Dave Canales names six Panthers players who stood out to him in preseason opener

A handful of Panthers who caught the eye of head coach Dave Canales.

Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports

Offensively, it wasn't a great showing for the Carolina Panthers in the preseason loss to the New England Patriots, but head coach Dave Canales still saw some encouraging things from a handful of players.

Following Sunday morning's practice, he rattled off a few players toward the bottom of the roster who showed some good things on tape.

“I thought D’Shawn Jamison did a great job. He made some plays defensively. He let one big one get out of there, and on that play, Trevin Wallace from the back side ran it down and knocked the guy out at the three yard line which is great for us. We always believe just give us a blade of grass and we’ll stop them, so that kind of effort is what we’re looking for in order to just give us another chance to stop them. Alex Cook had a fantastic preseason game. He tackled well in the open field. I was excited to see that. Eku Leota just played so hard and gave effort in all phases. 

“Offensively, it was great to see Mike Boone have a couple of nice runs and just see that he’s a guy that we can trust as we put our whole thing together. We didn’t have a great day passing, so it was really hard to evaluate some of the guys. Not a lot of them really took advantage of their opportunities. The tight ends did. The tight ends group showed up to be dependable in some of the play-actions, the checkdowns, and things that we were doing. (OT Ricky Lee) really had a fantastic preseason game. I loved seeing him out there. I think he’s been battling this camp. He gets to go against Jadeveon Clowney at times to challenge him. But he looked like he really settled in that game and he played pretty good. He’s still got a lot to improve, but he definitely took a step in the right direction.”

MORE STORIES FROM PANTHERS ON SI

Panthers Make Series of Roster Moves to Improve Depth in the Trenches

Panthers signing former seventh-round draft pick to fill interior OL vacancy

NFL analyst ranks DC Ejiro Evero among league's elite playcallers

Carolina Panthers' 53-man outlook following first preseason game