CHARLOTTE — Chuba Hubbard didn't like what he was seeing or hearing.

And so at that moment, unbeknownst to head coach Dave Canales, practice came to a stop for a second.

Hubbard, the veteran running back and conscience of the offensive side of the ball, got his guys together, called for the defense to get to the sideline, and led a quick group gasser, from sideline to sideline and back.

"Non-focused, do your jobs," center Austin Corbett said of the impromptu conditioning. "Just wanted to tighten things up."

Hubbard and quarterback Bryce Young were at the front of the line, but their entire side of the ball ran after a couple of pre-snap penalties, the kind Canales has been preaching about avoiding. The Panthers are building and improving, but they're not at a point where they can afford self-inflicted wounds.

And Hubbard had seen enough.

"That was all player-led," Canales said. "They have been talking to each other, holding each other accountable to the pre-snap stuff that I've been harping on. You know, I'm not a big fan of the gassers. I believe that we practice hard enough, we don't need to do that kind of stuff and try to add more volume to the high intensities that I'm expecting in all phases.

"But for the guys, it means something to them, and that was their way of trying to address it today. So I think the message was taken across the board and there was a good response that way."

He liked the global lesson, even if he didn't want them overworking themselves, even for the sake of a point. But he admitted he was also confused by it all for a moment.

"We were going into 7-on-7 and all of a sudden they're saying 'Sideline, sideline,'" he recalled. "I was like, no, it's not move-the-ball yet, and then I was like looking like what's happening here, and then somebody came up and was like Bryce and Chuba are having the whole group do gassers right here off of that pre-snap foul that we had."

Canales wasn't the only one taken aback.

"I don't know," wide receiver Jalen Coker said. "I was just following instructions."

"I was like, keep going, keep running," outside linebacker D.J. Wonnum said. "When I see that, I love it, you know what I'm saying. That means we're doing something right defensively, so just seeing those guys run gets them a little more tired to help me out a little more in practice."

"It's a great point," Corbett said with a shake of the head. "Unless you're fat."

It was just one quick sprint in the middle of one practice at the end of one training camp.

But it was also a sign of what Canales has been looking for.

He wants a player-led team, one in which the locker room polices itself. When guys are looking after each other, he doesn't have to.

"It's ownership," Canales said. "And I think that's when it becomes powerful when the messaging and the standards of what we're doing is a cultural thing. Again, coaches, we set the foundation, we give the information, we give our experiences of things that we've learned over the course of years.

"But it becomes powerful when the players own it, when the players say this is how we're going to play defense here, this is how we're going to play offense here. And when they capture that part of it, just like anything else, it's skin in the game. It's like, guys, this is our team, but more specifically, this is your team. Who do we want to say we're going to be?"

Tuesday, he saw it with his own eyes when Hubbard took a moment to make a point, and led the way.