Quick Hits: Trade Deadline Conversations, Hurst's Declining Role, OL Problems + More

Carolina Panthers head coach Frank Reich met with the media Monday afternoon.

If there was a miscommunication on the 4th down play to Thielen

"Yeah. There was a miscommunication, so hats off to Adam because you're breaking out and expecting the ball on time and all of a sudden you see Miles (Sanders) running at you and it could be a big-time distraction to both Adam and to Bryce (Young) throwing it. Adam had great concentration and was still able to make the play."

Offensive line give up several sacks

"Certainly the protection can be better, but I thought a couple of the sacks the protection was good and they were coverage sacks. Probably two or three of those I would probably put it in the category of coverage sacks."

Ikem Ekwonu's struggles

"Ickey is a great player. He had one or two struggles in the pass game, but same thing. He's like every other player on the team. There's a couple bad plays and there were a lot of good plays. We're confident in Ickey and the player that he is."

Why Hayden Hurst's role has decreased

"That's just more rotation. Credit to Tommy (Tremble), he's playing good football. And we love Hayden. Hayden is playing good football. We love all our players, but just because you're named starter at the beginning of the year doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to get all the reps and all the touches as it goes."

Impression of Thomas Brown calling the game

"Just the poise. Even the third down call. Just the way he processed through that very quickly and I thought the mix on the last drive was good. He was comfortable with it. Felt poised. It was a 15-play drive, 80 some yards using up six minutes and seventeen seconds, so that was just a well-executed drive. I thought Thomas called it perfectly."

Approaching the trade deadline

"I had a brief conversation with Scott within the last 24 hours of just some phone calls that he was taking and I actually plan on sitting down with him this afternoon sometime to see if anything else has come up. I've learned in these situations, trust the GM. He's leading that process. He'll do a great job. He'll pull me in when needed and we'll have some conversations later today to see if anything has come up in the last 24 hours that's worth talking about and sometimes it does and then sometimes, things fizzle out. 

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