Chuba Hubbard Camp Update — August 23: Held Out Again as Brooks Scored

Chuba Hubbard was held out of Friday's game in Jacksonville, among roughly a dozen Panthers who did not dress, per Mark Long at the Associated Press — his second straight preseason absence since the hamstring injury — and we found no reporting this week that he returned to practice. That is the whole Hubbard file for the window: no setback reported, no return reported, nothing. Dave Canales's statement from the week of the injury, that he is "very confident" Hubbard will be ready for game one, per the team's site, now has exactly one week of runway left to become a practice log.

What filled the vacuum is the reason the quiet matters. Jonathon Brooks ran with the first-team offense again and scored his first professional touchdown, a one-yard finish on Bryce Young's 58-yard drive, carrying five times for 18 yards on the night, per the CBS Sports box score. Our June preview on Hubbard was a usage question — a stated committee plan built to shift toward Brooks over time, with the carry split as the whole question. Every week Hubbard spends in the training room, the split answers itself a little more in his absence — August reps, first-team trust, and now a goal-line touch have all gone to the other back.

The timeline still says fine for the opener; the role math keeps drifting while he waits. What to watch: whether Hubbard practices before Sunday's cut to 53 — the checkable version of Canales's confidence — and whether he dresses for Friday's finale against Houston. We'll check after cut day.

_Data via nflverse._