{"id":401367,"date":"2026-01-11T16:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T16:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/401367\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T16:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T16:47:10","slug":"injuries-to-ikem-ekwonu-robert-hunt-cloud-future-of-bedrock-offensive-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/401367\/","title":{"rendered":"Injuries to Ikem Ekwonu, Robert Hunt cloud future of bedrock offensive line"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He was smiling and joking with teammates as he left the locker room on crutches with a brace on his knee, but that belied the uncertainty ahead of him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was hard, man, because Ickey was excited,&#8221; guard <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.panthers.com\/team\/players-roster\/robert-hunt\/\" title=\"Robert Hunt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Hunt<\/a> said. &#8220;Ickey was ready to play. Ickey had a lot of juice. Ickey was ready to play, man, and to lose that energy, it was kind of tough, but Yosh stepped in and did a really good job.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I mean, I love Ickey, man. Ickey came in and joked, you know, he&#8217;s just being Ickey, so, Icky&#8217;s all right. Ickey&#8217;s going to attack it the right way. Ickey&#8217;s going to be OK, and Ickey&#8217;s going to come back.<\/p>\n<p>Ekwonu had missed the Dec. 21 Buccaneers game here with a knee issue, and quarterback <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.panthers.com\/team\/players-roster\/bryce-young\/\" title=\"Bryce Young\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bryce Young<\/a> said that Ekwonu has been battling throughout the year to stay on the field for the 15 games he played (he missed the opener while recovering from a preseason appendectomy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel for him, so much, such a warrior,&#8221; quarterback Bryce Young said. &#8220;Obviously he&#8217;s played so much, and probably from the outside looking in you&#8217;d think he&#8217;s just been in perfect health, but he&#8217;s been battling every week. He&#8217;s been in the training room, doing all the little things.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s been pushing through a lot of pain, and you know he&#8217;s a warrior. He&#8217;s a huge part of, of us as a team. I really feel for him, so, yeah, it&#8217;s tough to see that.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He was smiling and joking with teammates as he left the locker room on crutches with a brace&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[193153,18789,48331,829,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-401367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2026-nfl-playoffs","9":"tag-app-news","10":"tag-gameday","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}