Notes from Panthers practice pre-Eagles game, including key injury updates
Tuesdays are usually reserved as “off” days for teams across the NFL — a time to recover before charging headlong into a new gameplan before Sunday.
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This week was different, though, for the Carolina Panthers.
Head coach Dave Canales hosted practice on Tuesday and will have Wednesday be an easier day before ramping the group back up for Thursday and having a “regular” week of preparation thereafter on Friday and Saturday. The Panthers (2-2) play the Philadelphia Eagles (2-3) on the road at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Canales explained why he took this approach on Tuesday — adding that “friends around the league” endorsed such an approach after the bye week.
“You have a little bit of a break,” Canales said. “So yesterday, we had some movement, some workouts, shorter meetings. Get the coaches back in there to get the gameplan done. And then getting out there on Tuesday, earlier in the week, you get a chance to really knock the rust off.”
Canales said that one of the days during the bye week, he saw 30-35 players at the facility — which, “I haven’t really been a part of that, so the guys really enjoy being here.”
“Getting our first practice in on Tuesday, the high intensities, we padded up, it was a physical day; we’re giving them a day to recover tomorrow … and then going through our normal routine,” Canales said. He added, “(It gives us) a chance to take advantage of the rest.”
This was far from the only newsy thing to report from Panthers practice on Tuesday. Here are five notes from practice, including an update on a plethora of injuries the Panthers are working through.
It’s true that the team’s injured reserve is quite long. It’s also true that those on the active roster — in other words, the players who will be asked to play on Sundays — are healing rather quickly.
The only two players who were on the 53-man roster and who didn’t participate in practice were tight end Tommy Tremble (undisclosed) and offensive tackle Monroe Freeling (knee). Everyone else was accounted for, including several who were considered day-to-day not all that long ago.
In lieu of an official practice report — that’s not required on Tuesdays —here’s what the Panthers are looking like from Wednesday:
The Panthers also followed through on what Canales said they’d do on Monday and opened up the 21-day practice windows of running back Trevor Etienne (ankle), defensive tackle Turk Wharton (neck) and offensive tackle Taylor Moton (blood clots discovered in his lung). All three warmed up with the team and had heavy workloads in team drills. Etienne even appeared to be the primary punt returner in individual work.
“They all got a good significant amount of reps,” Canales said of the three return-from-IR players. “That was the plan. … We want to see how their bodies respond to today’s physical padded practice before we make any decisions.”
Just as Wharton returns to beef up the defensive line, another gets announced out for the year.
The Panthers will be losing former fifth-round pick Cam Jackson for the rest of the season, Canales announced Tuesday. The second-year defensive lineman will have surgery on his shoulder, Canales said, and will also be recovering from a knee injury he suffered earlier this year.
The development is an unfortunate development for Jackson, who has only been active for one contest through the team’s first four and has been supplanted by rookie draft pick Lee Hunter and undrafted rookie Aaron Hall.
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“We practice physically, so these are the things that kept on popping up,” Canales said. “And we made a decision to put him on IR right now to address this.”
The front office has regularly remarked that they love Jackson’s potential — much of which is rooted in his formidable wingspan stretching from his 6-foot-6, 340-pound frame.
Panthers quarterback Bryce Young didn’t bask too much in praise when the “M-V-P!” chants descended upon him at Bank of America Stadium.
So what makes you think he’d say anything new after the week-long Young mania that was the Panthers’ bye week?
Young, who has played one fewer game than pretty much every MVP-contending QB in the league right now, sits ninth among all QBs in passing yards and 10th in passer rating on the year. His greatness got him as the guest selector on College GameDay on Saturday, which took place in Tuscaloosa, and made him a guest announcer on the ManningCast in the first half of Monday Night Football.
Young didn’t pay such hoopla too much mind.
He barely mentioned it when prodded about it Tuesday.
“It was good, some cool experiences, but you definitely miss football, you miss the locker room, you miss everyone, so I’m super excited to be back,” Young said. He added that when he wasn’t visiting his Alabama alma mater, he was “just here” — one of the 30-something players in the building. He added: “Good opportunity to reset, but obviously we’re back to work.”
Young doesn’t have social media, he said Monday. And that’s “less about football” and more about his preference as moving throughout his everyday life. When asked if he misses it since giving it up sophomore year of college, he shrugged and crinkled his forehead and answered predictably: “No, not at all.”
Canales, too, hasn’t paid much attention to the buzz, either.
“Honestly, I haven’t really leaned in to listening to all of that,” Canales said. “It’s timely. This type of attention is earned by working hard every day, by trying to find out how good you can be. … His natural growth and progression continues to take strides every week.”
The Panthers are 2-2 and sit atop the NFC South, and if they continue their contending ways, they could be in the mix during the trade deadline for the first time in a long time. The deadline is at 4 p.m. Nov. 10.
Canales said he and general manager Dan Morgan discuss finding ways to improve their roster “all the time.” Canales on Monday wouldn’t go into detail on which positions the team is focusing on improving, but a prominent one could be the cornerback room, considering how rough of a showing the defensive backfield had against the Lions.
Plus? The Panthers’ starting two corners, Jaycee Horn and Mike Jackson, are on the injured reserve and aren’t returning until at least Week 12 (and that’s being optimistic).
“I won’t get into specific positions or anything like that,” Canales said. “But Dan has done a great job of trying to look for opportunities that may present themselves to challenge our roster in the right way. So we’re always open, always looking.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2026 at 7:22 PM with the headline “Notes from Panthers practice pre-Eagles game, including key injury updates.”
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