Joint Practices with Patriots to Reveal Where the Panthers Stand

The Panthers' coaching staff learned a lot about their team in their joint practices with the Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts a year ago. They found out how much they would struggle along the offensive line and realized that the offense was far from a finished product.

This year, the Panthers will get that measuring stick opportunity against the New England Patriots. The two will hold joint practices today and Wednesday ahead of the preseason game inside Gillette Stadium on Friday.

"I think you have a chance to really measure some of your players, measure where you are. Strengths and weaknesses of some different guys," said head coach Matt Rhule. "We've played one game and some guys played seven plays, some guys played 30 plays, some guys didn't play. In the practices, we'll get a lot of reps each day to really evaluate our guys versus another team with different schemes."

Rhule will have his eyes on all sorts of things throughout the week, including the most obvious, the quarterback battle. However, there is one practice period that he feels is going to reveal a lot with the quarterbacks and many other spots as well.

"We'll get a lot of different things, but our two-minute offense and defense. Our first team defense didn't get a chance to do two-minute in the game. To have a chance for our one defense to go against their one offense in the two-minute, end of game scenario. That's really valuable for us."

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