Ejiro Evero- Meet the Candidate- Part 8 of 12

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Yeah we are gonna talk about him, and too be fair.. It's probably not that unrealistic if a lot of good candidates are gone fast.

Ejiro Evero, DC- Carolina Panthers

          Ejiro was born in 1981 in Colchester, England. His family would later move to California where he would grow up and play football. Ejiro and his brother Nero would both play football as Safeties for UC Davis (with Ejiro a few years older than Nero). Ejiro would be signed as an UFA by the Raiders in 2004 but wouldn't garner much interest once released that season. Ejiro would go back to UC Davis where he would serve as an assistant coach for the next two seasons.

          Evero got his break into the NFL in 07 working under DC Monte Kiffin for 3 seasons as a Defensive Quality Control Coach. When some of Gruden's staff was let go in 2008, Ejiro and some others were retained under new HC Raheem Morris who had worked closely with Ejiro the previous two years. At the end of the 2009 season Ejiro along with many other defensive coaches would be fired by Morris. In his time at Tampa, he would rub elbows with quite a few interesting defensive minds such as Monte Kiffin, Todd Wash, Joe Barry, Jim Bates, Gus Bradley, and Raheem Morris. He would spend the 2011 season with a DIII school in California (University of Redlands) where he served as STC and Safeties Coach.

          The next year he would be scooped by none other than Jim Harbaugh who would add him as a coaching assistant on Special Teams and later into various assistant roles under DC Vic Fangio but never gaining a position coach role. After Jim Tomsula took over as HC in 2015, Ejiro was retained but would be dismissed at the end of that disappointing season with the other coaches. This would lead to him spending a year in Green Bay in 2016 where he would work under Dom Capers for the first as a Defensive Quality Control Coach. 

          The following season he would join rookie HC Sean McVay's staff in LA. He served as Safeties coach from 2017-2019 under Wade Phillips and then in the same role in 2020 under Brandon Staley. In the seasons of 2017-2019 the Rams combined for 49 interceptions which are the second most in that time period. In 2021, the Rams would hire Raheem Morris as DC and Ejiro would be moved to Secondary/Pass Game Coordinator where his unit ranked 3rd in Passing Yds Allowed/Game and Tot. Yds Allowed/Game. This performance would inspire Nathaniel Hackett to hire Evero as DC in Denver going into the 2022 season. Despite the dysfunction on offense and Hackett being fired before season end, his defense finished 7th overall. In 2023 Frank Reich brought Evero in as DC for the Panthers where the defense is currently 3rd overall in the NFL. At 42 years old and 17 years of coaching, 15 of those have been spent at the NFL level.

          Evero has certainly demonstrated that he deserves a shot as a HC in the NFL. Despite all of the injuries this season, he has still managed to piece together a Top 3 defense.  However, there are some sins hidden in that statistic. That ranking is for total yards allowed. The Panthers still rank 24th in rush defense, 29th in points allowed, and 32nd in turnovers. (The Panthers only have 11 turnovers all season, the 49ers and Jaguars are tied for 1st with 25 per). Now to be fair, I understand that may from all of the injuries mentioned before and the poor positions the offense has put them in.

        Rumors have started heating up that the Panthers may want to keep Evero as DC and pair him with a 1st year HC. I could see this happening, the only flaw I see is the inevitable accusations of Tepper being too involved again. This will likely only lead to conversations about pulling strings from his office again and setting up the new HC to fail. I can see where the Panthers run out of good candidates early and just go with Evero during the interview process. This would allow them to hire a possible borderline HC candidate like Kellen Moore or Eric Bienemy who are on lame duck teams at the moment.

       We will know in a few weeks. I probably would be sad to see him go, but if keeping him prevents the Panthers from finding the right candidate in the search search, I wouldn't blink about moving on.