Carolina Panthers: Curtis Samuel ruled out for game against Dallas Cowboys

Carolina Panthers’ head coach Ron Rivera announced that Curtis Samuel will miss Sunday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys.

While NFL teams don’t need to give the official injury designation until Friday, the Carolina Panthers have already announced that Curtis Samuel will miss the first game of the season, according to the team’s site.

This is not a typical injury for an NFL player as Samuel, the Panthers’ second round pick last year, had a procedure to address an irregular heartbeat. Rivera understands the seriousness of this injury and said, “I’m not going to play around with this one.”

Curtis Samuel has had a tough start to his NFL career and had to deal with more than his fair share of injuries. He was forced to miss time during training camp last year due to a hamstring injury.

This contributed to a slow start last year and when he had a chance to have a bigger role after the Kelvin Benjamin trade, he suffered a broken ankle. He finished the year with 15 receptions for 115 yards.

Entering this year he was still dealing with the impact of the broken ankle as it also included damage to ligaments within the ankle. The team brought him along slowly and flashed in preseason, finishing with 6 receptions for 20 yards in the final two preseason games.

However, the wide receiver depth chart for the Carolina Panthers is deep. He was likely to enter this season with a limited role in this offense behind Devin Funchess, Torrey Smith, D.J. Moore and Jarius Wright.

There is certainly a role in this offense for Curtis Samuel and he should be a playmaker for the Carolina Panthers this year. However as Rivera mentions the focus right now should be on Curtis Samuel’s health and making sure everything checks out before he returns to the field.