September 8, 2025 • 11 mins
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our friend Steve Smith, senior Carolina Panthers legend, NFL analyst,
NFL network analyst that is, of course, is back to
give us his perspective on everything yesterday, and as always, Steve,
we appreciate you, my man. We'll start with your thirty
thousand foot view. Kind of an odd game yesterday in Jacksonville.
It was hot, we had a seventy two minute rain delay.
Of course both teams went through that. But we know
the final score twenty six to ten. What were your
(00:21):
primary takeaways?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, primary takeaways? You know, after rewatching the game, I
was sitting here and I'm like, you know, why is
this happening? And what was a very interesting thing that
doing a little research, I believe Saan Waldron is on
that coaching staff, well Liam Cohne. Liam Cohn is on
(00:47):
that coach is the head coach and play caller. He
was also I believe quarterbacks coach when Dave can Allis
was offensive coordinator and Tampa, and then when he was
offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach or something in Seattle, Shane
(01:07):
Walders was there as well. So what does that tell
me is and then the most important part former offensive
line coach was also on a coaching staff against the
Jaguars with the Jaguars versus the Panthers. So you have
three people who know what's going on, not in the
(01:30):
passing game. I'm not making any excuses. I'm just doing
my research as an anolanst. You have the offensive coordinator,
the former tight ends coach, and the former O Liones coach.
(01:51):
You got three people who know exactly what to tell
the defense to throw off the detection. And then you
have the seventy two minute rain delay. Bro. That is
where things can get fuzzy because both teams now have
(02:14):
seventy two minutes to dissect, adjust, and make more additions
to their game plan based off what they just saw
because of the rain delay. And again I'm not making
an excuse, but I'm just telling you. When I was
sitting there, I'm saying, how is this happening? And then
the other parts sometimes of fans are thinking and let me,
(02:37):
this is dumbing it down for Steve. This is not
to the fans. This is just for me. Right, you're down,
it's third and eight, fourth quarter, you're down twenty three
to three. You know you've seen those play the play
charts that all these coordinators have. Where the hell is
(02:58):
the play for down by twenty third and eight? Where's
that play on the play chart? It don't exist. There
is no play for we getting our ass whooped by
twenty Let me get this play to get us back
in the game right now, don't happen. And so I
(03:19):
think a little bit of what's going on is there's
an unrealistic expectation that us the city. You know, I'm
not because I'm you know, I'm putting on my analyst hat.
The unrealistic expectation of this team. Now, all of a sudden,
(03:41):
they're playing for the Super Bowl, and they got Jerry
Rice and Joe Montana and Charles Haley and Sterling Sharp
and Shannon Sharp at tight end. They got all these
potentially Hall of Famer guys on the squad. Man, I
don't know games y'all watching, I worked the preseason games.
I'm not saying that this isn't I didn't expect this.
(04:03):
What I'm saying is I keep using this every year
when I'm doing this show with you. September is what, Kyle,
what do I call September?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Sloppy September?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
And what did that game look like?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Sloppy as hell, which leads me, which leads me to
my next question, because I think this is where you
can really help us out here too. Be it the
you know, multiple timeouts as the play clock was expiring,
taking the play clock down to under three seconds on
probably ninety percent of the snaps, Difficulty getting lined up,
difficult to getting the play call in. This all speaks
to what you're saying right now. How much of it
(04:37):
was fixable, how much of it was concerning, Well.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Every game you lose is concerning, bro. I'm gonna tell
you right now, I'm rewatching the Raymonds game. It's fifty
fifty three seconds left, is forty to thirty eight? Man,
everything it can be fixable and answer problem until the results,
until the results are different and you actually fix the issues.
(05:04):
You know, we can see here the Monday morning quarterback
or Monday afternoon general manager, whatever you know you want
to say. Man, the unfortunate part is they lost. But
we lost to a team that, for whatever reason, everybody
thought that it was a shoe in and that all
(05:25):
our you know, we're gonna run all over them. All
our guys was go maulsham. And I'm not sure what
games that was going on, because it damn sure didn't
go on in preseason. So I'm not sure how these
dudes just gonna roll out of bed and all of
a sudden become Superman with some of them looking like
(05:48):
damn Clark, Kitt and Robbin with no superpowers.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Well, then I will give you something that's very prominent
on my text line today and let you respond to that.
We have a lot of people saying, hey, remember a
couple of weeks ago when Dave pulled the starters in
Houston and said they didn't earn more reps out there?
You know, it sure looked like they could have used them.
There's a whole lot of that today, Steve, that all
these other teams and quarterbacks are playing more in the preseason,
why not the Panthers. What's your reaction to that, Well,
(06:14):
there have been.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Some quarterbacks who played in the preseason. Man, Russell Wilson,
did he play in a preseason?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I believe so.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Can't tell me he did, because he looked like he
didn't see a snap in preseason where Russ was. Russ
was dust uh yesterday and I was watching and I
got a conspiracy theory about that too. Yes, please. Yeah,
I think you know you remember you heard that they
had some play set for Jackson Dark to play right yep.
(06:46):
I think they never gave him any plays because if
that young man would have sniffed sniffed a possible positive
pass play, they be looking for Jackson Dard to be
played playing right now.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
They already want that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So as far as Panthers fans, I mean, you have
to really understand in a rebuild, you gotta be okay
and understanding a rebuild its not gonna always look pretty.
And I hate to say it. You know what they say, umsa,
you gotta it gets worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Steve, let me ask you about something that Mark Schlareth
said on the broadcast yesterday, and as a former wide receiver,
I'd love your thoughts on it on the line.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Form of wide receiver because you know, depending on what
I say, I get this credit.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, last I checked the tape. You were late in
the first half. Say your league get makes a catch,
should have dragged his toe, routine play doesn't do it,
that's bad enough. Uh, and then whiffs on a block
with poor effort. I think the next play two plays
later and Mark slare just hammered him on the broadcast
for that lack of effort as a'mer wide receiver with
your mentality? How much does that bother you?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
It doesn't bother me one bit. Why is that? Because
I don't play football anymore? I get I deal with
paper cuts.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
How much did that bother his position?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Coach? Uh? That's I know his position coach own his
own his behind big time, right, that's gonna be talked about.
But again, he's a young player. So he looked like
a deer headlights if you look at his eyes, you
(08:34):
look at he played some of the routine things that
he messed up, And that's a young man just trying
to make it. That's a young squad. That's a young
wide receiver squad. You let go of Adam Thielen to
make room for your young guys to grow. Growing pains
are what you're experiencing and visualized and visually seen right now.
(08:58):
Because Hunter just got that he would let go. Blah
blah blah. You think just just throwing it out there,
You think these young guys actually want to hear from
older guys because we're all haters and we want what
they have, and so it becomes problematic and difficult to
(09:22):
communicate with the wall.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
How disappointed were you? I mean, listen, you know what
I mean by this too.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I know you don't tell I am not disappointed. I'm
sitting in my house.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Listen. I heard the question because I know you don't
have any emotional attachment. I get that, but as somebody
who watches the film and knows what it should look like.
I watched Bryce yesterday and I saw plenty of good throws,
but I saw it all erased by carelessness with the football.
How concerning is that? If you're a head coach.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I mean, you have to address those issues because that
is the individual who deals with the ball every single time.
So you have to address that. But you also got
to understand when the rains of pours. So that's gonna happen, right,
that's part of I mean, there's a number of games
that happened this last night or Sunday that it was
(10:17):
depending on who you who you pull their complaining and
we can't do nothing right here, here's what you have
to understand. Pointing out leget pointing out Bryce. So just
just flow with me real quick. So I'm gonna open
(10:39):
the sun roof of my car, and it's raining, and
yet the person is is pouring and the person in
the backseat is complaining that their seat is wet. It's
water all up in the car.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, everything's bad.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Everything bad. Did you just use a give me a ruin?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
What do you want me to say?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Ro ruin? How about you sitting? What's your draws though?
In a wet seat? Yeah, I ain't even talking about
socks being wet. It feels like you tinkled on yourself.
You're talking about you're talking about you. You don't see
(11:27):
the forest through the trees though.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right, Well, listen, when you get through all that film,
hit me up and let me know if you find
some good stuff, because we sure could use some good
news around your brother.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Listen, there is a lot of good things. That's how
I got the points that they got.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, listen, I appreciate you as always. We'll talk to
you next Monday.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Appreciate it.
Our friend Steve Smith, senior Carolina Panthers legend, NFL analyst,
NFL network analyst that is, of course, is back to
give us his perspective on everything yesterday, and as always, Steve,
we appreciate you, my man. We'll start with your thirty
thousand foot view. Kind of an odd game yesterday in Jacksonville.
It was hot, we had a seventy two minute rain delay.
Of course both teams went through that. But we know
the final score twenty six to ten. What were your
(00:21):
primary takeaways?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, primary takeaways? You know, after rewatching the game, I
was sitting here and I'm like, you know, why is
this happening? And what was a very interesting thing that
doing a little research, I believe Saan Waldron is on
that coaching staff, well Liam Cohne. Liam Cohn is on
(00:47):
that coach is the head coach and play caller. He
was also I believe quarterbacks coach when Dave can Allis
was offensive coordinator and Tampa, and then when he was
offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach or something in Seattle, Shane
(01:07):
Walders was there as well. So what does that tell
me is and then the most important part former offensive
line coach was also on a coaching staff against the
Jaguars with the Jaguars versus the Panthers. So you have
three people who know what's going on, not in the
(01:30):
passing game. I'm not making any excuses. I'm just doing
my research as an anolanst. You have the offensive coordinator,
the former tight ends coach, and the former O Liones coach.
(01:51):
You got three people who know exactly what to tell
the defense to throw off the detection. And then you
have the seventy two minute rain delay. Bro. That is
where things can get fuzzy because both teams now have
(02:14):
seventy two minutes to dissect, adjust, and make more additions
to their game plan based off what they just saw
because of the rain delay. And again I'm not making
an excuse, but I'm just telling you. When I was
sitting there, I'm saying, how is this happening? And then
the other parts sometimes of fans are thinking and let me,
(02:37):
this is dumbing it down for Steve. This is not
to the fans. This is just for me. Right, you're down,
it's third and eight, fourth quarter, you're down twenty three
to three. You know you've seen those play the play
charts that all these coordinators have. Where the hell is
(02:58):
the play for down by twenty third and eight? Where's
that play on the play chart? It don't exist. There
is no play for we getting our ass whooped by
twenty Let me get this play to get us back
in the game right now, don't happen. And so I
(03:19):
think a little bit of what's going on is there's
an unrealistic expectation that us the city. You know, I'm
not because I'm you know, I'm putting on my analyst hat.
The unrealistic expectation of this team. Now, all of a sudden,
(03:41):
they're playing for the Super Bowl, and they got Jerry
Rice and Joe Montana and Charles Haley and Sterling Sharp
and Shannon Sharp at tight end. They got all these
potentially Hall of Famer guys on the squad. Man, I
don't know games y'all watching, I worked the preseason games.
I'm not saying that this isn't I didn't expect this.
(04:03):
What I'm saying is I keep using this every year
when I'm doing this show with you. September is what, Kyle,
what do I call September?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Sloppy September?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
And what did that game look like?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Sloppy as hell, which leads me, which leads me to
my next question, because I think this is where you
can really help us out here too. Be it the
you know, multiple timeouts as the play clock was expiring,
taking the play clock down to under three seconds on
probably ninety percent of the snaps, Difficulty getting lined up,
difficult to getting the play call in. This all speaks
to what you're saying right now. How much of it
(04:37):
was fixable, how much of it was concerning, Well.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Every game you lose is concerning, bro. I'm gonna tell
you right now, I'm rewatching the Raymonds game. It's fifty
fifty three seconds left, is forty to thirty eight? Man,
everything it can be fixable and answer problem until the results,
until the results are different and you actually fix the issues.
(05:04):
You know, we can see here the Monday morning quarterback
or Monday afternoon general manager, whatever you know you want
to say. Man, the unfortunate part is they lost. But
we lost to a team that, for whatever reason, everybody
thought that it was a shoe in and that all
(05:25):
our you know, we're gonna run all over them. All
our guys was go maulsham. And I'm not sure what
games that was going on, because it damn sure didn't
go on in preseason. So I'm not sure how these
dudes just gonna roll out of bed and all of
a sudden become Superman with some of them looking like
(05:48):
damn Clark, Kitt and Robbin with no superpowers.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Well, then I will give you something that's very prominent
on my text line today and let you respond to that.
We have a lot of people saying, hey, remember a
couple of weeks ago when Dave pulled the starters in
Houston and said they didn't earn more reps out there?
You know, it sure looked like they could have used them.
There's a whole lot of that today, Steve, that all
these other teams and quarterbacks are playing more in the preseason,
why not the Panthers. What's your reaction to that, Well,
(06:14):
there have been.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Some quarterbacks who played in the preseason. Man, Russell Wilson,
did he play in a preseason?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I believe so.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Can't tell me he did, because he looked like he
didn't see a snap in preseason where Russ was. Russ
was dust uh yesterday and I was watching and I
got a conspiracy theory about that too. Yes, please. Yeah,
I think you know you remember you heard that they
had some play set for Jackson Dark to play right yep.
(06:46):
I think they never gave him any plays because if
that young man would have sniffed sniffed a possible positive
pass play, they be looking for Jackson Dard to be
played playing right now.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
They already want that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So as far as Panthers fans, I mean, you have
to really understand in a rebuild, you gotta be okay
and understanding a rebuild its not gonna always look pretty.
And I hate to say it. You know what they say, umsa,
you gotta it gets worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Steve, let me ask you about something that Mark Schlareth
said on the broadcast yesterday, and as a former wide receiver,
I'd love your thoughts on it on the line.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Form of wide receiver because you know, depending on what
I say, I get this credit.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, last I checked the tape. You were late in
the first half. Say your league get makes a catch,
should have dragged his toe, routine play doesn't do it,
that's bad enough. Uh, and then whiffs on a block
with poor effort. I think the next play two plays
later and Mark slare just hammered him on the broadcast
for that lack of effort as a'mer wide receiver with
your mentality? How much does that bother you?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
It doesn't bother me one bit. Why is that? Because
I don't play football anymore? I get I deal with
paper cuts.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
How much did that bother his position?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Coach? Uh? That's I know his position coach own his
own his behind big time, right, that's gonna be talked about.
But again, he's a young player. So he looked like
a deer headlights if you look at his eyes, you
(08:34):
look at he played some of the routine things that
he messed up, And that's a young man just trying
to make it. That's a young squad. That's a young
wide receiver squad. You let go of Adam Thielen to
make room for your young guys to grow. Growing pains
are what you're experiencing and visualized and visually seen right now.
(08:58):
Because Hunter just got that he would let go. Blah
blah blah. You think just just throwing it out there,
You think these young guys actually want to hear from
older guys because we're all haters and we want what
they have, and so it becomes problematic and difficult to
(09:22):
communicate with the wall.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
How disappointed were you? I mean, listen, you know what
I mean by this too.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I know you don't tell I am not disappointed. I'm
sitting in my house.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Listen. I heard the question because I know you don't
have any emotional attachment. I get that, but as somebody
who watches the film and knows what it should look like.
I watched Bryce yesterday and I saw plenty of good throws,
but I saw it all erased by carelessness with the football.
How concerning is that? If you're a head coach.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I mean, you have to address those issues because that
is the individual who deals with the ball every single time.
So you have to address that. But you also got
to understand when the rains of pours. So that's gonna happen, right,
that's part of I mean, there's a number of games
that happened this last night or Sunday that it was
(10:17):
depending on who you who you pull their complaining and
we can't do nothing right here, here's what you have
to understand. Pointing out leget pointing out Bryce. So just
just flow with me real quick. So I'm gonna open
(10:39):
the sun roof of my car, and it's raining, and
yet the person is is pouring and the person in
the backseat is complaining that their seat is wet. It's
water all up in the car.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, everything's bad.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Everything bad. Did you just use a give me a ruin?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
What do you want me to say?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Ro ruin? How about you sitting? What's your draws though?
In a wet seat? Yeah, I ain't even talking about
socks being wet. It feels like you tinkled on yourself.
You're talking about you're talking about you. You don't see
(11:27):
the forest through the trees though.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right, Well, listen, when you get through all that film,
hit me up and let me know if you find
some good stuff, because we sure could use some good
news around your brother.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Listen, there is a lot of good things. That's how
I got the points that they got.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, listen, I appreciate you as always. We'll talk to
you next Monday.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Appreciate it.
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