CHARLOTTE — For a guy who touched the ball 26 times on Sunday, Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard said he felt remarkably spry this week.

There's a reason for that.

"I feel good. I mean, I was lucky there's times where I wasn't touched so my body feels pretty fresh," Hubbard said with a grin on Wednesday. "I mean, the O-line, I was saying they were throwing guys out of the club, receivers were blocking downfield, everything was just coming together. We were all playing for each other."

Yes, about those bouncers.

The Panthers offensive line has gotten a lot of attention for some of those big blocks in recent days, with right guard Robert Hunt and left tackle Ikem Ekwonu, in particular, earning notice for sending Raiders defenders flying.

That's the kind of personality head coach Dave Canales wants from his team, and last Sunday was the best example of it. The offensive line, which was a turnstile last year when injuries forced them to play seven different left guards and eight different right guards, has quickly grown into a strength of this group. Of course, that happens when you spend $150 million on free agent guards like Hunt and Damien Lewis, but the incumbent linemen also play to that physical style.

"It's a goal we set for ourselves. We want to go out there and dominate on the field," Ekwonu said. "So the more opportunities you can put that on film, the better.

"It's exciting stuff, just like I said, it's translating from the mindset to just speaking about it to actually putting it on film and doing it. This is something that we cherish."

The people they're doing it to might not agree — at least once they land — but Hunt said those are the kinds of blocks that can create a personality for a team, and at a certain point, it feeds itself.

"It boosted it up, man," Hunt said of the mood of the room when they watch that film. "We go out there like yo, you ain't going to get more than me. I mean bodies, like I'm knocking people out more than you are. Like I saw Ickey doing that, now I'm going to challenge him this week. Hey, if you want to keep doing it, do it, show them what you got. I'm going to try to beat you. . . .

"So it's not a competition thing. It's just like, hey, let's do it. And then once somebody gets the tone set, somebody follows."

Hubbard's been the beneficiary of that, and he just nodded when asked about the reactions to those big blocks.

"I mean, it just juices you up," he said. "That's what we work for. To have guys like that blocking, you can't really get much better than that. So I'm blessed."

Canales talks about the run game allowing the entire team to be in "attack mode," and he's made the emphasis clear since the day he walked in the door. So, seeing those blocks against the Raiders is an opportunity to show people what he wants the personality of the team to be about.

"It was Robert on the screen. It was Ickey on a run late where he kind of launches a guy on the edge and really gives Chuba a chance to bounce the run and get an 8 or 9-yard run," Canales said. "But it's just that mentality that guys, we're going to finish this way. This is us, and that's what we're looking for. We're looking to celebrate 'this is us' moments and to show it to the group and say this is who we can be when we all do right and we all play good team football."

And that message was internalized by the line early in his tenure. Suffice it to say that the group wasn't necessarily proud of the way last year went, and with the big-ticket additions and Austin Corbett moving into center, they knew the level of expectation was going up.

"I mean, when he talks about running the ball, you know, it's kind of like he's talking directly to us, and it's kind of like a challenge to us," Ekwonu said.

For Corbett, changing positions wasn't a big deal once he realized who was going to be on either side of him and what they were capable of. And seeing that show up in the run game as well as the pass (they're earning some of the league's top marks for pass protection already this season) is gratifying for them.

"No one's ever gonna complain about that when you guys of their size and athleticism and strength, and then either direction we go, we know we're going to be able to create a new line of scrimmage or be able to create some holes to allow these backs to make these cuts and get them running," he said. "And it's not always going to be, you know, the pretty 80-yard home run, but it's going to be these 4 5, 6-yard hits that we just keep pushing the pile, falling forward every single time. Eventually, they're going to get out of the gap, and that's when you get a big 10-to-15-yard or explosive. And it's just that ugly, you know, that's the common boxing analogy of just the body shots that you're going to take, and you finally get those late in the third quarter in the fourth quarter when you get those big ones to pop. . . .

"It's going to be nasty, it's going to be dirty, but we want it that way. We want to be the more physical team and in the pass game stuff, guys covering downfield and just being around piles, being around there to pick each other up and just be the forefront of this team."