Broken thumb limited Hartwig

While there are no excuses for the play of Carolina’s offensive line (seven sacks allowed) in Sunday’s 20-7 loss at Tennessee, you might consider giving center Justin Hartwig a pass.

He broke his right thumb in the first quarter, but stayed in the lineup and played the rest of the game with the aching digit.

This afternoon, it was swollen to almost twice its normal size.

"A lot of pain," he said of playing through the injury. "I had trouble gripping the ball and I had problems grabbing people. I was kind of just stabbing at people. So it definitely wasn’t helping my game out."

Hartwig thought he might have caught the thumb between helmets during a pile-up at the line of scrimmage.

Hartwig had talked at length after the game, but never mentioned the thumb.

"It’s one of those things you deal with," he said. "The adrenaline kind of carried me through the game, and afterward I told the trainers about it. It is what it is right now."

If it still "is what it is" come Sunday, veteran Geoff Hangartner or rookie Ryan Kalil would start in Hartwig’s place.

-- Stan Olson