Panthers' Jonathon Brooks Unlikely to Play Until Week 3-4 NFL Season amid Knee Injury

Carolina Panthers second-round pick Jonathon Brooks likely won't play until the third or fourth week of the season as he recovers from his November surgery to repair a torn ACL, head coach Dave Canales told reporters on Saturday.

"This is a guy with a long career in front of him, somebody we think really high about, so we want to be really smart with him,'' he said.

Canales also told reporters that the plan was always for Brooks to open training camp on the physically unable to perform list.

"It's something we expected,'' he said. "Coming into the spring, we knew just the timeline and progression of where he was at. We knew we would not have him for the preseason. Even if he was kind of ready, there's a confidence thing that we want to ramp him up little by little so he feels ready to go.''

The Panthers still have the duo of Miles Sanders and Chuba Hubbard to lean on in the interim. But the Panthers traded up to draft Brooks in the second round—they clearly have big plans for him.

And for good reason. The star running back rushed for 1,139 yards and 10 touchdowns in just 11 games last season for Texas, adding 25 receptions for 286 yards and one touchdown. After serving as Bijan Robinson's backup to start his college career, Brooks made the most of his opportunity as the starter before injury cut his campaign short.

Even despite the injury, he was still the first running back off the board in April's draft, as the Panthers traded the 52nd overall pick and two fifth-rounders to the Indianapolis Colts to move up to No. 46.

As for when he's cleared to play again, an exact timeline is unclear.

"The on-field progression, the type of cuts, maybe running versus change of direction, that whole thing has got to be right,'' Canales told reporters. "That's going to be the determining factor into how soon we can get him back.''