Terrance 'Pot Roast' Knighton begins coaching career

Sir Purr

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Mar 16, 2019
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Of course, being a 350-pound-plus nose tackle made it resonate, but it's also a working man's meal, and Knighton was willing to do the grunt work then and now.


His job with the Panthers is the absolute entry-level position on an NFL coaching staff, as he learns to communicate what he knew as a player.


Knighton spent the last three years coaching at Wagner, learning the basics of coaching at the FCS level, far from the catered flights of the NFL. And his connection with Panthers head coach Matt Rhule (once his position coach at Temple) earned him a shot to take a step up.


(For the record, Rhule refers to him simply as "T," since their Temple days were pre-Pot Roast.)


"It's just like anything else, when you're the best midget football player, you go to high school and you're a freshman again. When you go to the NFL, you're a rookie — it's the same thing," Knighton said. "Whenever you start something new, it's important that you're humble and you're open-minded about things. . . .


"Starting here this week, I'm just learning as much as possible, learning the verbiage, learning the playbook, doing my due diligence so that when I have the responsibility to do something, that I'm ready for it."


Knighton had one of the truly unglamorous jobs in the NFL, but he also knows enough about the game to know that good nose tackles do more than take up space. He also had the chance to get some in-person lessons from two of the game's greats in Denver, veterans who taught him what it truly meant to prepare.


"The great players in this game, they always talk about their mental approach, not their physical approach," Knighton said. "Everyone lifts weights, everyone runs, everyone takes care of their bodies the right way for the most part. If you look at the great players, it's their mental approach. Playing with Peyton Manning and DeMarcus Ware, guys like that, you see their approach to the game mentally is just as vital as playing the game."
 
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