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Panthers HC Dave Canales speaks on joint practices for 2026 preseason
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- Panthers HC Dave Canales speaks on joint practices for 2026 preseason
If you love preseason games, then you'll love the Carolina Panthers ' summer schedule.
Thanks to their participation in this year's Hall of Fame Game , the defending NFC South champions will be playing a total of four exhibition contests. While not the most entertaining product the NFL has to offer, preseason play is valuable for coaching staffs that are trying to shape their vision and their rosters for the upcoming campaign.
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One way to spice things up, in a meaningful way, is to hold joint practices against the teams you'll be facing. Although his mentor in former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll steered away from these meetups, Panthers head coach Dave Canales has embraced them.
Canales was asked about the expected joint practices this preseason against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans .
"It's a controlled environment, and we're able to get high-intensity work, and we're able to manufacture different situations," he told reporters on Monday. "With the preseason games, they're extremely valuable...
"Obviously, they're out there, the players are out there playing games, but you don't always get all the situations you may go through a preseason and not get any goal line work, where you can work some goal line in a controlled setting with that type of understanding and really get to evaluate your team that way."
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Both teams should give the Panthers a challenge in at least one aspect. Houston arguably had the best defense in the league last season, and Jacksonville wasn't terribly far behind in this department. For the year, the Texans had the NFL's second-stingiest scoring defense after the Seattle Seahawks (17.4 points per game), while the Jaguars finished eighth (19.8).
The Panthers will open their preseason against the Arizona Cardinals in Canton, Ohio on Aug. 6. They'll follow up with outings versus the Buffalo Bills (Aug. 15), Jaguars (Aug. 21) and Texans (Aug. 28).
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This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Panthers HC Dave Canales talks joint practices with Jaguars, Texans
