The Panthers' offensive line is running out of bodies before the season starts

Taylor Moton is out indefinitely with a blood clot in his lung. Tershawn Wharton, the depth tackle behind him, was placed on the Out list on August 9. Left tackle Ikem Ekwonu's status remains uncertain. That's three of the five starting spots touched by injury or question mark before a regular-season snap has been played. Brady Christensen, back from his own Achilles recovery, is now the primary insurance at tackle — which is a reasonable contingency plan until you remember it's a contingency plan built on a player who was himself recently hurt.

The broader context makes it harder to absorb. This offensive line is protecting Bryce Young, who last season posted 24 touchdowns and leaned heavily on Tetairoa McMillan as his primary outlet. A clean pocket made that offense functional. A patchwork line with untested depth — Brady Christensen at rk2, Stone Forsythe at rk3 — changes the math considerably on what Young can reasonably be asked to do.

There's no obvious fix available from the news corpus right now, and my read is that the front office has already made its moves: Christensen was re-signed, the depth chart was shuffled, and the team is largely going with what it has. The question heading into the preseason game against Buffalo is simply how much of the starting group gets meaningful reps together before Week 1. At this point, coherence matters more than personnel upgrades that aren't coming.