While Greg Olsen has been ruled out officially for this weekend, he participated for the second consecutive day in a limited role at practice on Friday for the Panthers – Ron Rivera consistently points to how players feel the day after practice as an important factor and while Olsen was sore, Rivera didn’t pass up the chance to poke fun at the 33-year old, who said Thursday he is hopeful to be back after a good week of practice next week when the Panthers head to Washington.

“Greg felt great – they had him out on the sides doing his routes and stuff like that,” said Rivera. “This morning, he came in [and] his body was sore – normal soreness when you work that hard – about time, for him. But he came out and worked again, and [he’s] looking good so signs are positive.”

While Julius Peppers got another day of rest participating in a limited fashion, linebacker Jared Norris, who plays a big role on special teams, hobbled off in the middle of practice with a toe injury and is the only player listed as questionable for Sunday’s game against the Giants – while a special teamer missing a game may not seem like a big deal, this Sunday, the team plans to have the special teams unit introduced and run out of the tunnel, so Rivera said that it would be a “bummer” for Norris to miss out on Sunday. He’ll get another chance, though, as the team will introduce the special teams unit again on Thanksgiving weekend.

“We’ll see,” said Rivera. “Hopefully, tomorrow morning he’s fine and he’s ready to go – it’s just one of those things [if he can] play through the pain, but you never know. You never know how injuries crop up the next day, so we’ll see.”

The biggest bit of news from Bank of America Stadium today was the confirmation that safety Eric Reid, who the Panthers signed only eight days ago, would get the start next to Mike Adams at safety – the coaches have praised Reid multiple times this week for his football IQ, speed and size – Rivera went out of his way today to point out a specific and complicated run fit that Reid handled without an issue during today’s practice session.

“Today was really interesting to watch,” Rivera said about Reid. “There were a couple of checks that we made that he was right on top of – there was a run fit we had to have that usually takes guys a while to get it and he got it right off the bat.”

“We’re going to keep an eye on him. We’ll see how he does the first couple series, try and gauge that and go from there. We really don’t want to overuse him. We want to be smart about it – we want this for the long haul.”

Rivera also confirmed that Week 3’s NFC Defensive Player of the Week Efe Obada, as well as wide receiver Curtis Samuel – who missed the first three weeks with a medical illness – would both be active on Sunday.

Read the full injury report here:

PlayerInjuryGame StatusNotes
Greg OlsenFootOut
Jared NorrisToeQuestionableHurt in Friday Practice
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Josh Klein
Editor-In-Chief at The Riot Report
Josh Klein is Editor-In-Chief of The Riot Report. His favorite Panther of all time is Chad Cota and he once AIM chatted with Kevin Greene. Follow Josh on Twitter @joshkleinrules.