Carolina Panthers announce addition of former NFL head coach Jim Caldwell as senior assistant role

The Carolina Panthers announced Tuesday that former longtime NFL coach Jim Caldwell will join their staff in a senior assistant role. Caldwell will reportedly help newly hired Panthers head coach Frank Reich with the team’s offense, defense, and special teams moving forward.

Caldwell brings over 15 years of NFL coaching experience with him to Charlotte, and was actually one of nine coaches that interviewed for the Panthers head coaching job earlier this year.

Reich and Caldwell worked together for the Indianapolis Colts under Toney Dungey in 2006, Reich as coaching intern and Caldwell as the assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach. The two were a part of the Colts Super Bowl XLI victory, one of two Super Bowl staff’s Caldwell was a part of during his career.

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Jim Caldwell played collegiate football at Iowa and started his coaching career with the Hawkeyes as well as a graduate assistant in 1977. He made assistant coaching stops at places like Northwestern, Colorado, Louisville, and Penn State before landing the first head coaching job of his career at Wake Forest. He was named the head coach of the Demon Deacons in 1993, becoming the first African-American head coach in the ACC.

He was the head coach at Wake Forrest for eight seasons, ending his tenure 26-63 with one winning season in 1999 capped off with an Aloha Bowl victory over Arizona State. He then jumped to the professional level, becoming the quarterbacks coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2001 before his seven-year tenure with the Colts serving as their assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach.

He coached future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, and two years after the team’s Super Bowl XLI was announced as the successor-in-waiting for head coach Toney Dungey. He took over the reigns as Indianapolis’ head coach in 2009, leading them to a 14-2 season and taking them all the way to Super Bowl XLIV where they’d be defeated by the New Orleans Saints.

He ended his three-year tenure as the Colts’ head coach with a 26-22 record, and three years later became the head coach of the Detroit Lions. In his four years in Detroit, he’d lead the Lions to a 36-28 record, and also made coaching stops with the Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins before and after his run with the Lions.