PALM BEACH, Fla. — The offseason wasn’t even 24 hours old when Carolina Panthers coach Dave Canales nipped one potential issue in the bud.
“Ejiro (Evero) will be back with us as our defensive coordinator,” Canales said, a day after the Panthers became the fourth team in NFL history to allow 3,000 rushing yards in a season while giving up the most points over a 17-game schedule.
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Later the same day, general manager Dan Morgan defended Evero’s 3-4 scheme while saying he and his scouts needed to give Evero more pieces to work with. Those pieces came in a hurry when the Panthers agreed to terms with five defensive players on the first day of free agency, including at least one addition at all three levels of the defense.
“Like I said before, we were going to build our defensive front. I think we did that. We signed three guys there,” Morgan said last week. “I think at each level — defensive line, linebacker, on the back end with Tre’von (Moehrig) — I think we addressed some needs that we have.”
Now that Morgan has done his part, it’s up to Evero to prove the Panthers’ faith in him was warranted. One of his former colleagues in Los Angeles was mildly surprised Evero’s status was ever in question.
“I’m a huge fan of him,” Rams general manager Les Snead said Monday at the NFL owners’ meetings. “I don’t even want to call it smart that you take someone that’s had a lot more success than one bad year and keep him. It seems like that should just be doing your job, not, ‘Oh, OK, we’re going to now say we’re smart.’ ”
Retaining Evero was something of a show of restraint from owner David Tepper, who has fired three coaches and two general managers since buying the team in 2018. It also was an example of Tepper’s trust in Canales, Morgan and executive VP of football operations Brandt Tilis, all of whom arrived in their current roles at the same time in January 2024.
The 44-year-old Evero had interviewed for head coaching positions the previous two offseasons, including twice with the Panthers before Frank Reich and Canales were hired. Tepper blocked Evero from interviewing for defensive coordinator positions last winter after the Panthers were a top-5 defense in 2023.
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It would have been a bad look in league circles for the Panthers to fire Evero a year after not allowing him to interview elsewhere, albeit in what would have been a lateral move.
Snead, entering his 13th season as the Rams’ GM, said it’s tougher for teams that haven’t experienced much winning to stay the course and not bow to public pressure. But he was glad to see the Panthers hold on to Evero, who spent five years with the Rams and was the secondary coach/pass game coordinator during their Super Bowl-winning season of 2021.
“To me it’s a body of work, especially if you can go through it and say, ‘Hey, there’s some reasons why maybe the defense dropped off,’ ” Snead said during an interview with The Athletic. “Sometimes it’s not injuries. Sometimes it may be a rebuild or a retooling. And sometimes it may (be), ‘Uh oh, the opponent’s got a little upper hand.’ Why don’t you let that person evolve versus start all over?”
The Panthers will look to evolve with a couple of players who were in L.A. with Evero, prompting Snead to jokingly say, “Seems that we’ve got Rams in the (Panthers) building.”
Carolina signed former Rams nose tackle Bobby Brown III to a three-year, $21 million deal, while bringing ex-L.A. linebacker Christian Rozeboom in on a one-year, $2.5 million deal. The Panthers hope the 6-4, 332-pound Brown can plug running lanes and occupy blockers to free up defensive ends Derrick Brown, A’Shawn Robinson and defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton, a free-agent acquisition.
And though Brown has not made an impact as a pass rusher, Snead said he’s more than just a space-eater inside.
“I can easily see why they signed him. You’ve gotta have that specific role,” Snead said. “And he’s a more athletic human than you would anticipate. There’s some freak in him for sure.”
Rozeboom, 28, was primarily a special teams player before starting 11 games last season in a 135-tackle, breakout season. The Panthers return a pair of inside linebackers who combined for 20 starts last season — Josey Jewell and Trevin Wallace, who underwent offseason shoulder surgery. But Snead said he wouldn’t be surprised if Rozeboom ends up as a starter in Charlotte.
“That’s just the kind of player he is, whether you’re in base and he’s the second linebacker,” he said. “I don’t know the (Panthers) linebacker group, but he can really go east and west. Smart, passionate kid.”
Georgia LB Jalon Walker and South Carolina S Nick Emmanwori both were in the Panthers’ building in recent weeks on local visits, per league source.
— Joe Person (@josephperson) March 31, 2025
The Panthers’ other defensive reinforcements were Moehrig, the ex-Las Vegas Raiders safety, former Minnesota Vikings edge rusher Patrick Jones II and Wharton, whom the Panthers pivoted to after missing out on Milton Williams. Wharton played in Chris Jones’ sizable shadow after arriving in Kansas City in 2020 as an undrafted free agent from Missouri S&T, a Division II program 100 miles southwest of St. Louis.
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But Wharton showed pass-rushing prowess with 6 1/2 sacks in 2024 — nearly matching his total of seven from his first four seasons — and received a three-year, $45 million offer from the Panthers.
“He came from a small school (outside of) St. Louis, and he’s a worker. That kind of says it all,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said Monday during the AFC coaches breakfast.
“You look at the progress he made in college and the gain of weight, the gain of strength, all those things. And then he comes to us and you saw that same tenacity to get better at our level,” Reid added. “The odds of him making the NFL were slim. But because of his work ethic — and his athletic ability. He had been a running back. He kind of outgrew that into a nose guard or defensive tackle. Very active player. Great, great kid — quiet, but a great kid. And just tough.”
(Photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
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