—Before retiring this offseason, Nick Saban built a dynasty with the Alabama Crimson Tide. His seven total national championships (one with LSU, six with Alabama) are the most for a coach of all time. But Saban’s legacy has perpetrated not only the college level but the NFL as well.
While the head coach at Bama, Saban had 123 players selected in the NFL draft. In the 2023 season alone, Alabama had 72 players appear in at least a regular season game..) All were coached by Saban.
Dave Canales has seen the Saban effect filter through the NFL at every stop of his career, with the Seattle Seahawks, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Carolina Panthers.
“It feels like they play a lot of football,” Canales joked Tuesday at the NFL Combine. “I don’t know how they get it done, and I don’t know what the rules are and all that, but the Alabama product feels like those guys play a lot of ball. You get a really polished product.”
Playing that much ball also hardens someone, which, in turn, serves as a foundation in the NFL.
“There’s a toughness to them,” Canales continued. “It feels like they know what they’re there for, to play ball. There aren’t a lot of questions asked about what you ask them to do. They show up, and they do what they’re asked; they know it’s their job, and they take pride in it.”
This toughness is something Canales is already seeing in his quarterback, Bryce Young.
Young is a Saban product that reached the highest of highs in college, heading into the NFL. Young won a National Championship and a Heisman Trophy at Alabama, was named a consensus All-American, and became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft.
He infamously went 2-14 as a starter in his rookie season with the Panthers while taking a franchise record-tying 62 sacks. What he did the next play, though, gives Canales confidence that Young can be another tough Alabama product.
“You watch a lot of tape when you look back, (things) you didn’t see that when you were on the other side, just like courage,” Canales said of what jumps out about Young’s tape. “Play before he gets smoked. Next play, he stands in there and rips a 15 yard in-cut in the face of the rush. Just kind of just seeing that courage that he has, the short memory, going to that next play mentality, that’s been really encouraging to me.”
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