The Panthers held their final padded practice of the preseason on Tuesday and things got a little more heated than they would have liked.
Cornerback Jaycee Horn took a swing at left tackle Ickey Ekwonu during a scrum between the offense and defense at one point in the session. Head coach Dave Canales called that a “good teachable moment” to remind players of the consequences of doing something like that in a game while also taking some blame for the rise in temperature.
“May have pushed the guys a little bit too hard in the team meeting this morning,” Canales said, via the team’s website.
Canales didn’t sound overly upset about the direction things went during the workout, however. He said the Panthers “crescendoed to a place that I want our football to be and we have to be comfortable operating there” in the regular season.
“We try to push the guys to the edge,” Canales said. “We went a little bit over. But at the same time, that’s the edginess we have to play with when we have these opportunities, we have to be able to play a physical style of football and, you know, sometimes it goes a little too far.”
The Panthers will face the Steelers on Thursday and then they’ll have a little more than two weeks to calibrate themselves for their opener against the Jaguars.
