Getty Former Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales
New Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales was great as offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2023 and was an overwhelmingly positive force in the locker room by all accounts.
However, he wasn’t always such a good guy — by his own admission — especially to his wife, which he wrote about in a book published the year before the Bucs hired him as their OC.
“Canales and his wife, Lizzy Canales, co-wrote a deeply personal, faith-based book called ‘This Marriage? The Question That Changed Everything.’ The book was published in September 2022, while Canales was still a fairly obscure assistant coach with the Seattle Seahawks,” Scott Fowler revealed in the Charlotte Observer on Jan. 30.
“It contains numerous revelations about Canales’ private life but has gone almost completely unnoticed in NFL circles. In the book, Canales, 42, admits to having had multiple affairs earlier in his life,” Fowler continued. “A portion of the book concerns his sexual infidelity and how the couple worked their way through it — partly through counseling, which they advocate — and eventually found their way back to a Christian-based marriage.”
Fowler goes on to share that the book also includes admissions that Canales had “addictions … to both pornography and alcohol,” but the former Buccaneers OC “no longer has any of these issues, that he has stopped drinking completely and that he and Lizzy have resurrected what is now a thriving marriage.”
Dave Canales Will Have to Answer Questions About Personal Revelations in Book
It is unclear how much — if anything — the Buccaneers knew about Dave Canales’ book in 2023 when they hired him away from the Seahawks. However, Scott Fowler reports that the Panthers were “fully aware of the book and its contents,” before they hired him as head coach.
That said, the team would not make Canales available to Fowler ahead of his article coming out, so now the new head coach will have to answer questions in front of a media firing gallery at his introductory press conference in Charlotte on Thursday, Feb. 1.
And there will definitely be questions on the book and the personal details within. There may even be questions about some of the salacious specifics.
Fowler discloses a lot of those specifics in his piece, and they aren’t for the faint of heart.
Among the details contained in the book are that Canales cheated on his now-wife for the first time at his bachelor party, he had unprotected sex while cheating on Lizzie, he dealt with a long addiction to pornography, and he calls himself a “recovering narcissist.”
While there isn’t a lot about his life in the NFL in the book, the forward is by former Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy and Canales talks about his drinking early in his career, and how he thought it was a great way to advance in the league.
Dave Canales Was Great for the Buccaneers
Despite the shocking admissions in their book, Dave Canales and his wife Lizzy turned their marriage around after a rocky start. The couple’s “marriage is now stronger than ever” and they have four children.
When Dave and Lizzie Canales published their book, the coach was starting what would be his fifth and final season with the Seahawks as their quarterbacks coach. That was four months before the Buccaneer hired him as OC thanks to his work resurrecting Geno Smith’s career.
In 2023, after losing the greatest quarterback of all time in Tom Brady, the Buccaneers’ offense didn’t skip a beat. Last season, the Bucs put up 313 points and 5,894 yards. This past campaign, they scored 348 points with 5,321 yards.
At quarterback, Brady had 4,694 passing yards, 25 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions. Baker Mayfield put up 4,044 yards with 28 TDs and 10 INTs with Canales calling the plays.
Ahead of getting the Panthers job, Canales’ now-former players spoke highly of him, too.
“Oh, Dave has done a great job. He’s so positive every day. He knows exactly what to say, and he’s a really brilliant mind, so any team would be lucky to have him as a head guy,” Tampa Bay wide receiver Mike Evans said of his 2023 offensive coordinator.