CHARLOTTE — Panthers left tackle Ikem Ekwonu just smiled when asked about his availability for this weekend, because we've entered the competitive advantage portion of the obfuscation season.

Head coach Dave Canales described him as "day-to-day," heading into Sunday's regular season opener against the Jaguars, and Ekwonu himself wasn't giving away anything about his availability. He didn't practice on Monday.

"I'm following the plan set forth for me, so I'm not going to rule anything out," Ekwonu said with a grin.

But mostly, he was smiling because he felt better than he had "in some time" prior to an emergency surgery to remove his appendix eight days earlier.

"Definitely feeling better every day," he said. "The whole experience is a little wild, definitely unexpected. But you know, definitely fortunate that we caught it at the right time and we were able to get it out ASAP."

The night before his surgery, he went out with the offensive line for Robert Hunt's birthday celebration, but wasn't feeling it.

"But obviously I wanted to go out and show love to my boy Rob for his birthday," he said. "So I went over there fighting through it a little bit, and I really felt it like that night. That's probably one of the worst nights I've felt, and so everything transpired after that."

He said his father, a doctor, first encouraged him to get it checked out when the abdominal pain went from a few days of upset stomach to something more persistent.

Ekwonu also flexed a little medical vocabulary, the kind you pick up from having a doctor in the family.

"I understand the appendix is what they call a vestigial organ," he said. "Something that humans don't even need anymore, so I knew that, so I understood that removing it wouldn't really long-term impact me, but I was still a little like green. I wasn't really sure what to expect, and everything, like the quickness of how fast they got me into the operating room, was also a little bit of a surprise."

But after recovering from the laparoscopic procedure, he's back on his feet and hanging with his teammates, staying in meetings.

If he can't play Sunday, Canales said either Yosh Nijman or Brady Christensen would start at left tackle — they each started multiple games last year — but they're not ruling Ekwonu out yet. Then-Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick played eight days after his surgery in 2022, but others have been out longer.

Either way, Ekwonu was looking on the bright side on Monday.

"It's definitely been tough, obviously, like with the timing and stuff in the season, but I'm just going to try and stay as positive as I can," he said. "They were telling me you only get one appendix, so now that it's out, it's done. I never have to worry about it again. So I get comfort in that."

Bonus Monday brings an extra practice

The Panthers are now in regular-season mode, with Monday's extra practice their last before they resume the in-season calendar. After Tuesday's day off, they'll practice on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before leaving Saturday for Jacksonville.

And it didn't hurt that it was a perfect day, clear blue skies and temperatures in the 70s, and Bryce Young was out there dropping deep balls to Xavier on a day when the offense appeared to have an edge in the competitive periods.

"The guys look fresh, they look fast, a lot of excitement out there," Canales said.

Injury update on Damien Lewis, Tommy Tremble

Left guard Damien Lewis practiced again Monday after some abbreviated work last week, as he's coming back from a shoulder injury during the joint practice with the Browns.

Canales didn't offer much of an update (he didn't have to), but he has been optimistic about Lewis being able to return this week.

Tight end Tommy Tremble was also practicing Monday, after he was activated from the PUP list after the final preseason game, following offseason back surgery.

"He looks great. I mean, as good as I remember, maybe better, he looks fast, he looks strong," Canales said. "He's got really two exposures now limited in that first practice last week coming back today was a little bit more, he's handling the load we'll, we'll check in with him again this afternoon and kind of see how he feels, but, he's been locked in mentally the whole time and now it's just a matter of getting his, his feet underneath him and finding those rhythms and being able to block different body types and and those things but I'm excited about."

Additional leadership from weekly captains

Players voted on season-long captains last week which were announced Monday, and they chose Young, Derrick Brown, and JJ Jansen.

Canales said coaches will pick a rotating captain each week, rewarding a player "who is playing the type of play style, showing the type of character we're looking for, and we like to celebrate those guys and call them out front at the end of the week."

Last year, when the season captains were Brown, Sam Franklin, Shaq Thompson, and Young, they rolled through a lot of supplemental captains, from Jaycee Horn and Chuba Hubbard and Jansen to special teamers like Claudin Cherelus.

Canales said it was among the many things he picked up from his mentor, Pete Carroll.

"He kind of looked for a way to like celebrate and acknowledge somebody who's just given everything they got contributing to the team," Canales said. "A team guy exhibiting the play-style that we're looking for, the toughness, playing smart, and really making a contribution.

And on top of that, we also have a scout team player of the week for somebody who we just see continuing to take steps and grow, develop, and really treat every day like a championship moment and their opportunity to get better. And we recognize that as well at the end of the week. They don't go out for the coin toss, so really it's like a fifth captain that we kind of recognize, and it's no different than the players that we want to pay to be here long term. We reward the guys that look like Panthers football players and the vision and the dreams that we have, what we imagine our group becoming, we just kind of point to those things like guys, this is us, this is who we're looking for, this is how we want to play football."