Josh Norman arrived in Carolina as a fifth-round draft pick in 2012, a raw talent in need of direction and already in possession of a big personality.
Perhaps that made Steve Wilks the perfect man to coach him.
“I’m wired different,” Norman said. “But so is he.”
Wilks now is the new head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, but then he was the defensive backs coach for the Panthers, a strong personality himself. One of Wilks’ own tenets was that while you teach every player the same, you most certainly had to coach them differently.
Without a relationship, the rest won’t work, and the relationships are evident, from one-time Wilks’ pupils like Antonio Cromartie, Eric Weddle, Kurt Coleman, new Cardinal Bené
Benwikere and, yes, Norman.