What We Learned in the Panthers Second Preseason Game

A few notes from Friday's game against the New York Giants.

The Carolina Panthers got out to a rather slow start in Friday night's preseason game against the New York Giants, but finished strong and nearly pulled off a come-from-behind victory.

Here's a few things that stood out to me during the game.

There's a legit reason to be concerned with Ikem Ekwonu

It's been a brutal preseason for Carolina's 2022 first-round pick. He's allowed a handful of QB hits and a sack in just two games. In yesterday's game, he got beat on two consecutive plays by Kayvon Thibodeaux and Young took a big shot on each of them. On the sack, he looked like he was trying to pass Thibodeaux off to a tight end or something but there was no one there to pass him off to - a complete mental lapse. The next play, he just got beat on technique. Is it time to sound the panic alarm yet? No, but this is a growing concern.

Bryce Young is ready for Week 1

He's only thrown a handful of passes and led just a handful of drives, but you can tell Bryce Young is ready for the season opener. My guess is that they'll sit him out of the preseason finale against the Lions. But it also wouldn't surprise me if he got one drive and only one drive just to keep him fresh and allow the offense one more opportunity to start a game and not go three and out.

Defense still needs to build depth

Brian Burns, Justin Houston, Derrick Brown, and a few others weren't on the field, so it wasn't all that surprising to see the Giants' first-team offense drive right down the field and score like they did on the opening drive of the game. That said, the depth just simply isn't good enough. I've said for weeks that the defensive line is extremely thin and outside of a play here and there, it's evident. It's going to take some time for that depth to be built as they need to get the right body types/skillsets to fit this 3-4 scheme. There's not much Carolina can do right now to address the depth other than add maybe one more veteran to the mix. 

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