Tuesday's session of training camp brought some pads and a little bit of a surprise for the Carolina Panthers.

Here are the top takeaways and observations from the fifth official practice of training camp:

Leave a Penny

The Panthers began their morning by officially placing running back Rashaad Penny on the reserve/retired list. Head coach Dave Canales, who previously spent five years with Penny back in Seattle, spoke about the 28-year-old's decision to hang up the cleats.

“It was a really cool opportunity for me to see, I know Rashaad at his best, to see if we could get him to that kind of look,” he stated. “He came up and he just really, he just felt like he wasn’t himself and I had to respect that going forward.

“I don’t understand what that’s like to have a feel, to have a vision and wanting your body to do exactly what you tell it to do and not responding the right way,” he added. “For sure, I was glad to be a part of this process with him just ’cause I’ve known him for so long. And I wish Rashaad the best.”

A new WR in the mix

Penny's retirement gave way to the signing of undrafted rookie wideout Tayvion Robinson. Canales referenced the thigh injury to fellow receiver Daewood Davis as the reason behind the addition.

"It's an injury that is gonna take a couple of weeks," he told reporters. "And so, right now, what we need is legs, people out there. So we signed another receiver to make sure we can have the numbers in that room."

Davis was carted off from Monday's practice.

Big Bob and friends

Starting right guard Robert Hunt will be working quite closely with center Austin Corbett and quarterback Bryce Young. He praised both of his new teammates, beginning with Corbett and his seemingly seamless transition to center.

"You couldn't even tell," Hunt said of Corbett switching from guard to center. "I'm playing with him, beside him—I would think that he was the center all along. He does a really good job of communicating, setting everything up, having everybody on the same page. He's looked good, he's done good."

He was later asked what he's learned about Young.

"That he's a playmaker—which I kinda started at in college, I watched a little bit of his game in college," Hunt replied. "He likes to make plays. That's not a bad thing at all. We love that. He likes to make plays, man. That's what we need. He's tough, he can sling the ball, put it in tight windows."

Hello, pads

As is the case with every NFL team, the Panthers revved up the intensity when the pads finally went on this morning. In fact, a few skirmishes even broke out.

But Young told reporters that the competitiveness is a part of the game.

"The pads, obviously, they bring out more intensity," Young said. "It gets more physical. We wanna clean some stuff up. We're still family at the end of the day. When we go to the locker room, we're brothers. But it gets competitive out there.

"Obviously, there were a couple of things that happened on the field, and it's part of the game. We leave it out here. We don't want it to happen in the future. But we're competing."

Top observations

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This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Panthers 2024 training camp tracker: Observations and takeaways from Day 5