Joint practice will determine workload in finale

CHARLOTTE — The Panthers know the Houston Texans are coming Wednesday for a joint practice, and that will determine whether Dave Canales intends to play his starters in Friday’s preseason finale.

But it sounds like he’s leaning one way in particular.

Canales said that after planning this practice with Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans, it ought to be a sufficient workload that Friday’s game might not be necessary.

“Yeah, that’s still up in the air,” Canales said Monday, after another fully padded session. “Honestly, you know, we have a really, really intense practice planned with the Texans on Wednesday. So, depending on how we come out of that, if we get the volume that we’re looking for, the odds are they won’t play.

“If between DeMeco and I, if we’re not able to get the work that we wanted, there may be some early play for some of the guys, but we’re going to kind of make that decision after the practice.”

The Panthers starters got two series in Friday night in Jacksonville, after a similar workload against the Bills. The starters did not play in the Hall of Fame Game.

That likely means a lot of Kenny Pickettand Kyle Trask at quarterback Friday night.

Canales said that undrafted rookie quarterback Haynes King who suffered a hamstring injury during his dramatic last-second touchdown run in Canton, would not play this week.

“He will not be ready for the preseason finale,” Canales said. He’s getting his long speed and all that stuff up, but he’s not in a place where we can cut him loose to play football right now.”

While that’s a limited workload for the starters, they’ve also had an additional week of training camp as they prepared for the Hall of Fame Game, so the workloads have convinced Canales that fitness wasn’t a problem.