The Carolina Panthers‘ first padded practice of training camp featured the team’s first fight of the summer.

During Monday morning’s workout session, running back Chuba Hubbard was knocked to the ground by linebacker Trevin Wallace after making a leaping catch. Hubbard took exception to the hit and, according to Joe Person of The Athletic, came up swinging on the second-year defender.

Head coach Dave Canales talked about the scuffle following the session.

Advertisement

“It’s football,” Canales told reporters. “We gotta toe the line. We gotta play physical and a lot of times—it’s not personal, it’s just football. Guys will respond passionately and they don’t like getting knocked on their butt. They take it personal. But there was a lot of physical play throughout practice, so that’s gonna happen.”

Canales was later asked if he welcomes that type of physicality at this point in camp.

“Yeah, I just wanna see a physical brand of ball,” he replied. “The guys should be flying to the ball, full speed, and have to make those decisions on how to take care of our guys when they’re in vulnerable spots. But it’s gonna be physical. Inside, it’s gonna be physical on the backend of it as well. So I want them to push it to the limit, and we’ll pull ’em back from there.

“We cannot hesitate and we cannot create bad habits by not finishing. You see trends. If we don’t capture the physical nature of this game, it takes games to kinda get your tackling down and get all those things. So we have to make it come alive this camp.”

Advertisement

Well, those bad habits popped up last year—when Carolina’s tackling woes helped contribute to a historically-bad defense. The Panthers allowed the most points in NFL history in 2024 while also relinquishing a league-high 179.8 rushing yards per game—nearly 40 more yards than the next closest unit.

So, yeah, something certainly has to come alive for the Carolina defense in 2025—and it may have been sparked on Monday.

Follow @ThePanthersWire on Twitter/X for more Panthers content.

This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Panthers training camp: RB Chuba Hubbard involved in fight on Monday