Bryce Young looks sharp again in entertaining Carolina Panthers Fan Fest
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It had been 202 days since the Carolina Panthers last played football in front of their home fans at Bank of America Stadium.
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The stakes were a lot lower Friday night when the team returned to the field. This was a glorified intrasquad scrimmage called “Fan Fest,” rather than an NFC playoff game against the L.A. Rams. But there were still a whole lot of excited fans in black and blue — more than I expected would come, really. The Panthers distributed 47,736 tickets, and the stadium looked about 60% full.
The fans who did come on a pleasant summer night paid $5 apiece (which went to charity) to watch a somewhat entertaining practice, one that featured quarterback Bryce Young looking sharp once again and cornerback Jaycee Horn gleefully intercepting a trick pass thrown by wide receiver Jalen Coker. It ended with fireworks, always a crowd pleaser, with head coach Dave Canales’ postgame news conference featuring a soundtrack of booms in the background.
“What a fun night,” Canales said, and most of the people in the stands seemed to have that impression, too.
Fan Fest traditionally closes the door on the Panthers’ first full week of training camp. So where do we find the team at that juncture, leading into Carolina playing in a nationally televised contest at the Pro Football Hall of Fame game Thursday?
Well, it’s had its ups and downs.
The most significant injury of training camp was a doozy and came on the very first day, when second-year pass rusher Nic Scourton tore up his knee July 23 and was soon declared out for the season. That was a massive blow, and losing speedy rookie wide receiver Chris Brazzell to another knee injury Wednesday didn’t help, either.
I also wonder about the offensive tackle situation, with its various injuries and substitutions. As anyone who saw Super Bowl 50 knows, if your tackles can’t protect your quarterback, you’re not going to win many games.
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On the positive side, Young looks more in command of the offense than he ever has. In his first drive of Fan Fest on Friday, he directed the team straight down the field and didn’t seem to break a sweat doing it, hitting every receiver in sight before Chuba Hubbard ran the ball in for a TD.
Some of the crowd’s energy Friday may have been due to the fact that training camp practices are closed this summer because of construction at the team’s practice facility in uptown Charlotte. This, then, was the serious fan’s first shot at looking at new faces like Lee Hunter, the Panthers’ 315-pound rookie defensive tackle.
Hunter proclaimed Friday’s whole experience “mind-blowing,” which was a touching sentiment. Think how he’s going to feel when he gets into an actual NFL game.
There were a couple of other things I liked about this Fan Fest.
One was that the Panthers brought about two dozen of their alumni onto the field, from Wesley Walls to Jonathan Stewart to Dwight Stone and Captain Munnerlyn. In that group also was Thomas Davis. He was wearing a Sam Mills No. 51 jersey to honor the late Panthers linebacker who made the Pro Football Hall of Fame and also came up with the phrase “Keep Pounding.”
The best way to end Fan Fest 👏 pic.twitter.com/erlfiWKLGN
The other was that on the last play of the scrimmage, when the team subbed in 6-year-old Asher Harvey, a Make-a-Wish kid who promptly took a handoff from Young and scored on the practice’s final play.
Canales had prepped the crowd beforehand that this was going to happen, so Asher’s appearance drew the biggest cheer of the evening. It was a nice ending to a night that doesn’t mean a lot in football terms, ultimately, but did give a real indication that the Panthers’ tremendous fan support at the end of last season is alive and well seven months later.
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