Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly believes that having fun on the field will be key to his side's defense this season.

Kuechly won the NFL defensive rookie of the year award last season but his side struggled to a 7-9 record as they missed the playoffs.

He told reporters: "Moving forward [my mindset] is to keep improving on what's going on in the defense. [I need to] pick up small little intricacies this year. Do my job, make plays and just have fun.

"I think that's what we are going to try to do on defense this year is just having fun and I think we started doing that towards the end of the season and that's when we started playing better. So we just got to go out, do our jobs, make plays and have fun."

Carolina open their regular season campaign against the Seattle Seahawks on September 8.