Panthers coach Ron Rivera is going to have a little help with in-game situations this year, and he’s getting it from a familiar face.
The Panthers announced their coaching staff changes, including recently reported additions of Everette Brown as assistant linebackers coach and Ben Jacobs as assistant special teams coach.
The new responsibility for helping Rivera as game management coach will go to Sam Mills III, who has been with the staff for 15 years. He’ll assist Rivera with clock management, replay challenges and “other situational football analysis.”
The son of the legendary Panthers linebacker, Mills has spent the last eight years as assistant defensive line coach. He recently served as head coach for the East-West Shrine Game.
“Sam sees the game from a different perspective,” Rivera said in the team’s release. “He’s very interested in how the league operates, how the game operates. By that I mean he’s a guy that pays attention to the rules, he pays attention to replay and he understands time management and score management.”
Since Rivera’s going to continue to call defensive plays, coordinator Eric Washington will be able to concentrate more on being a line coach, which he was good at prior to being promoted after the Panthers lost coordinators to head coaching jobs the last two years.