For Ryan Fitzgerald, the move to allow Panthers second-year players to ride golf carts to and from the practice field in Week 4 is more than a small comfort. It is the end of a lonely routine that had made the start of his NFL life feel longer than the football part of it.
The 26-year-old kicker said the last 18 months had been marked by isolation, with plenty of time spent on those walks back and forth to work. This week, the Panthers changed that for second-year players, who were newly allowed to take the cart ride legally after previously being required to walk.
Ryan Fitzgerald on the lonely side of the routine
Fitzgerald was direct about how the experience felt. “Yeah, it was lonely,” he said. “A lot of lonely walks.” He added: “Sometimes I'd get locked out. Not a lot of fun.”
That is the sort of detail that says plenty about life at the edge of an NFL roster. The job is only part of the story. The rest is the daily grind, and for Fitzgerald that grind included plenty of solitary trips to the practice field before this week’s rule change.
The rule change that finally lets them ride
In Week 4 of their second season, Panthers second-year players were allowed to use the golf carts legally for the first time. Princely Umanmielen said that “it feels good to be able to do it legally now,” after admitting he had “been doing it for a while illegally.”
Trevor Etienne took a firmer line. “No, never, not ever,” he said when asked whether he had ever broken the rule. “I would never dream of it.”
The broader point is simple: this was always about team order. Derrick Brown was described as the man keeping the rules in place, and the story underlines how seriously the Panthers treated the boundary between rookies and everyone else before the second-year group earned the right to ride.
Derrick Brown keeps the standard in place
Brown put it plainly: “Just trying to keep some rules around here.” Robert Hunt described one summer day when Brown spotted a rookie on a cart and immediately called it out. “Like literally in the middle of workout, he was like way over there. And Derrick starts hollering, 'Hey, get out the car.' Crazy. He spots it out. He ain't playing,” Hunt said.
It is a small piece of locker-room hierarchy, but it matters. For Panthers second-year players, Week 4 brought a minor perk and a clear sign that they have moved into a different stage of their NFL life. For Fitzgerald, it also marked the end of a stretch he remembered as lonely, with too many walks and too little fun.
