Frank Reich reveals wide receiver D.J. Chark suffered an injury
The Carolina Panthers got some potentially bad news regarding the health of the receiving corps just weeks before the regular season kicks off. Wideout D.J. Chark suffered an injury in practice on Wednesday, head coach Frank Reich said.
While a full diagnosis is yet to come, the early outlook is not promising. Reich said he wouldn’t expand on the details of the injury “at this point,” according to The Athletic’s Joe Person.
ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter reported that Chark has injured his hamstring.
The Panthers signed Chark this offseason after the wideout had spent a year with the Detroit Lions. He was originally drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars out of LSU in 2018.
Injuries have been a bugaboo for Chark in his career, as the wideout has yet to play in a full slate of games in a season. After playing in four games during an injury-plagued 2021, Chark played in 11 contests for the Lions last season, starting 10.
He has shown the ability to be a real threat in the passing game when healthy, though. In his second season as a pro in 2019, Chark played a career-high 15 games and hauled in 73 passes for 1008 yards and eight touchdowns. He earned a Pro Bowl nod for his 2019 campaign.
Rookie quarterback Bryce Young will be down a key pass catcher for now
For the Carolina Panthers — led by No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young, who beat out Andy Dalton in the quarterback competition — the starters are going to see plenty of action in the final preseason tilt, absent Chark it seems
Reich confirmed the plan is to give Young and the rest of the first-team offense more chances to clean things up ahead of the season opener Sept. 10. It’s unclear just how many snaps they’ll play, but Reich still wants to see more out of his group.
“Sometimes a lot of teams won’t play their starters in the last preseason game,” Reich said, via Panthers.com’s Augusta Stone. “We’re going to play Bryce and play our offensive starters. (We) still want to get more reps; I think we had about 20 last week or something like that.
“It’s kind of TBD again. It could be about the same, could be a little less, could be a little bit more. (We would) like to get a little rhythm going, accomplish certain things. So we’ll play it by ear.”