January 9, 2025 • 26 mins
This week on the Happy Half Hour, Darin and Kassidy highlight Bryce Young's progress over the course of the 2024 season, discuss the future of the Carolina Panthers, praise coach Canales for his consistency and so much more!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This week on a Happy Half Hour.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We've seen five wins around this place recently and often,
and this is a completely different feeling because Rice is
the same guy every day and now that he's continued
to be the same guy over and over through the
bad and the good, that creates a confidence in all
the cats around him. What's the cow?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
It's time for the Happy Half Hour, presented by Southern Star,
an official bourbon of the Carolina Panthers. Here are your hosts,
Darren Gant and Cassidy Hill.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello, friends, and welcome to a new Year's edition of
the Happy Halflower was that that was a New Year's
Eve horn? A little?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That sounded like a deranged rooster.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I don't know. It could be. We'll get into the
chicken discussion later. Do that all day long.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
We don't have three hours, But right now we've got
a happy football team to talk about on the Happy
Half Hour, which presented as always by our friends at
Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers,
celebrate the Spirit of the Carolinas.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Spirit of the Carolinas feels pretty good right now.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Maybe we should raise a glass to the twenty twenty
four Carolina Panthers Salute in salute in honor of the
happiest five and twelve football team I've ever been around
in my entire life. It is kind of wild. And
this story is going to appear in the next edition
of the Ask the Old Guy Mailbag. We got a
(01:38):
big year in wrap up editions, very special edition coming
at soon on Panthers dot com. But I was out
buying socks the other day and this was before. This
was before Bryce turned into a stone cold killer in it. Okay,
this is before our quarterback turned into Steph Curry. The
guy behind the counter at the local independent merchant where
(02:01):
I like to buy my socks says he recognized me,
he knew me, and we started talking about the team
twenty he was like, he was like, I'm really digging
what's going on here. This is good. And that was it.
Four and twelve on the heels of a forty eight
fourteen loss, and people are still pretty happy about this thing.
And it's because in part of what we saw last
(02:23):
Sunday in Atlanta, because this team is pointed in a
direction that's kind of hard to arget.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So much to pick through what you just said, But
let me start with the most important. You buy your
socks from an independent retailer. Do not look at you.
You're such a great little small business guy.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I like to sport local independent business. And you know,
maybe one day they'll sponsor me and get the full
plug on the Happy Half Hour presented by our friends
at Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina
Panthers Carolinas.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I get all of my socks from Santa. They show
up at my stocking that year and they get me
through the next year. I don't know where they come from.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
This local independent merchant. I said. You know, when I
was a kid, I used to get annoyed at getting
socks for Christmas, And now all I wants good socks
and nobody's.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Coming forward to it. That's the only time I get
socks every year.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Got to be at any rate to your.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Point, the happiest five and twelve team, And we saw
a lot of if you said at the beginning of
the year, these are the things we need to see
from this team this year to feel like they are
moving in the right direction. I feel like they hit
pretty much all of them, at least on the offensive
side of the ball. And you saw Bryce take a
(03:35):
massive step forward. I mean, think about Bryce in week
two versus Bryce in Week eighteen. Those are two different people.
Someone made a comment the other day on a podcast.
I don't think it would ever happen, but it's an
interesting little discussion. Is comeback player of the year. Should
it be a guy who was always good and then
got hurt and then returned to being good or a
(03:57):
guy that we saw come back in the span of
one season. And he said, if it's somebody that truly
came back from from you know, not being good and
then made himself good, he said, you could almost make
an argument that Bryce Young should when't comeback player of
the year. I don't think that ever happens, but it's
an interesting discussion.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean, it's an interesting point. One of my internet friends,
klu Haywood out in Arizona, sent me a similar message
the other day. He said, can you win comeback player
of the year from coming back from what happened the
beginning of the season? And I was like, you know, hey,
who says no? Because it's a different guy. Yeah, I
mean the guy we saw week one week two compared
(04:38):
to that guy we saw a Sunday, right I don't
even know that it's the same person. There's just such
an incredible difference in the play on the field and
all the other stuff comes with it. I mean the
posing they hidden, that pose while the ball still in
the air, that was that was baller. And I mean
Tommy said after the game, he looks to me, he said,
(04:59):
that's what ball do. And there were some other guys
who had some more colorful ways of saying the fact
that they believe Bryce is that guy now. And nobody
was saying that in September, and that was only because
Bryce had played to a level to open the door
to all those questions. But what we've seen in these
last ten weeks, the last ten games his passer rating
(05:22):
combined is over one hundred. The first twenty games he
appeared in, which goes up to the Andy Dalton car wreck,
his passer rating was like seventy one. Just again, are
we playing the same sport? Did somebody explain the rules
of football to him in a way that he understood
somewhere between week six and seven. I don't know, But
(05:44):
all the credit in the world of Bryce for being
able to turn that ship around and really change the
entire conversation about him. Yea, you know, he went from
a guy being a cautionary tale for first round picks
to a guy who's like, well, yeah, they took him
first overall.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah. You know what I wonder could be part of
it too, besides what Rod Wave might would have said
to him, is we talked so much this week, and
so many guys in the locker room talked this week
about how consistent Dave Canalis has been all year, and
JJ Jansen made the comment he said, when you have
a coach that comes in every day like that, it
(06:20):
calms us down as players to know he's not reactionary.
And I know somebody's gonna come back with the argument, well,
benching Bryce was reactionary. No, it wasn't. It was a
long process, I would imagine to kind of get to that,
to get to that decision to bench Bryce. And I
(06:41):
think when you have a guy that's always looking over
his shoulder, it can create a lot of ups and downs.
But when your coach is letting you know, day in
and day out, we're gonna keep doing the same thing.
Even if you are benched, you're gonna keep doing the
same thing every day, it levels you out. Like JJ said,
it kind of calms you down. It levels your breathing.
(07:02):
It's like, Okay, no matter what, I'm gonna go out
here and i'm gonna do this drill. I'm gonna do
this drill. I'm gonna do this drill. If I go
into a game and I have a bad drive, I'm
still gonna go out there there. You know, there's and
he's done that with other players too. You know, Cuba
has a fumble, Juba gets the ball again on the
next drive. Things like that. Like that, it's been Okay,
(07:23):
we're gonna do the same thing again, and we're not
going to get emotional in a bad way just because
something happened. And that can calm you down to go, Okay,
I'm gonna go out there the next drive and we're
gonna do it again.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah. And I think it helps too that that's just
kind of Bryce's asthetic anyway. Right, He's mister be the
same guy. Every day, He shows up early, he does
all the things. He does it with that kind of
blank expression on his face sometimes where he doesn't give
away what he may be thinking because he's so deep
in thought about what he's trying to do. But you know,
(07:56):
that's just kind of his deal. Anyway. We've seen a
little more of that outward personality type stuff, but that
stuff's always been there. You know, We've got clips from
last year that never saw the light of day of
postgame win celebrations. There wasn't but two of them, so
it ain't hard to find. But we've got clips where
you see those glimpses of Bryce even then, where you
(08:17):
can tell he's asserting himself and being that guy. There's
a lot harder last year when you're two and fifteen
and again five and twelve, not great, Bob, But we've
seen five. We've seen five wins around this place recently
and often, and this is a completely different feeling because
(08:38):
Bryce is the same guy every day and now that
he's continued to be the same guy over and over
through the bad and the good, that creates a confidence
in all the cats around him. I mean, this is
still you know, we're going to talk a lot about
off season plans and need some priorities. This just in
most of the work's going to be done on defense.
(08:58):
You don't break an NFL record for points allowed in
the season, you don't finish second all time in total
yards allowed. Thanks Saints for being you know, ahead of
them on that chart. You're not third all time in
rushing yards allowed without making big changes on that side
of the ball in terms of personnel. And they're gonna
there's still work to be done on offense. I mean,
(09:20):
it's it's worth remembering. Bryce put up bl blah blah
forty four points in a game in which he didn't
have Chewba Hubbard. He didn't have that one a receiver
they traded for him to be his lead dog all
off season. He did it in the second half without
the first round pick that they took for him to
(09:41):
be a more productive quarterback. He's out there doing it
with Tommy Trimble and David Moore and Adam Thielen and
Jalen Cocher and Dan Chasenna. That's not normal, gang. What
Bryce has.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Does it remind you at all? And this I'm reaching
it this point, but whatever, let's play this game. Does
it remind you of all of what Cam did with
his cast of characters.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
A little bit? He had that ability to elevate and
you know, Bryce did run for two touchdowns the other day.
Nobody's comparing him to Cam Newton don't do that to us.
But Bryce does have the ability to get out, move around,
make some plays with his feet. I don't think that's
ever going to be a feature of his game the
way it was with Cam, but he's got that mobility
that makes things happen. But they both do have that
(10:30):
ability to elevate the cast around them. Yeah, and again,
nothing against any of those guys. They're out there busting
their tails. They're taking advantage of their opportunities, doing the
things coaches tell you to do. They just weren't highly
drafted all of them. So I think that's probably a
good sign because there will come a point when they'll
(10:50):
put more talent around Bryce. There will come a point
when Chuba Hubbard's back there behind him again. You know, again,
you're doing it without Chewba, You're doing it without your
star arding center from the beginning of the season. You're
doing it without Rob Hunt right, probably your your best
offensive lineman who is the second alternate to the Pro Bowl.
(11:11):
And you're doing it without all those targets that we
talked about. So, you know, credit to Bryce for doing that.
But it was it was a heck of a game
that was I have always said over the course of
this season. Somebody asked me during an interview the other
day about when was the moment you knew he had
turned it around, and that Cardinals game when Kaiser White
drills him in the chest while he's delivering that ball
(11:34):
downfield to Tommy Tremble. That was always kind of that
past that. It was like, okay, yep, there that one
right there, that's when we knew. That passed to Tommy
Tremble in the back of the end zone where he
just so casually turns said, you.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Flick at the wrist, nailed it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I mean, it's like me sometimes when I tell a
funny joke, my wife laughs at me because she was like,
you're looking for more of an audience. You want more
people to laugh, And so I just walk around the
house Hans raised. You've been a great audience. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
You know what was another one that was just like
wow and in the moment, okay, let me back up
the throw to Miles for the touchdown. First of all,
huge credit to Miles for getting free on mat out
of two defenders and getting free so that you know,
Bryce was able to kind of hit him. He didn't
it wasn't in front of him, but it didn't need
(12:25):
to be because Miles had so much room. So it
was a perfect marriage between the two of them. Where
the press box sits in Atlanta, we were kind of
at an angle. I was watching Miles live and I
saw him get free, and it's like, oh, if Bryce
gets it there, he's got him.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So I was watching Miles, went back and watched the
tape and the clip of all of our great videographers
at different parts of the field. That was a hard
throw that he made look so incredibly easy. He just
floated it. He floated a thirty three yard rainbow right
into a bucket, and that was just a really, really
(13:03):
impressive throw from that part of the field. So yeah,
the whole game.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
That throw is very similar to the one very first
play of the game in Tampa the other week where
he threw it to Adam Thield. We're in that press box.
It was coming straight to us and it was like, oh, wow,
he just put that in a bucket, didn't Yeah that,
you know, I mean, he's had a number of those
those big time throws. That's and that's huge for this team.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
He leads pff are, He's second in PFF's Big Time
Throws behind Joe Burrow.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, those tight window throws that big time quarterbacks make,
he's making and that just allows That was the other
theme on clean out Day the other day. There were
so many guys saying different versions of it. But you
can build now. I think the very biggest thing that's
happening for the Carolina Panthers this offseason is they're going
to go head coach, gm quarterback the same three guys
(13:55):
in those three jobs two years in a row for
the first time since two thousand.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
It just doesn't even make any sense. And to not
even have to go through everything that's behind us. Everybody
who's listening to this podcast is well aware of the
last couple of years of Panthers history. But to think
you're going back to Cam Newton, Ron Rivera, Marty Hernie
the last time they were able to build something year
after year, and that's the key you can build. I mean,
(14:24):
Dave said it the other day. We've now got all
this stuff that we know Bryce is good at. We
start there rather than going into a year where you're
trying to figure out what Bryce is good at and
work to that point we now start at the two
hundred level and you can add to it from there.
So it's going to be interesting to see what he
looks like next season because everything he showed us over
(14:46):
the last ten games is an evidence of, well, yeah,
they drafted him first overall.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
The GM, head coach, quarterback thing. Back to that for
just a minute again, Our friend of the program, J. J.
Jenson made a great point on Monday, the People's Lungs,
the People's lungsnapper that not only has it been a
while since that's happened here, he said, you know, guys,
that's rare in the NFL to have all three of
those positions on the all together and on the same timeline.
(15:14):
The timeline part of it is really kind of I mean,
Chicago Bears can't get those three on the same page
to save their lives. And it's rare to have a GM,
a head coach, and a quarterback who, for all intentsive purposes,
this was a Mulligan rookie year and to have them
on the same timeline. So you're not it's not a
GM that's looking at one part of the roster and
(15:36):
a head coach that's been there for you know, six
or seven years, So it's like I've got to win
this year to keep my job, and then a rookie quarterback.
You've got all three in the same timeline, moving the
same direction and with the same vision. And as JJ said,
he said, you've got to take advantage of this window.
(15:57):
That's not to say it's a small window. Some people say, well,
this is our championship window and it's one year or two.
It can be a larger window, but it is a
window when you've got three of the most important positions
in the building on the same page, the same timeline,
moving in the same direction, and so it makes it exciting.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
No doubt. There's also, I mean there's also the small
matter of with all the work that was done offensively
last year bringing in Robin Damien to playguard, you know,
there is a question about who's going to play center
next year. Austin Corbett, Brady Christians and kve May's all
some degree of free agents. So they've got to find
somebody to put in that spot. But you feel like,
because Ikya Kwani say, it couldn't be one of them, right,
(16:37):
I mean, they any of the group of them could
resign and be that guy. But you know you've got
Ikiakwanu on one side, Robin Damien at card Taylor Moten
looks like. I mean, I've got all the respect in
the world for Taylor Moton because I see what he
looks like on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and then I see
what he looks like on Sunday. That quick on Thursday,
(16:59):
that guy looks like he's my age. On Sunday, he
looks like one of the best right tackles in the NFL,
because that's what he is. I mean, Taylor played at
an exceedingly high level. I think I saw I was
looking at some PFF stuff the other day, and I
believe he might have been the highest graded Panthers player
on offense over the course of the season. He just
(17:19):
he's so consistent and so steady. And again, you're kind
of coming in new to this. You've covered the Carolina
Panthers for about three hundred and seventy five days now.
Having that kind of stability on the offensive line with
the quarterback, that was one of the shames of the
Cam career. Cam had some elite talent in the middle
(17:40):
around him in Ryan Khalil, Trey Turner, some different guys
Andrew Norwell, but he never had the tackle talent that
is on this team right now. And so it was
always a question about who's it going to be, Is
at Byron Bell, Is at Matt Khalil who you know.
We could go down the list and it ain't a
great list. But their stability around Bryce in the middle.
(18:02):
He knows Tuba Hubbard's gonna be here for the next
four years. He knows Robin Damien are here for the
long term. Dan Morgan says the other day, Icky's a
guy you want to build around. You know, he's a
guy we want to keep around here long term. And
I take Dan at his word, but that's I mean,
they're starting at a different place offensively than any of
us could have imagined in Week one, and especially after
(18:24):
Week one, right, just the idea of what we thought
this offense might be, and then what it looked like
in New Orleans against the Saints. To be hanging forty
four on anybody, to be three and one in overtime
to that's.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
An impressive statute.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
You know. I mean, these guys have done some work
on that side of the ball. Now it's time to
do some work on the other side.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
And it cracks me up when I like scroll through
social media and I do the wrong thing and I
read the comments and you see the.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Comments. Never ever read the comments.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
It's like a it's just it's a compulsion and you
open them up and people are like, all Bryce needs
now is a good offensive line. It's like, my brother,
we're in week eighteen. Have you not watched a game yet? Yeah,
trust me, that ain't the problem.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Nope, that is.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
And not to say there's problems, but you know what
I mean, Like, that's that's a positive. Ye, it's his
offensive line. And can they do that on defense this year?
They've got options.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
That's that's the goal. And Dan flat out said it
when they said they were retaining Gero Everro as defensive coordinator.
He said, my job is to get him better players.
My job is to put better people around him. Here's
the good news. You know what Carolina Panthers need in
this season. They needed him a big goal, three hundred
and forty pound defensive end who gets about one hundred
tackles a year and goes to Pro Bowls. So another
(19:44):
Oh so Derek Brown? Oh yeah, yeah, they get a
Derek Brown back next year wouldn't be.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Nice to have a Derek Brown just walk into the building.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, they do. So getting Derek back on the field
like having another top ten pick. It really is. Because
he talked the other day, you know, in the locker
room as everybody was cleaning out, and says, you know,
he's feeling pretty good about being back on the field,
back on you know, running on grass and OTAs and
that kind of stuff, and getting him back out. I mean, again,
the run defense was not great this year, and it
(20:14):
was not great in large part because Derek went out
in Week one, didn't come back. Shaq Thompson, your signal
caller went out Week four and didn't come back, and
that just kind of created that spin cycle of trying
to patch things on the fly, and it was not good.
So Dan's gonna spend his off season scouting looking at
defensive guys, looking at guys like he knows what looks like.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I was about to say, if you want somebody picking
out some dogs on defense, you would want Dan Morgan
to be the one doing it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
There was a moment this this season when I was
talking to Dan. My computer was sitting there in front
of me, and there was a picture on my screen
of Dan and Chris Jenkins and Brinson Buckner and Julius
Peppers and Mark Fields, and I said, hey, you know,
you know, Dan, you go get you four or five
of them this offseason. Everything's gonna be okay. And that's
his job right now to go find dudes to shore
(21:03):
up that side of the ball. And you know again,
Dan has built up a little trust in that area.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
So where did Chris Jenkins sun land last year?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I do not know where Chris Jenkins Junior ended up.
He was the second round big or so. But yeah,
I mean that's the thing. They if you could find
you another Chris Jenkins to park, I have.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
To say you they got to go get Christian Kinson.
But it just made me think of it.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
But to go up there and park a big body
next to Ashan who had really quietly one of the
best seasons of anybody around here this year. I think
he was seven and a half sacks unless they took
that one away. Played a bunch of snaps. All those
dudes played a bunch of snaps. Xavier Woods played over
twelve hundred snaps of defense.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
One of only two defensive players to play one hundred
percent of his team.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Snaps, which you read about on Panther Stocks.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
That's exactly where I read about it.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So ASHN Robinson I think played more third down snaps
this year than he has in his entire career.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, it's uh, he had heck of a season and
again it's it's gonna be lost to the sands of time.
But you know, there are some things I think you
can build from on that defensive side of the ball.
JC Horn going too the Pro Bowl. We heard about
that last week and he totally deserves that. He's that
kind of player when he's available, and he was available
this year played he was again, he was probably top
(22:19):
twenty five in the league and defensive snaps played despite
missing two games at the end of the year. So
it's there's some stuff to work with, but there's more
work to be done. But you know what, it's off season.
It is we got we got a chance to bring
There's still a little work. We're still tying up some
of the loose ends, getting the last of the wrap
(22:41):
up stuff done in the next couple of days here
at Panthers dot Com. But there's gonna come a point,
maybe this weekend when the blizzard rolls in when we
get a chance to just stop and breathe for a second.
Here's my question to you, faced with your first good
Charlotte blizzard. Would you rather or would you prefer to
(23:01):
be watching playoff football or be watching non football?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That's a very interesting question. I actually won't be here
this weekend. I have a wedding. Maybe you do, that's true.
I did actually get a text message about two minutes
ago that said inclement weather could affect my upcoming flight,
So we'll see. I may be here. I actually prefer
this time of year to still go with the playoff
football during a blizzard. That's that's kind of you know.
(23:27):
You get enough stuff to make, like a chili and
some cookies or something, and settle in very quickly. I
will turn to my off season viewing schedule when there's
no more football and there's no more holidays, so there's
no like Hallmark Christmas movies or anything like that. I
turned to what I call like them, like the I
(23:49):
don't know the best way to say this, that we're
not gonna get in trouble, like a shoot them up
show or movie, like you know, I want something like
I want some sort of like spy thriller. I want
to watch some like a building blow up, Like I
want to like watch people run through the streets of Washington, DC,
like way too fast and you know, not calls destruction
(24:11):
while they're going like you would think they would in
normal life. Yeah, I like to watch something like that. Yeah,
it just turns my mind off. And I'll do about
two months of that and then I'll flip and start
getting ready for the draft.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, I gotta do it my uh and and again
that could be coming this weekend with the winter blast
twenty five. I should have been a local news weather guy,
but Brad Pavich is so good at the job already.
Well look at the weather, but it ain't great. But
it's a perfect weekend to stay inside watch a little
playoff football if that's your deal. I got a feeling
(24:45):
I'm gonna do my postseason tradition, which is to sit
on my couch and watch The Big Lebowski. That's always
That's always that moment when I sit on my couch,
dead eyed and just watch The Big Lebowski for the
for two hours, maybe with or without a white Russian
one never knows. But when that happens. It's like, Okay,
(25:05):
Darren's in off season mode now, yeah, and I just
you need a little bit of that. We all need
a chance to recharge because again, for the first time,
not that anybody cares about us, but for the first
time in five years around here, we're not going into
an off season where January is chewed up with coaching search,
GM search. What are you going to do at quarterback?
And that's going to allow us to come back fresher.
(25:26):
It's gonna allow it them players to come back fresher
and and every law. Yeah, yep, everything's everything's coming up
us at the moment. So we got that going. We
got a couple of Panthers Legends is finalists in Hall
of Fame voting, which is coming up soon. So there's
good news all around. Potentially things are things are trending
(25:47):
in a positive direction at the moment. And isn't that
really all you want?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
That's all you can a year, So it's all you
can with that.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Will we wish you all a merry blizzard. Don't forget
go to the store, get your bread, get your milk,
get your eggs, get your white Russians or egg nog
or whatever you please to get you through this long weekend.
Enjoy it. Enjoy the first weekend of playoffs. We will
see you on the other side, on the happy half
hour
This week on a Happy Half Hour.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We've seen five wins around this place recently and often,
and this is a completely different feeling because Rice is
the same guy every day and now that he's continued
to be the same guy over and over through the
bad and the good, that creates a confidence in all
the cats around him. What's the cow?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
It's time for the Happy Half Hour, presented by Southern Star,
an official bourbon of the Carolina Panthers. Here are your hosts,
Darren Gant and Cassidy Hill.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello, friends, and welcome to a new Year's edition of
the Happy Halflower was that that was a New Year's
Eve horn? A little?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That sounded like a deranged rooster.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I don't know. It could be. We'll get into the
chicken discussion later. Do that all day long.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
We don't have three hours, But right now we've got
a happy football team to talk about on the Happy
Half Hour, which presented as always by our friends at
Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers,
celebrate the Spirit of the Carolinas.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Spirit of the Carolinas feels pretty good right now.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Maybe we should raise a glass to the twenty twenty
four Carolina Panthers Salute in salute in honor of the
happiest five and twelve football team I've ever been around
in my entire life. It is kind of wild. And
this story is going to appear in the next edition
of the Ask the Old Guy Mailbag. We got a
(01:38):
big year in wrap up editions, very special edition coming
at soon on Panthers dot com. But I was out
buying socks the other day and this was before. This
was before Bryce turned into a stone cold killer in it. Okay,
this is before our quarterback turned into Steph Curry. The
guy behind the counter at the local independent merchant where
(02:01):
I like to buy my socks says he recognized me,
he knew me, and we started talking about the team
twenty he was like, he was like, I'm really digging
what's going on here. This is good. And that was it.
Four and twelve on the heels of a forty eight
fourteen loss, and people are still pretty happy about this thing.
And it's because in part of what we saw last
(02:23):
Sunday in Atlanta, because this team is pointed in a
direction that's kind of hard to arget.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So much to pick through what you just said, But
let me start with the most important. You buy your
socks from an independent retailer. Do not look at you.
You're such a great little small business guy.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I like to sport local independent business. And you know,
maybe one day they'll sponsor me and get the full
plug on the Happy Half Hour presented by our friends
at Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina
Panthers Carolinas.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I get all of my socks from Santa. They show
up at my stocking that year and they get me
through the next year. I don't know where they come from.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
This local independent merchant. I said. You know, when I
was a kid, I used to get annoyed at getting
socks for Christmas, And now all I wants good socks
and nobody's.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Coming forward to it. That's the only time I get
socks every year.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Got to be at any rate to your.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Point, the happiest five and twelve team, And we saw
a lot of if you said at the beginning of
the year, these are the things we need to see
from this team this year to feel like they are
moving in the right direction. I feel like they hit
pretty much all of them, at least on the offensive
side of the ball. And you saw Bryce take a
(03:35):
massive step forward. I mean, think about Bryce in week
two versus Bryce in Week eighteen. Those are two different people.
Someone made a comment the other day on a podcast.
I don't think it would ever happen, but it's an
interesting little discussion. Is comeback player of the year. Should
it be a guy who was always good and then
got hurt and then returned to being good or a
(03:57):
guy that we saw come back in the span of
one season. And he said, if it's somebody that truly
came back from from you know, not being good and
then made himself good, he said, you could almost make
an argument that Bryce Young should when't comeback player of
the year. I don't think that ever happens, but it's
an interesting discussion.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean, it's an interesting point. One of my internet friends,
klu Haywood out in Arizona, sent me a similar message
the other day. He said, can you win comeback player
of the year from coming back from what happened the
beginning of the season? And I was like, you know, hey,
who says no? Because it's a different guy. Yeah, I
mean the guy we saw week one week two compared
(04:38):
to that guy we saw a Sunday, right I don't
even know that it's the same person. There's just such
an incredible difference in the play on the field and
all the other stuff comes with it. I mean the
posing they hidden, that pose while the ball still in
the air, that was that was baller. And I mean
Tommy said after the game, he looks to me, he said,
(04:59):
that's what ball do. And there were some other guys
who had some more colorful ways of saying the fact
that they believe Bryce is that guy now. And nobody
was saying that in September, and that was only because
Bryce had played to a level to open the door
to all those questions. But what we've seen in these
last ten weeks, the last ten games his passer rating
(05:22):
combined is over one hundred. The first twenty games he
appeared in, which goes up to the Andy Dalton car wreck,
his passer rating was like seventy one. Just again, are
we playing the same sport? Did somebody explain the rules
of football to him in a way that he understood
somewhere between week six and seven. I don't know, But
(05:44):
all the credit in the world of Bryce for being
able to turn that ship around and really change the
entire conversation about him. Yea, you know, he went from
a guy being a cautionary tale for first round picks
to a guy who's like, well, yeah, they took him
first overall.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah. You know what I wonder could be part of
it too, besides what Rod Wave might would have said
to him, is we talked so much this week, and
so many guys in the locker room talked this week
about how consistent Dave Canalis has been all year, and
JJ Jansen made the comment he said, when you have
a coach that comes in every day like that, it
(06:20):
calms us down as players to know he's not reactionary.
And I know somebody's gonna come back with the argument, well,
benching Bryce was reactionary. No, it wasn't. It was a
long process, I would imagine to kind of get to that,
to get to that decision to bench Bryce. And I
(06:41):
think when you have a guy that's always looking over
his shoulder, it can create a lot of ups and downs.
But when your coach is letting you know, day in
and day out, we're gonna keep doing the same thing.
Even if you are benched, you're gonna keep doing the
same thing every day, it levels you out. Like JJ said,
it kind of calms you down. It levels your breathing.
(07:02):
It's like, Okay, no matter what, I'm gonna go out
here and i'm gonna do this drill. I'm gonna do
this drill. I'm gonna do this drill. If I go
into a game and I have a bad drive, I'm
still gonna go out there there. You know, there's and
he's done that with other players too. You know, Cuba
has a fumble, Juba gets the ball again on the
next drive. Things like that. Like that, it's been Okay,
(07:23):
we're gonna do the same thing again, and we're not
going to get emotional in a bad way just because
something happened. And that can calm you down to go, Okay,
I'm gonna go out there the next drive and we're
gonna do it again.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah. And I think it helps too that that's just
kind of Bryce's asthetic anyway. Right, He's mister be the
same guy. Every day, He shows up early, he does
all the things. He does it with that kind of
blank expression on his face sometimes where he doesn't give
away what he may be thinking because he's so deep
in thought about what he's trying to do. But you know,
(07:56):
that's just kind of his deal. Anyway. We've seen a
little more of that outward personality type stuff, but that
stuff's always been there. You know, We've got clips from
last year that never saw the light of day of
postgame win celebrations. There wasn't but two of them, so
it ain't hard to find. But we've got clips where
you see those glimpses of Bryce even then, where you
(08:17):
can tell he's asserting himself and being that guy. There's
a lot harder last year when you're two and fifteen
and again five and twelve, not great, Bob, But we've
seen five. We've seen five wins around this place recently
and often, and this is a completely different feeling because
(08:38):
Bryce is the same guy every day and now that
he's continued to be the same guy over and over
through the bad and the good, that creates a confidence
in all the cats around him. I mean, this is
still you know, we're going to talk a lot about
off season plans and need some priorities. This just in
most of the work's going to be done on defense.
(08:58):
You don't break an NFL record for points allowed in
the season, you don't finish second all time in total
yards allowed. Thanks Saints for being you know, ahead of
them on that chart. You're not third all time in
rushing yards allowed without making big changes on that side
of the ball in terms of personnel. And they're gonna
there's still work to be done on offense. I mean,
(09:20):
it's it's worth remembering. Bryce put up bl blah blah
forty four points in a game in which he didn't
have Chewba Hubbard. He didn't have that one a receiver
they traded for him to be his lead dog all
off season. He did it in the second half without
the first round pick that they took for him to
(09:41):
be a more productive quarterback. He's out there doing it
with Tommy Trimble and David Moore and Adam Thielen and
Jalen Cocher and Dan Chasenna. That's not normal, gang. What
Bryce has.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Does it remind you at all? And this I'm reaching
it this point, but whatever, let's play this game. Does
it remind you of all of what Cam did with
his cast of characters.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
A little bit? He had that ability to elevate and
you know, Bryce did run for two touchdowns the other day.
Nobody's comparing him to Cam Newton don't do that to us.
But Bryce does have the ability to get out, move around,
make some plays with his feet. I don't think that's
ever going to be a feature of his game the
way it was with Cam, but he's got that mobility
that makes things happen. But they both do have that
(10:30):
ability to elevate the cast around them. Yeah, and again,
nothing against any of those guys. They're out there busting
their tails. They're taking advantage of their opportunities, doing the
things coaches tell you to do. They just weren't highly
drafted all of them. So I think that's probably a
good sign because there will come a point when they'll
(10:50):
put more talent around Bryce. There will come a point
when Chuba Hubbard's back there behind him again. You know, again,
you're doing it without Chewba, You're doing it without your
star arding center from the beginning of the season. You're
doing it without Rob Hunt right, probably your your best
offensive lineman who is the second alternate to the Pro Bowl.
(11:11):
And you're doing it without all those targets that we
talked about. So, you know, credit to Bryce for doing that.
But it was it was a heck of a game
that was I have always said over the course of
this season. Somebody asked me during an interview the other
day about when was the moment you knew he had
turned it around, and that Cardinals game when Kaiser White
drills him in the chest while he's delivering that ball
(11:34):
downfield to Tommy Tremble. That was always kind of that
past that. It was like, okay, yep, there that one
right there, that's when we knew. That passed to Tommy
Tremble in the back of the end zone where he
just so casually turns said, you.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Flick at the wrist, nailed it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I mean, it's like me sometimes when I tell a
funny joke, my wife laughs at me because she was like,
you're looking for more of an audience. You want more
people to laugh, And so I just walk around the
house Hans raised. You've been a great audience. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
You know what was another one that was just like
wow and in the moment, okay, let me back up
the throw to Miles for the touchdown. First of all,
huge credit to Miles for getting free on mat out
of two defenders and getting free so that you know,
Bryce was able to kind of hit him. He didn't
it wasn't in front of him, but it didn't need
(12:25):
to be because Miles had so much room. So it
was a perfect marriage between the two of them. Where
the press box sits in Atlanta, we were kind of
at an angle. I was watching Miles live and I
saw him get free, and it's like, oh, if Bryce
gets it there, he's got him.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So I was watching Miles, went back and watched the
tape and the clip of all of our great videographers
at different parts of the field. That was a hard
throw that he made look so incredibly easy. He just
floated it. He floated a thirty three yard rainbow right
into a bucket, and that was just a really, really
(13:03):
impressive throw from that part of the field. So yeah,
the whole game.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
That throw is very similar to the one very first
play of the game in Tampa the other week where
he threw it to Adam Thield. We're in that press box.
It was coming straight to us and it was like, oh, wow,
he just put that in a bucket, didn't Yeah that,
you know, I mean, he's had a number of those
those big time throws. That's and that's huge for this team.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
He leads pff are, He's second in PFF's Big Time
Throws behind Joe Burrow.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, those tight window throws that big time quarterbacks make,
he's making and that just allows That was the other
theme on clean out Day the other day. There were
so many guys saying different versions of it. But you
can build now. I think the very biggest thing that's
happening for the Carolina Panthers this offseason is they're going
to go head coach, gm quarterback the same three guys
(13:55):
in those three jobs two years in a row for
the first time since two thousand.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
It just doesn't even make any sense. And to not
even have to go through everything that's behind us. Everybody
who's listening to this podcast is well aware of the
last couple of years of Panthers history. But to think
you're going back to Cam Newton, Ron Rivera, Marty Hernie
the last time they were able to build something year
after year, and that's the key you can build. I mean,
(14:24):
Dave said it the other day. We've now got all
this stuff that we know Bryce is good at. We
start there rather than going into a year where you're
trying to figure out what Bryce is good at and
work to that point we now start at the two
hundred level and you can add to it from there.
So it's going to be interesting to see what he
looks like next season because everything he showed us over
(14:46):
the last ten games is an evidence of, well, yeah,
they drafted him first overall.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
The GM, head coach, quarterback thing. Back to that for
just a minute again, Our friend of the program, J. J.
Jenson made a great point on Monday, the People's Lungs,
the People's lungsnapper that not only has it been a
while since that's happened here, he said, you know, guys,
that's rare in the NFL to have all three of
those positions on the all together and on the same timeline.
(15:14):
The timeline part of it is really kind of I mean,
Chicago Bears can't get those three on the same page
to save their lives. And it's rare to have a GM,
a head coach, and a quarterback who, for all intentsive purposes,
this was a Mulligan rookie year and to have them
on the same timeline. So you're not it's not a
GM that's looking at one part of the roster and
(15:36):
a head coach that's been there for you know, six
or seven years, So it's like I've got to win
this year to keep my job, and then a rookie quarterback.
You've got all three in the same timeline, moving the
same direction and with the same vision. And as JJ said,
he said, you've got to take advantage of this window.
(15:57):
That's not to say it's a small window. Some people say, well,
this is our championship window and it's one year or two.
It can be a larger window, but it is a
window when you've got three of the most important positions
in the building on the same page, the same timeline,
moving in the same direction, and so it makes it exciting.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
No doubt. There's also, I mean there's also the small
matter of with all the work that was done offensively
last year bringing in Robin Damien to playguard, you know,
there is a question about who's going to play center
next year. Austin Corbett, Brady Christians and kve May's all
some degree of free agents. So they've got to find
somebody to put in that spot. But you feel like,
because Ikya Kwani say, it couldn't be one of them, right,
(16:37):
I mean, they any of the group of them could
resign and be that guy. But you know you've got
Ikiakwanu on one side, Robin Damien at card Taylor Moten
looks like. I mean, I've got all the respect in
the world for Taylor Moton because I see what he
looks like on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and then I see
what he looks like on Sunday. That quick on Thursday,
(16:59):
that guy looks like he's my age. On Sunday, he
looks like one of the best right tackles in the NFL,
because that's what he is. I mean, Taylor played at
an exceedingly high level. I think I saw I was
looking at some PFF stuff the other day, and I
believe he might have been the highest graded Panthers player
on offense over the course of the season. He just
(17:19):
he's so consistent and so steady. And again, you're kind
of coming in new to this. You've covered the Carolina
Panthers for about three hundred and seventy five days now.
Having that kind of stability on the offensive line with
the quarterback, that was one of the shames of the
Cam career. Cam had some elite talent in the middle
(17:40):
around him in Ryan Khalil, Trey Turner, some different guys
Andrew Norwell, but he never had the tackle talent that
is on this team right now. And so it was
always a question about who's it going to be, Is
at Byron Bell, Is at Matt Khalil who you know.
We could go down the list and it ain't a
great list. But their stability around Bryce in the middle.
(18:02):
He knows Tuba Hubbard's gonna be here for the next
four years. He knows Robin Damien are here for the
long term. Dan Morgan says the other day, Icky's a
guy you want to build around. You know, he's a
guy we want to keep around here long term. And
I take Dan at his word, but that's I mean,
they're starting at a different place offensively than any of
us could have imagined in Week one, and especially after
(18:24):
Week one, right, just the idea of what we thought
this offense might be, and then what it looked like
in New Orleans against the Saints. To be hanging forty
four on anybody, to be three and one in overtime
to that's.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
An impressive statute.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
You know. I mean, these guys have done some work
on that side of the ball. Now it's time to
do some work on the other side.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
And it cracks me up when I like scroll through
social media and I do the wrong thing and I
read the comments and you see the.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Comments. Never ever read the comments.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
It's like a it's just it's a compulsion and you
open them up and people are like, all Bryce needs
now is a good offensive line. It's like, my brother,
we're in week eighteen. Have you not watched a game yet? Yeah,
trust me, that ain't the problem.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Nope, that is.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
And not to say there's problems, but you know what
I mean, Like, that's that's a positive. Ye, it's his
offensive line. And can they do that on defense this year?
They've got options.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
That's that's the goal. And Dan flat out said it
when they said they were retaining Gero Everro as defensive coordinator.
He said, my job is to get him better players.
My job is to put better people around him. Here's
the good news. You know what Carolina Panthers need in
this season. They needed him a big goal, three hundred
and forty pound defensive end who gets about one hundred
tackles a year and goes to Pro Bowls. So another
(19:44):
Oh so Derek Brown? Oh yeah, yeah, they get a
Derek Brown back next year wouldn't be.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Nice to have a Derek Brown just walk into the building.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, they do. So getting Derek back on the field
like having another top ten pick. It really is. Because
he talked the other day, you know, in the locker
room as everybody was cleaning out, and says, you know,
he's feeling pretty good about being back on the field,
back on you know, running on grass and OTAs and
that kind of stuff, and getting him back out. I mean, again,
the run defense was not great this year, and it
(20:14):
was not great in large part because Derek went out
in Week one, didn't come back. Shaq Thompson, your signal
caller went out Week four and didn't come back, and
that just kind of created that spin cycle of trying
to patch things on the fly, and it was not good.
So Dan's gonna spend his off season scouting looking at
defensive guys, looking at guys like he knows what looks like.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I was about to say, if you want somebody picking
out some dogs on defense, you would want Dan Morgan
to be the one doing it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
There was a moment this this season when I was
talking to Dan. My computer was sitting there in front
of me, and there was a picture on my screen
of Dan and Chris Jenkins and Brinson Buckner and Julius
Peppers and Mark Fields, and I said, hey, you know,
you know, Dan, you go get you four or five
of them this offseason. Everything's gonna be okay. And that's
his job right now to go find dudes to shore
(21:03):
up that side of the ball. And you know again,
Dan has built up a little trust in that area.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
So where did Chris Jenkins sun land last year?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I do not know where Chris Jenkins Junior ended up.
He was the second round big or so. But yeah,
I mean that's the thing. They if you could find
you another Chris Jenkins to park, I have.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
To say you they got to go get Christian Kinson.
But it just made me think of it.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
But to go up there and park a big body
next to Ashan who had really quietly one of the
best seasons of anybody around here this year. I think
he was seven and a half sacks unless they took
that one away. Played a bunch of snaps. All those
dudes played a bunch of snaps. Xavier Woods played over
twelve hundred snaps of defense.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
One of only two defensive players to play one hundred
percent of his team.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Snaps, which you read about on Panther Stocks.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
That's exactly where I read about it.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So ASHN Robinson I think played more third down snaps
this year than he has in his entire career.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, it's uh, he had heck of a season and
again it's it's gonna be lost to the sands of time.
But you know, there are some things I think you
can build from on that defensive side of the ball.
JC Horn going too the Pro Bowl. We heard about
that last week and he totally deserves that. He's that
kind of player when he's available, and he was available
this year played he was again, he was probably top
(22:19):
twenty five in the league and defensive snaps played despite
missing two games at the end of the year. So
it's there's some stuff to work with, but there's more
work to be done. But you know what, it's off season.
It is we got we got a chance to bring
There's still a little work. We're still tying up some
of the loose ends, getting the last of the wrap
(22:41):
up stuff done in the next couple of days here
at Panthers dot Com. But there's gonna come a point,
maybe this weekend when the blizzard rolls in when we
get a chance to just stop and breathe for a second.
Here's my question to you, faced with your first good
Charlotte blizzard. Would you rather or would you prefer to
(23:01):
be watching playoff football or be watching non football?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That's a very interesting question. I actually won't be here
this weekend. I have a wedding. Maybe you do, that's true.
I did actually get a text message about two minutes
ago that said inclement weather could affect my upcoming flight,
So we'll see. I may be here. I actually prefer
this time of year to still go with the playoff
football during a blizzard. That's that's kind of you know.
(23:27):
You get enough stuff to make, like a chili and
some cookies or something, and settle in very quickly. I
will turn to my off season viewing schedule when there's
no more football and there's no more holidays, so there's
no like Hallmark Christmas movies or anything like that. I
turned to what I call like them, like the I
(23:49):
don't know the best way to say this, that we're
not gonna get in trouble, like a shoot them up
show or movie, like you know, I want something like
I want some sort of like spy thriller. I want
to watch some like a building blow up, Like I
want to like watch people run through the streets of Washington, DC,
like way too fast and you know, not calls destruction
(24:11):
while they're going like you would think they would in
normal life. Yeah, I like to watch something like that. Yeah,
it just turns my mind off. And I'll do about
two months of that and then I'll flip and start
getting ready for the draft.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, I gotta do it my uh and and again
that could be coming this weekend with the winter blast
twenty five. I should have been a local news weather guy,
but Brad Pavich is so good at the job already.
Well look at the weather, but it ain't great. But
it's a perfect weekend to stay inside watch a little
playoff football if that's your deal. I got a feeling
(24:45):
I'm gonna do my postseason tradition, which is to sit
on my couch and watch The Big Lebowski. That's always
That's always that moment when I sit on my couch,
dead eyed and just watch The Big Lebowski for the
for two hours, maybe with or without a white Russian
one never knows. But when that happens. It's like, Okay,
(25:05):
Darren's in off season mode now, yeah, and I just
you need a little bit of that. We all need
a chance to recharge because again, for the first time,
not that anybody cares about us, but for the first
time in five years around here, we're not going into
an off season where January is chewed up with coaching search,
GM search. What are you going to do at quarterback?
And that's going to allow us to come back fresher.
(25:26):
It's gonna allow it them players to come back fresher
and and every law. Yeah, yep, everything's everything's coming up
us at the moment. So we got that going. We
got a couple of Panthers Legends is finalists in Hall
of Fame voting, which is coming up soon. So there's
good news all around. Potentially things are things are trending
(25:47):
in a positive direction at the moment. And isn't that
really all you want?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
That's all you can a year, So it's all you
can with that.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Will we wish you all a merry blizzard. Don't forget
go to the store, get your bread, get your milk,
get your eggs, get your white Russians or egg nog
or whatever you please to get you through this long weekend.
Enjoy it. Enjoy the first weekend of playoffs. We will
see you on the other side, on the happy half
hour
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