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CHARLOTTE -- Seconds into the third practice game of the year, the entire season was rolling around on the stadium grass. A hush fell over the crowd as a referee's echoing instructions to the clock operator was to go back in time.

That seemed like a good idea to the Carolina Panthers.

If there's one indispensable player on the team, we found out last year, it's not Jake Delhomme or Julius Peppers. The one indispensable player on the roster is No. 89, and nine seconds into Saturday night's 47-3 win over Washington, he was writhing in pain on the 13-yard line at Bank of America Stadium.

Steve Smith's longest summer appeared to come to an abrupt end on the first play from scrimmage when Delhomme called for a 9-route, a long tater, the bomb "on one." Smith streaked from the line with a shimmy and an immediate acceleration that made everybody in the stadium think the same thing.

Touchdown.

The beauty of football is its simplicity. Carolina has the most dangerous weapon in the league in Smith and a gunslinging gambler in Delhomme. A team reportedly built around the run is in truth a wide-open team with Smith's derring-do and Delhomme's willingness to throw anywhere any time and under any circumstance.

The very first play of the game seemed like a good time for a long forward pass. Smith juked his man at the line of scrimmage and took off. Delhomme dropped back and launched one 56 yards in the air. The ball never wavered, arcing almost perfectly for Smith, who had a step on his man and was breaking away. At the last second, the ball drifted out ahead of Smith, as Delhomme's passes often do, and Smith went airborne, as he is wont to do.

He got one hand on it and was pulling it in when his shoulder landed hard on the stadium floor. A crowd that had come to its feet in anticipation froze in shock. Smith was injured.

The summer hasn't been a good one for Smith. His cheap-shot slugging of cornerback Ken Lucas frayed the nerves of every member of the team, forcing Panthers management to suspend its best player for the first two games of the regular season. Allowed to practice and play in practice games until the sentence, Smith began playing with a helter-skelter style that impressed his wavering teammates and eventually earned him a concussion.

Smith returned to practice a week ago, and returned to action Saturday night. And nine seconds into the game he was being attended to by team doctors and trainers and being observed by a phalanx of photographers and league cameras and kicker John Kasay. A team physician took Smith's helmet, never a good sign, and slipped it under the bench while the receiver tried to flex his shoulder and work the kinks of out of his neck.

The third game of the exhibition season is as close as we come to a real game before the real games start. Most of the regulars will get next week off or play sparingly. The regular season will begin a week later, and no one will remember the third week of preseason.

There was no reason for Smith to come back Saturday night, and every reason for the fans and team officials to be worried as they walked around with furrowed brows and lips pursed.

Time seemed to stand still inside the stadium, and as Carolina went through the motions for two more plays and a punt, all eyes were on No. 89 on the bench. Was this how it would end? Would the upcoming season be over before it began? Would the run of bad luck continue another year for the Panthers?

He was back in on the next series, somehow sneaking around and finding his helmet and running onto the field with Delhomme and the offense. Smith caught four passes for 60 yards Saturday night. He scored two touchdowns and led the team on a night when all the stars came out. Peppers was awesome. Delhomme was audacious. Running back DeAngelo Williams was brilliant, and his rookie counterpart Jonathan Stewart was almost as good.

The special teams were flawless and the defense was in mid-season form. But the best player on the field was Smith. That could not have been clearer on a night when the Panthers ran up a 41-0 lead on Washington and coasted to a convincing win.

All the wrong conclusions will be drawn after this one. Optimism is high, and writers covering the teams were asking facetious questions like "How do you spell juggernaut?" and "Where's the Super Bowl this year?"

One conclusion was clear. The 2008 Panthers will go as far as No. 89 takes them. The long period between now and Week 3 of the regular season will have a lot of people wanting to go back in time to Saturday night, when everything seemed perfect and anything possible.

That was only after Smith found his helmet, though.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com