{"id":121232,"date":"2025-09-05T17:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/121232\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T17:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:41:07","slug":"panthers-lt-ickey-ekwonu-unlikely-to-play-against-jaguars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/121232\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers LT Ickey Ekwonu unlikely to play against Jaguars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

David NewtonSep 6, 2025, 03:22 AM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>David Newton is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Carolina Panthers. Newton began covering Carolina in 1995 and came to ESPN in 2006 as a NASCAR reporter before joining NFL Nation in 2013.<\/p>\n

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carolina Panthers<\/a> starting left tackle Ickey Ekwonu<\/a> is doubtful for Sunday’s opener at the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> after undergoing an emergency appendectomy 12 days ago.<\/p>\n

Ekwonu went through limited drills Friday for the first time since the procedure. Either Yosh Nijman<\/a> or Brady Christensen<\/a> will start barring a change in the status of Ekwonu, the sixth pick of the 2022 draft.<\/p>\n

“We’re just going to have to keep taking it day by day,” coach Dave Canales said of Ekwonu. “With how short of a window we had … he takes leaps every day. Every day he does a little bit more. We’ve just got to take it all the way to the game.”<\/p>\n

Also, backup cornerback Damarri Mathis<\/a> will undergo season-ending surgery for an ACL injury suffered Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David NewtonSep 6, 2025, 03:22 AM CloseDavid Newton is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Carolina…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-121232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}