The Carolina Panthers held a mock game at Bank of America stadium today, and to say head coach Matt Rhule was unsatisfied with its result would be an understatement. The first-year NFL coach told reporters afterward he was “not overly pleased” with the energy level of the starters.
Rhule: "I was not overly pleased with the starters. We did not play like a team that was excited to be out there. … It was not the requisite level we needed to play at a high level."
— Joe Person (@josephperson) September 4, 2020
With the Panthers announcing an empty stadium for at least Week 1 against the Raiders, creating energy on the field will be solely on the players and coaching staff. Even though many teams intend to pump artificial crowd noise in, the atmosphere lost without live fans in attendance is sure to change the experience.
One problem is that after losing the league’s highest number of players to free agency, trade and retirement over the last few months, this group’s chemistry is still forming. They’ll need every opportunity to build it up.
Unfortunately, those opportunities have been severely limited this year with the lack of any preseason games. While the most obvious victims of this development have been the rookies fighting for a roster spot, the inability of teams to practice in a real game limits how they can grow.
There were a couple upsides to today’s practice though, with Joe Person of The Athletic singling out all-pro running back Christian McCaffrey and versatile defensive back Jeremy Chinn as two bright spots on an otherwise lackluster performance on the field today. Rhule also mentioned that he liked the energy level many of the second and third-team players put in, which makes sense, given many of them are competing for their roster spots.
Roster cuts are expected to begin tonight and continue into tomorrow morning. The Panthers roster currently sits at 79, and it needs to be cut down to 53 by Saturday at 4:00 p.m. ET.
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