Running Back · Carolina Panthers

Jonathon Brooks

No. 25 · 3rd season

Dave Canales looked at Jonathon Brooks and saw what he remembered

There is a specific kind of relief that only a coach can communicate — not a press-release kind, not the managed kind. When Dave Canales said Brooks looks like the player he remembers, that was it.

Brooks is a running back for the Carolina Panthers who has been working his way back. The details of that road aren't what matters right now. What matters is that on the first day of training camp, he was on the field — and the head coach noticed.

For a player trying to reclaim something, day one of camp is not a small thing. It is the first public answer to a question a lot of people have been sitting with quietly. Brooks gave the right answer.

What Canales saw — or rather, who he saw — is the whole story in miniature. Not a player going through motions, not a project. The one he remembered.

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