Newly arrived Panthers linebacker Devin Lloyd says he and his teammates have been talking about how excited they are about their potential for the 2026 season. And Lloyd also says talk at this time of year doesn’t mean much.
At Organized Team Activities on Tuesday, Lloyd said there’s palpable enthusiasm as the defense hits the practice field.
“Just the conversations with them, it’s just a lot of optimism and excitement,” Lloyd said, via Panthers.com. “I mean, we have so much talent on this defense and really the team, but specifically, for the defense, we’ve got so much talent. So yeah, it’s all been positive talk, but at the end of the day, talk is cheap; it’s about what we do at practice and how we continue to get better every day, and then ultimately what we do on game day. So today was a great start. I think we had a great practice, and it was a step in the right direction. We’ve got to just continue to build off today.”
Lloyd, who spent his entire four-year career with the Jaguars before signing with the Panthers this offseason, said he thinks he can do everything the Panthers’ defense asks of him.
“Anything you could ask a linebacker to do, I take pride in being able to do it at a high level,” Lloyd said. “In this game, they ask the linebackers — obviously we have a really, really stout D line — to make plays in the run game and then obviously in the pass game, that’s a big emphasis, for this defense. At the end of the day, football’s football. I wouldn’t even say scheme to scheme is anything different, but for me, it’s showing coach that, hey, I can do anything. I can blitz. I can cover whatever position you ask me to do. Put me in it, and I’ll make the play.”
Heading into his fourth NFL season, Panthers quarterback Bryce Young is leading the team like never before.
Panthers coach Dave Canales said Young is in charge of the offense not only from an Xs and Os perspective, but also in telling his teammates what they need to do, including getting on their case when some balls were hitting the ground during a rainy practice on Tuesday.
“Just total command of the system and knowing what he’s looking for, the timing of things, and the more that he owns it, the more he’s looking for specific things out of the tight ends, wideouts, and backs as the concepts come alive,” Canales said. “I just love it. I love the fact that he’s taking ownership, and the guys see that and rally around that, and something that they all appreciate.”
Young has steadily improved through his first three NFL seasons, and in Year 4, part of his continued growth will be firmly establishing himself as the player who makes the offense go.
The Panthers made the postseason for the first time since 2017 last season, winning the NFC South via a tiebreaker with an 8-9 record.
Importantly, it was also the first time the club had made the playoffs with quarterback Bryce Young.
Young, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 draft, put together his best season so far in 2025, completing 63.6 percent of his passes for 3,011 yards with 23 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He also rushed for 216 yards with a pair of TDs.
That’s enough for defensive tackle Derrick Brown — Carolina’s first-round pick back in 2020 — to call out the naysayers in an interview on Chris Long’s Green Light podcast.
“He’s our guy,” Brown said, via NFL.com. “We ride with [No.] 9 all the way through. That’s one of those things that people don’t want to admit how good he’s becoming because they’re going to have to go back and admit how wrong they were. As we all know, people don’t like doing that.”
While Young started 16 games in his first season, he was benched after two particularly poor games to start his second year — completing just 31-of-56 passes for 245 yards with three interceptions while taking six sacks. But when Andy Dalton was unable to play due to injury a few weeks later, Young came back in and didn’t give the starting role back up.
The way Young handled that situation left an impression on Young.
“He took the benching and, man, he just came into work every single day and killed it,” Brown said. “He didn’t care. He went right back to doing what he does. To him, it was about playing football.
“I’m going to be honest, I know everybody’s got an opinion about him, but I would never want to be a quarterback in the NFL. It might be the worst job to have. It’s the highest-paying, but it is the worst job to have in the NFL. I salute Bryce every single day, just dealing with all the outside noise and then still being able to come in there and be efficient in the work.”
The Panthers picked up Young’s fifth-year option, setting him up to make a guaranteed salary of $25.904 million in 2027. That’s a bargain as far as the going rate for a starting quarterback. But the team and Young will have to figure out a rate that works for both if he’s going to be on the team for 2028 and beyond. Much of that may depend on how Young and the team perform in 2026.
The Panthers have their entire 2026 coaching staff in place.
The team previously announced the additions of associate head coach/offensive specialist Darrell Bevell and senior offensive consultant Carl Smith to the staff. Wednesday’s announcement included word that they have hired special teams and defensive assistant Dwayne Stukes to Dave Canales’s staff.
Other new announcements include an assistant defensive coordinator title for linebackers coach Pete Hansen and new titles for offensive passing game coordinator Mike Bercovici.
Bercovici will work with offensive coordinator Brad Idzik, offensive assistant Keyshawn Colmon, offensive line coach Joe Gilbert, assistant head coach/run game coordinator Harold Goodwin, quarterbacks coach Will Harriger, tight ends coach Pat McPherson, wide receivers coach Rob Moore, running backs coach Bernie Parmalee, and offensive assistant Drew Petzing.
Defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero will oversee a group that includes Hansen, outside linebackers coach/run game specialist AC Carter, assistant linebackers coach Mayur Chaudhari, defensive pass game coordinator Jonathan Cooley, defensive assistant Ilir Emini, secondary coach Renaldo Hill, defensive assistant Kevin Peterson, and defensive line coach Todd Wash.
Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith, special teams assistant Daren Bates, head coaching assistant/coaching operations manager Jessica Beckenstein, director of coaching development Scott Cooper, and game management coordinator George Li round out this year’s staff.
The Panthers have added a versatile tight end to their 90-man roster.
The team announced the signing of Heinrich Haarberg on Wednesday morning. They waived outside linebacker Jamil Muhammad in a corresponding move.
Haarberg caught eight passes for 52 yards and a touchdown at Nebraska last season. It was the first season that he was listed as a tight end with the Cornhuskers after spending his first years at the school as a quarterback who sometimes saw time at other spots on the field.
Haarberg started eight games at quarterback in 2023 and one game in 2024. He was deployed in a similar fashion to the way Taysom Hill was utilized by the Saints during the 2024 season and he’ll hope his experience playing multiple spots will help his bid to stick around in Carolina.
