For Panthers offense to get better, this player must come back. But he’s not ready yet

For the past couple of days at training camp, the Carolina Panthers have had some trouble protecting their quarterback and keep getting stoned in the red zone by their own defense.

You know what would help? If the Panthers had one more veteran offensive lineman in there to help block people for rookie quarterback Bryce Young.

But Austin Corbett, the offensive guard who could theoretically fill that role, is stuck in that dreaded injury limbo that most NFL players go through at one time or another. He’s out there at practices but not really out there, watching the reps without being able to play. Because Corbett tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the final game of the 2022 NFL season, he’s not going to be able to start for the Panthers in the 2023 season.

“We’re coming up on seven months now,” Corbett said Sunday of his recovery process from the ACL tear, which occurred on Jan. 8, 2023, just before halftime of a Week 18 game against New Orleans. “It’s just crazy how long it truly is. You always kind of think when you see ACL — all right ... nine months. And once you start going through it you’re doing every single day you don’t realize just how long it really is, and how much it honestly sucks.”

Corbett hasn’t been able to take any snaps in team drills during training camp, and mostly has been trying to stay involved in meetings and practices while wearing a bucket hat and a thigh-to-ankle sleeve on his left leg. He said Sunday that he’s definitely going to be out for Week 1 of the regular season, which is no surprise given that the nine-month recovery period technically wouldn’t be over until around mid-October (Corbett’s surgery was Jan. 18).

A likely scenario would be for Corbett to miss the first four games on the PUP list, then return for the final 13 games — if his rehab continues going well. No one with the Panthers is anxious to specify his exact timetable, but as Corbett said Sunday: “You’ve obviously got to be smart. You don’t want to rush anything because it’s a long season. You’re going to miss some of the front end, but just not rushing so (you can play) on the back end.”

In the meantime, the Panthers are mostly playing Cade Mays at Corbett’s right guard spot. Mays is an able substitute, but Corbett started all 17 games last season for Carolina and started not long before that for a Los Angeles Rams team that won the Super Bowl. He’s a really good player on a team that simply doesn’t have enough really good players. The Panthers’ offense — off and for most of this camp — could use him.

Instead, Corbett has been attacking his rehab while trying to also help his wife at home with their two young children. He’s at least off the crutches now and mostly out of pain, but the fact that you can’t speed up the recovery process is frustrating to him. The Panthers’ website has been doing a nice multi-part series on Corbett’s recovery, and one of its nuggets was that Corbett re-watched all eight seasons of “Game of Thrones” early in his rehab to distract himself.

He’s needed some distractions, because that nine-month recovery period can’t be messed with much, no matter how much you want it to go faster.

“This is the first time in my life where no matter what I do, I can’t push through it,” Corbett said Sunday. “I’m not allowed to. ... That’s kind of been the hardest thing. Just sitting around, I get so bored so fast. My wife Madison — she’ll tell you that I don’t do well sitting at home. And so those first couple of months being on crutches and very limited walking around — it was just tough.”

Mostly uninjured throughout his career, Corbett, 27, should still have much of his NFL prime in front of him. He grew up and went to college in Nevada and was picked No. 33 overall (early second round) in the 2018 NFL draft by Cleveland. The Browns didn’t start him, which seems very Cleveland-y in retrospect, because the Rams traded for him in 2019 and quickly plugged him in. Los Angeles started Corbett for three years, including in the 56th Super Bowl, a 23-20 win against Cincinnati in the 2021 postseason. Carolina then plucked Corbett away in unrestricted free agency in early 2022 and he quickly became a mainstay of the Panthers’ O-line.

He will be again, one day. For you and me it won’t seem very long. You’ll look up sometime in the fall and Corbett will be back out there, in his accustomed spot at right guard, likely protecting rookie Bryce Young.

For Corbett, though, the days are crawling by. One day, he’ll be out of limbo and back on the field. But that day just isn’t coming fast enough.