Following Carolina’s 27-19 loss on Thursday Night Football, the team has decided to make some changes. As reported this morning (10.30) Defensive Coordinator Ejiro Evero has been fired. Passing Game Coordinator Jonathan Cooley is being let go as well.
Defensive Line Coach Todd Wash will be calling the defensive plays in the interim. Wash has familiarity in defensive play-calling dating back to his time in Jacksonville in the late 2010s.
Wash was a part of the “Sacksonville” team that reached the AFC Championship in the 2017 season.
How We Got Here
If you ask Panther fans, most of them would say that this change was a long time coming. Many had been fed up with Evero’s softer scheme that failed to create pressure or takeaways at a high level, while simultaneously being poor against the run.
Ironically, Carolina’s defense had a pretty good game against the Packers in regards to the run, but I think that’s more of an indictment on Green Bay’s poor run-blocking than the Panthers stepping up to make plays.
Ejiro Evero arrived in Carolina in 2023, following a successful season with the Denver Broncos as their defensive coordinator. After the blunders by Frank Reich and his staff, Evero was kept on board in 2024 once Dave Canales was brought in.
Canales praised Evero’s scheme in his introductory press conference, citing the two matchups Canales had in 2023 as Tampa Bay’s offensive play-caller. In the final game of 2023, Tampa Bay would defeat Carolina by a score of 9-0, likely prompting Canales’ interest in keeping Evero.
Since the pairing of Canales and Evero, the run defense has continued to struggle. As I reported earlier this week, Carolina’s defense had allowed 200+ rushing yards in more than 20% of their games with Evero as the play-caller on defense.
With the Green Bay game added to the sample, that number is officially 20.34% of games in which Evero’s defense allowed 200+ rushing yards in his time with the Panthers.
This is already a stark difference compared to the rest of the Panthers’ history (6.85% of games allowing 200+ rushing yards from 1995-2022). The most damning part of these percentages is that Evero’s scheme was designed, in theory, to stop the run.
Evero comes from the Vic Fangio tree/school of defensive football. Fangio’s schemes have been famous for disrupting offensive evolution throughout the last few decades.
Being able to stop the run and pressure opposing quarterbacks consistently with four rushers is a core tenet of what Fangio wants to do on defense. Over the last four seasons in Carolina, Evero’s groups weren’t able to do either at a high level.
Not only has the run defense been an issue, but Carolina has been one of the worst teams in terms of pressures and sacks throughout the Evero era.
In each of the three full seasons Evero has coached in Carolina, the Panthers have been bottom-four in terms of total sacks. In 2023, they were the worst in the league, amassing only 27 sacks, less than half of what the league-leading Baltimore Ravens accrued (60).
This was a team that fielded Brian Burns, who since being traded from Carolina to the New York Giants, has been named an All-Pro edge rusher.
That’s another theme of the Evero tenure in Carolina: players on the defensive line not being able to produce with the Panthers, but having good seasons elsewhere.
Jadeveon Clowney had an okay season with Carolina in ‘24, but would go on to greatly improve his stats in Dallas a year later, with fewer snaps. DJ Wonnum was an afterthought in Carolina, averaging 3.5 sacks per season. He already has 5 through six games in Detroit.
When your defense fails to stop the run, can’t pressure the quarterback, is inconsistent at turning the offense over, and has issues in allowing players to excel within the scheme, something eventually had to give.
The defense didn’t really evolve over the course of Evero’s tenure, either. In 2024, the team allowed the most points in NFL history. Injuries played a large part in this, of course, but it is still a pretty poor mark. This season also had the most 200+ rushing yard games allowed.
However, the worst defensive rushing performances have actually come this season, in 2026, two years removed from that horrible season. Derrick Brown is healthy. The team has invested in highly-paid players at edge, interior defensive line, and linebacker, while also drafting defenders high. There was simply no excuse for the run defense to have somehow gotten worse over time.
Still, the team had faith in Ejiro Evero entering this season, and had even quietly extended the defensive coordinator to match contract terms with Head Coach Dave Canales.
Now, with Evero gone, it seems the pressure on Canales will be even greater.
Where Are We Now?
As stated above, Defensive Line Coach Todd Wash will be the interim defensive coordinator and play-caller. Wash has called plays before, and did have a stint calling the defense in the preseason.
An interesting and perhaps complicated note with Wash is that he has been an exclusive even front (4-3) user in his time in the NFL. In Jacksonville, they got after opposing QBs with four down linemen, and he also had a base 4-3 in Detroit.
Carolina has been an odd front (3-4) base team throughout the entirety of the Evero era. Sure, teams don’t play in base defense every single snap, but it will be interesting to see the deployment of Carolina’s defense throughout the rest of the season.
In my opinion, the team doesn’t necessarily have the personnel to consistently run 4-3 fronts with success, especially if edge rusher Jaelan Phillips will continue to miss time. Wash will likely have to adapt his tendencies to fit Carolina’s current personnel.
Passing Game Coordinator Jonathan Cooley was also let go Friday morning. Secondary Coach Renaldo Hill will oversee the DBs in his stead.
It’s never a good thing when a coach is fired mid-season - it actually spells significant issues within a team. Still, it was probably for the better for Carolina to move on from Ejiro Evero.
With no consistent defensive improvement over the last four seasons, the team had to make a change.
Reading between the lines reveals that there is real pressure on Dave Canales this season. 2026 was always supposed to be the year this team took the leap, and outside of Bryce Young’s offensive explosion early this season, there hasn’t been a notable jump.
There aren’t many people left to fire before the Head Coach is on the chopping block. If the losses pile up and Carolina misses the playoffs, don’t be surprised if Ejiro Evero was just the first of many names to leave the Panthers this season.