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The Carolina Panthers are reportedly hiring Jonathan Cooley to be the team’s next defensive backs coach.
Hearing the Carolina Panthers intend to bring former Rams DBs coach Jonathan Cooley aboard their defensive staff, as a DBs coach. Cooley - another young assistant - was first hired in 2020 to help Brandon Staley install their new defense and has worked w/ DBs since.
— Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) February 14, 2023
League source confirms Jonathan Cooley will join Panthers as cornerbacks coach.
— Joe Person (@josephperson) February 14, 2023
Cooley has spent the last three seasons with the Rams after a somewhat rapid rise through the coaching world. His first coaching job was the cornerbacks coach at Millikin University in 2011. He climbed through the ranks almost year over year before finally getting an NFL job in 2020 with the Rams as part of the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship.
He served as defensive quality control for his first two seasons before being promoted to defensive backs coach for the 2022 season. He filled the void left when Ejiro Evero went to Denver after working under the now-Panthers defensive coordinator for two seasons.
Cooley has a Master’s Degree in sports leadership, which is a cool little notch on the resume.
It’s hard to have a strong opinion of who Cooley is as a coach with the limited information we have about him. But he came from a well coached organization in the Rams, and the speed with which he’s risen from position coach at Division III Millikin to position coach in the NFL suggests he knows what he’s doing.
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