CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A dominant win over the Las Vegas Raiders provided a positive atmosphere for Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales in his postgame news conference.
Canales highlighted his team's effort of playing as a unit as the contributing factor behind their 36-22 win over the Raiders on Sunday.
"It was just a great picture of Panthers football," Canales said. "Being able to run the ball, stopping the run, playing complementary football on third down, taking advantage of red zone opportunities, the whole thing."
Canales avoided giving the spotlight to any single player but did give props to quarterback Andy Dalton when asked about his performance in his first start of the season.
"It's just what I expected out of him," Canales said. "He took advantage when they gave us favorable coverages."
Dalton got the start in place of Bryce Young, who was sent to the bench after failing to throw a touchdown in the Panthers' first two games.
Dalton immediately instilled life into the Carolina offense, with a touchdown pass to Chuba Hubbard on the game's opening drive. The Panthers never trailed and led by as much as 26 points in the contest.
The stat line for Dalton was superb. He finished with 319 yards passing and three touchdowns while completing 26 of 37 passes. Carolina's last 300-yard passing performance came when Dalton got his only start of 2023 in a loss to Seattle. Dalton's 123.6 passer rating is the best posted by a Panthers quarterback since P.J. Walker had a 126.5 rating in Week 7 of 2022.
"It felt great for me to get an opportunity to be out there and for it to go the way it did," Dalton said after the win. "I thought our guys came with the right attitude."
Two of Dalton's touchdown passes were beautifully thrown balls to Dionte Johnson and Adam Thielen. Canales praised each of these passes after the game.
The Panthers' running game helped set things up for Dalton. Hubbard had 114 yards rushing. It's the first 300-yard passing performance and 100-yard rushing performance from a pair of Panthers players since Week 8 of 2022.
"That's Panthers football," Canales said. "I get to show the players that and show them how it all compliments and plays off each other."
Sunday's game was the 164th start for Dalton. He was the Cincinnati Bengals franchise quarterback during the 2010s before bouncing around in Dallas, Chicago, and New Orleans. Dalton came to Carolina in 2022 in a mentor role for Young not expecting to see a lot of playing time.
But seeing as he owns the two most recent 300-yard passing games in Panthers history, Dalton could find himself as the permanent starter.
Canales did not field any questions about the starting quarterback spot ahead of the team's Week 4 contest against Cincinnati but it's unlikely a change would be made after Sunday's result.
Dalton, on the other hand, said he is excited to play his former team.
"It's gonna be fun [to play the Bengals]," Dalton said. "There are still a ton of coaches over there that were there when I was there."