Wes & Walker Hour 3: More Camp Sound

In the final hour of the show, the guys dive into more sound from camp and walk it off talking about the importance of umbrellas and telling you 'What's on Tap' tonight.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Wes and Walker show.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I do believe that it's more beneficial for you to
drive faster in the rain than slower.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Oh my god, it's Wes.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
You're the reason why when I'm trying to take my
son to school, I gotta go through four different traffic
jams because people want to drive in the rain like
his dog on eighty five degrees. I said, I can't
stand it. I'm sitting there like where the police when
you need them? And Walker, you just struck a nerve
with money. Yeah, for sure, you're the guy. You're that
guy only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven FM WFNZ.

(00:33):
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, I'm gonna be sitting in
fifteen or twenty minutes of traffic because some idiot can
drive in the rain. Charlotte Win, it rains, forget about it.
I can confirm that Fiddy is not out on the
roads right now, nor should he be if that's how
he drives in that rain. God I haven't seen obviously.
We're in the dungeon that is the Chandler VAULTA Studios,

(00:55):
which I love broadcasting from. By the way, Cbinjurylaw dot
Com cb Injury law dot Com.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
One call.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
That's all the Carolina's personal injury lawyers. So I don't
know if it's still coming down in droves. I imagine
it is. It was brutal. If you missed the beginning
of the show, I talked about how I really thought
we might have to have a young Guns portion of
the show from twelve to one two, maybe the entire
three hour show. I thought you might have to get

(01:21):
floundy and fitty on the bike.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
You might have had to come out on a boat
and rescue you. Maybe. I look, man, I was able
to get out.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Okay, it had not reached the top of my car
quite yet, but the water level it was about three
quarters of the way up on my tires. It was
not touching the bottom of the car. It was brutal. Oh,
I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding about this. So where
I am floodplain Madison Park. But I'm on a hill,
so our house is never really in danger of flooding

(01:48):
at all. It's just across the street that's the floodplaine,
and the street itself is a floodplaine, and it gets
underwater pretty quickly. And so I thought I was going
to have to get that snorkel that I bought a
few weeks ago, have to get that out and swim
by me.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
The chacos today I did, is there waterproof flounder? I
should have wore my chocos.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I mean, there's not many other circumstances you're gonna need it.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
This is one of them, and not in Charlotte anyway.
You're totally right about that. I tried to get in
my car and right next to the driver's side foot
completely submerged. Two times. I was looking like a crowd.
Are you wearing like good shoes, Blazers. And I didn't
keep them under the water all that long because as

(02:35):
soon as I'm in like, okay, well I gotta get
in the car as soon as possible. But completely, yeah,
ankle fully submerged. Like I'm not talking about barely, like
it's halfway up the shoe. No, my entire foot was
fully submerged. One one step from the driveway, two step,
three step.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
From the driveway. Now I get to get in my
car and water in the shoe. That's one of the ceiling.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Shout out to blazers.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Not really, I thought, I was like, great, you gonna
have wet, nasty feet.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
It's going to be gross.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
I'm gonna hate wearing these soggy bottom shoes and no
nothing of the sort. Actually shout out to the Nikes
because they did a pretty good job of protecting my
feet getting into the car today. But anyways, hopefully everybody's
staying safe out there. Again, I can confirm Phiddy's not
on the roads. We'll let you know, we'll give everybody
an update when Fitty does decide that he'll head on

(03:26):
home in the rain. Let's talk more about Dan Morgan
Dave Canalis, Like I just I want to give you
all this audio because it's good stuff and it's WFNZ adjacent.
It's WFNZ that's bringing all this good stuff out. Let's
go with some Dave Canalis audio here Flounder and I
think one of the things we saw today in harsh conditions,

(03:48):
especially when passing the football, Bryce Young was looking to
pass the ball to his running backs. A little bit more,
Dave Canalis explained what he likes about his running back room,
especially while becoming Rico Dawdle. Surprisingly this offseason, I'd expect
the Panthers to be in play for Rico, but they
brought him in. Here's the head coach saying what he
likes about it.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
I think toughness. He's got a real, real physicality and toughness.
He is aggressive with or without the ball. If he's
pass protection, he shows up physical. If he's got the
ball in his hands, he finishes the run physically. And
the running backs they set the tone of our practices.
They set the tone of our games. The run game

(04:28):
is what really closes the circle of toughness that we
have defense and special teams. It happens organically. You got
to run and hit offensively. If you want to be
a physical team. The run game ties the whole thing
in beautifully. And that's really our identity. That's really the
personality of who we are. And I couldn't be more
excited about having Cuba and Rico back there. And then

(04:49):
you throw Trevor ett in and all the things that
he can do, and he's a tough runner in between
the tackles as well. He had a lot of just
grinded out yards at Georgia. You know, so those guys
have done. You talk about the physicality practices, it all
starts with the run game and how they run the
runs and finish the.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Run Simba, it's the circle of toughness that binds us
all together. Are you if you're a run game enthusiast,
you love listening to Dave Canalis talk about running the football. Now,
the fans that do love running the football might not
like watching Panthers games because he doesn't stick to the
run as much as they would like him to. But

(05:24):
to hear Dave Canalis talk about the run game, the
circle of toughness that he just bring out Mufasa to
describe the run game, Yes, this is why I do
think with a lead, with a positive game script, I
do think you're going to see more rushing attempts because

(05:44):
Cuba he was top ten I believe last year in
rushing attempts overall. I think maybe top eleven, top ten,
pretty close to it. And this is with a team
where that sucked quite frankly. They did not have many leads.
This is what it was. I mean, they were just
down constantly.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, they were fighting for mine a lot of the time.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
So it's like, okay, we can't run the football because
we're down two scores before we get to halftime. All right,
let's see what Bryce Young and this wide receiving corps
can do. So now that they are going to be
having some leads or at least neutral game script, I
think that they're going to run the football a decent amount.
You might argue against me with the Dave Canal the

(06:24):
SoundBite that he had a couple of days ago with
Ky Adams saying, well, we can be aggressive more with Bryce,
but both of those things can marry one another. You
can run the football more and be more aggressive. In fact,
it's what they did in Tampa. They ran the ball
quite a bit with the Buccaneers in terms of run
run pass. They used that formula more than any other

(06:45):
NFL team in the league. When Dave Canal's was the
OC down with the Buccaneers run run pass, I think
it was something I forget how much it was, but
it was the most in the league.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
And that was with a pretty poor backfield.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
And running the football. Yes, absolutely, And so what they
did after that was you could see I think they
were seventh during Dave Canalis's OC run in explosive plays
created down there, like they can marry one another. So
I think you're gonna see the circle of toughness I'm
gonna use that a lot.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
I'm not gonna lie. I love that line, Simba. The
circle of toughness is what binds us together. The circle
of toughness leading to explosive plays. Yeah, baby, give me
more of that, Dave. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
And I think that's what you're hoping for, is that
that circle of toughness leads to some of those plays
down the field getting open because teams are going to
be afraid of the fact that you can run the football.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
And I think he will be more committed to the
run this year.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Because they will be hopefully playing from a lead or
at least tied. Even if you're down seven, you can
actually run the football. You just can't get in these
major holes like we've seen for years where it's impossible
to run the ball, and hey, we end up having
to throw the ball thirty thirty five forty times a game.

(08:03):
I think that's something that Bryce Young is more than
comfortable doing if he needs to do that, And I
think there will be certain games where you will see that.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
But you didn't go out and pick up Rico Daddle
for no reason.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
If you were if your plan was to stick to
really just leaning on your quarterback and leaning on this
wide receiving corps. Then you would have just said, hey,
well we'll continue to run suba the way that we did.
I mean, Tuba wasn't exhausted at the end of the year.
You didn't watch any of the games towards the end
of the season and say, man, dude, Cuba really is
just getting too much run here. No, you thought it

(08:35):
was fine, But now you go out and get a
guy in Dawdle who ran for a thousand yards. That
sends a message to me that we want to run
the football more. And if he's right, and he he
has told us this before that he really learned a
lot from Pete Carroll. Well, one of the things that
you would learn from Pete Carroll is you be a
run first offense because that's going to lead to a

(08:57):
lot of success. So we'll see. But I trust Dave
probably a little bit more than some Panther fans.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
So Dave Canalis mentioned being a physical football team. When
you're a physical football team, it really starts with your
running backs. The circle of toughness. I'll be using that
a million different times. It's absolutely a permanent part of
my lexicon. Here's Dave Moore talking about the physicality and
how he doesn't think they met the standard last year
in training camp, and he certainly would have liked to.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
This is what I've always wanted. This was a standard
that I was preaching last year. We didn't capture it
as a team. So as we kind of went into
this offseane because you know, once again in the season,
you start to pull back on a lot of the
you're not doing a lot of full contact, but Wednesdays
are padded up in their physical practices. We really started
to establish our style of football kind of through the

(09:45):
second half of the year, and then we started practicing
in pads basically for the last four or five games,
but we really started to find our style. We came
into the spring and Ajero, our defensive coordinated a great
job of setting the state the physicality that we wanted
as much as we could handle without pads.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
In the spring.

Speaker 5 (10:05):
We come into camp and that was a challenge to
the whole The whole group was guys, I don't want
you to run by and tag off with two hens,
I don't know if you made that tackle or not,
and just yelling at guys, challenging. It was like, I'm
letting that go. That's a first down. I don't know
if you made that tackle. We're gonna get into preseason,
regular season games and we're gonna see bad tackling in
the secondary all across the NFL.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Let's not be that team.

Speaker 5 (10:28):
I need you to get your body on somebody, wrap
your arms up so I know. I don't want you
to take them to the ground. But I want to
know that was a tackle. And two things Mac is
riproaring and ready to go.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
Was that him saying yeah it was that bo so
much justification at that, Yeah, yeah, right right right, yeah,
no doubt.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Mac very agreeable, agreeing a lot with Dav. I love it.
I do too. I'm sitting here thinking it. Mac is
saying it.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, for sure, Yeah, I'm
thinking it.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
I'm with you.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
The other thing is I think people misconstrue Dave and
his positive personality for being a tiny bit soft. Okay,
let's not yell anybody, let's yell at anybody. Let's not
dog cust anybody out like he does cherish a physical
football team. I do think he cares about that sort
of thing and the way that he's preaching some of

(11:20):
that stuff there. I buy into it. I'm thinking it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah, I'm thinking it one hundred percent. So I
like what we're getting from Dave Canalis speaking the way
that he is with MATC and Boone earlier today on
what the mantra of this football team is going to be.
Last thing we keep kind of weaving in and out
of this conversation point with the way that Bryce was

(11:41):
handled last year, the benching, Dan Morgan saying that the
benching went perfectly, And I forgot about this because you
tend to forget about things that were so bad that
you want out of your memory. But I do remember
when Dave would speak at the lectern, sometimes maybe the podium,
but when he would speak at the lectern again, you
daren Gan, he wouldn't ever talk about Bryce, just taboo,

(12:07):
those we don't speak of. We treat him like the
monsters in the village from the m Night Shyamalan movie.
It's those we don't speak of, acted like he was Baltimore.
Dave can Alis actually talked about why he didn't talk
about Bryce Young last year.

Speaker 5 (12:21):
Yes, and twofold though one because it's not all about Bryce, Okay,
everybody wants to know.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
It's about Panthers football.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
And he'll be the first one to get up here
and tell you that, Yeah, yeah, we got to do
the best thing for the team, you know, first and foremost.
And this is the twenty twenty five Panthers. And yes,
we have certain guys that are going to be in
the front of the headlines and tell his stories. So
Number one, it was doing well, that's for the team.
Number Two, with all that we were talking about, I
felt like those were really private conversations. I felt like

(12:49):
that was between he and I. That was between Will Harriger,
the quarterbacks coach, and Brad Itzick, the offensive coordinator, and
Bryce and those those men in that quarterback room to
work on things and just to give him space to
work on his craft and just like keep pushing. And
the credit to Bryce, you know, for grinding every day.
The credit to Bryce for continuing to lead. He was

(13:11):
telling me, regardless of I don't agree with your decision,
I'm not happy about it, I'm gonna come here and
go to work and this is my team. And he
made it very clear by leading by putting himself in
front of the guys, by touching everyone as they come
into the locker room, as they go out. You know,
he just stayed in front with that mentality, and that

(13:32):
to me is like when he got back out there,
he was like, and this.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Storyline's over with. This is my team, coach.

Speaker 6 (13:38):
Man.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Wow. I love that and I want I want that
to happen more and more.

Speaker 5 (13:42):
For the team, where they put the coaches to the
side and say, hey, this is our team.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Give us the information we need. The Mack and Bone
Peanut Gallery is my favorite thing.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
It's amazing. There's so much justification. Yeah yeah, coach, Yeah
we can see it.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, huh I it.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
I want a mashup if we had enough manpower and
maybe I can do this. But calling through all of
the audio and just having this compilation of Max saying
yeah every single time I I because, well, we got
mac Enbone there, we got ultimfinitely saying you definitely you
got Mac and Boone for sure. But the Peanut Gallery,

(14:20):
that's a I love hearing from those guys like they
it's because I think what I like about it most
is that they are so freaking on board with everything.
Dave Canalis is saying, they are ready to run through
a brick Wall when he says what Bryce was talking about,
that storyline's over coach.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
This is my football team now.

Speaker 4 (14:37):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they're.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Ready to go. Boom. And you know Mac.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
Mac doesn't need any caffeine at all really to get
his day going.

Speaker 5 (14:48):
Now.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
He wakes up like that every morning at four point thirty.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Look, I need my Monster Energy drinks. Every once in
a while, I'll dabble at a Bang that is his
Bang Energy drink. That conversation that they just had my
as well, have been four hundred and fifty milligrams of caffeine. Boom.
Let's play some football, dude, it's my favorite. I want
a compilation of it. Seven oh four five, seven oh
ninety six to ten. Tell us what you're thinking about

(15:13):
some of these comments we get from Dave, which perhaps
we speak of the substance to what Dave was talking
about there. Yeah, maybe it was interesting. We can revisit
that on the other side, but we're late going to break.
We'll get to it. Plus, we got live wire, lots
of sound. Baby Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ
Join us.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
With a Benjamin the Brave Silent Auction.

Speaker 7 (15:32):
Friday, September twenty sixth and charity golf tournament Saturday, September
twenty seventh at Carolina Lakes Golf Club. We're funding life
saving research and helping families fight medjelo blastoma. Sign up
your foursome or donate now at Benjamin the Brave dot
org sponsored by Chandler Volta Injury Lawyers.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
One call, that's all.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
All right, Well it's really been Dave Canalis, Dan Morgan,
Bryce Young's sound edition of Today's WESN Walker. I didn't
even know if we should bring you a live wire
even still today, but we'll do it. I mean, there's
still plenty of comments to get to where Dave speaks
about Bryce on a couple of occasions. And that's the
kind of show that you have when you want to

(16:18):
feed off of all of the sound that Mack and
Bone are providing and talking with everybody in the Panthers
organization today again Dan, Dave, Bryce talked with JJ Janssen
just as much of a pillar of that franchise over
there being the long snapper since two thousand, so twenty
fifth year aniversary shout out to JJ. There great stuff
for Mack and Bone. You can go check that out

(16:40):
later listen to Live WFNZ Radio from now until six pm,
and then you can go back and get to some
of those interviews that Mack and Bone had today. But
it is on our website WFNZ dot com. You can
also get those interviews anywhere you get your podcast. And
I don't know what our schedule is going to be
this week. Not sure what Western Walker schedule is looking like.

(17:03):
We have Brown's Panthers joint practice tomorrow, so even with
it expected to rain again, I don't know about as
bad as it is today, but it is expected to
rain again tomorrow, they are still going with joint practice.
Dave can Allis updated US earlier today and said he
talked with Kevin Stefanski, the head coach of Cleveland. They
both agreed that they're still going to roll with joint

(17:25):
practice as originally scheduled. So if we go with a
joint practice tomorrow, don't know if we'll get out there
early enough for interviews whatever, but just tune in, you know,
we might have some more player interviews coming your way
at the drop of a hat. The rest of the week,
we'll figure out what our schedule looks like.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
We'll also have great Panther guests on as well. There
is one of the beat writers that could be joining us.
That's right for a show, and if not, we're still
going to go out and get some people to talk
about what's.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Going on out there. That's right. We can't be stopped.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
You cannot stop us from talking about the Panthers getting
ready for this upcoming football season. It is game week
for the first time in quite some time. Even if
it's preseason game week, it still counts.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
And it feels good to be more confident than in
the year's past.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Vibes are high.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Vibes were high, I would say two years ago and
it didn't work out. But it's not going to be
like that this time now, knock on wood, it's not
going to be like that this time, all right. Time
now for the Live Wire with Floundy.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
The eaves of the West and the west of Live
wise all right and one of the things that you
referenced earlier but that we didn't get to from Dave
Canalis him raving about his offensive line so far in
training camp. He says that they have excelled so far
in fall camp.

Speaker 5 (18:43):
And if I had to point to one group that's
really excelled this camp. It's the offensive line through the
depth of it. You know, it's the continuity. It's it's
Harold Goodwin, Joe Gilbert back training their guys, the combinations,
the past protection IDs. I would say that as a
as an hire team, that's probably the one group that
came in the strongest in terms of just like football readiness,

(19:06):
the run game, the protections, all the different adjustments that
come with it.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
I'm really excited about this group. So he's excited about
the group.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
One guy that was pointed out yesterday by Joe person
as having a really good performance at Panthers FanFest was
ikey Ikwanu. How comforting was that for you to hear
from Joe that he performed pretty well out there, especially
when matched up against the guy who was kind of
getting after him the first couple of days.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yet, somebody wrote in earlier on the FanDuel tax Line,
Hey have we heard much from Princely Umn Miellen after
hearing how cold he was earlier in training camp.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
No, we haven't.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
Nick Gordon's been injured, has that hamstring issue, so haven't
heard a lot from him. But part of that is
because of the injury haven't heard a lot from Princely lately.
I do think we haven't heard a ton from any
of the edge rushers. To be fair, Pat Jones did
have an interception earlier in training camp. Don't know how
much he's getting to the backfield flounder. I feel like
we're hearing more about Wharton than anybody up front right now.

(20:04):
He's getting in the backfield, so I like to hear that.
But yeah, Ikey, I kwanu. Even if I was a
tiny bit concern with the way that that was looking
before they put the pads on, people told me to
hold my horses a little bit before I really got
worried about Ikey. Let's put the pads on, then let's
see how Princely plays. So far, I think Ikey hasn't

(20:24):
had any other terrible moments, at least they're not being
reported about. So very good to see. And I am
one that believes if you want to if you're trying
to form your identity going into this year, what does
that look like? Where are you going to where's your
strength of your football team going to be? It always
made the most sense that it would be your offensive line,

(20:45):
even with some questions at left tackle, but your left tackle,
even with the questions that we have around him via
pass protection, very good run blocker, one of the better
run blockers in all of football at the tackle position.
So that can be your identity having a strong offensive
line using that to your advantage, either in the run
game and or holding up just enough for Bryce Young

(21:08):
to let some things cook downfield and beat you with
some explosives. Love everything I'm hearing that the offensive line
is coming back and they're playing really well in camp,
because the last time we felt really good about the
line flounder. It felt flat on its face. We did
feel okay when Scott Fitterer gave us the infamous quote,
all you have to do is drop a quarterback into

(21:28):
the system and we're ready to go. Terrible infamous quote.
Nobody's saying anything like that. But the offensive line played
well last year and it's the strongest group so far
this year. I'm all the way in on that. I
love hearing it.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Well, Yeah, I think this offensive line group is exactly
where you'd want it to be. This is what you
expected when you signed guys like Robert Hunt and Damian
Lewis to come in here. You've got Taylor Moten, who's
on the final year of his contract.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
I think it's great.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
What it's telling me is he's motivated to show that
he deserves a contract here. And I love just that
Ikey is stepping up because we would know if he was.
And trust me, that's one of the first guys that
everybody's keeping an eye on out there. So I think
the fact that you're hearing some glowing reviews about him,
or maybe not glowing, but at least that he's holding up.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
It's the classic offensive line conversation. If you're not talking
about him, that's a good.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Thing, exactly.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
And so I think you know right now, the fact
that the focus is really on which center is going
to start, that's a good thing for this Panthers offense
this year, and it should be very comforting to people
that are looking at whether or not Bryce is going
to take that next step, because in order to take
that next step, he needed this offensive line to take
a step with him. I think so far we're hearing

(22:43):
it sounds like they.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Have all right, what else you got for us? Flown?
All right?

Speaker 2 (22:46):
We move on to Dan Morgan, the GM of the
Carolina Panthers, who was on with Mack and Bone and
one of the things that we didn't talk about yet
today he was talking about the kicking competition and how
they have.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
To let it play out.

Speaker 8 (22:56):
Yeah, I think I think we got to let it
play out, you know, let those goes compete. You know,
I think you saw the other night Fitzgerald. He missed
a few, but he's he's a really good, really good kid,
really good kicker, or somebody that we are excited about.
But it's gonna be a competition, you know, We're gonna
see what they do in the games under the lights
and kind of let it play out.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
All right.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Well, Ryan Fitzgerald went one of five today on the
skinny posts.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
That hurts. She had two of five, She had a
quick head two. She did correct herself to one of five,
did she? Ah? Damn? Okay?

Speaker 2 (23:30):
So yeah, apparently a horrible day out there for him.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
But it was raining.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
We do you know, we don't know whether or not
there was maybe a missed hold something like that. It's
always possible, but one of five is certainly not great.
My question with this is where in the hell is
Matthew right at Are they just not using him? I
don't know what's going on with the Matthew Right thing.

(23:56):
I think maybe did he suffer.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
A minor injury and they're holding off on putting them
out there.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
I'll look it up to try to confirm, but you
are right in asking for him, because I don't know
where he's been so far. We do hear a lot
more about Ryan Fitzgerald now and over the last few
days at FanFest. I believe he was three of five
on the normal post.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Right miss two field goals from forty eight yards, though
those are ones that you gotta.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Have anything under fifty.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
You'd like to see a good percent of John And look,
there are a lot of things working against him out there,
so skinny posts and it's raining constantly. He was still
one of five. Joe Person did say two that if
you were kicking on normal field goal post that a
couple of those would have gone in. So I guess
you would have been three or five in a normal circumstance.

(24:45):
But it's not been good. Like you're not seeing these
five of five's. You're not even seeing a ton of
four of five days from Fitzgerald. So I don't know.
I'm starting to worry about it. I think other fans
are as well. If matthew Wright, even when he was
out there kicking, it's not like he was taking this job,
and Fitzgerald clearly isn't. He doesn't have a stranglehold on it.

(25:08):
Are you just gonna go with the vet in matthew
Wright or are you gonna have to look elsewhere and
add a kicker from the outside because it's not going well.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
I would like to bring in at least an extra
kicker at this point. And I know that means you're
gonna have to cut somebody off the roster or wave
them whatever. And you would like to have as many
bodies as possible, especially going into a preseason game, but
you got to get somebody else in here. If matthew
Wright can't kick, you got to have somebody that can
at least challenge Ryan Fitzgerald because right now it just

(25:37):
doesn't seem to be going well. Can I interest you
in Eddie Pinero it is still available, or Sane Gonzalez.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
Guys that are still out there out there, Lindo Mare,
where are you at? Okay, Shane Graham, you want to
suit up again? We need someone. The last update that
I have on matthew Wright is August. First, he was
kicking and he went four or five on the skinny post,
which you know, we'll take that. He was wide left
on his fourth attempt, but ended up going four or

(26:05):
five his last time.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Outside solid, So yeah, I mean, who knows. We'll see
whether or not he gets back into the mix. But
they need, they need some sort of answers to start
showing up there.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
People are asking what we're discussing with those guys kicking
on the skinny goal post. It's a thing. So the
field goals are much less wide. I shouldn't say much less.
I don't know the distance in the skinny post compared
to what your normal goalpost are.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
It's a decent, yes, but it's skinny.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
In fact, you can see some of the pictures on
Twitter from everybody covering Panthers training camp, and it looks
hard to kick him through the upright.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
It's focused on making guys as accurate as possible. So
that's why they do it, you know, and especially on
a daylight today, maybe you say, hey, why don't you
roll that out? But this is what they do, man,
This is their new way of trying to get kicked,
trying to determine who's good and who's not out of
the kickers. So it's the method that's going around the league.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
So American Choppers asking, did the thicker kicker ever get
a job?

Speaker 1 (27:06):
I believe he did with the Jets? The Jets.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yes, yeah, that's Harrison Mevs. The thicker kicker. So can't
go sign him either, another former a kicking legend.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Well, we had two. We had two thick kickers.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Remember Ryan Santoso, he also had him a better picker.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
You're in Charlotte.

Speaker 4 (27:23):
If you were to look at both Harrison Mevs And
Ryan Santoso, Santoso looked like his nickname would be the
thicker Kicker more so than MeVis. Love me some Ryan Santoso.
He had the great stash, tremendous station. Oh my god,
it was a beautiful stash. All right, what else you
got for us?

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Plays? All right?

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Well we go to Bryce Young, the quarterback of the
Carolina Panthers. He was talking with Mack and Bone on
the show earlier this morning and he said, the competitive
nature on the practice field is forcing us to get better.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
I definitely love it. We all love it.

Speaker 6 (27:53):
I think it's I do think it's a good thing.
I think It just pushes us to be at our best.
I think again, it comes from comfortable of what's going
on here. You know, when you're when you're learning things
and it's new. You know this the I guess my
first two years, it's you know, you're so focused as
a unit on Okay, what something we just install? This
is the first time I'm running this, This is all right?

(28:14):
What's the next play? What's what are these little details
that are new? What language are we speaking as a team?
And you know, it's it's been great now having you know,
having the same staff this year where you know we
you know, you know the players that are coming up.
You know we've talked about stuff. You ran it before.
You have bank reps, so you know you have a
little bit more time to be able to and that's
what games are about, you know, the longer, the quicker

(28:36):
that you can get past that initial Okay, I know
what the read is, I know what the play is,
I know the call, I know the splits, all that stuff,
and you could think about, okay, what's little small things
of the defense, what's little details, what's the little things
that I member from from film? What's the little tails
I watched the quicker you can do that, the better
and for us now, you know, the that allows us
to you know, maybe do a little bit of chirping

(28:57):
back and forth. I get the competition up, but I
think it's just kind of us focusing on when to
get each other better.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
We've we've heard that it's been more competitive in camp,
and we've you know, also seen more energy from Dave Canalis,
I think than we saw last year. Last year a
lot of coach speak answers. You know, it was pointed
out this morning, not a lot of coach speak at all,
really just straight to the point giving you the answers
that you need to hear. So we talked so much

(29:23):
about the comfortability of Bryce now with Dave Canalis and
with this system, But how about the comfortability of the
head coach and him with his system now knowing you
know that it is something that can be successful. You know,
are you excited by the fact that we're hearing that
this is really more.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
A more excitable camp well than last year?

Speaker 4 (29:47):
Yeah, I mean I think Dave Canalis, even with that
SoundBite he had with k Adams saying that they could
be more aggressive. Yes, that excites me. That sounds like
fun football. I know that we would have run the football,
and I don't know if he wants to be stuff
running the football again. I don't know if that's a
phrase that he would use, but that is something he
discusses quite a bit now. He's talking about hitting some

(30:08):
of those explosives off of it and being more aggressive
because he trusts his quarterback way more so now than
he did certainly the first two weeks of last year,
and maybe even when Bryce was playing well, and even
last year. Josh Norris mentions it all the time. They
did like attacking downfield. They were a team that threw
the ball downfield. When they did pass, it was downfield

(30:29):
a lot more than lots of other teams in the NFL.
So I think all of that matters. I'm reminded of
watching Quarterback, the NFL docu series that is released on Netflix. Mannings.
They do a great job with it. Kirk Cousins breaking
his film down earlier in his season last year with Atlanta.
Kirk who does all of these little different things to

(30:53):
help sharpen his mind to learn an NFL playbook. If
you remember from the previous QB series where he was
on he'd hooked up these I don't even know these
electrical things to his brain, these nodes, and he's trying
to I don't even know what they were, but he's
trying to exercise different portions of his brain or whatever

(31:14):
so he can be a smarter football player, Like he
took care of his body in a lot of other
ways that you might not expect. So Kirk struggled picking
up the Zach Robinson offense last year, and it led
directly to a turnover because Kirk, there's so many motions
that you have to go through. I think there was
something like fifty different styles of motion that he had

(31:35):
to run through, because the NFL playbook is ridiculous. My
point being, if Kirk Cousins a veteran in the league
for a long time, and he's been a good quarterback
in the league for a long time, If Kirk Cousins
is struggling when having to pick up an entirely new offense,
then I imagine Bryce, who this is all still very
new to. I imagine it's way worse for him despite

(31:57):
the elite processing he had coming out of Alabama. So
now that you have another here under your belt, I know,
I keep emphasizing it. I just think it's hugely valuable.
I think it's hugely valuable not only to Bryce but
Todave and now they're both a lot more comfortable working
with one another.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, And I mean we're hearing now that you get
to call the sexy plays on offense, the ones that
are going to lead to more success. And yeah, I
think that that's the thing that we were looking for
this year during training camp was is there more comfort
in the offense?

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Do things start to open up.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
I think some of what we saw the other night,
maybe a little at FanFest, sort of gave us a
little bit of a look into that that there are
some different things that they're going to be able to do.
And you know, again, it's going to be tough to
judge in preseason, because we've talked about this so many times,
offenses are going to remain very vanilla because they don't
want to give anything away. But I do think that

(32:52):
you're still early in the season, you're going to see
that translate onto the field. Bryce being comfortable in this
system and Dave being comfortable with him, and I mean
in terms of the energy around the team, I feel
like part of that is Yeah, there's more comfortability, but
also I feel like, you know, there is more belief
within the organization that this can be successful, where last

(33:14):
year I think maybe they were seeing the signs of oh,
Bryce might be struggling to pick some things up here,
and there was maybe a little bit of nervousness first
year for Dave Canalis.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Now it's year two.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Bryce seems to be picking everything up and there just
seems to be more confidence around this entire organization, and
you love to see these guys out there competing and
the nature of practice becoming more competitive as well.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
One more segment to go. We wrap things up. Coming
up next on West and Walker with What's on Tap?
Sports Radio ninety two seven WFNZ.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Are you challenging me to a walk off? Oh yeah,
that's a walk off challenge, my friend. It's a walk off,
a walk over.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Wrapping it up here on a Westless and Walker Show,
Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ. Flound Dog hanging
out with me all week long. We'll be out there,
I believe, or joint practice tomorrow and then we'll come
back and tell you everything we saw. Probably have to
bail a little early because it starts at ten, show
starts at twelve. You guys get the idea. Imagine coming

(34:30):
back here around eleven o'clock or so. We'll gear things up,
get ready to go and tell you what we saw
out there at camp and then provide some of the
updates coming in a little bit later. But that's what
you can expect for tomorrow show Mac and Bone. They'll
be out of practice. They'll get you set for it
at first, they'll be out of practice and then recap
everything on Thursday, Kyle, they'll be able to recap everything.

(34:52):
So this is where we have the shows, being able
to talk about different things all at different times. It's
good stuff. The football is here, and we got the previews.
We got what's happening right here right now, and we
got what happened in the past. We got you covered
all day long on WFNZ.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Unfortunately we don't get to see all of practice, but
you know what it is, what it is, we'll take it.
We still get all the updates and everything like that.
We're the ones breaking news to you if there's something
rolling in.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
So I think people have enjoyed what we've been doing
throughout training camp.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
I have an interesting question for you and Fitty, who's
going to be out there too, right, Fitty is going
to be out both of you are going to be
out there, correct.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, that's that's my plan is to go out there
for a little bit tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
And it's supposed to rain a decent amount.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Still, I got my rain jacket, although it does say Carolina,
so I don't know if they're going to get offended
by that.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I mean, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Tar heel, It's not Panther's jacket. No, it's I'll say
I'm supporting Trey Boston.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
You could say that if you want. You could say that. Great.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
I have to imagine there's just no way in hell
either you or Fitty own an umbrella.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Now.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
The only way you guys own an umbrella is if
you still have it when the ACC gave it out
during kickoff like three years ago.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
And how did you get it? Did you not? Yeah? No,
I got the I got the I got the wallet. Matt,
I don't even use I'm only I'm not even really.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
Gonna make fun of you, to be honest with you,
because I myself, I've never really been an umbrella guy.
Wes is He's actually well prepared with his umbrella. Man,
I've never really been a big umbrella guy. And then
when you have to. I remember having to do a
couple of TV hits and just for some reason, anytime
I had to do a TV hit, it was just

(36:35):
a heavy downpour and so, okay, well I can't walk
in drenched ready to hop on Queen City News. So
I needed an umbrella. And it's like, you know what,
I know, people think it's soft. It's kind of funny
to see somebody with an umbrella. I guess it's just
I don't know, it's just easy to make that right, right,
it's just little water didn't hurt anybody. That's not how

(36:57):
I felt. It was probably just pure laziness on my part,
to be honest with you. But having an umbrella, it's like, man,
it's a game changer. It's a game change of all
of you that just haven't gotten on the umbrella again.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, I don't know if I have one.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
I may have an old one in my car that
my grandfather had at one time and I got from him,
but I'm not one hundred percent sure that it's still
in there.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
If not, we may have to acquire one for tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Because if you don't have an umbrella out there, and
then you just have the rain jacket. Then you're just
sitting there or standing there the whole time. I don't know, man,
it might be that time. Well, I mean, yeah, it
might be.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
I do have I do have a hood, which I
am demonstrating for you for some reason.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, the hood will cover me up right here, just the.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
You know bill, the bill of the cap will get
a little wet.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
It is this still a thing for people?

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Are there people out there that just aren't umbrella guys
and they refuse to have one for any other reason? Like,
I don't know, is it just because of laziness, Because
that's what it was for me. I just didn't have
one forever. And then I started using the acc kickoff umbrella.
They gave it us, Like, oh this is delightful. I
don't have to be wet, I don't have to have
all of this rain hit me in the face.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
I just that's what I chose one year and sure
enough nine one nine says yeah on the textlot, how
could you not be an umbrella guy?

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Lol?

Speaker 4 (38:16):
You would rather stand or walk in the rain? Who
calls it soft to not want to get rained on?
I'm telling you, this is what happens. This is what happens.
Seven oh four also says, all right, y'all got like
ten minutes left. Why are y'all rambling on about an umbrella?

Speaker 7 (38:30):
Man?

Speaker 2 (38:30):
We gave These are important life situations. Okay, we have
we have decisions that we have to make when we
go out there tomorrow. I appreciate this conversation, and you're right,
we are. We have given you everything today.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
Okay, God, well it's been it's been nothing but all
Panthers training camp and a sliver of ECU football. But really,
it's been all Panthers training camp. But seven oh four
wants us to talk about what's on tap. I guess
we'll abide. What's on tap presented by Twin Peaks. Twin
Peaks has location and Concord and Fort Mill. Twin Peaks
at your local sports lodge, Come in from from Scratch

(39:05):
food and signature. Twenty nine twenty nine degree draft Beers,
Braves Brewers. I didn't know if it was twenty five
or twenty nine. I was like, yeah, goodness, gracious, twenty
twenty five might be a little too little, little, too cold, little,
too cold. I like my beers at twenty nine degrees
and you know where I can find those types of
beers at twin peaks with locations.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Shout out Record and Fort Mill.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Shout out to Franken Waxaw, who has the one down
there in Fort Mill. Great he is a listener to
the stations. Shout out to Frank. That's a huge shout
out to Frank and Waxaw.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Braves Brewers tonight again, first pitch set for seven fifteen.
It's Joey Wentz on the mound for the Braves. Joey
Wentz has a five two ERA on the season, just
two and two on the year. He'll be going against
Freddy Peralta with yep, back to back games that you're
gonna have against good pitchers there four Milwaukee, Freddy Peralta
twelve and five on the season, three oh eight ERA.

(39:56):
Looking at that game last night that these two played
to start the series, Braves actually got a win in
four game winning streak. The Braves are on or excuse me,
the four three four. I apologize. The Brewers got the win,
So the Brewers are on it. You know, I got
my b teams mixed up. The Brewers are on a
four game winning streak. The Brewers got the victory. I
was about say, Braves didn't win four games. So the

(40:17):
Brewers won three to one last night, So I would
say a valiant effort from Eric Fetti, who has had
a rough.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Go of things.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
But there was the three three run four inning that
took place, and that was all Fetti who allowed that
to happen. And that would be the only source of
offense for the Brewers. The Braves scored in the first
last night, they would not score again. The Brewers had
the three run four inning a fourth inning and that
it's all they would score. So that was your ball game.

(40:48):
They'll have a second game here tonight. How the Mets
play last.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Night, they wasn't great early.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
I mean they were down five to nothing and then
they find their way back into the game.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
Wasn't early, but it was middle game.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
They're down five to nothing, a tough sixth inning there
from sham and Aya, but they fought their way back
into it, nearly find a way to win. And then
Brett Baty throws a ball into the outfield in the
top of the tenth to run score and the Cleveland
Guardians end up winning.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
But you know it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
The Mets still game and a half back of the
Phillies for the division lead. They're going to be fighting
it out till the very end of the season. It
seems like anytime that one team gets on a little
bit of a roll, the other team either fades back
or is matching them. No one's really been able to
create separation here, so I'm not too worried about it.
But I do think that you know, the Mets right now,

(41:37):
they're still hurting for starting pitching. They need guys that
can be a little more consistent, that can give them
six or more innings, and right now they're just not
getting that.

Speaker 4 (41:45):
Okay, we've got some important comments on the umbrella discourse.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
To end the show.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
Here are some of the comments coming in on the
FanDuel text line. Grown Up Lunchables says, it's what to
do with the umbrella when you get to your destination
A fair point.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
It's a good point.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
I think all you do, though, is you just fold
the umbrella down and then you wrap it up and
then you just put it over to the side or whatever.
Who cares if it gets wet, because that's what it's
designed to do. Yes, it's a little bit of an inconvenience.
I I do understand the point, but I think there
are ways to get around.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
We don't exactly have like new carpeting in these studios,
so I think.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
My god, no, it'll be just fine. I think it'll
be all right.

Speaker 4 (42:25):
Cakillac says, and we would appreciate Flounder and Fitty by
the way rocking the good old fashioned trash bag pancho.
If you guys wanted to wear that, that would be funny.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
You know what's you know what's sad.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
I had a poncho in the back of my car
that I recently threw out because I was like, I've
never I've never needed this, I've never had to wear this,
so you know, you know what kind of pancho?

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Was just one that they gave out at a game
one time.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yeah, it's always, it's always guys.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
Brad says, I don't need an umbrella just because it's
something extra I have to care and keep up with.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah, I guess we'll have a bag. I guess. Yeah.
It's kind of like sunglasses. You might forget them.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
Kyle from Maine says, the only time I use an
umbrella is when I played golf hard to play with
wet grips. Suck it up, Buttercup. That's what we got
from Kyle for Maine. On the Umbrella Conversation, AJ and
Charlotte says, most of us construction workers don't use umbrellas.
We're used to being rained on, and Wolf Pag James says,
all you have to do is just wear a rain jacket,

(43:27):
which I think is probably the method you're gonna roll with.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
I mean, look, I went and set through an entire
game in the remnants of a hurricane back in twenty sixteen,
so I've been there. At some point, you don't even
realize you're getting wet. You're just like, you know what,
that's over. That was Virginia Tech, right, that was Yes,
that was that one. That was a forty That was
a forty thirty four to three beat down.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Yeah game, that's Trybisky.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
At that point we should have known maybe Mitch Trubisky
isn't the greatest quarterback.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, but it was just the rain, right, that was
that's me. That's what I said at the time.

Speaker 4 (44:01):
That's what the Bears thought when they traded up for him,
just to move up one spot. That'll do it for
Wes and Walker. Big thanks to Flounder helping me out
in a bunch of different ways.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Today and the rest of the week.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
You got Kyle Bailey coming up next alongside Smoke Ludwig.
You're listening to Sports Radio ninety two to seven FM.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Listen to The Wes and Walker Show week teas from
noon to three only on Sports Radio ninety two point
seven FM. Co UFNZ, the

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Official home of the Charlotte Sports Fan