November 17, 2025 • 47 mins
In the first hour of the show, the guys talk about the career day from Bryce Young against the Falcons, tell you how much credit Dave Canales should receive for the win over the Falcons and look at whether or not the loss to the Saints was actually a good thing for this team.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Only Sports Radio ninety two point seven a half m
u FNZ. Play fine, he's the Wes and Walker Show.
Even a crowd knows what's coming there.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
How about a team record from Bryce Young, Wes Bryant,
It's Walker, Mayl Wesson Walker, your favorite midday show really
on any radio station out there out there, but Sports
raty ninety two seven WFNZ especially, And we're here to
talk about a franchise passing record from Bryce Young. Last week, Wes,
(00:49):
I asked you, does Bryce just need to have the
stupid blow up game to get people back in his corner?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You did?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Does he need the blow up game to have people
hop back on Bryce Wagon? And you know what, four
hundred and forty eight yards, three touchdowns and overtime victory
for Bryce Young, that'll do for all of the naysayers.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
At least for a week. At least for a week.
But that I don't know what that was.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It sounded like a wave of Bryce Young and passing
yards hitting everybody in the face. What we watched yesterday
a big time monster victory for the Panthers thirty to
twenty seven over the division foe. They sweep the Atlanta Falcons.
They beat them both times this year in very different ways,
but they destroy them both times with offensive production. Here
(01:35):
in the passing game, it was the rushing production the
first time. The defense didn't allow any single points the
first matchup. They allowed a lot in the first half,
not nearly as much in the second half. Boy oh boy,
this is a fun one to talk.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, And I mean you have to respect the fact
that they did try to run the football. I mean
they handed it to Rico dald To nineteen times. But
I think we saw this to have just kind of
take the reins off a little bit and just let
Bryce go. And he showed that in the pocket at
all platform that he could do everything that was being
asked to him. And kudos to the receiving core as well.
I like the philosophy that this staff took in this game.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
A lot of four and five wilde outs.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I mean, when was the last time that we've really
seen empty kind of as often as we did with
five wideouts out there. That really kind of declares, makes
the defense declare when you get out there in those
five wide sets, and then guys are able to win
matchups and Bryce picks the matchup and he did that
on a couple of big important downs, but just as
far as what he was able to come out and
do I mean not in my wildness of dreams what
(02:32):
I thought that he would have thrown for four forty
eight and three touchdowns. But I think it shows you
what he's capable of. And that's the thing that you know,
I was talking about when you have a game like
this where they show you that, hey, if you know,
if we can get things right, I can do this,
Like not every quarterback can go out and put up
these types of numbers. So it's just showing that, Hey,
I think that he is the guy. They just need
(02:53):
to make sure that things are right around him. And
I think that this game was a big example of
why that is.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, this dignificance of this game, we're going to get
to that, the actual significance to the team and not
jess Bryce Young. Bryce Young is the storyline today, do
not get it twisted. But we have a lot of
sub storylines that are also quite significant. With Dave Canalis,
what'd you think of his coaching job, the defense settling
down in the second half, the other wide receivers contributing
(03:19):
Jalen Cocher. There you are nice to see you. Same
thing with Excel after watching him go for ninety yards
against the Jets. But really, I don't know how much
the production mattered in that game. This one it matters,
and it matters in a big way with a field
goal victory in overtime over Atlanta. So finally, nice to
see some of these other weapons outside of Temac show up.
(03:39):
And oh yeah, t Max shows up too with a
couple of touchdowns with a huge target share. Again while
everybody else sees it's a fun one to talk about
and we want to hear from you. The listener fandal
text line textas seven oh four five seven oh ninety
six ten. Again that number is seven oh four five
to seven oh ninety six ten. And last, but not least,
we're broadcasting live the channeled VAULTSA Studio CV Injury Law
(04:02):
dot Com, Cvinjurylaw dot Com. One call. That's all the
Carolina's personal injury lawyers. Let's do it. Let's pull up
to the scene, Let's open up the doors. It feels
like a war crime Monday feels like that. Yeah, we
just want to let out all the excitement. You can
do that if you want to. We'll save the warcry
(04:22):
Wednesday for Wednesday, but it feels like a war crime Monday,
where you pound your chest a little bit and you
get to talk a lot of trash to all the
Falcons fans, which people were doing so Panthers fans that
made that, Yeah, they were doing it quite a bit.
Saw a few fans on social media talking a lot
of trash to Atlanta, which is nice because now we
don't have to play them again. Yep, Falcons ain't making
(04:43):
the playoffs in large part because of both of these
losses to Carolina.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So let's pull up to the scene. Let's open up
the doors, flound d Z, let's get off the bus.
We looked good getting off the bus.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
My biggest takeaway on Bryce it was all set up
from what we were discussing last week Wes. Last week,
he had a terrible game against the New Orleans Saints.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The passing game.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
How much blame you want to assign to whoever doesn't
really matter, because Bryce Young was also bad. Depending on
how much blame you want to give to whatever wide
receiver Dave Canalis in the game plan, Bryce wasn't good.
We all knew that Bryce had only thrown for over
three hundred yards once all year coming into this game,
and I'll actually dwindle that down a little bit too,
(05:34):
having thrown for over two hundred yards only thrown for
over two hundred yards one time, and that was the
game against Arizona. Every single other game was anywhere from
one hundred to We did get a one ninety nine
to technically speak here, but even still just not putting
up a ton of numbers. Man, nobody's going to be
impressed with either of these box scores you look at,
(05:56):
even in some of the victories. But the stats that
matter is that Carolina now back over five hundred. Bryce
Young has another fourth quarter comeback slash ot comeback victory
on his resume. It's the most amount of comeback victories
compared to any other QB since he's entered the league
(06:16):
in twenty twenty three. And he did it after a
game where he was criticized to no end by a
lot of the Panthers fan base, by me, by a
lot of prominent media members, national media members, even some
people that were on his side. I saw plenty of
people that are Bryce fans say, hey, man, this ain't
gonna cut it. We need to see something more from you.
(06:37):
We need to see you hit Jalen Cocher on some
of these crossers. We need you to hang in the
pocket a little bit more. We need you to be
more on target on the short passes and take some
chances downfield. And he did all of that yesterday. Man,
what an incredible bounce back performance. And we've seen some
of this with Bryce before. We need to tell him
that people were talking trash about him the previous week,
(06:57):
because he seems to respond great through adversity. We need
to tell him that he's going to play the Atlanta
Falcons every single week and that they just changed uniforms
because he destroys Atlanta every single time. We need to
tell him a couple of those things, man, because if
he plays anywhere close to this, you're not going to
get four hundred and fifty yards every week, duh. But
if you play anywhere close to this, then yeah, there's
no question you got your franchise. QB Well also too,
(07:19):
you know, kudos to the staff of making sure that
he got into a rhythm early. I mean they threw
the ball on six of the first eight plays of
the game, and that's not necessarily the way that you
want to start, but still six out of eight because
he ends up completing passes that were deemed in rhythm
with the time to throw between two and a half
and four seconds. He completed fifteen or twenty of those
for three hundred and two yards and that was the
(07:39):
second most by any player this season with a touchdown pass.
And so the quarterbacks, you know, they can be like
running backs as well, where they need to get lighted up,
they need to get into a rhythm and really start
to figure out. Because it looked like he had a
master of the game plan, a mastery of what Atlanta
wanted to do pre im, post snap, and he was
very decisive and you know, he showed all of the
(08:00):
greight that you would want when you picked them in
the draft. Bryce Young balling out, I want to hear
from you on the FanDuel text line. Getting a lot
of texts coming in now as we start to get
rolled in here. Seven oh four five, seven oh ninety
six ten Again that number is seven oh four five,
seven oh ninety.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Six to ten.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Bicycle heard says, what did I think of Dave's coaching job?
It's about damn time he remembered. Bryce can sling it
great game plan this week. We're scrolling, We're scrolling more,
We're continuing to scroll. Been at aka Big Debra Welcome.
I don't feel like i've read that text name before,
fellas Rico's touchdown run that was called back and Tremble's
catch and run showed some dog with those guys. A
(08:38):
lot of yak in this one. Yeah, t yak if
you will. Rico on what I thought was still a touchdown.
I don't think there was enough evidence to overturn that call.
All's well, that ends well. T Mac on what was
a great scramble drill from both Bryce and TMAC to
get the lead into this game and regulation. Oh well,
that the touchdown was called back, but could have been
(08:59):
a big issue. Lots of yak from TMAC excel showed
up in that regard. The tight ends also Tommy Tremble
with the big fifty yard game, Rico Dawdle helping you
out as well. It just felt like everybody contributed offensively
with yeah, a couple sacks that you gave up here
and there from the offensive line. Chandler Savala probably had
the worst game on offense of anybody that you might consider,
(09:21):
but pretty much everybody else Man contributed in a big way.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, And that's another thing too, with the wide receivers.
They were touching the rock early too. When that gets
them going and gets them rolling. And you see some
of the results that we saw later in that football
game too. Man, guys are in rhythm, they're ready to go,
they're locked in, because receivers definitely operate that way in
a lot of cases. Man, they want to be able
to touch the ball early to really get them locked
(09:44):
in and end the zone. And you know, to your
point talking about Bryce's comebacks, He's got ten now for
his career. This is his fourth this season alone. And
they got to the point to where when Atlanta had
to give the ball back once they missed the third down,
I said, Paths are going to score because that's just
how much confidence I have in him in late game situation.
As soon as the Pants got the ball back and
he tried it out there on the field, I said,
(10:05):
they's on a score.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Well, and they did, and they couldn't stop the offense.
They couldn't stop Bryce Young. Bryce Young without the big
fifty yard game from Tommy Trimble was still at four
hundred yards. I mean it was already a ridiculous passing
game for Bryce, a career passing game for Bryce, even
before the big fifty yard completion to Tommy to set
them up for the eventual game winning field goal. So
(10:27):
a lot of that production came in the second half
when it was winning time. You know what's crazy about
this too, and I don't mean this as any backhanded compliment.
I mean that it allows the ceiling to be even
higher than what they showed. They left points on the
board yesterday, straight up some third downs where they were
guys wide open, Bryce Young getting stopped on the fourth down.
That's what's crazy, man, is that they left points on
(10:49):
the board, and even still you had this kind of
offensive production. Where as long as you continue to grow,
what you're going to Bryce, while a third year QB
still relatively young in this process, in what we've seen
from QB's wide receivers, very young. This is Cocrain Excel's
second year, This is Team Max first, So your most
experienced receiver in your top three options is two years experience.
(11:14):
Even the tight ends, Tommy Trimple is your most experience
of all of them, but JT it's his second season.
Mitchell Elevens. It's his first Mitchell Elevens had a big
reception into this one, so much youth, and now here
they are above five hundred and here's another takeaway, is
it just look at the macro. It's kind of tough
for these teams in the NFL to get going. I
don't know if I look at a team outside of
(11:35):
the Rams right now as truly having a dominant presence
in the National Football League. We thought Philadelphia would figure
it out. Their offense still leaves a lot to be desired.
Kansas City, Oh, it's fine, they'll figure it out. Now, man,
they're five hundred and John Daily Tiger Woods memes are
all over the place, with Tiger Woods being Kansas City
(11:56):
and John Daily being Carolina smoking the stogie out on
the Gulf of course, saying, hey, fancy meeting you here.
Nobody expected a guy like Daily, a team like the
Panthers to be competing with Kansas City slash Tiger Woods.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yet here we are.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
It allows you to feel a lot of confidence outside
of what has been a roller coaster season. I don't
even know if roller coaster season does it justice with
some of the blowouts they've experienced on the wrong end
and some of the exciting wins they've experienced on the
right end. But man, it feels good to be on
the ascent this week on the coast.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, it's got to when you're the path is because again,
there were points in a season when we didn't think
we would see a performance like this at all. There
are points in the season where you weren't sure if
they were going to sweep Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Because of the whole division thing.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I thought that these teams were split, like I didn't
see them sweeping Atlanta. So I think that's another market
that you can check off the box. Because when you're
building a program, you have to take the small wins
and you have to take inventory of every little thing
that you do. And so, yeah, there's gonna be some
bad moments. You've had that. But now when you look
at what comes out of this game, bryce having it
franchise record as far as what he was able to do,
(13:02):
you check that off the box of him showing you
extraordinary ability. Then you look at the fact that you
swept Atlanta, you're able to check that off at the
box and you're sitting there kind of in the mix
for first place in the division now, but there are
a lot of positives to be taken from this game
individually and then just from the season at all. In all,
because you're sitting here six and five, three and three.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Seven oh four five seven oh ninety six to ten,
you can continue to let us know your thoughts on
the Fandual text line, but also we'll take your phone
calls in the last segment of the twelve o'clock hour.
We still have a lot to comb through. Not only
are we going to continue to evaluate what Bryce did,
I want the feelings on the team to win, the
significance of this victory, and should this game have a
(13:46):
significant impact on how we view Bryce in his totality
Again right in on the FanDuel text line, we'll answer
that question coming back from break WESN Walker Sports Radio
ninety two to seven WFNZ Weston Walker Backsports Radio ninety
(14:16):
two to seven WFNZ. People they want to get involved
in the conversation, you can do it too, folks. FanDuel
text line seven four or five, seven ninety six ten.
Beanie Weenies, seeing a lot of new text names that
I haven't read before on the tech I don't know
if it's just because I usually don't get to your
text messages with all of them coming in, or if
it really is your first time in a while. But
(14:37):
I appreciate it, nonetheless, Beanie Whenies writing in Bryce bald
out defense came to play in the second half. But
we need to learn to pick up and play against
the blitz. Also we need someone to get some type
of pass rush. But other than that, very solid performance,
not perfect according to Beanie Weenie's but a lot to
be happy about. Rather be golfing, says I texted last
(14:57):
Friday about being unsure that Bryce is our friendranchise QB.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Bryce was good yesterday. He was great yesterday.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
He had and he's going into a few problems with
Bryce having missed a few plays and I, look, there
were well no, there were a couple, But that's nippicking
quarterback missus play. Yeah, that's called be worried about the
wrong stuff. That's what that's called. So we can be happy, yeah,
like rather be golfing. Look, I get it, Okay, it's
(15:25):
a Monday. We're in the second segment, all right. Bryce
threw for four hundred and fifty yards. Man, I mean
he was good. He was very, very extra very good
in this one the extra two? Who did extra two yards?
Oh yeah, well, I mean yeah, no, I'm complimenting you
for doing it. Yeah in the extra two. Yeah, I'm
sure there are going to be people. Actually, he threw
(15:47):
for four eight, Get it right, Walker, you guys glaze
Bryce Young. It's for forty eight. Please puny giant rights in.
This does not mean Bryce didn't deserve any smoke, but man,
it got to be way over the top. I think
he's answering the question that I had for you guys
going into the break. How significant should this game be
(16:09):
when we evaluate Bryce and the macro, Like, what does
this do to his reputation going forward? You can still
write in seven oh four, five, seven oh ninety six ten.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah. Look, it's a week to week league. We know this.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
The story can change dramatically every single week. We've been
going up and down. It has been a wild roller
coaster for the Panthers this year. It's crazy, man, it
really is. I mean, you're talking about some bad performances
to start the year off. Okay, great, here we are.
Are we about to drop to zero to five? Is
it going to be one of those types of seasons? Okay, now,
now you start to put some things together. You beat
(16:42):
the Falcons thirty to nothing. Where did that come from?
After not looking very good the first couple of weeks,
you get destroyed by the Patriots, and now we can't
feel good on a week to week basis because every
time you have a good game one week, you know
that the bottom could fall out completely. They righted the ship.
It felt like they got their rudder out and they
(17:04):
stabilized some things, and you still have some of these
terrible performances like we got last week against the Saints.
It still feels like overall, wes a pretty positive trajectory
when you have six wins at this point in the season.
They were an underdog on the road against Atlanta. They
had just come off of a loss against New Orleans.
But I mean, if we're gonna give every game it's day,
(17:27):
they did just beat Green Bay. I don't think it
was a great performance from Bryce, but they did beat
Green Bay and he did what he needed to do
in order to secure that victory. So what is the
significance level with this performance for Bryce and how we
can apply that to every single week and how we
use this to evaluate him when we have some of
the bigger conversations about him being the franchise QB.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Well, I think one thing, if you do want a
nitpick and try to find some negative as Harry smart
as up here doing his pressure for Charlotte, I would
love to hear what he's going to say about Charlotte,
because he's gonna say there's a good football team.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
And scared all right.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
So but the thing is, I would say the coaching
staff kind of deserves a little bit of smoke if
you want a nitpick, because, like I said before, you
felt like that this team and this coaching staff was
calling a bit of a conservative game plan each and
every week, a lot of condensed formations, lots of tight
ends on the field and some of those things. And
now again, like I said, one of the big glaring
(18:25):
things I noticed yesterday was just how wide open the
offense looked, Like I said, a lot of four receiver sets,
five receiver sests. When I saw him out then empty,
I was like, oh my god, especially when it wasn't
a situation with the game on the line, and I
was like, Okay, now, I feel like they're going to
have to try to figure out and we'll get into it. Later,
but we can talk about announce what they're going to
have to try to figure out a happy medium as
(18:46):
to how they can remain wide open this way but
still be able to stay true to their run principles,
which they were able to do so as far as
the carry amount that it was. But it's like, how
do they want to do this? Because you know, we
go doubt only goes for two point four on two,
But I had some nice runs in this game. But
I think they need to figure out what do they
want to do? Do we want to accentuate the talents
(19:08):
of our young quarterback because we saw yesterday when we
had a little bit more of a wide open plan
and a little bit more aggression in how we went
about things, we saw the results from that.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, the Dave Canalis stuff is kind of interesting today
because it does feel like now people are saying, well,
why haven't we been doing this all year long? I
would push back hardcore on that. So much of the
conversation surrounding this team was being a run first team.
Wes how many times have we talked about needing to
run the football more and how frustrated fans were about
(19:40):
not being stubborn running the football. Hey, Dave, you told
us you were going to be stubborn. Can you please
be stubborn? I mean that was the overwhelming conversation. So
now we're starting to flip it a little bit, and
I just man, Dave Canalis had an excellent game plan
against Atlanta. Bryce Young delivered layered throws I thought, took
contact and delivered on a I thought, Bryce, let's not
(20:01):
get anything twisted here.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Was excellent.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
There are zero things I have to say bad about
Bryce's performance in its totality yesterday, even with some of
the plays that Texters might be bringing up. You're right,
has Tom Brady ever played a perfect game one hundred
percent hit rate on one hundred plays?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
If he did, he might be the only one because
he is considered the goat. Nobody does that. Bryce was fantastic.
Dave can Alis drew up play man like. These wide
receivers were wide open in every single drop back. If
something didn't happen on a drop back, it was because
the offensive line might have got beat either Zavala Iki Kwan,
(20:39):
who got beat by James Pierce early in this game.
There were even wide open receivers on some of those
fourth downs.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
That didn't hit.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
On the third downs that didn't hit, were there were
wide open guys like straight up nobody within the stratosphere
of a Coker twice and then on the fourth down run.
This is real nitpicking from Bryce. Could have delivered it
Tommy Trimble, but he already made up his mind that
he was going to run it like That's again, you
can't be perfect. I thought Dave Canalis was masterful man.
And so when you have a game like you did
(21:08):
against Miami where you run it all over him, a
game like you had against Dallas where you run it
all over him, a game like you did against Green
Bay where you run it all over him, you have
a bad game against the Saints. This is the second
time now that a team has forced Bryce to beat them.
It's not all unlike what the Saints did last week.
The falcon said, y'all an't running on us. We have
(21:29):
a terrible run defense, but we're gonna make sure that
we're ready for you.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
We're gonna blitz and we're gonna make sure that you
don't have any run lanes. And the offensive line didn't
run block very well yesterday. They begged Bryce to beat
him and he did. Not only did he beat him,
he destroyed him. Not only did this passing game beat them,
they destroyed them. And so for me, man, I give
Dave Canalis all the credit in the world for the
way that he was able to design an offense surrounding
(21:53):
Bryce and combating some of the struggles that they've had
in the passing game in previous weeks.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah, and I think that you know a lot of
reasons that you saw so many open guys just because
of the way the formations that they were running in
their style of attack. It made the defense declare, like
they had to declare in a lot of those downs.
I mean, if I've got trips to one side, I
can start to make a determination on what's going on
with this defense when I have trips to one side,
or I've got you know, eleven personnel or things like that.
(22:20):
And so I think that was the big thing, because
again last week against the Saints, when you are running
more condensed formations or even when you do bring more
receivers on the field, especially that eleven look that they
like so much with three wide receivers were tight in
one running back. What the Saints were saying, we don't
care what you put out here. We're gonna leave big
bodies out here and we're gonna stop this run because
we don't trust you. And I think the coaches that
(22:40):
didn't take advantage of that, because I feel like they
probably could have done the same thing against the Saints
last week had they decided that's what they wanted to do.
And it felt like this week they kind of went
back to where they were the last ten games of
last year, when Bryce was making a big time throws
and he was throwing it down the field and he
was finding guys open, and also two guys were making
plays helping that quarterback to making catches and getting all
(23:03):
of the yack that they did. And so that's the
thing that I found so intriguing about this game. And again,
I just go back to the fact that you get
Bryce going early. Six out of your first eight plays,
you're calling passes and they were working. That's the thing
as well that you look at from this plan that
they put together, because they were able to go.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Down and score a touchdown.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And so once you get a quarterback in a rhythm
like that, he's going to be tough to stop.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And that's just what he was for this game. Now.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
They had their struggles a little bit more as the
first half went on, but you know they were able
to find a groove, find a rhythm, and Bryce took
full advantage.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, yeah he did. And you're right. I think this
is another thing. We'll talk about it all show long.
But if we're going to give Bryce a lot of shine,
I want to give Dave Canalis and this offensive staff,
the offensive game plan a lot of shine because I
just thought guys were wide open all day long, and.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
It's how you get a lot of yacht. How you
get a lot of yat.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Is either misforced or forcing mistackles, which TMAC had two.
You had Tommy Trimble on that one play alone. It
felt like there were two or three guys that had
a shot very early and then he ran through it
excel on that in breaking route, was able to take
it for a long way like a lot of wide
open guys that Bryce hits and stride and then because
(24:15):
of the accurate pass from Bryce, everything is connected, man,
Everything is working and working to a t. So Dave
deserves a lot of shine. Another receiver, I think Jalen
Coker's just flat out good. I think what this game
told me. Here was one Bryce was taking chances with
Coker even when he didn't get a lot of separation.
There was a throw where Bryce just had pressure in
(24:35):
his face. Has to get rid of the football, like
nothing that he did wrong. It's just, oh god, we
don't have anybody blocked. I need to get rid of
the football. Throws it to a tightly covered Jalen Coker,
but on the money, and Cocker's just so physical and
made a play for his quarterback. Just like you said,
My favorite throw of the game was Bryce getting off platform,
(24:57):
because man, that's my favorite Bryce. That's my favorite song
that he say. When you have pressure in your face
and you move in the pocket and now you're throwing
off platform and then he gives you that arm talent.
No it's not Josh Allen bullets downfield, but he can
give you some Matt Stafford throwing to the side and
give you a whole bunch of angles. When he threw
that pass on the cutter or the crosser, excuse me
(25:18):
from Jalen Cocher Wes, it was a throw that he
wasn't making each of the last two weeks that were open,
and so he did and just threw a dime. And
that's one where I don't even know how wide open
Cocher was. He was open enough go ahead and throw
it to him, but you had to layer that throw
over the first level of defense, buddy, Like that was
(25:38):
a flat out dime. I don't know if PFF recorded
that particular throw as a big time throw, but I'd
be cool if they did. I think the Excel throw
down the left side that deserves to be a big
time throw, just on the money bang excellent separation from Excel.
One of those where you got to hit it if
you're the QB, but you did. You put it on
the money excellent from Excel. But that one, like to me,
(26:00):
especially going to your left as a right handed quarterback,
that's harder to do. I thought that was my favorite
throw of the entire game, and that was a game
where there were a lot of great throws to choose for.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, And that's what you talk about when you say
a surgical performance that he put on. I mean, there
were so many ways that he was able to hurt
them no matter what it was. As I pointed out earlier,
the stats about him getting in rhythm. Then when you
talk about he was pressured nineteen times and he was
sacked five times, but he still hit eight or fourteen
under pressure four one hundred and thirty eight yards. So
(26:30):
he had all the answers to the tests in this game.
And that is where I come back, and I do
give the coaching staff credit because of what they did.
The defense was declaring a lot of things early and
then late, and Bryce being a processor that he is.
I mean, if you put Bryce in that type of
situation where you're running four and five wideouts as all
thing kind of as they did in this game, he's
going to hurt you really, really bad because that's where
(26:52):
his number one trait is gonna shine through, because he's
going to get up to the line, he's going to
figure out what you're doing pre snap, post snap quickly
booming the ball is going as evidence you know by
that stat about him being in rhythm, that's a guy
that went out there and he knew exactly what he
was getting pretty much every down and there was and
he made them pay and he knew what was gonna
come open what wasn't, and he hit him and God's
(27:12):
were on point. And so the key now is for
them to carry this performance into the next game.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Maybe it won't be you know, four fifty.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But this is a guy that now he's shown you
that he can throw in the high toos, low threes
and things like that, because I felt like that the
entire time, that he could do this on a regular basis,
not necessarily to this degree, but that he could.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Throw for high yard. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
That so to me, Look, man, I want to celebrate
in everything that was great from Bryce. I think now
what you've had the last couple of weeks are a
couple of teams that said, hey, quarterback, you gotta beat
us if you want to get this victory. And that
didn't happen against the Saints. Passing game in general did
not work. Bryce Young was not good against the Saints.
Bad football, straight up. Saint said you gotta beat us.
(27:56):
Weren't able to do it. Atlanta said that, and they
killed him, especially in the second half. Just a surgical
performance from everybody involved. And I got Ryan Mayer, who
always writes in mad but I'll read it. He says,
come on, Walker, So now Dave is the reason Bryce
played great?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Not at all.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I thought it was a perfect marriage for both of
these guys. I think Dave absolutely helped Bryce, and Bryce
also made some tight window throws. I'll say this, I
don't think that there were a ton of tight windows
that Bryce was hitting. I thought these guys were wide open,
and I thought Bryce was putting it on the money
to produce as much yards after the catch as possible,
which guys that matters. But people that are going to
(28:34):
be all the way in Bryce's corner at well, this
is Bryce. This is totally you know, all on Bryce.
Dave Canalis. The game plan at was fine, nah man.
Both things can work in synchronicity, like this was a
beautiful game plan and it was great execution from Bryce Young.
Both of these things can be true. But I didn't
see a lot, not a lot of tight window throws,
(28:55):
but there were some and he delivered on him.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah that's all you want. So okay.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Now the question to me becomes, if we go back
at the beginning of this segment, can we apply this
to every single game going forward? That I don't know yet,
I don't know he's capable of it.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Now, what happens in the defensive game plan where they
start trying to play for the past a little bit more,
and it's not so dramatic. Hey, QB, you gotta beat us?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
What's that? What's you doing? Well, you're sticking in Ricardowdo's good?
I have to go get it. That's right, that's what
you do. That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
So now that that's what excites me overall about the
team right now, whatever you want to lay blame to
give credit to whatever you gave us that game against
a team that had been pretty damn good in coverage.
They got some ballplayers over there in the secondary, which
makes it all the more exciting as to what this
team looked like. Now, if they showed you that they
(29:48):
can do that all of this. Did the Saints show
the blueprint?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Do they do this?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Hey, go ahead. You don't want to use that Falcons blueprint,
So try that if you want to. Now we've shown
you that we can beat you through the air, and
Rico Dall can still run. Man, I don't know how
injured he is. I don't know what the case is there.
But now, if you want to be a more balanced defense,
I think the balanced Panthers offense and what they've shown
the last couple of weeks that gives me excitement overall.
(30:13):
As the team grows the rest.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Of the world.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, one thing I want to bring to the table too,
is like, again, when we look at the last TEA
games the next year, how wide open it felt like
that they played Bryce and the gun a lot, three
four receivers, five receivers, things like that. Right then we
come into this year with the stubborn against the run
theory and they do play and Bryce is putting up
very conservative numbers. Like I said, I've been pointing out
the formations and how they go about their business. But
(30:37):
the thing we have to remember is that Bryce has
not played that style of football.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
His entire life.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
When he was in high school, wide open, Alabama wide open,
even though Alabama liked to run a ball, but they
had him in the gun a lot as well, and
he was able to do what he does. And so
yesterday we saw that put into effect once again where
I felt like they were playing to his strengths. And
so I think that's another things well, is that Bryce.
You know, sometimes when you talk about the missus or
(31:03):
different things that have come in the style that they
had been playing up until now, I think sometimes when
quarterbacks are outside of their comfort zone and playing in
maybe schemes that they're not you know, that's not in
their DNA, so to speak. I think sometimes you will
see that where maybe the eyes aren't where they need
to be, or sometimes the processing isn't quite what it was,
or just because they're being asked not to lose the game,
(31:24):
which that's what it felt like for a lot of
this year. That is what Bryce has been tasked with,
is that he's getting the messaging of hey, let's just
run the air out of this ball, don't lose the game,
don't turn the ball over.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
And I think that's why we saw what we saw.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
And then this game, I feel like the rains were
taken off and he was able to go out and
be himself.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I think especially look, I think especially against the Saints game,
I think that they were throws downfield that Bryce could
have made it. I don't think Bryce was good against
New Orleans, but it did feel like there were also
some conservative play calls there from Dave Canalis where we
didn't open it up as much as they should have.
One thing that's interesting because I wanted to see, Okay,
(32:05):
it feels like they're throwing all over the yard. That's
what it feels like, and they were that's true. But
what's the average depth of target for Bryce shung in
this game compared to the one against the Saints? Just
a surprising stat. I don't know how interesting everybody else
finds this. It's the exact same. Wow, seven point three
seven point three average depth for target against the Saints
(32:26):
seven point three against the Falcons. Here's what was happening.
In my opinion, how did that happen?
Speaker 4 (32:31):
All?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Right? Well, you had?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I was like, okay, maybe one way you look at
it is how many deep shots they took against Atlanta
compared to New Orleans. Believe it or not, the deep
play attempt percentage against the Saints was higher than it
was against the Falcons. Three twenty yard passes downfield against
New Orleans. Four against the Falcons, but way more plays offensively,
(32:54):
so the percentage was higher with New Orleans. So okay, yeah,
because I wouldn't have guessed that looking at the numbers,
but it felt like that to me. The reason it
felt like that is because of the act like Bryce
throwing all over the yard. He's throwing within, for the
most part, fifteen yards past the line of scrimmage. With
fifteen it's okay too, I mean I don't want to
(33:14):
get too lost here and to what it all means,
because really Bryce was still impeccable at throwing the football.
But I want to go back to a stat that
really wasn't talked a whole lot about until Bill Barnwell
brought it up and it kind of caught us by surprise.
Last week West Bryce was off target on passes ten
yards past the line of scrimmage almost as much as
any quarterback in the league. And that's not something that
(33:35):
we're used to seeing from him. Not this game, man.
Just dime dime, dime, dot dot accurate, accurate, allow the
wide receivers to be better than what they already are.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Like.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
To me, that was what was so significant about this performance.
It's that team att catches it in stride, and he
catches it in stride because Bryce put it on the
freaking money Tommy Tremble, the processing Dave Canal's after the
game said that that throw to Tommy was the last
play in the progression. You watched Bryce. Just put your
eyes on him throughout that entire play. Zero panic in
(34:06):
those clutch situations, man, which is why he's been so
good on these final drives. Okay, I don't have it left.
I don't have it here. Tommy's over here on the backside.
Allow your tied end to make a play. It's fun,
and I don't want people to try to use this
as some kind of agenda game, right, Like that's what
lessens the fun to me. Oh it's all because of Bryce.
Coaching staff's been holding him back. Oh it's all because
(34:28):
of the coaching staff. They're the ones that drew up
wide open receivers. Nah, man, these guys have to work
together to be successful, and we saw that on full
display against Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, we did.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
And so you have to be excited looking at how
these guys were able to come out and play and
you know, just going holistically. Man, it was a total
team effort, man, And you got great effort from the
wide receivers. Guys were winning matchups and they were making
big plays. I mean the Xal catch. How was the
heck of the catch that he made for that touchdown?
And so that's what you need, man, if they're going
to have more and more success this season.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Zero four five, seven oh ninety six ten. Not only
is it the FanDuel text line, it's the phone line.
Go ahead and call. Go ahead and call it bab Ca.
Now we want to hear what is that? Oh yeah,
I forgot you, young bub. Is that so Miss Cleo
used to be the psychic that was on TV She
Got Real podcast.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, so I remember at the end of Commerciers he
goes call men.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Now that is I don't know where that was in
my brain, but that was something I thought I might
never hear for the rest of my life. Yeah, you
went in the depths of my brain and brought that
one out. All right, there's West and tell you you
cut call us now seven o four five seven oh
ninety Now I can't forget it. Seven oh four five
seven oh ninety six ten. Call in with your thoughts
on Bryce Young the Panther's victory. All love it again?
(35:43):
Seven oh four five seven oh ninety six. Ten we
hear from you after the brain people dialing in you
can too seven oh four five seven oh ninety Panther
Bow calling in one. We always appreciate the phone call.
(36:04):
But I heard him yesterday listening to the postgame show
with Willie p and Panther Bow. You were fired up?
Are you still as as you were last night?
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Yeah? I mean there was definitely some fire. I didn't
really know what I was gonna say, so I just
I just get really amped up and then maybe it
sounds all right good ever, it is what it is.
But you know, I was thinking not to move the goalpost.
But you know, if Jade and Daniels as a rookie
can carry this sorry you know, Commander's team to the
NFC Championship, I think the only way you can, you know,
(36:37):
call Bryce a franchise quarterback is if he leads us
past that in year three to the super Bowl. You know,
in Canalis, he had some good play calling yesterday, but
we're gonna need to see that every single week. So
I think we're gonna win every single game. Otherwise I
look to fire Canalist. I'd look to fire Bryce. If
Teper can't get a dome with real turf in there
like they had of Madrid, he needs to fire himself.
(37:00):
I'll fire myself from from you know whatever. Listen, everyone
needs to look themselves in the mirror, even with this
great win and say what can we do to be better?
So let's I think they got a chance to go
to the super Bowl, and you know we'll find out.
I'm looking forward to watching.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Well, hold up both. This is very different though. I mean,
this is maybe a one hundred and eighty degree turn
from what I heard you yell, not say on the
air yesterday, yell on the air, well, what's going on?
Speaker 1 (37:24):
I guess what?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Twelve sixteen hours after what we saw yesterday from Carolina.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
I just feel like, you know, we got to put
the pressure on these guys. They taught the pressure after
last week. We don't want to come in those victory mondays.
We got to make sure everyone's telled accountable all the time,
otherwise you're getting fired. It's like you're not good enough
to be like a great quarterback like Jackson Dart or
whatever for the Giants, you know, like fother said last
week that he's better than Bryce. So listen, we you know,
(37:52):
I don't want to get into you know, any kind
of take you know, take off, you know, whatever where
everyone has to take. But we got to make sure
everyone knows that you're getting ready to get five, so
that way we can all do better.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I like that phone call, BO cuz I know what
you're doing. I know that man too.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Well. Okay, we know our listeners. I think pretty well.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
The p ones the guys that we read a lot
of texts from and hear from on a daily basis.
I'll see what you're doing, Bo. But it's exactly why
Dave Canalis after the game yesterday, in the postgame victory speech,
said now I'm going to see you tomorrow. We can't
let up because we tried doing that after beating Green
Bay and it didn't work out so well for us.
(38:33):
So hey, I'll see you guys on Monday, to which
the team responded, quite well, you have to after giving
us a stinker against the Saints. But Bo seems to
be doing the same thing. I appreciate that phone call. Yeah, man,
and I mean for the Panthers, Yeah, you cannot let up.
And I think that also we had questions answered we
talked about during the week about the raucous that old
Nick Gordon brought up and how would they respond to
(38:55):
that too, when I think he came out and saw
the effort that you would want to see coming off
of what was said this past week.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
We can keep got to turn my mic on. That's
how radio works.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
We can keep going to phone calls, but I do
want to sit here for a second. Seven oh four
or five seven ninety six to ten, if you want
to call in and share some of your thoughts. But
I heard Willie and Smoke talking about it. I agree
with this, Wes. I wonder if you do subscribe to
the Blessing in disguise theory, with the loss to the
Saints last weekend, are they better for it going forward
(39:26):
because they needed something like that to bring him down
after a win against Green Bay. It's not necessarily that
we had an issue with Nick Gorton telling a lie.
It's that he told the truth outside of Bank of
America Stadium, right he told it to a channel. That's
job it is to tell us some of that stuff
when he could have hit it if he wanted to
(39:47):
and talk to some of his other players, some of
his teammates and kept that under, you know, under wraps.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
But he did it.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
So do they give you this kind of performance against
Atlanta if they don't have that humbling loss to New Orleans.
I don't know, man, Like I don't think they do.
To be honest, I think if they win, let's say
they win by seven, pretty comfortable, maybe like a Jets
type of victory where it's not the prettiest, but they
get the victory, they avoid unmitigated disaster, and they get
(40:19):
the dub. Maybe they don't give us this type of
performance against them.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I look at it more so, you know, as it
was a blessing in the size in disguise from a
coaching standpoint, because it made you have to find another fastball.
And that was the biggest thing that we looked at
because the fact that it was a division game, you know,
you do have to kind of throw records out of
the window. And you know, the Saints had been you know,
they had had their share of lopsided losses too, but
(40:44):
they were also a team that was you know, they
were going to battle you. You were going to play
a football game against them. You aren't just going to
come in and win forty five to nothing. And so
the Panthers they got a little bit of a taste
of that. And so the Saints went and took away
their weakness and they weren't prepared for that, or they
took away their and they weren't prepared for that. They
took the runaway and the Panthers just kind of seemed
stuck in the mud after that. So the coaches, we
(41:06):
get again, we talked about it last week that we said, hey,
they're going to have to go back to the drawing
board and figure out how what else can they offer
from this offense to be able to have something to
counter when people take away to run, because that's just
what it was going to be going forward, and teams
are still going to continue to try to take the
runaway first until they consistently prove that they can hurt
(41:27):
them through their air. But I mean, Rico Dowd, a
two point four yards of care Atlanta said the same thing.
They said, We're not going to give you the run,
and so this coaching staff had to go into their
bag to be able to figure out how else can
we manufacture yards and points? Because yeah, if they'd come
in with the same type of game plan that they
had last week, then yet they probably lose this game
regardless of what was going on in the locker room.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
They just kind of got exposed a bit.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
And that's what happens to teams during the season, and
that's how you continue to get better. While teams aren't
the same way beginning of the season, middle of the
season as they are towards the end, because you have
to go through things like that that make you continue
to find solutions.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Yet and before what they had been doing in the
passing game, it had been throwing to t Mac NonStop.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
I do think this.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Is where we start to get into the coaching staff,
the game plan versus what Bryce Young was culpable for,
and some of the losses and the lack of production,
the lack of yards points whatever, where it felt like
he trusted t Mac and maybe didn't trust some of
the other receivers. And I can understand not the Cocher
stuff was a little weird because he was so trustworthy
(42:31):
last year. And it's not like Jalen Cocher was this
separation god last season. He's not whoever the best artist
are and separating right, He wasn't that, But he was
just productive. Throw it anywhere in his vicinity. He's so strong,
he's such a physical receiver. Where it felt like if
Bryce isn't throwing to him, it's because he wants to
throw to the guy that does create more separation than anybody,
(42:54):
which it's t Maac on this group, in this group here,
that's what it looks like to me. So throw it
to give him a chance he can come down with
those fifty to fifty balls. I think he's excellent at
contested catches, and I think you saw a couple of
those in this game. So give Cocher a couple of
those opportunities, because I felt like there were similar routes
that he didn't try against New Orleans?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Did hear?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
And you saw the fruits of that Excel downfield. This
is where maybe some of it's coaching, some of it
is just Excel getting better in my opinion. Right where
against New Orleans, they took a shot to Xcel they
did down the left sideline, he alligator arms it. It
felt like he could have caught it, and instead it
(43:37):
looks like a bad miss live. But then you go
back against New Orleans and then you check the tape
and it's like, ooh, XL, extend your arms out, buddy,
what are you doing this time? It's on the money,
even more so on the money in this game than
it was against New Orleans. And XL comes down with
it and it's like, Okay, the receivers, you trust him
a little more. There's almost like this symbiotic relationship between
the two.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
I trust you.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Now give me a reason to trust you, and now
it can start to trust you a little bit more.
I'm hoping that that continues to happen, especially with some
comments from canal Is saying, man, when you have Timac
as productive as he's been sixth now in receiving yards
across the entire NFL, the field starts to tilt that
way and it had been. Now Cocher in excel the
tight ends getting involved again. Now that opens up everything
(44:21):
for everybody, and that helps the coaching staff, that helps
Bryce Young specifically, and that's what also gets you excited.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Yeah, And the biggest thing you hope that it gives
these guys is confidence because Xal I mean you can
look at him. Until that, his confidence seemed like it
was up and down. I know Jaylen Cocher, with the
start that he's had to the year too, you know,
he needed something to give him a pick me up too.
And going four to four when you talk targets and
receptions on one hundred percent catch rate, will do that.
And so I think that that's another big thing that
(44:48):
should come from this is confidence from the rest of
the guys in this passing game that they are capable
of going out and hurting people.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, I think clearly we're not going to get four
to fifty. But to put a bow on this first down,
it don't happen this week, but to put it no,
it's not. I had to give them a little sum.
They keep, they keep, they keep messling with.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Me on the fans in the text line wanting me
to come out and say something pro Nina.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
So I had to give them this week because we're
going to have that at halftime. Now it's going to
be what nine hundred passing yards. Now, I'm just saying, no,
you don't.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
I know you don't.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
People are right, it's the Opson Walker Show on Sports
Rady ninety two seven WFNZ. To put a panther bow
on this segment, if you will, word to the first caller.
I think, even if you're not going to see this
type of production because nobody it's a team record for
a reason, I think that there are things to take
away and it be real, right, Like when you see
(45:42):
such an outlier type of game, you usually throw it
out the window. It's why you have the classic way
of measuring things, taking away the best and worst performance
so you get a true media of how it is
that your quarterback looks, how your football team looks whatever
you're evaluating, right, Okay, throw it out out the window.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Fine.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
I think that would be misguided because I think there
are things you take away from this game and you
can really apply. Just because it's an outlier in terms
of production does not mean that there aren't things here
that you can apply the rest of the way and
rely on, even depend on. I didn't see a lot
of fluky stuff here, right. I think you can apply
(46:22):
some of this stuff going forward, and even if it's
a much tougher schedule you're gonna be facing some really
tough defenses. There are some things that I think you
got right here against Atlanta that can continue as the
season goes on.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Yeah, And I think another thing too, is that you
put a lot on tape to give teams a lot
to think about. Like the forty nine ers are going
to have a lot to look at when you talk
about the run cut ups of regoing how that's been successful.
But now you have a lot of passing to look
at this week as well to figure out, you know,
and you don't know which way they're gonna go really
when you talk to Panthers and what type of game
(46:56):
plan they're gonna put together at this point.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Just don't be a spy, don't be like that. Don't
call anybody, we don't need it. It's the Austin Walker
Show coming up with a campus Listen to the West
and Walker Show weeks from noon to three only on
Sports Radio ninety two point seven FM
Speaker 3 (47:15):
U f n Z, the official home of the Charlotte
sports Fan
Only Sports Radio ninety two point seven a half m
u FNZ. Play fine, he's the Wes and Walker Show.
Even a crowd knows what's coming there.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
How about a team record from Bryce Young, Wes Bryant,
It's Walker, Mayl Wesson Walker, your favorite midday show really
on any radio station out there out there, but Sports
raty ninety two seven WFNZ especially, And we're here to
talk about a franchise passing record from Bryce Young. Last week, Wes,
(00:49):
I asked you, does Bryce just need to have the
stupid blow up game to get people back in his corner?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You did?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Does he need the blow up game to have people
hop back on Bryce Wagon? And you know what, four
hundred and forty eight yards, three touchdowns and overtime victory
for Bryce Young, that'll do for all of the naysayers.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
At least for a week. At least for a week.
But that I don't know what that was.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It sounded like a wave of Bryce Young and passing
yards hitting everybody in the face. What we watched yesterday
a big time monster victory for the Panthers thirty to
twenty seven over the division foe. They sweep the Atlanta Falcons.
They beat them both times this year in very different ways,
but they destroy them both times with offensive production. Here
(01:35):
in the passing game, it was the rushing production the
first time. The defense didn't allow any single points the
first matchup. They allowed a lot in the first half,
not nearly as much in the second half. Boy oh boy,
this is a fun one to talk.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, And I mean you have to respect the fact
that they did try to run the football. I mean
they handed it to Rico dald To nineteen times. But
I think we saw this to have just kind of
take the reins off a little bit and just let
Bryce go. And he showed that in the pocket at
all platform that he could do everything that was being
asked to him. And kudos to the receiving core as well.
I like the philosophy that this staff took in this game.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
A lot of four and five wilde outs.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I mean, when was the last time that we've really
seen empty kind of as often as we did with
five wideouts out there. That really kind of declares, makes
the defense declare when you get out there in those
five wide sets, and then guys are able to win
matchups and Bryce picks the matchup and he did that
on a couple of big important downs, but just as
far as what he was able to come out and
do I mean not in my wildness of dreams what
(02:32):
I thought that he would have thrown for four forty
eight and three touchdowns. But I think it shows you
what he's capable of. And that's the thing that you know,
I was talking about when you have a game like
this where they show you that, hey, if you know,
if we can get things right, I can do this,
Like not every quarterback can go out and put up
these types of numbers. So it's just showing that, Hey,
I think that he is the guy. They just need
(02:53):
to make sure that things are right around him. And
I think that this game was a big example of
why that is.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, this dignificance of this game, we're going to get
to that, the actual significance to the team and not
jess Bryce Young. Bryce Young is the storyline today, do
not get it twisted. But we have a lot of
sub storylines that are also quite significant. With Dave Canalis,
what'd you think of his coaching job, the defense settling
down in the second half, the other wide receivers contributing
(03:19):
Jalen Cocher. There you are nice to see you. Same
thing with Excel after watching him go for ninety yards
against the Jets. But really, I don't know how much
the production mattered in that game. This one it matters,
and it matters in a big way with a field
goal victory in overtime over Atlanta. So finally, nice to
see some of these other weapons outside of Temac show up.
(03:39):
And oh yeah, t Max shows up too with a
couple of touchdowns with a huge target share. Again while
everybody else sees it's a fun one to talk about
and we want to hear from you. The listener fandal
text line textas seven oh four five seven oh ninety
six ten. Again that number is seven oh four five
to seven oh ninety six ten. And last, but not least,
we're broadcasting live the channeled VAULTSA Studio CV Injury Law
(04:02):
dot Com, Cvinjurylaw dot Com. One call. That's all the
Carolina's personal injury lawyers. Let's do it. Let's pull up
to the scene, Let's open up the doors. It feels
like a war crime Monday feels like that. Yeah, we
just want to let out all the excitement. You can
do that if you want to. We'll save the warcry
(04:22):
Wednesday for Wednesday, but it feels like a war crime Monday,
where you pound your chest a little bit and you
get to talk a lot of trash to all the
Falcons fans, which people were doing so Panthers fans that
made that, Yeah, they were doing it quite a bit.
Saw a few fans on social media talking a lot
of trash to Atlanta, which is nice because now we
don't have to play them again. Yep, Falcons ain't making
(04:43):
the playoffs in large part because of both of these
losses to Carolina.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So let's pull up to the scene. Let's open up
the doors, flound d Z, let's get off the bus.
We looked good getting off the bus.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
My biggest takeaway on Bryce it was all set up
from what we were discussing last week Wes. Last week,
he had a terrible game against the New Orleans Saints.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The passing game.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
How much blame you want to assign to whoever doesn't
really matter, because Bryce Young was also bad. Depending on
how much blame you want to give to whatever wide
receiver Dave Canalis in the game plan, Bryce wasn't good.
We all knew that Bryce had only thrown for over
three hundred yards once all year coming into this game,
and I'll actually dwindle that down a little bit too,
(05:34):
having thrown for over two hundred yards only thrown for
over two hundred yards one time, and that was the
game against Arizona. Every single other game was anywhere from
one hundred to We did get a one ninety nine
to technically speak here, but even still just not putting
up a ton of numbers. Man, nobody's going to be
impressed with either of these box scores you look at,
(05:56):
even in some of the victories. But the stats that
matter is that Carolina now back over five hundred. Bryce
Young has another fourth quarter comeback slash ot comeback victory
on his resume. It's the most amount of comeback victories
compared to any other QB since he's entered the league
(06:16):
in twenty twenty three. And he did it after a
game where he was criticized to no end by a
lot of the Panthers fan base, by me, by a
lot of prominent media members, national media members, even some
people that were on his side. I saw plenty of
people that are Bryce fans say, hey, man, this ain't
gonna cut it. We need to see something more from you.
(06:37):
We need to see you hit Jalen Cocher on some
of these crossers. We need you to hang in the
pocket a little bit more. We need you to be
more on target on the short passes and take some
chances downfield. And he did all of that yesterday. Man,
what an incredible bounce back performance. And we've seen some
of this with Bryce before. We need to tell him
that people were talking trash about him the previous week,
(06:57):
because he seems to respond great through adversity. We need
to tell him that he's going to play the Atlanta
Falcons every single week and that they just changed uniforms
because he destroys Atlanta every single time. We need to
tell him a couple of those things, man, because if
he plays anywhere close to this, you're not going to
get four hundred and fifty yards every week, duh. But
if you play anywhere close to this, then yeah, there's
no question you got your franchise. QB Well also too,
(07:19):
you know, kudos to the staff of making sure that
he got into a rhythm early. I mean they threw
the ball on six of the first eight plays of
the game, and that's not necessarily the way that you
want to start, but still six out of eight because
he ends up completing passes that were deemed in rhythm
with the time to throw between two and a half
and four seconds. He completed fifteen or twenty of those
for three hundred and two yards and that was the
(07:39):
second most by any player this season with a touchdown pass.
And so the quarterbacks, you know, they can be like
running backs as well, where they need to get lighted up,
they need to get into a rhythm and really start
to figure out. Because it looked like he had a
master of the game plan, a mastery of what Atlanta
wanted to do pre im, post snap, and he was
very decisive and you know, he showed all of the
(08:00):
greight that you would want when you picked them in
the draft. Bryce Young balling out, I want to hear
from you on the FanDuel text line. Getting a lot
of texts coming in now as we start to get
rolled in here. Seven oh four five, seven oh ninety
six ten Again that number is seven oh four five,
seven oh ninety.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Six to ten.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Bicycle heard says, what did I think of Dave's coaching job?
It's about damn time he remembered. Bryce can sling it
great game plan this week. We're scrolling, We're scrolling more,
We're continuing to scroll. Been at aka Big Debra Welcome.
I don't feel like i've read that text name before,
fellas Rico's touchdown run that was called back and Tremble's
catch and run showed some dog with those guys. A
(08:38):
lot of yak in this one. Yeah, t yak if
you will. Rico on what I thought was still a touchdown.
I don't think there was enough evidence to overturn that call.
All's well, that ends well. T Mac on what was
a great scramble drill from both Bryce and TMAC to
get the lead into this game and regulation. Oh well,
that the touchdown was called back, but could have been
(08:59):
a big issue. Lots of yak from TMAC excel showed
up in that regard. The tight ends also Tommy Tremble
with the big fifty yard game, Rico Dawdle helping you
out as well. It just felt like everybody contributed offensively
with yeah, a couple sacks that you gave up here
and there from the offensive line. Chandler Savala probably had
the worst game on offense of anybody that you might consider,
(09:21):
but pretty much everybody else Man contributed in a big way.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, And that's another thing too, with the wide receivers.
They were touching the rock early too. When that gets
them going and gets them rolling. And you see some
of the results that we saw later in that football
game too. Man, guys are in rhythm, they're ready to go,
they're locked in, because receivers definitely operate that way in
a lot of cases. Man, they want to be able
to touch the ball early to really get them locked
(09:44):
in and end the zone. And you know, to your
point talking about Bryce's comebacks, He's got ten now for
his career. This is his fourth this season alone. And
they got to the point to where when Atlanta had
to give the ball back once they missed the third down,
I said, Paths are going to score because that's just
how much confidence I have in him in late game situation.
As soon as the Pants got the ball back and
he tried it out there on the field, I said,
(10:05):
they's on a score.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Well, and they did, and they couldn't stop the offense.
They couldn't stop Bryce Young. Bryce Young without the big
fifty yard game from Tommy Trimble was still at four
hundred yards. I mean it was already a ridiculous passing
game for Bryce, a career passing game for Bryce, even
before the big fifty yard completion to Tommy to set
them up for the eventual game winning field goal. So
(10:27):
a lot of that production came in the second half
when it was winning time. You know what's crazy about
this too, and I don't mean this as any backhanded compliment.
I mean that it allows the ceiling to be even
higher than what they showed. They left points on the
board yesterday, straight up some third downs where they were
guys wide open, Bryce Young getting stopped on the fourth down.
That's what's crazy, man, is that they left points on
(10:49):
the board, and even still you had this kind of
offensive production. Where as long as you continue to grow,
what you're going to Bryce, while a third year QB
still relatively young in this process, in what we've seen
from QB's wide receivers, very young. This is Cocrain Excel's
second year, This is Team Max first, So your most
experienced receiver in your top three options is two years experience.
(11:14):
Even the tight ends, Tommy Trimple is your most experience
of all of them, but JT it's his second season.
Mitchell Elevens. It's his first Mitchell Elevens had a big
reception into this one, so much youth, and now here
they are above five hundred and here's another takeaway, is
it just look at the macro. It's kind of tough
for these teams in the NFL to get going. I
don't know if I look at a team outside of
(11:35):
the Rams right now as truly having a dominant presence
in the National Football League. We thought Philadelphia would figure
it out. Their offense still leaves a lot to be desired.
Kansas City, Oh, it's fine, they'll figure it out. Now, man,
they're five hundred and John Daily Tiger Woods memes are
all over the place, with Tiger Woods being Kansas City
(11:56):
and John Daily being Carolina smoking the stogie out on
the Gulf of course, saying, hey, fancy meeting you here.
Nobody expected a guy like Daily, a team like the
Panthers to be competing with Kansas City slash Tiger Woods.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yet here we are.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
It allows you to feel a lot of confidence outside
of what has been a roller coaster season. I don't
even know if roller coaster season does it justice with
some of the blowouts they've experienced on the wrong end
and some of the exciting wins they've experienced on the
right end. But man, it feels good to be on
the ascent this week on the coast.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, it's got to when you're the path is because again,
there were points in a season when we didn't think
we would see a performance like this at all. There
are points in the season where you weren't sure if
they were going to sweep Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Because of the whole division thing.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I thought that these teams were split, like I didn't
see them sweeping Atlanta. So I think that's another market
that you can check off the box. Because when you're
building a program, you have to take the small wins
and you have to take inventory of every little thing
that you do. And so, yeah, there's gonna be some
bad moments. You've had that. But now when you look
at what comes out of this game, bryce having it
franchise record as far as what he was able to do,
(13:02):
you check that off the box of him showing you
extraordinary ability. Then you look at the fact that you
swept Atlanta, you're able to check that off at the
box and you're sitting there kind of in the mix
for first place in the division now, but there are
a lot of positives to be taken from this game
individually and then just from the season at all. In all,
because you're sitting here six and five, three and three.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Seven oh four five seven oh ninety six to ten,
you can continue to let us know your thoughts on
the Fandual text line, but also we'll take your phone
calls in the last segment of the twelve o'clock hour.
We still have a lot to comb through. Not only
are we going to continue to evaluate what Bryce did,
I want the feelings on the team to win, the
significance of this victory, and should this game have a
(13:46):
significant impact on how we view Bryce in his totality
Again right in on the FanDuel text line, we'll answer
that question coming back from break WESN Walker Sports Radio
ninety two to seven WFNZ Weston Walker Backsports Radio ninety
(14:16):
two to seven WFNZ. People they want to get involved
in the conversation, you can do it too, folks. FanDuel
text line seven four or five, seven ninety six ten.
Beanie Weenies, seeing a lot of new text names that
I haven't read before on the tech I don't know
if it's just because I usually don't get to your
text messages with all of them coming in, or if
it really is your first time in a while. But
(14:37):
I appreciate it, nonetheless, Beanie Whenies writing in Bryce bald
out defense came to play in the second half. But
we need to learn to pick up and play against
the blitz. Also we need someone to get some type
of pass rush. But other than that, very solid performance,
not perfect according to Beanie Weenie's but a lot to
be happy about. Rather be golfing, says I texted last
(14:57):
Friday about being unsure that Bryce is our friendranchise QB.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Bryce was good yesterday. He was great yesterday.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
He had and he's going into a few problems with
Bryce having missed a few plays and I, look, there
were well no, there were a couple, But that's nippicking
quarterback missus play. Yeah, that's called be worried about the
wrong stuff. That's what that's called. So we can be happy, yeah,
like rather be golfing. Look, I get it, Okay, it's
(15:25):
a Monday. We're in the second segment, all right. Bryce
threw for four hundred and fifty yards. Man, I mean
he was good. He was very, very extra very good
in this one the extra two? Who did extra two yards?
Oh yeah, well, I mean yeah, no, I'm complimenting you
for doing it. Yeah in the extra two. Yeah, I'm
sure there are going to be people. Actually, he threw
(15:47):
for four eight, Get it right, Walker, you guys glaze
Bryce Young. It's for forty eight. Please puny giant rights in.
This does not mean Bryce didn't deserve any smoke, but man,
it got to be way over the top. I think
he's answering the question that I had for you guys
going into the break. How significant should this game be
(16:09):
when we evaluate Bryce and the macro, Like, what does
this do to his reputation going forward? You can still
write in seven oh four, five, seven oh ninety six ten.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah. Look, it's a week to week league. We know this.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
The story can change dramatically every single week. We've been
going up and down. It has been a wild roller
coaster for the Panthers this year. It's crazy, man, it
really is. I mean, you're talking about some bad performances
to start the year off. Okay, great, here we are.
Are we about to drop to zero to five? Is
it going to be one of those types of seasons? Okay, now,
now you start to put some things together. You beat
(16:42):
the Falcons thirty to nothing. Where did that come from?
After not looking very good the first couple of weeks,
you get destroyed by the Patriots, and now we can't
feel good on a week to week basis because every
time you have a good game one week, you know
that the bottom could fall out completely. They righted the ship.
It felt like they got their rudder out and they
(17:04):
stabilized some things, and you still have some of these
terrible performances like we got last week against the Saints.
It still feels like overall, wes a pretty positive trajectory
when you have six wins at this point in the season.
They were an underdog on the road against Atlanta. They
had just come off of a loss against New Orleans.
But I mean, if we're gonna give every game it's day,
(17:27):
they did just beat Green Bay. I don't think it
was a great performance from Bryce, but they did beat
Green Bay and he did what he needed to do
in order to secure that victory. So what is the
significance level with this performance for Bryce and how we
can apply that to every single week and how we
use this to evaluate him when we have some of
the bigger conversations about him being the franchise QB.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Well, I think one thing, if you do want a
nitpick and try to find some negative as Harry smart
as up here doing his pressure for Charlotte, I would
love to hear what he's going to say about Charlotte,
because he's gonna say there's a good football team.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
And scared all right.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
So but the thing is, I would say the coaching
staff kind of deserves a little bit of smoke if
you want a nitpick, because, like I said before, you
felt like that this team and this coaching staff was
calling a bit of a conservative game plan each and
every week, a lot of condensed formations, lots of tight
ends on the field and some of those things. And
now again, like I said, one of the big glaring
(18:25):
things I noticed yesterday was just how wide open the
offense looked, Like I said, a lot of four receiver sets,
five receiver sests. When I saw him out then empty,
I was like, oh my god, especially when it wasn't
a situation with the game on the line, and I
was like, Okay, now, I feel like they're going to
have to try to figure out and we'll get into it. Later,
but we can talk about announce what they're going to
have to try to figure out a happy medium as
(18:46):
to how they can remain wide open this way but
still be able to stay true to their run principles,
which they were able to do so as far as
the carry amount that it was. But it's like, how
do they want to do this? Because you know, we
go doubt only goes for two point four on two,
But I had some nice runs in this game. But
I think they need to figure out what do they
want to do? Do we want to accentuate the talents
(19:08):
of our young quarterback because we saw yesterday when we
had a little bit more of a wide open plan
and a little bit more aggression in how we went
about things, we saw the results from that.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, the Dave Canalis stuff is kind of interesting today
because it does feel like now people are saying, well,
why haven't we been doing this all year long? I
would push back hardcore on that. So much of the
conversation surrounding this team was being a run first team.
Wes how many times have we talked about needing to
run the football more and how frustrated fans were about
(19:40):
not being stubborn running the football. Hey, Dave, you told
us you were going to be stubborn. Can you please
be stubborn? I mean that was the overwhelming conversation. So
now we're starting to flip it a little bit, and
I just man, Dave Canalis had an excellent game plan
against Atlanta. Bryce Young delivered layered throws I thought, took
contact and delivered on a I thought, Bryce, let's not
(20:01):
get anything twisted here.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Was excellent.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
There are zero things I have to say bad about
Bryce's performance in its totality yesterday, even with some of
the plays that Texters might be bringing up. You're right,
has Tom Brady ever played a perfect game one hundred
percent hit rate on one hundred plays?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
If he did, he might be the only one because
he is considered the goat. Nobody does that. Bryce was fantastic.
Dave can Alis drew up play man like. These wide
receivers were wide open in every single drop back. If
something didn't happen on a drop back, it was because
the offensive line might have got beat either Zavala Iki Kwan,
(20:39):
who got beat by James Pierce early in this game.
There were even wide open receivers on some of those
fourth downs.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
That didn't hit.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
On the third downs that didn't hit, were there were
wide open guys like straight up nobody within the stratosphere
of a Coker twice and then on the fourth down run.
This is real nitpicking from Bryce. Could have delivered it
Tommy Trimble, but he already made up his mind that
he was going to run it like That's again, you
can't be perfect. I thought Dave Canalis was masterful man.
And so when you have a game like you did
(21:08):
against Miami where you run it all over him, a
game like you had against Dallas where you run it
all over him, a game like you did against Green
Bay where you run it all over him, you have
a bad game against the Saints. This is the second
time now that a team has forced Bryce to beat them.
It's not all unlike what the Saints did last week.
The falcon said, y'all an't running on us. We have
(21:29):
a terrible run defense, but we're gonna make sure that
we're ready for you.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
We're gonna blitz and we're gonna make sure that you
don't have any run lanes. And the offensive line didn't
run block very well yesterday. They begged Bryce to beat
him and he did. Not only did he beat him,
he destroyed him. Not only did this passing game beat them,
they destroyed them. And so for me, man, I give
Dave Canalis all the credit in the world for the
way that he was able to design an offense surrounding
(21:53):
Bryce and combating some of the struggles that they've had
in the passing game in previous weeks.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah, and I think that you know a lot of
reasons that you saw so many open guys just because
of the way the formations that they were running in
their style of attack. It made the defense declare, like
they had to declare in a lot of those downs.
I mean, if I've got trips to one side, I
can start to make a determination on what's going on
with this defense when I have trips to one side,
or I've got you know, eleven personnel or things like that.
(22:20):
And so I think that was the big thing, because
again last week against the Saints, when you are running
more condensed formations or even when you do bring more
receivers on the field, especially that eleven look that they
like so much with three wide receivers were tight in
one running back. What the Saints were saying, we don't
care what you put out here. We're gonna leave big
bodies out here and we're gonna stop this run because
we don't trust you. And I think the coaches that
(22:40):
didn't take advantage of that, because I feel like they
probably could have done the same thing against the Saints
last week had they decided that's what they wanted to do.
And it felt like this week they kind of went
back to where they were the last ten games of
last year, when Bryce was making a big time throws
and he was throwing it down the field and he
was finding guys open, and also two guys were making
plays helping that quarterback to making catches and getting all
(23:03):
of the yack that they did. And so that's the
thing that I found so intriguing about this game. And again,
I just go back to the fact that you get
Bryce going early. Six out of your first eight plays,
you're calling passes and they were working. That's the thing
as well that you look at from this plan that
they put together, because they were able to go.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Down and score a touchdown.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And so once you get a quarterback in a rhythm
like that, he's going to be tough to stop.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And that's just what he was for this game. Now.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
They had their struggles a little bit more as the
first half went on, but you know they were able
to find a groove, find a rhythm, and Bryce took
full advantage.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, yeah he did. And you're right. I think this
is another thing. We'll talk about it all show long.
But if we're going to give Bryce a lot of shine,
I want to give Dave Canalis and this offensive staff,
the offensive game plan a lot of shine because I
just thought guys were wide open all day long, and.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
It's how you get a lot of yacht. How you
get a lot of yat.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Is either misforced or forcing mistackles, which TMAC had two.
You had Tommy Trimble on that one play alone. It
felt like there were two or three guys that had
a shot very early and then he ran through it
excel on that in breaking route, was able to take
it for a long way like a lot of wide
open guys that Bryce hits and stride and then because
(24:15):
of the accurate pass from Bryce, everything is connected, man,
Everything is working and working to a t. So Dave
deserves a lot of shine. Another receiver, I think Jalen
Coker's just flat out good. I think what this game
told me. Here was one Bryce was taking chances with
Coker even when he didn't get a lot of separation.
There was a throw where Bryce just had pressure in
(24:35):
his face. Has to get rid of the football, like
nothing that he did wrong. It's just, oh god, we
don't have anybody blocked. I need to get rid of
the football. Throws it to a tightly covered Jalen Coker,
but on the money, and Cocker's just so physical and
made a play for his quarterback. Just like you said,
My favorite throw of the game was Bryce getting off platform,
(24:57):
because man, that's my favorite Bryce. That's my favorite song
that he say. When you have pressure in your face
and you move in the pocket and now you're throwing
off platform and then he gives you that arm talent.
No it's not Josh Allen bullets downfield, but he can
give you some Matt Stafford throwing to the side and
give you a whole bunch of angles. When he threw
that pass on the cutter or the crosser, excuse me
(25:18):
from Jalen Cocher Wes, it was a throw that he
wasn't making each of the last two weeks that were open,
and so he did and just threw a dime. And
that's one where I don't even know how wide open
Cocher was. He was open enough go ahead and throw
it to him, but you had to layer that throw
over the first level of defense, buddy, Like that was
(25:38):
a flat out dime. I don't know if PFF recorded
that particular throw as a big time throw, but I'd
be cool if they did. I think the Excel throw
down the left side that deserves to be a big
time throw, just on the money bang excellent separation from Excel.
One of those where you got to hit it if
you're the QB, but you did. You put it on
the money excellent from Excel. But that one, like to me,
(26:00):
especially going to your left as a right handed quarterback,
that's harder to do. I thought that was my favorite
throw of the entire game, and that was a game
where there were a lot of great throws to choose for.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, And that's what you talk about when you say
a surgical performance that he put on. I mean, there
were so many ways that he was able to hurt
them no matter what it was. As I pointed out earlier,
the stats about him getting in rhythm. Then when you
talk about he was pressured nineteen times and he was
sacked five times, but he still hit eight or fourteen
under pressure four one hundred and thirty eight yards. So
(26:30):
he had all the answers to the tests in this game.
And that is where I come back, and I do
give the coaching staff credit because of what they did.
The defense was declaring a lot of things early and
then late, and Bryce being a processor that he is.
I mean, if you put Bryce in that type of
situation where you're running four and five wideouts as all
thing kind of as they did in this game, he's
going to hurt you really, really bad because that's where
(26:52):
his number one trait is gonna shine through, because he's
going to get up to the line, he's going to
figure out what you're doing pre snap, post snap quickly
booming the ball is going as evidence you know by
that stat about him being in rhythm, that's a guy
that went out there and he knew exactly what he
was getting pretty much every down and there was and
he made them pay and he knew what was gonna
come open what wasn't, and he hit him and God's
(27:12):
were on point. And so the key now is for
them to carry this performance into the next game.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Maybe it won't be you know, four fifty.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But this is a guy that now he's shown you
that he can throw in the high toos, low threes
and things like that, because I felt like that the
entire time, that he could do this on a regular basis,
not necessarily to this degree, but that he could.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Throw for high yard. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
That so to me, Look, man, I want to celebrate
in everything that was great from Bryce. I think now
what you've had the last couple of weeks are a
couple of teams that said, hey, quarterback, you gotta beat
us if you want to get this victory. And that
didn't happen against the Saints. Passing game in general did
not work. Bryce Young was not good against the Saints.
Bad football, straight up. Saint said you gotta beat us.
(27:56):
Weren't able to do it. Atlanta said that, and they
killed him, especially in the second half. Just a surgical
performance from everybody involved. And I got Ryan Mayer, who
always writes in mad but I'll read it. He says,
come on, Walker, So now Dave is the reason Bryce
played great?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Not at all.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I thought it was a perfect marriage for both of
these guys. I think Dave absolutely helped Bryce, and Bryce
also made some tight window throws. I'll say this, I
don't think that there were a ton of tight windows
that Bryce was hitting. I thought these guys were wide open,
and I thought Bryce was putting it on the money
to produce as much yards after the catch as possible,
which guys that matters. But people that are going to
(28:34):
be all the way in Bryce's corner at well, this
is Bryce. This is totally you know, all on Bryce.
Dave Canalis. The game plan at was fine, nah man.
Both things can work in synchronicity, like this was a
beautiful game plan and it was great execution from Bryce Young.
Both of these things can be true. But I didn't
see a lot, not a lot of tight window throws,
(28:55):
but there were some and he delivered on him.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah that's all you want. So okay.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Now the question to me becomes, if we go back
at the beginning of this segment, can we apply this
to every single game going forward? That I don't know yet,
I don't know he's capable of it.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Now, what happens in the defensive game plan where they
start trying to play for the past a little bit more,
and it's not so dramatic. Hey, QB, you gotta beat us?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
What's that? What's you doing? Well, you're sticking in Ricardowdo's good?
I have to go get it. That's right, that's what
you do. That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
So now that that's what excites me overall about the
team right now, whatever you want to lay blame to
give credit to whatever you gave us that game against
a team that had been pretty damn good in coverage.
They got some ballplayers over there in the secondary, which
makes it all the more exciting as to what this
team looked like. Now, if they showed you that they
(29:48):
can do that all of this. Did the Saints show
the blueprint?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Do they do this?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Hey, go ahead. You don't want to use that Falcons blueprint,
So try that if you want to. Now we've shown
you that we can beat you through the air, and
Rico Dall can still run. Man, I don't know how
injured he is. I don't know what the case is there.
But now, if you want to be a more balanced defense,
I think the balanced Panthers offense and what they've shown
the last couple of weeks that gives me excitement overall.
(30:13):
As the team grows the rest.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Of the world.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, one thing I want to bring to the table too,
is like, again, when we look at the last TEA
games the next year, how wide open it felt like
that they played Bryce and the gun a lot, three
four receivers, five receivers, things like that. Right then we
come into this year with the stubborn against the run
theory and they do play and Bryce is putting up
very conservative numbers. Like I said, I've been pointing out
the formations and how they go about their business. But
(30:37):
the thing we have to remember is that Bryce has
not played that style of football.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
His entire life.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
When he was in high school, wide open, Alabama wide open,
even though Alabama liked to run a ball, but they
had him in the gun a lot as well, and
he was able to do what he does. And so
yesterday we saw that put into effect once again where
I felt like they were playing to his strengths. And
so I think that's another things well, is that Bryce.
You know, sometimes when you talk about the missus or
(31:03):
different things that have come in the style that they
had been playing up until now, I think sometimes when
quarterbacks are outside of their comfort zone and playing in
maybe schemes that they're not you know, that's not in
their DNA, so to speak. I think sometimes you will
see that where maybe the eyes aren't where they need
to be, or sometimes the processing isn't quite what it was,
or just because they're being asked not to lose the game,
(31:24):
which that's what it felt like for a lot of
this year. That is what Bryce has been tasked with,
is that he's getting the messaging of hey, let's just
run the air out of this ball, don't lose the game,
don't turn the ball over.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
And I think that's why we saw what we saw.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
And then this game, I feel like the rains were
taken off and he was able to go out and
be himself.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I think especially look, I think especially against the Saints game,
I think that they were throws downfield that Bryce could
have made it. I don't think Bryce was good against
New Orleans, but it did feel like there were also
some conservative play calls there from Dave Canalis where we
didn't open it up as much as they should have.
One thing that's interesting because I wanted to see, Okay,
(32:05):
it feels like they're throwing all over the yard. That's
what it feels like, and they were that's true. But
what's the average depth of target for Bryce shung in
this game compared to the one against the Saints? Just
a surprising stat. I don't know how interesting everybody else
finds this. It's the exact same. Wow, seven point three
seven point three average depth for target against the Saints
(32:26):
seven point three against the Falcons. Here's what was happening.
In my opinion, how did that happen?
Speaker 4 (32:31):
All?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Right? Well, you had?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I was like, okay, maybe one way you look at
it is how many deep shots they took against Atlanta
compared to New Orleans. Believe it or not, the deep
play attempt percentage against the Saints was higher than it
was against the Falcons. Three twenty yard passes downfield against
New Orleans. Four against the Falcons, but way more plays offensively,
(32:54):
so the percentage was higher with New Orleans. So okay, yeah,
because I wouldn't have guessed that looking at the numbers,
but it felt like that to me. The reason it
felt like that is because of the act like Bryce
throwing all over the yard. He's throwing within, for the
most part, fifteen yards past the line of scrimmage. With
fifteen it's okay too, I mean I don't want to
(33:14):
get too lost here and to what it all means,
because really Bryce was still impeccable at throwing the football.
But I want to go back to a stat that
really wasn't talked a whole lot about until Bill Barnwell
brought it up and it kind of caught us by surprise.
Last week West Bryce was off target on passes ten
yards past the line of scrimmage almost as much as
any quarterback in the league. And that's not something that
(33:35):
we're used to seeing from him. Not this game, man.
Just dime dime, dime, dot dot accurate, accurate, allow the
wide receivers to be better than what they already are.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Like.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
To me, that was what was so significant about this performance.
It's that team att catches it in stride, and he
catches it in stride because Bryce put it on the
freaking money Tommy Tremble, the processing Dave Canal's after the
game said that that throw to Tommy was the last
play in the progression. You watched Bryce. Just put your
eyes on him throughout that entire play. Zero panic in
(34:06):
those clutch situations, man, which is why he's been so
good on these final drives. Okay, I don't have it left.
I don't have it here. Tommy's over here on the backside.
Allow your tied end to make a play. It's fun,
and I don't want people to try to use this
as some kind of agenda game, right, Like that's what
lessens the fun to me. Oh it's all because of Bryce.
Coaching staff's been holding him back. Oh it's all because
(34:28):
of the coaching staff. They're the ones that drew up
wide open receivers. Nah, man, these guys have to work
together to be successful, and we saw that on full
display against Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, we did.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
And so you have to be excited looking at how
these guys were able to come out and play and
you know, just going holistically. Man, it was a total
team effort, man, And you got great effort from the
wide receivers. Guys were winning matchups and they were making
big plays. I mean the Xal catch. How was the
heck of the catch that he made for that touchdown?
And so that's what you need, man, if they're going
to have more and more success this season.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Zero four five, seven oh ninety six ten. Not only
is it the FanDuel text line, it's the phone line.
Go ahead and call. Go ahead and call it bab Ca.
Now we want to hear what is that? Oh yeah,
I forgot you, young bub. Is that so Miss Cleo
used to be the psychic that was on TV She
Got Real podcast.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, so I remember at the end of Commerciers he
goes call men.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Now that is I don't know where that was in
my brain, but that was something I thought I might
never hear for the rest of my life. Yeah, you
went in the depths of my brain and brought that
one out. All right, there's West and tell you you
cut call us now seven o four five seven oh
ninety Now I can't forget it. Seven oh four five
seven oh ninety six ten. Call in with your thoughts
on Bryce Young the Panther's victory. All love it again?
(35:43):
Seven oh four five seven oh ninety six. Ten we
hear from you after the brain people dialing in you
can too seven oh four five seven oh ninety Panther
Bow calling in one. We always appreciate the phone call.
(36:04):
But I heard him yesterday listening to the postgame show
with Willie p and Panther Bow. You were fired up?
Are you still as as you were last night?
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Yeah? I mean there was definitely some fire. I didn't
really know what I was gonna say, so I just
I just get really amped up and then maybe it
sounds all right good ever, it is what it is.
But you know, I was thinking not to move the goalpost.
But you know, if Jade and Daniels as a rookie
can carry this sorry you know, Commander's team to the
NFC Championship, I think the only way you can, you know,
(36:37):
call Bryce a franchise quarterback is if he leads us
past that in year three to the super Bowl. You know,
in Canalis, he had some good play calling yesterday, but
we're gonna need to see that every single week. So
I think we're gonna win every single game. Otherwise I
look to fire Canalist. I'd look to fire Bryce. If
Teper can't get a dome with real turf in there
like they had of Madrid, he needs to fire himself.
(37:00):
I'll fire myself from from you know whatever. Listen, everyone
needs to look themselves in the mirror, even with this
great win and say what can we do to be better?
So let's I think they got a chance to go
to the super Bowl, and you know we'll find out.
I'm looking forward to watching.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Well, hold up both. This is very different though. I mean,
this is maybe a one hundred and eighty degree turn
from what I heard you yell, not say on the
air yesterday, yell on the air, well, what's going on?
Speaker 1 (37:24):
I guess what?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Twelve sixteen hours after what we saw yesterday from Carolina.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
I just feel like, you know, we got to put
the pressure on these guys. They taught the pressure after
last week. We don't want to come in those victory mondays.
We got to make sure everyone's telled accountable all the time,
otherwise you're getting fired. It's like you're not good enough
to be like a great quarterback like Jackson Dart or
whatever for the Giants, you know, like fother said last
week that he's better than Bryce. So listen, we you know,
(37:52):
I don't want to get into you know, any kind
of take you know, take off, you know, whatever where
everyone has to take. But we got to make sure
everyone knows that you're getting ready to get five, so
that way we can all do better.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I like that phone call, BO cuz I know what
you're doing. I know that man too.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Well. Okay, we know our listeners. I think pretty well.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
The p ones the guys that we read a lot
of texts from and hear from on a daily basis.
I'll see what you're doing, Bo. But it's exactly why
Dave Canalis after the game yesterday, in the postgame victory speech,
said now I'm going to see you tomorrow. We can't
let up because we tried doing that after beating Green
Bay and it didn't work out so well for us.
(38:33):
So hey, I'll see you guys on Monday, to which
the team responded, quite well, you have to after giving
us a stinker against the Saints. But Bo seems to
be doing the same thing. I appreciate that phone call. Yeah, man,
and I mean for the Panthers, Yeah, you cannot let up.
And I think that also we had questions answered we
talked about during the week about the raucous that old
Nick Gordon brought up and how would they respond to
(38:55):
that too, when I think he came out and saw
the effort that you would want to see coming off
of what was said this past week.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
We can keep got to turn my mic on. That's
how radio works.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
We can keep going to phone calls, but I do
want to sit here for a second. Seven oh four
or five seven ninety six to ten, if you want
to call in and share some of your thoughts. But
I heard Willie and Smoke talking about it. I agree
with this, Wes. I wonder if you do subscribe to
the Blessing in disguise theory, with the loss to the
Saints last weekend, are they better for it going forward
(39:26):
because they needed something like that to bring him down
after a win against Green Bay. It's not necessarily that
we had an issue with Nick Gorton telling a lie.
It's that he told the truth outside of Bank of
America Stadium, right he told it to a channel. That's
job it is to tell us some of that stuff
when he could have hit it if he wanted to
(39:47):
and talk to some of his other players, some of
his teammates and kept that under, you know, under wraps.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
But he did it.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
So do they give you this kind of performance against
Atlanta if they don't have that humbling loss to New Orleans.
I don't know, man, Like I don't think they do.
To be honest, I think if they win, let's say
they win by seven, pretty comfortable, maybe like a Jets
type of victory where it's not the prettiest, but they
get the victory, they avoid unmitigated disaster, and they get
(40:19):
the dub. Maybe they don't give us this type of
performance against them.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I look at it more so, you know, as it
was a blessing in the size in disguise from a
coaching standpoint, because it made you have to find another fastball.
And that was the biggest thing that we looked at
because the fact that it was a division game, you know,
you do have to kind of throw records out of
the window. And you know, the Saints had been you know,
they had had their share of lopsided losses too, but
(40:44):
they were also a team that was you know, they
were going to battle you. You were going to play
a football game against them. You aren't just going to
come in and win forty five to nothing. And so
the Panthers they got a little bit of a taste
of that. And so the Saints went and took away
their weakness and they weren't prepared for that, or they
took away their and they weren't prepared for that. They
took the runaway and the Panthers just kind of seemed
stuck in the mud after that. So the coaches, we
(41:06):
get again, we talked about it last week that we said, hey,
they're going to have to go back to the drawing
board and figure out how what else can they offer
from this offense to be able to have something to
counter when people take away to run, because that's just
what it was going to be going forward, and teams
are still going to continue to try to take the
runaway first until they consistently prove that they can hurt
(41:27):
them through their air. But I mean, Rico Dowd, a
two point four yards of care Atlanta said the same thing.
They said, We're not going to give you the run,
and so this coaching staff had to go into their
bag to be able to figure out how else can
we manufacture yards and points? Because yeah, if they'd come
in with the same type of game plan that they
had last week, then yet they probably lose this game
regardless of what was going on in the locker room.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
They just kind of got exposed a bit.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
And that's what happens to teams during the season, and
that's how you continue to get better. While teams aren't
the same way beginning of the season, middle of the
season as they are towards the end, because you have
to go through things like that that make you continue
to find solutions.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Yet and before what they had been doing in the
passing game, it had been throwing to t Mac NonStop.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
I do think this.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Is where we start to get into the coaching staff,
the game plan versus what Bryce Young was culpable for,
and some of the losses and the lack of production,
the lack of yards points whatever, where it felt like
he trusted t Mac and maybe didn't trust some of
the other receivers. And I can understand not the Cocher
stuff was a little weird because he was so trustworthy
(42:31):
last year. And it's not like Jalen Cocher was this
separation god last season. He's not whoever the best artist
are and separating right, He wasn't that, But he was
just productive. Throw it anywhere in his vicinity. He's so strong,
he's such a physical receiver. Where it felt like if
Bryce isn't throwing to him, it's because he wants to
throw to the guy that does create more separation than anybody,
(42:54):
which it's t Maac on this group, in this group here,
that's what it looks like to me. So throw it
to give him a chance he can come down with
those fifty to fifty balls. I think he's excellent at
contested catches, and I think you saw a couple of
those in this game. So give Cocher a couple of
those opportunities, because I felt like there were similar routes
that he didn't try against New Orleans?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Did hear?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
And you saw the fruits of that Excel downfield. This
is where maybe some of it's coaching, some of it
is just Excel getting better in my opinion. Right where
against New Orleans, they took a shot to Xcel they
did down the left sideline, he alligator arms it. It
felt like he could have caught it, and instead it
(43:37):
looks like a bad miss live. But then you go
back against New Orleans and then you check the tape
and it's like, ooh, XL, extend your arms out, buddy,
what are you doing this time? It's on the money,
even more so on the money in this game than
it was against New Orleans. And XL comes down with
it and it's like, Okay, the receivers, you trust him
a little more. There's almost like this symbiotic relationship between
the two.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
I trust you.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Now give me a reason to trust you, and now
it can start to trust you a little bit more.
I'm hoping that that continues to happen, especially with some
comments from canal Is saying, man, when you have Timac
as productive as he's been sixth now in receiving yards
across the entire NFL, the field starts to tilt that
way and it had been. Now Cocher in excel the
tight ends getting involved again. Now that opens up everything
(44:21):
for everybody, and that helps the coaching staff, that helps
Bryce Young specifically, and that's what also gets you excited.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Yeah, And the biggest thing you hope that it gives
these guys is confidence because Xal I mean you can
look at him. Until that, his confidence seemed like it
was up and down. I know Jaylen Cocher, with the
start that he's had to the year too, you know,
he needed something to give him a pick me up too.
And going four to four when you talk targets and
receptions on one hundred percent catch rate, will do that.
And so I think that that's another big thing that
(44:48):
should come from this is confidence from the rest of
the guys in this passing game that they are capable
of going out and hurting people.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, I think clearly we're not going to get four
to fifty. But to put a bow on this first down,
it don't happen this week, but to put it no,
it's not. I had to give them a little sum.
They keep, they keep, they keep messling with.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Me on the fans in the text line wanting me
to come out and say something pro Nina.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
So I had to give them this week because we're
going to have that at halftime. Now it's going to
be what nine hundred passing yards. Now, I'm just saying, no,
you don't.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
I know you don't.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
People are right, it's the Opson Walker Show on Sports
Rady ninety two seven WFNZ. To put a panther bow
on this segment, if you will, word to the first caller.
I think, even if you're not going to see this
type of production because nobody it's a team record for
a reason, I think that there are things to take
away and it be real, right, Like when you see
(45:42):
such an outlier type of game, you usually throw it
out the window. It's why you have the classic way
of measuring things, taking away the best and worst performance
so you get a true media of how it is
that your quarterback looks, how your football team looks whatever
you're evaluating, right, Okay, throw it out out the window.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Fine.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
I think that would be misguided because I think there
are things you take away from this game and you
can really apply. Just because it's an outlier in terms
of production does not mean that there aren't things here
that you can apply the rest of the way and
rely on, even depend on. I didn't see a lot
of fluky stuff here, right. I think you can apply
(46:22):
some of this stuff going forward, and even if it's
a much tougher schedule you're gonna be facing some really
tough defenses. There are some things that I think you
got right here against Atlanta that can continue as the
season goes on.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Yeah, And I think another thing too, is that you
put a lot on tape to give teams a lot
to think about. Like the forty nine ers are going
to have a lot to look at when you talk
about the run cut ups of regoing how that's been successful.
But now you have a lot of passing to look
at this week as well to figure out, you know,
and you don't know which way they're gonna go really
when you talk to Panthers and what type of game
(46:56):
plan they're gonna put together at this point.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Just don't be a spy, don't be like that. Don't
call anybody, we don't need it. It's the Austin Walker
Show coming up with a campus Listen to the West
and Walker Show weeks from noon to three only on
Sports Radio ninety two point seven FM
Speaker 3 (47:15):
U f n Z, the official home of the Charlotte
sports Fan
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Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com