Jonathan Stewart is finally healthy

Panthers RB Jonathan Stewart is healthy now, as healthy as he's been since the 2011 season.

"Very excited about having Jonathan on the field," coach Ron Rivera said after Wednesday's workout. "He's healthy again. He's moving the way we need him to move. I like what we're getting out of him.

"Even Jonathan is saying this is the first time he's been healthy [in a while]. So that's a good thing."

Rivera said Stewart doesn't need to be a 1,000-yard rusher to be effective. He just needs Stewart to be more effective than he was a year ago when he spent the first seven games on the physically unable to perform list and then missed the last three games after suffering a knee injury at New Orleans.

"We need to be able to rush for 100 yards a game like we did last year," Rivera said. "That's one of the things that really helped us out [last season]. We ran the ball well, we controlled the clock, we controlled the tempo of the game."

Stewart is in a timeshare with DeAngelo Williams and Mike Tolbert, so his fantasy value is pretty low at this point in the offseason. But he's a talented runner and could work his way into RB3/flex status if he stays healthy and gets 8-12 touches per game.