The Panthers didn’t wait long.
Less than 12 hours after a 27-19 loss in Green Bay on Thursday night, Carolina fired defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero. Defensive passing game coordinator Jonathan Cooley is out too.
Defensive line coach Todd Wash takes over as interim DC and will call plays the rest of the season. But “interim” is doing a lot of work there. The real question is who’s running this defense in 2027.
Our pick is Wash. If the defense looks even halfway competent over the last 10 games, the easiest move is to drop the interim tag. He’s been a coordinator before, he knows this roster, and he goes back years with Dave Canales and GM Dan Morgan from their time in Seattle.
No sportsbook has a market up on this, so we built our own. Here’s how we’d price it. If you want to see where real NFL lines are posted, check our best NFL betting sites and apps.
Panthers Next Defensive Coordinator Odds
| Candidate | Odds | Implied Probability |
|---|---|---|
| Todd Wash (Panthers interim DC) | +150 | 40.0% |
| Field (outside hire) | +200 | 33.3% |
| Renaldo Hill (Panthers secondary coach) | +400 | 20.0% |
| Steve Wilks (Commanders defensive assistant) | +1000 | 9.1% |
| AC Carter (Panthers OLB/DL coach) | +2000 | 4.8% |
Odds are Mr. Gamble projections as of October 30, 2026, and aren’t available at sportsbooks.
Why Did Evero Get Fired?
The run defense. It’s always been the run defense.
Carolina ranks 30th against the run this year. Chicago ran for 291 yards in the opener. Tampa ran for 258 and three scores last Sunday. Then Green Bay put up 27 four days later. That’s 70 points allowed in two games.
And this isn’t new. Since 2024, Evero’s defenses have given up 200+ rushing yards 12 times. That’s the most in the league by a mile. The next-worst teams have six.
The Panthers spent two years trying to fix it. Jaelan Phillips, Devin Lloyd, Tershawn Wharton, Tre’von Moehrig. Things got better in 2025. This year it slid right back, and Carolina is allowing 27.6 points a game, seventh-most in the NFL.
At 3-4, with the NFC South still wide open, Canales couldn’t sit on it anymore. Evero was signed through 2027. Didn’t matter.
Todd Wash, +150
He’s got the job right now, and he’s got 10 games to keep it.
Wash isn’t some first-timer. He ran Jacksonville’s defense from 2016 to 2020, and in 2017 that unit ranked second in the NFL and made it to the AFC Championship Game. He’s been coaching for 31 years, 20 of them in the league, and he’s been on Carolina’s staff since 2023.
He’s also a DL coach taking over a defense that can’t stop the run. That’s kind of the whole point.
The Seattle connection to Canales and Morgan matters too. If the defense shows real improvement, keeping a guy they already trust is the path of least resistance.
Field (Outside Hire), +200
This is basically everyone else.
Every January, a bunch of coordinators get fired and a bunch of position coaches get promoted. If Wash’s defense keeps getting run over, Canales goes shopping and this becomes the favorite fast.
There’s also a bigger wrinkle. David Tepper has fired head coaches midseason before. Matt Rhule in 2022, Frank Reich in 2023. Firing Evero buys Canales time, but if this season goes sideways, a new head coach would bring his own DC. That scenario lands here too.
Renaldo Hill, +400
The sneaky in-house option.
Hill was the Chargers’ defensive coordinator in 2021 and 2022, then the Dolphins’ pass game coordinator in 2023 before coming to Carolina in 2024. With Cooley gone, he’s now running the entire secondary.
He’s the only other guy on this staff who’s actually called a defense. If Wash stumbles, Hill is the natural fallback without starting from scratch.
Steve Wilks, +1000
The fun one.
Wilks is a Charlotte native who went to West Charlotte High and App State. He was Carolina’s DC in 2017 and went 6-6 as interim head coach in 2022 after Rhule got fired. Tepper passed on him for the full-time job and hired Reich instead. That didn’t age well.
The Jets fired him as DC last December. Last week, Washington brought him on as a part-time defensive assistant.
A reunion would make a lot of Panthers fans happy. We just don’t see Canales going back to the Rivera era for answers.
AC Carter, +2000
Carter coaches outside linebackers and the run game, and now he’s taking over the defensive line from Wash too.
That’s more responsibility, and it puts him in the room for the run fits that got Evero fired. But he’s never been a coordinator. Long shot.
When Will We Know?
Probably not until after the season.
Wash gets a long week to prep before his debut. The Panthers host Denver on Sunday, November 8 at 1 p.m. ET, and Carolina is a 3-point home dog.
Watch the rushing yards. If Wash cleans that up over the next month, he’s your next DC. If teams keep running for 200 on this group, everybody’s job in that building gets shaky.
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