CHARLOTTE — One of the best things Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero sees every day is Derrick Brown.

One of the better things is that it looks so familiar.

Evero said Thursday that his defensive captain looked through the first three games like the same Pro Bowl-level player he was in 2023, before last year's knee injury that limited him to one game.

"It looks about the same. I mean, just, obviously a strong, strong, strong, run defender," Evero said, and that's three "strongs" if you're counting. "He's hard to block, singled up, and he makes a lot of impact plays in the run game. He's been hitting the quarterback, and so he's really done a really good job up to this point.

"But like all of us, you know, we know we need to coach better in a lot of instances. We need to play better individually and collectively in a lot of instances, and so we're all looking towards improving, and I know he is as well."

That point is well taken, and Brown is one of the first ones to raise his hand. Head coach Dave Canales mentioned that earlier this week, saying Brown walked in Monday done with the celebration, and ready to work on what needed to be improved. That part's also nothing new to Evero.

"Really, since I've been here, you know, just going on my third year now, his leadership ability has just continued to grow and he's become more vocal," Evero said. "He's holding his teammates accountable, holding the coaches accountable, so I think Derrick is just at the forefront of everything that we want to accomplish, and he recognizes the things that we're doing well and the things that we need to improve at.

"He's not afraid to challenge those things, and so that's been really, really great to have a leadership quality from those leadership qualities from Derrick."

He's been his normal solid presence in the run game, and to Evero's point, he's also recorded two quarterback pressures and batted down two passes already this season. Since entering the league in 2020, he's second among all linemen in passes defensed with 23 (trailing on Cam Heyward's 31).

He's also throwing dudes from time to time.

Idzik pleased with how Young is protecting himself and the ball

Bryce Young is probably tired of being asked about sliding. But as the quarterback gets farther into the season and becomes more entrenched in the Panthers' offense, he has shown himself to be comfortable leaving the pocket if need be, and if the grass is there, to take off for the yardage himself. Young has scrambled seven times (5.6 percent of dropbacks) through the first three games, for 52 yards and a touchdown.

And scrambling means having to slide more at times.

"Just doing whatever it takes to win," Young joked on Wednesday.

Young did not play baseball, a fact he has mentioned in the past when this subject has been persistently raised. However, while quarterbacks can't be touched during practice and are presumably safe to run to their heart's content, offensive coordinator Brad Idzik said it has been a focus of work at times.

"They do work on it on the side, they talk about it, they kind of get a good chuckle about it," said Idzik on Thursday. But frankly, given how quarterbacks can take low hits to the head during a slide, just given the angles available to a defender, Idzik is fine with his QB handling scrambling plays exactly as he has been, smooth slides or not.

"Sliding for a guy who's aggressive in the way he runs and trying to pick up yards for us, sometimes it doesn't come naturally," explained Idzik. "So we just trust him to be smart. Sometimes it might not look natural for him going down, but being smart, you don't need that one extra yard that might get that late hit. So we really want him to protect himself, get all he can.

"As long as Bryce is keeping clean and he's in the grass, you know, he's not getting anything caught in some of the turf—I think (Chargers QB Justin) Herbert had one a couple of weeks ago, where it just, it gets ugly—just making sure you're keeping all available parts that could catch the grass free from doing that. So as long as he's doing that, he can look as awkward as he wants, so he's avoiding the hits."

In the 30-0 win against the Falcons on Sunday, Young didn't have to scramble much at all, as the defense took care of the game early and often, including a score. So while Young finished with a mere 121 passing yards on 16-24, it was his lack of turnovers and control of the run game that Idzik wanted to highlight.

"There's plenty of different ways to win a game. We're just trying to find the one avenue that makes sense that week. When the defense is playing well, we were playing good ball and protecting the football, I thought he made good choices," praised Idzik.

"He did a good job of protecting the ball and, both not putting it in harm's way, but then also just getting it out on time to make sure that the rush wasn't a factor. So, while the stats say what they do, and there's some missed shots downfield, which I think is kind of a tribute to maybe the lack of overall yardage and the pass game or anything like that, the guy's still extending plays, getting the ball out, and that's really what we keep putting our thumb down on every single week."

Field goal distance will be case-by-case

Ryan Fitzgerald has been kicking well so far through three games, going 5-of-5 on field goals, one of 11 kickers in the NFL to have not yet missed a kick this season. And on Sunday, he tied a franchise record for the second-longest field goal in Panthers' history with a 57-yarder. That currently stands as the sixth-longest in the league thus far this season.

But as special teams coordinator Tracy Smith pointed out Thursday, Carolina has elected to punt on possessions this season as well, instead of trotting out Fitzgerald for a kick of that distance. The decisions come not from a level of trust in Fitzgerald's leg so much as from every other contributing factor.

"It's a real game situation, and the weather conditions of that day," Smith said. "We'll see what it feels like in Massachusetts. And then we go from there. But it's strictly a series-by-series, play-by-play decision on all those. What do you think is best for the team at that time?"

Fitzgerald was not a victim of an epidemic that spread throughout the NFL on Sunday, when there were four blocked field goals, all in the fourth quarter, including one returned for a walk-off touchdown by big man Jordan Davis. The league said it was the most blocked field goals in a single day since 1991.

"All four had their differences," Smith explained, offering his professional insight. "One was on an extremely long kick that didn't used to get attempted. So, maybe there's a slight uptick in those kinds of things. A longer field goal is a lower field goal just to get it all the way there. So you get some of those good individual plays.

"You'll notice over the course of time, there's more special teams variance in the first four weeks of the season than in the last four weeks of the season. That's just always, we're still right in that period where guys are getting used to their new jobs. So, you just kind of have a little bit more chaos on special teams at the beginning of each year. We're still kind of inside that window."