CHARLOTTE — Wednesday's practice started like most normal Wednesday practices in the NFL. The Panthers took the field late afternoon, walking through individual drills and jogging through 7-on-7s. Then, as team drills began, the intensity ratcheted up.

Despite it being a non-padded day, guys ran through scrums with a vengeance, and even hopped head-first into some post-play jawing among some of the usual suspects (you can generally find Jaycee Horn in the middle of such action).

After a 26-10 loss to the Jaguars on Sunday in Week 1, one could assume the mood would be downtrodden, resigned. But it was the opposite.

"I think when you play a game like that it's, all the guys are—it means something to them," Canales shared after the first practice in preparation for the Arizona Cardinals. "They were a little bit testy with each other, I don't mind saying that."

And Canales was a fan.

"I like seeing that," he admitted. "It matters to them, they care, and that's the type of focus and energy that we need, the type of passion that it takes to continue to grow our schemes, to continue to play together. It requires that type of accountability with each other."

There is limited time to reflect on a loss in the NFL. If players linger on those thoughts in a negative way, they can infiltrate preparation for the next opponent and ruin a game plan. And for the rookies, coming from a college system where one loss can derail a season, veterans in the locker room are doing their best to teach them how to turn a page, let it become fuel instead of dousing a fire, and look forward.

"It's hard to win every game in the NFL," outside linebacker Patrick Jones II noted Wednesday. "I've been a part of great teams, and we still haven't won every single game in the NFL. Most of the time, you're going to at least lose one game, and that's just how it is because it's just everybody's good. So it's just about not taking the loss to heart. It's about using it as a lesson and learning."

Ikem Ekwonu just "stacking good days" in return from appendectomy

Left tackle Ikem Ekwonu drew a crowd of media in his corner of the locker room, but not everyone arrived at the same time.

As such, he got about three different versions of the same reasonable question: How was he recovering from his appendectomy and would be ready for Sunday after missing the opener?

"I'm stacking up good days," he said. "Today was definitely a good one, and just keep stacking them up."

"So just like I said earlier, keep stacking up good days," he said later.

"Like I said, keep stacking good days on top of good days and you know we'll see what they say on Sunday," he said at another point.

Apparently, and we're not 100 percent sure here, but Ekwonu hopes to stack good days.

"To be real, y'all did ask the same question three times," he laughed at another point in the scrum.

That he was able to laugh was a good sign. He was listed as limited on Wednesday's injury report, and Canales said he looked good in the work that he did.

"He had a great day today," Canales said. "We got him all the way through Indy (individual drills) got into some team drills, he was limited. We didn't feel like we could throw him out there for full practice quite yet, but he looked great, he looked strong, he was asking for more.

"We told him tomorrow we're going to pad up and that's going to be a great day to keep building on this."

Legette anticipating a run first offense Sunday

Dave Canales calls Monday during the season, "Tell the Truth Monday."

Why?

"Because the game has a way of telling you the truth," Canales explained earlier in the week.

So when he and his team sat down to watch the tape Monday of their Week 1 loss to Jacksonville, there was a lot of truth to swallow. The biggest one, according to receiver Xavier Legette, "We left a lot of plays out there."

To keep that from replicating this week against the Cardinals, the second-year receiver knows he and the offense need to lock in on a couple of Cardinals defenders in particular, starting with Budda Baker.

"We know the key stop on defense is gonna be No. 3," Legette admitted Wednesday. "We see they added a couple of pieces, a couple of key players over there as well, so we focus on them as well."

The Panthers defeated the Cardinals in overtime last year, 36-30, something that Carolina knows it can learn from this week. But that familiarity only goes so far, Legette said.

"From a tech standpoint, but I mean it's a new year, a new team, so we just got to go out there and execute and play."

One of those new guys is rookie corner Will Johnson. He finished with three passes defended in the Cards' win on Sunday against the Saints. Despite it being only one game on tape for Johnson, Legette said it's enough to gather a game plan for the rookie.

"Base it off the game, the last game that he just played, all things I see from him, he's real patient at the line. I think he's a good player."

A way to negate that is to continue to run the ball. Chuba Hubbard had the walk-off touchdown in overtime against Arizona last season. Leaning on the 1,000-yard rusher again will be key Sunday for the offense as a whole.

"Oh, now, we're gonna feed (Chuba) to come up with those plays," Legette said. "Then, when it's time for the receivers to get it, we have to come up with those plays as well. We have to work it to where they have to complement each other."

Emphasis on tackling in Wednesday's practice

The Panthers weren't in full pads Wednesday, that will be in Thursday's practice, but Canales said they ran a segment of drill early to concentrate on the missed tackles that plagued them in the loss to the Jaguars.

Canales said defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero designed a sequence of the practice where they went through all the basics of defensive football, the kind of thing that professionals might not always enjoy.

"We just go right at it," Canales said of dealing with problem areas. "I think the gift of when you come out of a game and there's some fundamental things that you can focus on, I think it's just a great opportunity to go right back to the basics. Coach E had a phenomenal tackling circuit down there, tracking in the open field, coming out of the stack, second guy attacking the ball, getting our getting our knees bent, getting our feet square, and finishing the tackle with a good wrap. And so there was a good circuit today, and you know there I looked at the guys and saw their energy down there and there wasn't any eye-rolling.

"It was just like, you know what, all right, this is on par with how we did. Let's improve this fundamental part of our game so that we can continue to, pursue the good football we're looking for."