Source: Jared C. Tilton / Getty
The biggest news that came out of Wednesday’s press conference from Panthers head coach Frank Reich is that the team is about as beat up as it can be exiting the first week of the season.
Starting left guard Brady Christensen will miss the rest of this season with a bicep injury, which means, for the time being, the Panthers will be down to two backup guards as their starters for the next few weeks until Austin Corbett can return from his torn ACL suffered at the end of the 2022 season.
Reich provided the other dejecting tidbit on Wednesday, saying that star corner Jaycee Horn will be out for an extended period of time with his hamstring injury. “It is a serious hamstring injury. He’s going to be out for a while. He is working through getting other opinions and seeing the full extent of it.” While Horn is getting those other opinions, the initial reactions to the injury don’t paint a promising picture. “He knew right away; I could tell the second I got out there. He kinda felt it pop so you probably knew from the start it wasn’t going to be good.”
This is just the latest ailment in what has now become a string of bad luck injuries to begin his career for the third-year man out of South Carolina. As a rookie, Horn suffered a broken foot in the third game of the season against Houston after his foot got stuck in the turf at NRG Stadium. Last year was a much healthier year for him, but he still missed four games while dealing with rib and hands injuries. Now, in an important year for his future with the team, he will miss an extended period of time.
Social media has reacted as you would expect, with some bringing up the question of whether or not the former No. 8 overall draft pick is already considered a bust. While Mac & Bone gave their own pushback to it this morning, it was former Panthers wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad, who joined the guys on Thursday, that really put things into perspective. “I tore my hamstring my first year, I broke my wrist in my second year. The only other major surgery I had came in the offseason of my third year where I had some bone chips removed from my elbow. Take those first three years of kinda getting beat up and bounced around a little bit trying to figure yourself out because your body is changed once you get out of college. For most guys it takes one to two, maybe three years to really figure out your body, your nutrition, your stretching. And so I’m not ready to right Jaycee Horn off.”
Listen to the full interview with Muhsin Muhammad below where he talks more about the injury issues for the team and his takeaways from the loss to the Falcons and make sure to subscribe to the Mac & Bone Show Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Panthers Fans Calling Jaycee Horn a Bust Amid Latest Injury was originally published on wfnz.com
