Quick Hits: Shaq's Return, Question Marks with Roster, Baker's Play Since Named QB1 + More

Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule met with the media following today's practice.

Plan for backup QBs

"Yeah, we'll play Baker [Mayfield] into the second quarter is the hope. It could be later. It could be earlier. We'll kind of get a feel for hey, we've had enough. Go on. After that, we'll put Sam [Darnold] in and then finish with P.J. [Walker]."

Development of Giovanni Ricci

"We're really high on Gio. He can play fullback. He can play tight end. He's made catches in the games and he's an excellent special teams player. Gio is kind of one of those hybrid, chess piece type players that we like. We can only have 53 guys but that doesn't mean that you can have 53 positions. You can have a guy that can play multiple positions."

Shaq Thompson's return to play

"It's going great. He got reps yesterday. We wanted to give him four and I think they ended up giving him six or eight. Today, I think he was supposed to get up to eight, and knowing Shaq, he probably got up to ten. He got run into yesterday which was scary at first, but it was probably great in the end for him for his confidence. We have to be smart with how we're reintroducing him which we are doing. I think Shaq's going to be just fine."

Biggest questions with the roster

"I think we feel pretty good about the roster overall. There's still some questions that we have to answer and a lot of them will probably come down to who's healthy and who's not. Where do we have the most depth? How many tailbacks? How many tight ends? It's not necessarily at one position but it's do we take an extra receiver or an extra tight end? Those are really the conversations we're having. Who are the best special teams players? There'll be some hard conversations over the next couple of days."

Baker Mayfield's play since being named the starter

"I think he's been good. Our defense presents a lot of challenges. We play a lot of man, a lot of tight quarters. You're really depending on some guys to make some plays for you. Yesterday, the red zone period was as good as we've ever had. I still think there's some things that we need to work on. In terms of getting to the right spot, getting the right calls, and getting the right protections, everything is pretty on point."

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