September 10, 2025 • 19 mins
This edition of the live wire is focused on reacting to the national media's reaction to Bryce Young and the Panthers' performance in week 1 versus the Jaguars.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Okay, I promise we'll move off of Larry Allen stories
and superhuman stories. But we all just gathered around my
computer during the commercial break and watch this man work
his way up to bench pressing yes, seven hundred pounds
and everybody going crazy in that Dallas Cowboys weight room
probably circa two thousand and three.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, man, that was just quite the feat.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
But the thing I think about is, you know, just
his regular sets in the gym. I mean, if you're
throwing up seven hundred, then that means that you're repping.
You know, you're coming there for nice five by five
and you're throwing five hundred on there by the time
it's over with maybe even six hundred to throw it
on there for five reps and you're just wrapping it all.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
There's a great story from Chris Weber who says he
was working out. I forget where exactly, but he was
working out and Earl Boykins walks in. If you don't
know who Earl Boykins is, he is one of the
shortest NBA players of all time, five five to be exact.
Only Muggsy Bogues I believe is shorter. I think that's it.
He's second shortest of all time. Earl Boykins walks in
and starts throwing up some ridiculous amount of weight that
(01:06):
he starts bench pressing that he himself, Chris Webber, who
is a pretty powerful power forward all things considered, Chris
Weber couldn't do the kind of weight And I need
to look up exactly the kind of weight that Earl
Boykins was throwing up. But it is kind of wild
to see a five to five little guard like that. Wise,
I'd never heard that before. I need to look it up. Yeah,
(01:26):
it's a it's a fun story from Chris Webber.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, all right, Muggsy, Muggsy all he is is five
to three muscle. Oh yeah, I mean the calves that legs. Sorry,
I mean, look, we're talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
We're here.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The quads, the Muggsy quads a little bit of a
like quad father esque. Maybe not say Quon Barkley, but
he had some quads on him. He's a calf guy.
Shout out to Muggies quads man shop, how are your
quad's looking are they? Could they hula hoop through a tereo?
Because I know my good Yeah, yeah, the pretty close.
(02:00):
We're not throwing up any weight on the squad rack.
All right, Troppy, you ready for some sound that probably
better suits us around here. We can play some sound.
We can't squat, but we can play some sound time
now for the Live Wire.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
In the West and the West of.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Live Hey, alrighty, well, we're gonna start off with a
guy you actually mentioned during the breakwalker. That is Al
Wallace who was talking about Ted or t mac whatever
one Colin. Colin and I were still on the tet
wave until he wins a playoff game then he can
get the T MAC. But anyway, as of right now,
it was one of the bright spots in the game
(02:40):
on Sunday, And this is what Al Wallas had to
say about T Max's performance.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Yeah, the one thing I like about T Mac is
that he is coachable.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
This guy is a sponge.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
He wants to learn and you've kind of seen that
growth in him so far. So when he gets an
opportunity to just go out there and make plays, I'm
on the edge of my seat. I'm excited about what
could be from Royal McMillan, just because you watch a
guy that comes out you know, preseason early, doesn't get
his head quite around on the ball he misses. That
happens faster down in the red zone. Game one NFL
(03:13):
first NFL catch eleven yards That head snaps around, he
knows that ball is coming before he comes out of
the break. Great sign that a guy is just learning
how to play the game on the run. Big expectations
for the top pick.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
So after game one of his NFL career, have you
guys adjusted what you think his stock line will look
like by the end of the season.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Uh, not really, because I'm trying to remember what I
rejected for him. I think I said, I think you
were nine hundred. Yeah, something like that. So yeah, I'm
not going to adjust that right now because I'm interested
until Jalen Kocher returns to this lineup to see what
the production looks like because he is the de facto
number one player and teams are going to be able
(03:56):
to focus on that a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
As I said, he's going to get the other team's
best corner, he's going to get the coverage rolling to him,
the target of teams. I as far as stopping the
Carolina Panthers passing attack is going to start with Tetoroa McMillan,
and so I'm gonna be interested to see how he
adjusted that and how the team adjusted that.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I've adjusted it a little bit, partly because of the
injuries and partly because of what he's able to do
in week one. Yeah, I'm going up for sure. I'm
going a thousand, I really am, and I would love
to see it. I think, who else are you throwing
to if you don't have Jalen Kocher out there? Was
looking at a couple of the stats where I don't
want to get into the crazy nerd boy stats that
are out there that support what Teamac did against Jacksonville,
(04:37):
but also it's supported how Bryce should be throwing him
the ball a lot more. I think the Panthers are
going to tap into that because who else are you
gonna throw to?
Speaker 6 (04:45):
It?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Just it really is a lot of me believing in
t Mac. A lot of it is he's just clearly
the most talented wide receiver you have out there right now.
So even if you have to force feed him, even
if you have to be creative and how you're gonna
move Temack around, maybe you put him in the slot
a little bit more so to free up some other
guys on the outside, and then they have to calculate
for that. Just the chess game that's back and forth.
(05:06):
I used to say one hundred and fifteen targets. I
was looking at that when Feelin and Coker we're still
healthy and on the team. I think I think t
Mac gets I'll go up to one for I think
we're getting up there to some pretty high volume stuff.
The only thing that has me a little wary of
those types of numbers is do the Panthers somehow get leads?
(05:27):
Shocker like winning games and getting leads and whatnot, and
then running the football a little bit more. But even so,
I just think t Mac is going to be a
target monster because there's not anybody else to throw to.
Coker is going to be a part of the equation.
I think he's going to get a lot of passes
his way also, so that also is another part of
the calculation. Give me one hundred and forty targets, give
me a thousand yards. Yeah, I'm raising up the volume.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
For him, all right. Hell yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
And speaking of you saying that there's no one else
to throw to, Connor Or from the Monday Morning Quarterback
Pod said that he's more concerned about XL than he
is about Bryce Young.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Are you worried about the way Bryce played a little?
Speaker 7 (06:04):
I'm more worried about the way that some of the
other wideouts on that roster, like Xavior Legette, is getting
three out of seven targets and is not getting his
foot down in certain situations. I'm more worried about that,
if I'm being honest.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
So Colin and I have Yeah, Colin and I have
been saying, this is these four weeks without Cocher now
down to three, pretty darn important, you would say for
XL's career and what he's gonna what his role is
going to be after Coker returns. How concerned are you
guys that you know a guy like XCEL doesn't even
get a contract extension here?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Uh? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a possibility at
this point what we've seen. I mean, because the thing is,
we can go to the obvious stuff of what he
didn't do on Sunday, but the thing is the mentality,
and I'm not even going to go to the off
the field stuff. It's the fact that the narrative for
him was coming into this season, with the year in
(07:00):
which he felt like was a disappointment as a first
round it was some of the big drops that he
had and things of that nature. So you knew the
spotlight was on you. You knew all eyes were on you.
You knew people were waiting to see what you were
going to do. And that's where I bring the whole
professionalism point into it.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
The pros.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Pros they know what they need to work on in
their game, and they're going to come back with a
renewed vigor. They're going to come back with improvements in
their game. We saw none from Exceale, and I think
that is the most disheartening part is that you knew
what people were saying about you. You knew what was
being and it's not even about necessarily what people were
saying about you. You knew as a player that you
(07:38):
could look in and see where the flaws in your
game were, what you needed to improve to go from
year one to a big improvement in year two as
a wide receiver.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And then you come.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Out and you're doing one on one stuff that you're
failing at as far as keeping your feed in bounds, blocking,
playing hard at least if you're not going to be
able to register some catches, get out there and block
your tail off your two hundred and twenty plus pounds.
You should be an asset in the run game. And
so I think that's the biggest thing is that you
(08:09):
didn't come in with the mentality that I'm coming to
dominate in my second season, because it didn't look like
a kid who wants to come out and dominate.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
In you two. That's an issue. Not blocking is an issue.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
The other issue is I just don't know if he's
capable of being fluid and working on some of the
things or being successful at some of the things that
I see as outright flaws. I don't know if it's
ever going to be something I watch with Excel where
he's just able to plant his foot in the ground
create a whole bunch of separation with whatever route he decided,
whatever route he's supposed to run. When he does have
(08:45):
the football in his hand, can he juke you out
of your shoes or is it just going to be
all speed and power and that's how he wins? And
if you mitigate that, he can't win any other way?
How many counters do you have?
Speaker 7 (08:57):
It?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Just as you've mentioned a million times, and I totally agree,
it doesn't look fast. He is fast, I know the
forty times I get that, but he doesn't look fast,
and he doesn't look sidelined to sideline fast. It's the
agility that I think is lacking. And if you don't
have all that much agility and they mitigate the straight
line speed, I just don't know how else you can win.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
But see, the thing is.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Is that there have been so many NFL players that
have made great careers, made Hall of Fame careers off
being guys that weren't necessarily speed merchants. You could look
at a Chris Carter, You can even go look at
the kid who played here, Ed McCaffrey, Christian's daddy.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, those are like I don't That's my point though,
I think Excel doesn't have the agility that those guys are.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Stee what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But I think that still, if you are truly dedicated
to your craft and you really really work at it,
there are ways, and even if it's not necessarily him
becoming a row guy, but there are ways that he
can work on his game to be able to okay.
Because like Mosaim Muhammad had good quickness, but you wouldn't
say that he would juke you out of your shoes,
(09:59):
but found a way to get open because he was physical.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
He would use his physicality to do that.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So if your Excel, you can use something you got
either for three nine speed, which we don't say you.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Necessarily play with all the time.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Okay, well, maybe you're lacking that subtle quickness to be
able to get off. But then after that, can you
be a brute? Can you be a brute and just
use your physicality to get open? Well, yeah, I'm with you.
I think I'm not upset with you. I'm just not
in general, you know, No, I don't think you are.
I think what's happening with Excel? Yeah, I understand what
you're saying as well. I think with Excel, for me,
(10:32):
there's too much thinking going on and he just doesn't
know how to play right now. And if you do
catch the football, that's a priority because remember last year
there were ways where he was winning downfield, he was open,
Brice was hitting Excel downfield. Okay, so you took care
of all that stuff, and then what would happen. You
would drop the football.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So even if you were getting open, you weren't hauling
in the catch and that's something.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That brings you down.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So now if you're not hauling in those passes downfield
because you got open, you did all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Cool, now you're not catching it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Now, how do you get open within five yards ten
yards past the line of scrimmage? But now you're not
keeping it in bounds. There's the block play that's going around.
There's one clip of Excel where he just falls like that.
It's too much thinking. I know you can put one
foot in front of the other. I know you can
do that, but I don't think he has enough agility
to get pushed off of his spot at the line
(11:23):
of scrimmage. But he's thinking about route running, so now
he's not anchoring, pushing back into the cornerback. I think
there's too much stuff going on, man, That's what I think. Yeah,
that's what I think with Excel. And I hope he's
able to figure it out, man, I really do. I
hope he's able to figure it out. Last thing about
Xcel in terms of targets and stuff, getting back to
what Bryce Young might do. At some point you stop
(11:45):
trusting him, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
But you you know, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
If he's open, do you double hitch because you see
Excel as the one that you're trying to throw to
the open.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
If the covers dictate he's open, you have to keep
doing it until the coaches take him off the field.
If he's the guy that's open, if he's where the
read should go, you gotta throw.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It to him.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, like he's just he's stiff. If he is open,
I don't trust him catching the football right now. I
hope he shuts me up all sorts of different ways.
I would love to see it because I'm pulling for him. Yeah,
I really am. It's just we haven't seen any evidence,
because then people are gonna say, see, Bryce is so trash.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Look at him. He doesn't know what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It's gonna be up to us to just wade through
all of the trash that people are going to throw out.
There are there are reasons to uh say Bryce was
bad in Game one. There are plenty of them. There
was a good pass to Excel that was Excel's fault.
Got to get the foot down. That's not on Bryce.
What else you got?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
All right? We'll actually speaking of Bryce.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
One of his you know, one of his apologies on
the national media has always been Dan Orlovsky, and here's
what he had to say about his Week one performance
against the Jaguars.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
All Right, my thoughts on Bryce Young from week one?
Everyone knows I'm a big fan of Bryce.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Still believe in Bryce week one, it looks.
Speaker 8 (13:03):
Like he's living in a world of trying to have
some type of structure within his drops while also allowing
the kind of unstructured drop he's had before of the
almost the hop or the gather or the skip backwards.
Speaker 9 (13:20):
And I think it led to some missues, some lack
of timing. Usually he's so good anticipating throws, and that
did not show itself in week one.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So would you be more concerned about Bryce kind of
reverting back to having problems with the fundamentals? Are Are
you more concerned with Bryce or are you more concerned
that our quarterback, whisper Dave Canals hasn't quite got even
the fundamentals quite situated already.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
With Oh yeah, no, that's not his fault, man, because
it's human nature. You can practice a technique all day long,
but it's going to take discipline from the player. We
talked about when Dave Canalis first got here that's what
he did. He started fixing Bryce from the feet up,
and so you can, coach, you got to do that
stuff all day long. But as they say, when the
bullets are flying, when you get out there and there's
two hundred and ninety pound that's coming at your head
(14:07):
and you have to make a decision, and that's in
two and a half seconds, you're not going to necessarily
be thinking about all those drills and all those things
that you did. So yeah, nah, I don't put any
of that on the coach. When you talk fundamentals and
things like that, it comes down to the discipline of
the player.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It does come down to the discipline of the player.
It also just comes down to playing as many reps
as possible. One thing about my tweet that people miss
the mark on when I said that this was the
worst game Brice has played since coming back to the
starting lineup. I don't think that this was a worst
game compared to the two games that he played to
start last season. Those were by far worse in my opinion. Also,
(14:43):
I don't think that game was as bad as pretty
much every single contest that I saw his rookie year.
The only game that I think might have been better
than this first one was Green Bay, And that's a maybe.
I just that is to illustrate the kind of gap
that is between what I showed us his rookie season
in the first two starts of twenty twenty four compared
(15:03):
to what I still consider a bad game in twenty
twenty five. So all that being said, what you can
be comforted by is I actually wasn't reminded after I
told you on Monday, I was reminded of all this
bad stuff in recent Panthers history. I wasn't reminded of
Bryce being scared in the pocket. He wasn't scared. He
was scared in the pocket despite good protection the first
(15:25):
two starts of twenty twenty four. He wasn't scared in
the pocket in Jacksonville. It might have changed his mechanics,
but he didn't look down. He wasn't watching edge rusher's
you know, blow right by their tackles and you know,
get into the pocket or anything like that. I didn't
see those types of issues. What issues I saw was
some misses, some bad decision making in some aspects, but
(15:46):
it wasn't uncombackable from like I think he could bounce
back In fact, I think he will bounce back against
Arizona and play quite well. I was scared to death
every single game I watched from Bryce in the second
half of his rookie season, and especially after those first
two starts. I'm not scared to death of Bryce going
into week two, all right.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And the last one I have for you. I don't
know if you guys remember the name Kellen Blair. He
was the guy who's audio played where he came up
with the football festivals.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Oh wow, okay, I forgot about that. Yes, now I
know he.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Had another banger of an idea. Okay, So I'm gonna
play this clip and then I'm gonna ask you a question.
It's kind of a spin off of this.
Speaker 6 (16:22):
The same way football teams all have a kicker that
comes out and does his little soccer kick, Soccer teams
need to have one American football player and if the
game ends zero to zero, each team sends out their
football player and they do an Oklahoma drill at midfield
and that's how you decide the winner.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So obviously that's ridiculous. But my question I have for
you is, in sports, what's an overtime rule or way
that it's decided that you guys would change.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Oh god, well, what about the golden at bat? If
you have a tie ball game in Major League Baseball
at the end of let's say ten or eleven, you
send up one batter from your team for a home
run derby, and you see how many dingers they hit
and whoever hits albums about to go with that one.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Because a lot of the other sports, I don't have
any issues with their overtime.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I guess it's not the golden at bat. That's something different.
The golden that bat is at any time, any time
in the game, whatever the situation, you can throw up
your best hitter if he's in the dugout still, and
then if there's you know, if the situation calls for it,
you can put your best hitter up there.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I changed my mind. I go back.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I changed my mind. I would put college rules in
the NFL for overtime.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Oh no, I hate college open because I think that
NFL can be so.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Long and born and drawn out and then we can
get a draw sometimes, and so I would. I would
probably do it, but maybe put the ball back a
little further.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
My issue with NFL overtime is when they were trying
to figure out ways to have games not ending draws
as much they what they do. They decided to cut
down the overtime period from fifteen to ten. And it
was a little bit because a player say, man, look,
I'm with keeping players safe as much as possible. You're
telling me in overtime, which probably happens for a team,
(18:07):
Like how many overtime games do you think the team
that plays the most overtime game plays?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Probably like three?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Get right, right, right, right right, So now you're talking
about fifteen minutes of football that you've taken off of
the clock for these players to possibly be safe. And
by the way, those extra fifteen or those extra fifteen minutes,
maybe it's just one side of the ball that's playing
in the you know, you start to split that in half. Anyways,
I hated when they took the extra five minutes off
because now you just have a team that goes out
(18:36):
there on one drive. They're milking the clock down to
maybe one minute in a real long drive. And now,
as we're trying to make it fair for both the
offense and the defense, what you've done is you've given
the team that receives the kickoff a way bigger advantage
I college rules. I can't stand. I think it completely
changes the dynamic of football. It's fun, I will say
(18:59):
it's fun, but there's no I know you'll take overtime
win for Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I would.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I would do a lot of things for an overtime
win for Charlotte. I would do a lot of things,
things that I can't really share on air. I might,
I might break a couple of rules. I would say
that it's Weston Walker finishing up with the live wire.
Thanks to Shrop for playing some sound. We got the
walk off coming up next. Sports Radio ninety two seven
WFNZ
Okay, I promise we'll move off of Larry Allen stories
and superhuman stories. But we all just gathered around my
computer during the commercial break and watch this man work
his way up to bench pressing yes, seven hundred pounds
and everybody going crazy in that Dallas Cowboys weight room
probably circa two thousand and three.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, man, that was just quite the feat.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
But the thing I think about is, you know, just
his regular sets in the gym. I mean, if you're
throwing up seven hundred, then that means that you're repping.
You know, you're coming there for nice five by five
and you're throwing five hundred on there by the time
it's over with maybe even six hundred to throw it
on there for five reps and you're just wrapping it all.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
There's a great story from Chris Weber who says he
was working out. I forget where exactly, but he was
working out and Earl Boykins walks in. If you don't
know who Earl Boykins is, he is one of the
shortest NBA players of all time, five five to be exact.
Only Muggsy Bogues I believe is shorter. I think that's it.
He's second shortest of all time. Earl Boykins walks in
and starts throwing up some ridiculous amount of weight that
(01:06):
he starts bench pressing that he himself, Chris Webber, who
is a pretty powerful power forward all things considered, Chris
Weber couldn't do the kind of weight And I need
to look up exactly the kind of weight that Earl
Boykins was throwing up. But it is kind of wild
to see a five to five little guard like that. Wise,
I'd never heard that before. I need to look it up. Yeah,
(01:26):
it's a it's a fun story from Chris Webber.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, all right, Muggsy, Muggsy all he is is five
to three muscle. Oh yeah, I mean the calves that legs. Sorry,
I mean, look, we're talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
We're here.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The quads, the Muggsy quads a little bit of a
like quad father esque. Maybe not say Quon Barkley, but
he had some quads on him. He's a calf guy.
Shout out to Muggies quads man shop, how are your
quad's looking are they? Could they hula hoop through a tereo?
Because I know my good Yeah, yeah, the pretty close.
(02:00):
We're not throwing up any weight on the squad rack.
All right, Troppy, you ready for some sound that probably
better suits us around here. We can play some sound.
We can't squat, but we can play some sound time
now for the Live Wire.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
In the West and the West of.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Live Hey, alrighty, well, we're gonna start off with a
guy you actually mentioned during the breakwalker. That is Al
Wallace who was talking about Ted or t mac whatever
one Colin. Colin and I were still on the tet
wave until he wins a playoff game then he can
get the T MAC. But anyway, as of right now,
it was one of the bright spots in the game
(02:40):
on Sunday, And this is what Al Wallas had to
say about T Max's performance.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Yeah, the one thing I like about T Mac is
that he is coachable.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
This guy is a sponge.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
He wants to learn and you've kind of seen that
growth in him so far. So when he gets an
opportunity to just go out there and make plays, I'm
on the edge of my seat. I'm excited about what
could be from Royal McMillan, just because you watch a
guy that comes out you know, preseason early, doesn't get
his head quite around on the ball he misses. That
happens faster down in the red zone. Game one NFL
(03:13):
first NFL catch eleven yards That head snaps around, he
knows that ball is coming before he comes out of
the break. Great sign that a guy is just learning
how to play the game on the run. Big expectations
for the top pick.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
So after game one of his NFL career, have you
guys adjusted what you think his stock line will look
like by the end of the season.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Uh, not really, because I'm trying to remember what I
rejected for him. I think I said, I think you
were nine hundred. Yeah, something like that. So yeah, I'm
not going to adjust that right now because I'm interested
until Jalen Kocher returns to this lineup to see what
the production looks like because he is the de facto
number one player and teams are going to be able
(03:56):
to focus on that a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
As I said, he's going to get the other team's
best corner, he's going to get the coverage rolling to him,
the target of teams. I as far as stopping the
Carolina Panthers passing attack is going to start with Tetoroa McMillan,
and so I'm gonna be interested to see how he
adjusted that and how the team adjusted that.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I've adjusted it a little bit, partly because of the
injuries and partly because of what he's able to do
in week one. Yeah, I'm going up for sure. I'm
going a thousand, I really am, and I would love
to see it. I think, who else are you throwing
to if you don't have Jalen Kocher out there? Was
looking at a couple of the stats where I don't
want to get into the crazy nerd boy stats that
are out there that support what Teamac did against Jacksonville,
(04:37):
but also it's supported how Bryce should be throwing him
the ball a lot more. I think the Panthers are
going to tap into that because who else are you
gonna throw to?
Speaker 6 (04:45):
It?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Just it really is a lot of me believing in
t Mac. A lot of it is he's just clearly
the most talented wide receiver you have out there right now.
So even if you have to force feed him, even
if you have to be creative and how you're gonna
move Temack around, maybe you put him in the slot
a little bit more so to free up some other
guys on the outside, and then they have to calculate
for that. Just the chess game that's back and forth.
(05:06):
I used to say one hundred and fifteen targets. I
was looking at that when Feelin and Coker we're still
healthy and on the team. I think I think t
Mac gets I'll go up to one for I think
we're getting up there to some pretty high volume stuff.
The only thing that has me a little wary of
those types of numbers is do the Panthers somehow get leads?
(05:27):
Shocker like winning games and getting leads and whatnot, and
then running the football a little bit more. But even so,
I just think t Mac is going to be a
target monster because there's not anybody else to throw to.
Coker is going to be a part of the equation.
I think he's going to get a lot of passes
his way also, so that also is another part of
the calculation. Give me one hundred and forty targets, give
me a thousand yards. Yeah, I'm raising up the volume.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
For him, all right. Hell yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
And speaking of you saying that there's no one else
to throw to, Connor Or from the Monday Morning Quarterback
Pod said that he's more concerned about XL than he
is about Bryce Young.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Are you worried about the way Bryce played a little?
Speaker 7 (06:04):
I'm more worried about the way that some of the
other wideouts on that roster, like Xavior Legette, is getting
three out of seven targets and is not getting his
foot down in certain situations. I'm more worried about that,
if I'm being honest.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
So Colin and I have Yeah, Colin and I have
been saying, this is these four weeks without Cocher now
down to three, pretty darn important, you would say for
XL's career and what he's gonna what his role is
going to be after Coker returns. How concerned are you
guys that you know a guy like XCEL doesn't even
get a contract extension here?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Uh? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a possibility at
this point what we've seen. I mean, because the thing is,
we can go to the obvious stuff of what he
didn't do on Sunday, but the thing is the mentality,
and I'm not even going to go to the off
the field stuff. It's the fact that the narrative for
him was coming into this season, with the year in
(07:00):
which he felt like was a disappointment as a first
round it was some of the big drops that he
had and things of that nature. So you knew the
spotlight was on you. You knew all eyes were on you.
You knew people were waiting to see what you were
going to do. And that's where I bring the whole
professionalism point into it.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
The pros.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Pros they know what they need to work on in
their game, and they're going to come back with a
renewed vigor. They're going to come back with improvements in
their game. We saw none from Exceale, and I think
that is the most disheartening part is that you knew
what people were saying about you. You knew what was
being and it's not even about necessarily what people were
saying about you. You knew as a player that you
(07:38):
could look in and see where the flaws in your
game were, what you needed to improve to go from
year one to a big improvement in year two as
a wide receiver.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And then you come.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Out and you're doing one on one stuff that you're
failing at as far as keeping your feed in bounds, blocking,
playing hard at least if you're not going to be
able to register some catches, get out there and block
your tail off your two hundred and twenty plus pounds.
You should be an asset in the run game. And
so I think that's the biggest thing is that you
(08:09):
didn't come in with the mentality that I'm coming to
dominate in my second season, because it didn't look like
a kid who wants to come out and dominate.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
In you two. That's an issue. Not blocking is an issue.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
The other issue is I just don't know if he's
capable of being fluid and working on some of the
things or being successful at some of the things that
I see as outright flaws. I don't know if it's
ever going to be something I watch with Excel where
he's just able to plant his foot in the ground
create a whole bunch of separation with whatever route he decided,
whatever route he's supposed to run. When he does have
(08:45):
the football in his hand, can he juke you out
of your shoes or is it just going to be
all speed and power and that's how he wins? And
if you mitigate that, he can't win any other way?
How many counters do you have?
Speaker 7 (08:57):
It?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Just as you've mentioned a million times, and I totally agree,
it doesn't look fast. He is fast, I know the
forty times I get that, but he doesn't look fast,
and he doesn't look sidelined to sideline fast. It's the
agility that I think is lacking. And if you don't
have all that much agility and they mitigate the straight
line speed, I just don't know how else you can win.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
But see, the thing is.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Is that there have been so many NFL players that
have made great careers, made Hall of Fame careers off
being guys that weren't necessarily speed merchants. You could look
at a Chris Carter, You can even go look at
the kid who played here, Ed McCaffrey, Christian's daddy.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, those are like I don't That's my point though,
I think Excel doesn't have the agility that those guys are.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Stee what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But I think that still, if you are truly dedicated
to your craft and you really really work at it,
there are ways, and even if it's not necessarily him
becoming a row guy, but there are ways that he
can work on his game to be able to okay.
Because like Mosaim Muhammad had good quickness, but you wouldn't
say that he would juke you out of your shoes,
(09:59):
but found a way to get open because he was physical.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
He would use his physicality to do that.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So if your Excel, you can use something you got
either for three nine speed, which we don't say you.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Necessarily play with all the time.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Okay, well, maybe you're lacking that subtle quickness to be
able to get off. But then after that, can you
be a brute? Can you be a brute and just
use your physicality to get open? Well, yeah, I'm with you.
I think I'm not upset with you. I'm just not
in general, you know, No, I don't think you are.
I think what's happening with Excel? Yeah, I understand what
you're saying as well. I think with Excel, for me,
(10:32):
there's too much thinking going on and he just doesn't
know how to play right now. And if you do
catch the football, that's a priority because remember last year
there were ways where he was winning downfield, he was open,
Brice was hitting Excel downfield. Okay, so you took care
of all that stuff, and then what would happen. You
would drop the football.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So even if you were getting open, you weren't hauling
in the catch and that's something.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That brings you down.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So now if you're not hauling in those passes downfield
because you got open, you did all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Cool, now you're not catching it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Now, how do you get open within five yards ten
yards past the line of scrimmage? But now you're not
keeping it in bounds. There's the block play that's going around.
There's one clip of Excel where he just falls like that.
It's too much thinking. I know you can put one
foot in front of the other. I know you can
do that, but I don't think he has enough agility
to get pushed off of his spot at the line
(11:23):
of scrimmage. But he's thinking about route running, so now
he's not anchoring, pushing back into the cornerback. I think
there's too much stuff going on, man, That's what I think. Yeah,
that's what I think with Excel. And I hope he's
able to figure it out, man, I really do. I
hope he's able to figure it out. Last thing about
Xcel in terms of targets and stuff, getting back to
what Bryce Young might do. At some point you stop
(11:45):
trusting him, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
But you you know, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
If he's open, do you double hitch because you see
Excel as the one that you're trying to throw to
the open.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
If the covers dictate he's open, you have to keep
doing it until the coaches take him off the field.
If he's the guy that's open, if he's where the
read should go, you gotta throw.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It to him.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, like he's just he's stiff. If he is open,
I don't trust him catching the football right now. I
hope he shuts me up all sorts of different ways.
I would love to see it because I'm pulling for him. Yeah,
I really am. It's just we haven't seen any evidence,
because then people are gonna say, see, Bryce is so trash.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Look at him. He doesn't know what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It's gonna be up to us to just wade through
all of the trash that people are going to throw out.
There are there are reasons to uh say Bryce was
bad in Game one. There are plenty of them. There
was a good pass to Excel that was Excel's fault.
Got to get the foot down. That's not on Bryce.
What else you got?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
All right? We'll actually speaking of Bryce.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
One of his you know, one of his apologies on
the national media has always been Dan Orlovsky, and here's
what he had to say about his Week one performance
against the Jaguars.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
All Right, my thoughts on Bryce Young from week one?
Everyone knows I'm a big fan of Bryce.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Still believe in Bryce week one, it looks.
Speaker 8 (13:03):
Like he's living in a world of trying to have
some type of structure within his drops while also allowing
the kind of unstructured drop he's had before of the
almost the hop or the gather or the skip backwards.
Speaker 9 (13:20):
And I think it led to some missues, some lack
of timing. Usually he's so good anticipating throws, and that
did not show itself in week one.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So would you be more concerned about Bryce kind of
reverting back to having problems with the fundamentals? Are Are
you more concerned with Bryce or are you more concerned
that our quarterback, whisper Dave Canals hasn't quite got even
the fundamentals quite situated already.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
With Oh yeah, no, that's not his fault, man, because
it's human nature. You can practice a technique all day long,
but it's going to take discipline from the player. We
talked about when Dave Canalis first got here that's what
he did. He started fixing Bryce from the feet up,
and so you can, coach, you got to do that
stuff all day long. But as they say, when the
bullets are flying, when you get out there and there's
two hundred and ninety pound that's coming at your head
(14:07):
and you have to make a decision, and that's in
two and a half seconds, you're not going to necessarily
be thinking about all those drills and all those things
that you did. So yeah, nah, I don't put any
of that on the coach. When you talk fundamentals and
things like that, it comes down to the discipline of
the player.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It does come down to the discipline of the player.
It also just comes down to playing as many reps
as possible. One thing about my tweet that people miss
the mark on when I said that this was the
worst game Brice has played since coming back to the
starting lineup. I don't think that this was a worst
game compared to the two games that he played to
start last season. Those were by far worse in my opinion. Also,
(14:43):
I don't think that game was as bad as pretty
much every single contest that I saw his rookie year.
The only game that I think might have been better
than this first one was Green Bay, And that's a maybe.
I just that is to illustrate the kind of gap
that is between what I showed us his rookie season
in the first two starts of twenty twenty four compared
(15:03):
to what I still consider a bad game in twenty
twenty five. So all that being said, what you can
be comforted by is I actually wasn't reminded after I
told you on Monday, I was reminded of all this
bad stuff in recent Panthers history. I wasn't reminded of
Bryce being scared in the pocket. He wasn't scared. He
was scared in the pocket despite good protection the first
(15:25):
two starts of twenty twenty four. He wasn't scared in
the pocket in Jacksonville. It might have changed his mechanics,
but he didn't look down. He wasn't watching edge rusher's
you know, blow right by their tackles and you know,
get into the pocket or anything like that. I didn't
see those types of issues. What issues I saw was
some misses, some bad decision making in some aspects, but
(15:46):
it wasn't uncombackable from like I think he could bounce
back In fact, I think he will bounce back against
Arizona and play quite well. I was scared to death
every single game I watched from Bryce in the second
half of his rookie season, and especially after those first
two starts. I'm not scared to death of Bryce going
into week two, all right.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And the last one I have for you. I don't
know if you guys remember the name Kellen Blair. He
was the guy who's audio played where he came up
with the football festivals.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Oh wow, okay, I forgot about that. Yes, now I
know he.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Had another banger of an idea. Okay, So I'm gonna
play this clip and then I'm gonna ask you a question.
It's kind of a spin off of this.
Speaker 6 (16:22):
The same way football teams all have a kicker that
comes out and does his little soccer kick, Soccer teams
need to have one American football player and if the
game ends zero to zero, each team sends out their
football player and they do an Oklahoma drill at midfield
and that's how you decide the winner.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So obviously that's ridiculous. But my question I have for
you is, in sports, what's an overtime rule or way
that it's decided that you guys would change.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Oh god, well, what about the golden at bat? If
you have a tie ball game in Major League Baseball
at the end of let's say ten or eleven, you
send up one batter from your team for a home
run derby, and you see how many dingers they hit
and whoever hits albums about to go with that one.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Because a lot of the other sports, I don't have
any issues with their overtime.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I guess it's not the golden at bat. That's something different.
The golden that bat is at any time, any time
in the game, whatever the situation, you can throw up
your best hitter if he's in the dugout still, and
then if there's you know, if the situation calls for it,
you can put your best hitter up there.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I changed my mind. I go back.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I changed my mind. I would put college rules in
the NFL for overtime.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Oh no, I hate college open because I think that
NFL can be so.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Long and born and drawn out and then we can
get a draw sometimes, and so I would. I would
probably do it, but maybe put the ball back a
little further.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
My issue with NFL overtime is when they were trying
to figure out ways to have games not ending draws
as much they what they do. They decided to cut
down the overtime period from fifteen to ten. And it
was a little bit because a player say, man, look,
I'm with keeping players safe as much as possible. You're
telling me in overtime, which probably happens for a team,
(18:07):
Like how many overtime games do you think the team
that plays the most overtime game plays?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Probably like three?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Get right, right, right, right right, So now you're talking
about fifteen minutes of football that you've taken off of
the clock for these players to possibly be safe. And
by the way, those extra fifteen or those extra fifteen minutes,
maybe it's just one side of the ball that's playing
in the you know, you start to split that in half. Anyways,
I hated when they took the extra five minutes off
because now you just have a team that goes out
(18:36):
there on one drive. They're milking the clock down to
maybe one minute in a real long drive. And now,
as we're trying to make it fair for both the
offense and the defense, what you've done is you've given
the team that receives the kickoff a way bigger advantage
I college rules. I can't stand. I think it completely
changes the dynamic of football. It's fun, I will say
(18:59):
it's fun, but there's no I know you'll take overtime
win for Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I would.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I would do a lot of things for an overtime
win for Charlotte. I would do a lot of things,
things that I can't really share on air. I might,
I might break a couple of rules. I would say
that it's Weston Walker finishing up with the live wire.
Thanks to Shrop for playing some sound. We got the
walk off coming up next. Sports Radio ninety two seven
WFNZ
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