Panthers haven't been game planning because of a short week

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Sometimes preseason schedules can be a little screwy and teams don't get as much rest between games as they might during the regular season. The Carolina Panthers have to deal with that this week after playing the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, then having to face the Patriots tonight on 4 days rest. And because of that, they have not game planned (as is typical in the third preseason game) as much according to USA Today.

As Ron Rivera, the Panthers coach, put it, they treated the 2nd week as the big week because they knew they had a short turnaround for the 3rd preseason game.

USA Today:

It "would have been more important," Carolina coach Ron Rivera said, "but because of the short week, we treated the second game as the big week. We went through full game- planning against Kansas City and played the starters longer than normal."

Normally, the 3rd week of preseason is the big week for most teams and the week that teams give their starters the most playing time, and that's how the Patriots having been treating tonight's game.

"We didn't do a lot (of opponent study) leading up to those two (games) because we figured the three days of practice would get us familiar enough," (Tom) Brady said. "This week has been much more like a normal week. We've had scouting report meetings and have talked about coverages and blitzes and third downs and red areas and two-minute (situations) and all the different situations that come up."

The Panthers approach makes sense, as it's just preseason and you don't want any of your players to suffer any injuries. Will it pay off against the Pats tonight? We'll see when the dust settles tonight - especially as the Patriots will be giving the starters good minutes tonight.