CHARLOTTE — Focus and refocus. That is the Panthers' mantra this week, on every side of the ball but especially on offense.

"Treating every rep individually, treating every game individually, getting to practice that out in the field here today, getting to practice that in the meeting room when we're talking about individual plays," explained offensive coordinator Brad Idzik on Thursday of the motto.

"You see it in a couple of our games of just some good sustained success and then not being able at times to keep that going with refocusing, re-clicking back in."

Dave Canales shared on Wednesday that the Panthers essentially conducted a self-audit to start the week, reevaluating the first four games to examine both minute details and larger schemes for areas where they could make adjustments. The biggest takeaway on offense was too much time was spent getting reset ahead of each new play.

Film study for the Dolphins this coming Sunday teed up a perfect example.

"We had our guys watch the first drive of the Miami game, and you watch the New York Jets do a great job of driving that thing all the way down the field and then unfortunately end up with a fumble," shared Idzik.

But then, they had to also point to themselves, and how the offense went downfield on the Patriots with ease on the first drive in Week 4, only to fail to replicate that with each subsequent drive, none going farther than 33 yards, until a late-game touchdown drive as the fourth quarter wound down.

It was a sobering lesson and an inspiring reminder on how to treat every play.

"It's just a testament to the need to, every single play tap back in, treat every single play as an individual entity of its own," said Idzik. "Being able to press hard reset no matter what good or bad happens before and then moving forward. So I just love that that came up.

"Well, now we've got to be able to do that from one drive to the next, no matter what's happening on the defensive side of the ball or the special teams."

There is still a long season ahead, which is why this early self-evaluation feels so heady and important to Idzik and the Panthers. It was an opportunity to reinforce a philosophy and shape an identity that could carry a team.

"I just wanted to give you guys a little picture into that because that's been our mainstay," shared Idzik. "That's what we're going to hang our hat on going forward and making sure we emphasize every single rep is treated individually."

Ejiro Evero looking to add more pressure on quarterbacks

The Panthers have just a pair of sacks through four weeks (one each for Princely Umanmielen and Tershawn Wharton), and defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero knows that needs to change.

As they've talked about things that need to adjust after four weeks, that's become one of the points of emphasis as they move forward.

"We've certainly got to affect the quarterback more," Evero said. "That's very obvious and we need to figure out a way, schematically and in terms of playing better. It's a collective effort in terms of getting that done and so, that's certainly on the the forefront of our minds and the biggest thing that we've just got to continue to do is just get ourselves in those situations where we could open up the playbook to more of our pressure packages, allowing those guys to cut loose on a on a rush plan.

"So it's still going to be a big key is going to be, you know, stopping to run on early downs and get into those favorable D&Ds (down and distances)."

The run defense has improved in general terms, and the hope is that getting more guys back on the field will help. Both Patrick Jones II and D.J. Wonnum were back to practice in some capacity Wednesday (Wonnum was limited, Jones was a full participant), which ought to help stabilize things.

Preparing for injuries part of special teams coaching

Last week's game took a turn on the first offensive play, when wide receiver David Moore was lost to an elbow injury that landed him on IR. Not that Moore was scheduled to be a big part of special teams that day (most key starters aren't), but his replacement on offense, Brycen Tremayne, was.

So when the punt team loses one of its gunners that early, and then the other one when receiver Dalevon Campbell was hurt in the second quarter, there's a cascade of adjustments that have to be made.

Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith handles this with a shrug, mostly, since he knows it's part of his weekly routine. So when asked if this recent batch of injuries was more than normal, he didn't have an answer at hand.

"Not necessarily," he said. "It just goes around that I deal with those one at a time as they show up, no historical record of what that is," Smith said. "And it doesn't matter really, you know, at the end of it, if you had to replace them all or everybody played right through, you still have to go get the ball down when you're covering, and you have to take it as far as you can when you're returning."

And as adjustments happen on offense and defense, those continue to change things. So when starting outside linebackers aren't active, backups who were normally scheduled to be part of Smith's world become less available. But they knew that going in. Tremayne's invitation to the starting offense was sudden.

"It's part of the game on special teams," Smith said. "It's certainly easier to deal with the ones that happen leading up to the game, so you have a practice, you know what's going on. The ones that happen in the game are a touch more chaotic because generally, if one person goes down, you're replacing that guy with multiple players depending on the phase, and the unit that they're on. So you kind of have to patch it together.

"We took Brycen's spot with several different guys throughout the game. But that's kind of the name of it. The other teams have the same stuff. You never know what's going to happen. You have to be prepared for all those scenarios.

"Guys know where they're possibly going to play in the game if something happens. We have multiple scenarios this week as well. If this guy goes up or down on defense, how we have to handle that. We kind of have rotational guys. So, no excuse there. That's the name of the special teams game is that when it's your turn to show up, you have to show up. And if you don't, any play can be the play."