Who Will Play in Preseason Game vs New England?

Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule is "inching closer" to making a decision on the team's starting quarterback, which is expected to be Baker Mayfield. After going through two joint practices with the Patriots this week, it's highly unlikely that we see much of Mayfield in Friday's preseason game against New England.

"We're meeting on the reps tomorrow," Rhule said Wednesday. "We're planning on playing most of our twos and threes in this game. I don't know what they [New England] are going to do, but we're going to play a lot of the younger guys trying to make the team. We have a lot of injuries right now. We've lost a lot of guys from soft tissue stuff so we'll have to see what kind of shape we're in when we get the injury report tonight."

Regardless of the injury situation, the plan all along was to give the ones limited reps in this game. The joint practices present a lot of good on good work and situational football. In some way, they're more valuable than the preseason game itself. 

"I think you have a chance to really measure some of your players, measure where you are. Strengths and weaknesses of some different guys," Rhule said earlier in the week. "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."

Kickoff from Gillette Stadium is set for 7 p.m. EST.

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