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With the largest crowd at Panthers' Fan Fest since 1996, Carolina head coach Ron Rivera was pleased with the turnout but saw room for improvement from his squad.
Players fed off the 22,070 in attendance on Saturday at their first public practice at Bank of America Stadium since June.
Rivera liked what he saw out of his first-string offense. Led by Cam Newton, the offense was efficient in red zone drills while the defense struggled slightly with the multitude of looks that were thrown at them.
"The hard thing for our defense when we go good-on-good is that (offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski) uses the entire playbook, so they're going to get everything," Rivera said. "Our guys are having to react and learn a lot on the defensive side on how to handle the different formations and different looks. That's a huge plus for our defense.
"The tough thing for us is that because there's so much misdirection so it's tough on the guys. So we made some mistakes, but it's been very good as far as our learning and growing for our defense."
Impressing on defense was first-round draft pick Luke Kuechly, who picked off Newton after suffered a minor cut on his nostril that required him to go to the locker room during practice. It occurred when he attempted to tackle Jonathan Stewart and one of the running back's pads went under the linebacker's helmet and cut his nose.
The crowd was never louder than when the scrimmage concluded and players were able to sign autographs. Newton criss-crossed the field several times to sign autographs in as many areas of the lower bowl as he could before retiring to the locker room.
No score was kept for the scrimmage.
