Panthers rookie OT Monroe Freeling struggles mightily at joint practice vs. Texans

After this morning's joint practice with the Houston Texans , Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales started his press conference with two words . . . or two names— Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson . The star pass rushers led Houston's dominant defensive showing , accounting for most of the Texans' seven sacks against the Panthers offense.

The primary victim of their work seemed to be rookie offensive lineman Monroe Freeling, who's currently manning the right tackle position on Carolina's first-team unit. Canales, however, looked at the positive side of what went down.

"Oh, it's fantastic," he said of Freeling getting exposure to the likes of Hunter and Anderson. "This is what Monroe needs. As he works his fundamentals, his technique, all the little different things—it just gets magnified when you play two rushers like this."

Freeling, the 19th overall pick from this year's draft, may have been initially selected with designs of a reserve role here in 2026. But with longtime starting right tackle Taylor Moton now recovering from a blood clot in his lung, the rookie has been thrown into the fire.

Canales was later asked how Freeling can bounce back from getting torched by the Texans.

"It's just right to the film," he replied. "And it's good, and bad. As I talked to the group afterwards, these are such valuable opportunities—to be able to go against a new group with a different skill set, to be able to see those things.

"He'll go right into the film right now with Coach [Joe] Gilbert and the o-line, and they'll work on those things, clean it up and we'll go from there."

Freeling is also learning, or re-learning, the feel at right tackle. The 6-foot-7, 318-pounder was primarily a left tackle at the University of Georgia, having recorded 1,102 of his 1,369 offensive snaps on the blindside.

In perhaps adding to Canales' glass-half-full attitude, at least Freeling might've already gotten his "Welcome to the NFL" moment done and over with.

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