internal choice for “best run defender in the NFL”—seemed to benefit the most from Evero’s 3-4 scheme.
The Panthers defense’s leaders expressed at the end of the season that they intended for the team to remain intact. Along with the defensive staff, a number of young, gifted players were included, such as linebackers and unrestricted free agents Frankie Luvu and Brian Burns.
Canales seemed to be high on Evero all the time. Speaking to local media in Tampa Bay following the Panthers’ regulation-final victory over the Bucs, which ended with nine points and no touchdowns, Canales said, “Let’s first give credit where credit is due: EJ Evero, he’s done a fantastic job against us, and just in general this year, if you look at some of their numbers.”
Canales is rapidly assembling its coaching staff. Brad Idzik is anticipated to join the Panthers as offensive coordinator, and the group has also secured the services of several other offensive assistant coaches. Among them were Joe Gilbert, the offensive line coach, Rob Moore, the wide receivers coach, Bernie Parmalee, the running backs coach, and Harold Goodwin, the deputy head coach and run game coordinator.
