September 8, 2025 • 19 mins
Today on the Happy Half Hour, Darin and Kassidy breakdown Sunday's loss to the Jaguars, discuss what needs to be fixed, provide an injury update on Turk Wharton, highlight T-Mac's week 1 performance and so much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy half hour. Hello friends, it is Monday, and that
means it's time for a happy half hour. Yep, even
if it's not particularly happy. After what we watched yesterday,
Carolina Panthers go to Jacksonville lose twenty six to ten
in the opener. Not the way anybody wanted necessarily start
the regular season.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Never, you never want to start off oh and one.
There is a little bit of grain of salt to it.
Half the teams in the league right now are oh
and one. Well, I guess there's still two more teams
to play tonight. Kens City Chiefs are oh and one Kansas,
and so there's there's a lot of big picture stuff
you can look at. There's a lot of granular stuff
you can look at. We'll do a little bit of
(00:41):
both before we move on. But yeah, never never fun
to start owing one. Never fun to go into a team,
to go into a place and not score on opportunities
where they are there. But as Dave Canally said a
couple of different times today, we've got to make sure
we take the lessons, not the the defeat, right.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I mean, Dave's always been a a big teachable moment guy,
and there were plenty to work with yesterday because it
was not good. I mean, there's no other way to
say it. And Dave was honest with it. One of
the things I like about Canal is he you know,
he's got you know, he's got that enthusiasm always and
he's always an upbeat guy. But he calls it tell
(01:22):
the truth Monday, that's what they do. And he said,
we went through that tape phase by phase. Day started.
Special teams went offense, defense, and there was something you know,
in each of those areas that you could point to
and say, yeah, that could have been a lot better.
And you know, the top line takeaways from that game
the other day was there were too many turnovers. I mean,
(01:43):
Bryce turns it over three times himself. Canal, let's call
it four in the post game yesterday, just because there
was one that was overturned by penalty. So three turnovers,
you give up two hundred yards rushing defensively at seventy
one of it on one big explosive play that coming
right after the long weather delay, was a little bit
of a dagger. I mean, to be honest with you,
(02:04):
there was another half of football. Obviously, there's plenty more
opportunities but when you're sitting there ten three and you
get the ball first, you're thinking, Okay, this is still
anybody's ball game. Maybe they come out, they work on
some stuff, adjust, but when they're on drive stalls and
then Jacksonville immediately goes boom seventy one yards with that
big run from Travis Etn, it's like this ship's gonna
(02:26):
be hard to turn round.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, and that was a I know football people hate
to use this term because it's an abstract concept, but
that was a momentum swinger as well, Noah. And coming
out of an hour long weather delay, Usually momentum swings
towards the team that had been losing because you can
regroup and kind of reassess reset. But like you said,
(02:48):
Etn comes out, breaks off a huge, huge explosive play
that just swings it right back that quickly. Yeah, And
it's at that point you're fighting. You're fighting the score word,
but you're fighting demons a little bit too.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And that's what's hard, because I know the I know
the thing outside the building is to compare it to
everything that's happened before, and you know Bryce now zero
and three and openers and all those kind of things,
especially with the way last year went. But these things
are all unique, and I mean so much has changed
around here this offseason that any lessons from the twenty
(03:23):
four opener are barely applicable. I mean, listen, was that
the performance they wanted to have in the opner?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Of course not.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You know, only a knucklehead would say that. But the
reality is they've got a lot of work to do
and the and the thing Canal has talked about today
was here are the specific things we have to work on.
I mean, if you saw, you know, the Bryce Young
Austin Corbett exchange on the snaps. Here's the thing in
professional football, things are very seldom about one person or
(03:53):
one guy screwing something up. So there was there was
a lot of that get on the same page talk.
And when you're trying to go silent count and you're
changing things on the fly on the field, it's very
easy for a fan to say that guy blew it
or that guy didn't do his job. A lot of times,
there's so many moving parts that to reduce it that
(04:13):
way is probably not the most accurate way to look
at that problem. And that's what they tried to do
today when they look at film, it's like, okay, let's
look at what actually happened. Let's talk about what actually
went on when they did that. And I think if
you use any of last year's lessons to inform what
went on, I mean, there were times second half of
(04:34):
last year when the offense was playing well, when they
hit a couple of those slow games. And then you
get in there and correct this, this, these particular things,
and you see that improvement, it's going to be incumbent
upon him. See that improvement this week in Arizona, and
can now let's.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Mention that specifically today? He said, Okay, the key now
is to pull what went wrong on Sunday and address
that this week. And if we make new mistique, new
mistakes next week, like okay, then we learn from that
next week. But to make sure you're not making the
same mistake twice. And I think you if you are
going to sit there and compare last year's opener, did
(05:11):
this year's it was different like that if a couple
of different plays go differently, there's a lot more of
rhythm there to the offense. You know, if Tyson Campbell
doesn't pull down Tetoro McMillan's arm in the end zone
and it wasn't even a flag. It was just good defense.
But you know, if he doesn't pull his arm down
like that, does he catch that? Does the game feel different?
(05:33):
You know if guys, you know, a couple of different things,
guys bring a ball in, get their foot down, things
like that. So many little things where it adds. It
takes you out of rhythm, and so can you dress
those small things to make a big difference. So we'll
see this week.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And again, this was always going to be a learning process.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I mean, this team is still young.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
If you didn't catch it on Panthers dot com, it's
still up there and you can still enjoy it. Carolina
Panthers go into season with a record high twelve rookies
on the fifty three man roster. You know, that's including
the entire draft class and four guys who who didn't
start out here or were undrafted rookies. And you know,
when you commit to getting younger, when you commit to
(06:17):
becoming going from being one of the oldest teams in
the NFL, which they were a couple years ago, they
were in the top five oldest teams two years ago,
and now they're going to be likely among the youngest
teams in the league in a short amount of time.
You know there's going to be some of this kind
of process. I mean, as you look at the construction
of the roster, of those fifty three dudes, forty of
(06:40):
them have arrived in the last two seasons. And so
Dan Morgan has put his stamp on this team pretty quickly.
And Dan's been honest about it. I mean, Dan just
flat out says, because that's how Dan Morgan talks, we
had to get younger. We wanted to create a younger
core to build this team around, and that's what they did.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Also, when you look at the average of the who
the oldest team's youngest teams whatnot, the Panthers average gets
a little bit skewed by J. J. Janssen and Andy Dalton.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
And Sam Martin.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Don't forget satin, I forgot if so, if you take
out J. J. Jansen, Sam Martin and Andy Dalton, I
think they end up being one of the youngest, not
be I think I think Green Bay may still be
the youngest.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And again, as as I am careful to point out,
nothing not to impune the athleticism of J. J. Jansen,
Andy Dalton and Sam Martin. But if you're going to
be old backup, quarterback, long snapper, punter or three positions,
you can afford to be old at you know, these
guys are very seldom sprinting sixty yards downfield trying to
(07:41):
catch somebody.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Matt. Matt Prater came off the couch and forty one
years old and kicked a game winning field goal last night.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
That's right, that's where.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
You can afford to pull a forty one year old
on the count. I am it was impressive. Good for him.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I am here for the old dudes. I am in
solidarity with them.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
But when you're trying to build a sustainable thing, which
is the point of all this, you know, you have
to build it around rookies, in first, second year guys.
You've got to build it around. Even in free agency
when they went out they signed Bobby Brown when he
was still twenty four years old. He's turned twenty five cents.
But they've got rookies on this roster who are older
(08:18):
than Bobby Brown, who's played four years in the league
and has Super Bowl ring.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
From the Rams.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Nick Gorton was drafted at twenty that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You know, Nick Gordon's mom is j J Janssen's age,
so just.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Insane se and JJ loves it when we point that
out too. He's a big fan of us, remembering exactly
how old he is. But you know, again, that's a
long way of saying some of this was going to happen.
We talked about expectations in the preseason and a team
that went from two wins to five wins.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
What does improvement look like? What does better look like?
Is better? Seven? Is better?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Eight?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
We'll we'll find out over the course of a long,
long season, but there's sixteen more that used to go
and we'll see how this thing shakes out.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And it's also important to note that, like we can
look here, and we can, it's up to us to
kind of sit here and commentate and even adjudicate a
little bit and be like, okay, young team a lot.
I think you know four new starters will also credicate.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Can we prevaricate? No, can we masticate? We can we
chew this.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
One up slightly? Pontificate?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
See, but when you talk to the guys in the
locker room, they're not making those excuses. Yeah, you know,
DJ Wantum said yesterday, it doesn't matter how many new
starters we have on the defense. It doesn't matter how
many new guys have rolled in here. We've had all
off season. We shouldn't have been having communication issues out there,
and we did. That has to be fixed, no doubt,
and so you know, we can kind of just dive
(09:47):
into those parts they are not doing something.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
There is a baseline of accountability happening there because it's
you can't ignore it. I mean, you could sit here
and say nothing's wrong. Things were wrong. And that's what
Dave walked in the door talking about today, is we
know the things that are wrong and there are things
we should have been better at. So I just think
(10:11):
it's gonna be fascinating to see how they recover from this,
what next week looks like, and how they go into
the Arizona game. A couple other things to get to
out of yesterday's game. The one other other piece of
bad news, Sir Searn Wharton, one of those defensive starters
that came in in free agency.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
It's going to miss some time.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
He canal has said today he's gonna miss between two
and four weeks.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
With a hamstring.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Don't know yet if that's gonna be the kind of
transaction or kind of injury that puts him on the
transaction list as a injured reserve, which would rule him
out for four We'll see in the next couple of
days how that goes either way. Not having Turk Wharton
doesn't help a defense that's got to go play an
Arizona team that's got a little mobile quarterback who can
(10:56):
run around and make stuff happen.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And I'm sure the question then becomes, if it's two
to four, why not put him on IR. But if
you if you think you could get him back in two,
then it's worth holding his spot because you get him back,
you can the moment you put him on IR, he
has to miss.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
For right and you only get eight of those returns
during the course of a year. And they've got a
couple of guys Jalen Kocher, Lebrian Ray another defensive lineman
who's part of that rotation, are on IR now and
possibility tomorrow. Mathis we won't see again this year. He
tore the ACL he's out for the year. But when
you start going through the numbers and they got into
those calculations last year of do we use that spot
(11:37):
on this guy or this guy?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
What about this guy?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
You know, and you start running out of designated for
return spot. So if you don't have to use it,
you probably shouldn't. And I think a lot of that's
going to be medical and based on what they find
out from an MRI and what they you know, learn
in the next couple of days, because obviously turk Warton's
the guy they thought a lot of that's why they
went out and signed him in the first couple of
(11:59):
hours the agency. And it's gonna be tough. It's one
more adjustment they've got to make.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
A bit of good news though, that we did learn
today kind of on that front is it seems like
ikey Akwanu was gonna be back sooner rather than later.
Canal has seemed hopeful and positive that you know, he
had been trending in the right direction. It's been just
over two weeks since he had his appendectomy. Two weeks
in a day. That's average for return, especially for an office.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Every guyablished on this podcast last week, Every appendix is different,
especially when it's outside of your body.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Outside of your body, so you know, but yeah, we'll
see if he's back on the practice field Wednesday. He
said he hopes to get Pratt Jones back out there
as well. He had a little bit of an ankle
soreness that they tested again this morning.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So right, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
If you play in the NFL, you're gonna wake up
on Monday morning and you're gonna hurt.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
If you played in I wake.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Up on Monday after a game and hurt and I
didn't even play.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Oh boy, that's because it was very, very hot. So yeah,
I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
We'll see if they get Ikey back on the field
this week in practice, that would certainly help. It's not
that yosh Neimen was deficient in ways that contributed to
that kind of result.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Again, that would be reductive and wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
So we strive to eliminate more ignorance than we create
in the given day. Thank you, Mick Mixon for that
pearl of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
We'll see how things develop.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I would anticipate when you think about the things that
they did yesterday, it's not hard to imagine you get
Ikyakwanu back on the field.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
You continue to lean on Chewba Hubbard. Here's a thing.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
When everything else goes wrong for the Carolina Panthers, Cuba
Hubbard is a thing that is generally going to go well.
And he didn't have the number of rushing attempts he
usually ends up with.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I mean, Chuba, I think, uh finished? What was it? Sixteen? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Sixteen for fifty seven on the ground. Not as usual
Cuba Hubbard rushing line. But he gets a late touchdown.
And I have said it before and I believe this
with all my heart. Having guys like Chewba Hubbard as
a part of that core of leaders on the roster
is so important, especially when you got a lot of
young guys, because it would have been so easy for
(14:13):
a team to roll over late. Chewba Hubbard's still out
there grinding with two minutes left in that game, with
five minutes left in that game, even though it was
apparent that it probably wasn't going to go the Carolina
Panthers way. And so having guys with that kind of
personality is critical if you want to grow this thing.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That twenty seven yard touchdown also went down as a
pass yep, but I would count it towards his rushing
yards because he picked up every single one of them
with his legs. Yeah, and his kept his balance by
putting his arm down, like you said, could have gone
down at that point, but still found a way to
get into the end zone to make sure they got
on the board. So that's what you need. We saw
(14:51):
a good bit of Rico Daudle yesterday too. Yeah, at
one point, I think they were trading off series in
the second half.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, and Rico is still going to be that change up.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
He's still to be the other running back in this equation,
but he's a guy, and I think as you think
back over the preseason, there's still a lot of ways
they want to use Rico Dubtle that we haven't seen
on the field in the regular season, and those will
likely come to fruition in the coming weeks and months,
and we'll see that and we'll all talk about it
(15:20):
when it happens. But I think having a couple of
backs like that allows you to change pace because when
things are going poorly a lot of times, the thing
you want to do is whatever it was you've been doing,
let's do something different.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
So I think that's where Rico comes into play.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
The other thing, and again I don't want to ever
be accused of trying to polish up something that was
not a great result. But I do think it was
a good sign for the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
The game Tetero McMillan had. Yeah, I mean Tea.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Matt goes out there, five catches for sixty eight yards.
A couple of those Tea mat catches where it's like, oh.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Oh, yeah, that's why you got drafted.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
And so I think as he and Bryce continue to
develop chemistry, continue to work together, and continue to figure
each other out, that's a pretty good place to start.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah. Another guy that took accountability today that touchdown pass
that was dropped. If you go back and watch the replay,
Tyson Campbell had his arm pretty much in a bind
and yeah, yeah, Tea Maac basically said like that doesn't matter.
I get another hand on it and come in with it,
and so took responsibility for that finished with. He is
(16:31):
now the third highest rookie debut for a Panthers receiver
behind Kelvin Benjamin and Moose.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
And some guy named Moose and Muhammad Moose.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Had the most. If you I'm gonna step out a
little bit here, there was a pass, there was a
pass as well that got called as DPI, so it
was gonna be that spot anyways. I think if it
had not been even if it had not been DBI,
they could have counted that as a catch. That's kind
(17:03):
of up to the team. Do you want to take
the penalty or do you want to look at it
as a catch. You're guaranteed the spot with the penalty, right,
You got to look at the tape for the catch.
But I think if you look at it too, it
looked like he pretty much had it. If that gets
counted as a catch, that was around thirty yards, he
might have ended one or two.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
A promising note from the game to realize what they
saw and Tedoroo McMillan and what he could be for
this offense.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And again, you know what you can count on, Intoba Hubbard.
You believe that that offensive line is going to protect well,
is going to create lanes for the running attack. You
know you got a couple of thousand yard backs behind you.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
If t Matt.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Grows into that guy who can be that one a
target every week that is making big plays, is getting
on highlight shows, all the fun stuff. I think there's
an opportunity. You can kind of see the avenue for
that offense to evolve. But again, all of this is
contingent on Bryce Young playing better. Can't turn it over
(18:05):
three times a game if you want to win a
bunch of.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Games in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I mean, if you're two down in the turnover margin
in the NFL, you're.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Pretty much gonna lose. Yeah, so taking care of the
balls obvious win the game. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I mean it's very seldom simple, but that's one of
those areas you look at it one of the lenses
you look at it through a lot of times, it's
kind of that simple. You turn it over the way
they did yesterday, you make the mistakes they did, you
missed the tackles they did yesterday. It's gonna get like yesterday.
Yesterday's game got I'm tongue to I know, right, or
(18:41):
at least saying them all the time instead of writing
them is one.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
This is one of those days.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I think if we had a cocktail sponsor, it would
be a good thing because we could just kind of
call this show and go home and try to forget
about what happened behind us, both this this podcast and otherwise. So, uh, Anyway,
big week coming up ahead to forward, time to move forward.
We will see you back here on Thursday, where we'll
break down Arizona week, what we've learned in the in
(19:07):
the ensuing two days Tuesday and Wednesday, if there's any transactions,
any moves made, anything like that, and going into a
big Cardinals week gave place where the Carolina Panthers have
had some success in recent years. And maybe I'll and
maybe I'll tell the Vinny Testa Verdie in Arizona story
one more time.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Because I never get test of Verdi story. It's a
good time.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Come back on Thursday.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
We may well do that.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
We'll see you guys here on Thursday. Until then, this
has been a happy half hour
Happy half hour. Hello friends, it is Monday, and that
means it's time for a happy half hour. Yep, even
if it's not particularly happy. After what we watched yesterday,
Carolina Panthers go to Jacksonville lose twenty six to ten
in the opener. Not the way anybody wanted necessarily start
the regular season.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Never, you never want to start off oh and one.
There is a little bit of grain of salt to it.
Half the teams in the league right now are oh
and one. Well, I guess there's still two more teams
to play tonight. Kens City Chiefs are oh and one Kansas,
and so there's there's a lot of big picture stuff
you can look at. There's a lot of granular stuff
you can look at. We'll do a little bit of
(00:41):
both before we move on. But yeah, never never fun
to start owing one. Never fun to go into a team,
to go into a place and not score on opportunities
where they are there. But as Dave Canally said a
couple of different times today, we've got to make sure
we take the lessons, not the the defeat, right.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I mean, Dave's always been a a big teachable moment guy,
and there were plenty to work with yesterday because it
was not good. I mean, there's no other way to
say it. And Dave was honest with it. One of
the things I like about Canal is he you know,
he's got you know, he's got that enthusiasm always and
he's always an upbeat guy. But he calls it tell
(01:22):
the truth Monday, that's what they do. And he said,
we went through that tape phase by phase. Day started.
Special teams went offense, defense, and there was something you know,
in each of those areas that you could point to
and say, yeah, that could have been a lot better.
And you know, the top line takeaways from that game
the other day was there were too many turnovers. I mean,
(01:43):
Bryce turns it over three times himself. Canal, let's call
it four in the post game yesterday, just because there
was one that was overturned by penalty. So three turnovers,
you give up two hundred yards rushing defensively at seventy
one of it on one big explosive play that coming
right after the long weather delay, was a little bit
of a dagger. I mean, to be honest with you,
(02:04):
there was another half of football. Obviously, there's plenty more
opportunities but when you're sitting there ten three and you
get the ball first, you're thinking, Okay, this is still
anybody's ball game. Maybe they come out, they work on
some stuff, adjust, but when they're on drive stalls and
then Jacksonville immediately goes boom seventy one yards with that
big run from Travis Etn, it's like this ship's gonna
(02:26):
be hard to turn round.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, and that was a I know football people hate
to use this term because it's an abstract concept, but
that was a momentum swinger as well, Noah. And coming
out of an hour long weather delay, Usually momentum swings
towards the team that had been losing because you can
regroup and kind of reassess reset. But like you said,
(02:48):
Etn comes out, breaks off a huge, huge explosive play
that just swings it right back that quickly. Yeah, And
it's at that point you're fighting. You're fighting the score word,
but you're fighting demons a little bit too.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And that's what's hard, because I know the I know
the thing outside the building is to compare it to
everything that's happened before, and you know Bryce now zero
and three and openers and all those kind of things,
especially with the way last year went. But these things
are all unique, and I mean so much has changed
around here this offseason that any lessons from the twenty
(03:23):
four opener are barely applicable. I mean, listen, was that
the performance they wanted to have in the opner?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Of course not.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You know, only a knucklehead would say that. But the
reality is they've got a lot of work to do
and the and the thing Canal has talked about today
was here are the specific things we have to work on.
I mean, if you saw, you know, the Bryce Young
Austin Corbett exchange on the snaps. Here's the thing in
professional football, things are very seldom about one person or
(03:53):
one guy screwing something up. So there was there was
a lot of that get on the same page talk.
And when you're trying to go silent count and you're
changing things on the fly on the field, it's very
easy for a fan to say that guy blew it
or that guy didn't do his job. A lot of times,
there's so many moving parts that to reduce it that
(04:13):
way is probably not the most accurate way to look
at that problem. And that's what they tried to do
today when they look at film, it's like, okay, let's
look at what actually happened. Let's talk about what actually
went on when they did that. And I think if
you use any of last year's lessons to inform what
went on, I mean, there were times second half of
(04:34):
last year when the offense was playing well, when they
hit a couple of those slow games. And then you
get in there and correct this, this, these particular things,
and you see that improvement, it's going to be incumbent
upon him. See that improvement this week in Arizona, and
can now let's.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Mention that specifically today? He said, Okay, the key now
is to pull what went wrong on Sunday and address
that this week. And if we make new mistique, new
mistakes next week, like okay, then we learn from that
next week. But to make sure you're not making the
same mistake twice. And I think you if you are
going to sit there and compare last year's opener, did
(05:11):
this year's it was different like that if a couple
of different plays go differently, there's a lot more of
rhythm there to the offense. You know, if Tyson Campbell
doesn't pull down Tetoro McMillan's arm in the end zone
and it wasn't even a flag. It was just good defense.
But you know, if he doesn't pull his arm down
like that, does he catch that? Does the game feel different?
(05:33):
You know if guys, you know, a couple of different things,
guys bring a ball in, get their foot down, things
like that. So many little things where it adds. It
takes you out of rhythm, and so can you dress
those small things to make a big difference. So we'll
see this week.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And again, this was always going to be a learning process.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I mean, this team is still young.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
If you didn't catch it on Panthers dot com, it's
still up there and you can still enjoy it. Carolina
Panthers go into season with a record high twelve rookies
on the fifty three man roster. You know, that's including
the entire draft class and four guys who who didn't
start out here or were undrafted rookies. And you know,
when you commit to getting younger, when you commit to
(06:17):
becoming going from being one of the oldest teams in
the NFL, which they were a couple years ago, they
were in the top five oldest teams two years ago,
and now they're going to be likely among the youngest
teams in the league in a short amount of time.
You know there's going to be some of this kind
of process. I mean, as you look at the construction
of the roster, of those fifty three dudes, forty of
(06:40):
them have arrived in the last two seasons. And so
Dan Morgan has put his stamp on this team pretty quickly.
And Dan's been honest about it. I mean, Dan just
flat out says, because that's how Dan Morgan talks, we
had to get younger. We wanted to create a younger
core to build this team around, and that's what they did.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Also, when you look at the average of the who
the oldest team's youngest teams whatnot, the Panthers average gets
a little bit skewed by J. J. Janssen and Andy Dalton.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
And Sam Martin.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Don't forget satin, I forgot if so, if you take
out J. J. Jansen, Sam Martin and Andy Dalton, I
think they end up being one of the youngest, not
be I think I think Green Bay may still be
the youngest.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And again, as as I am careful to point out,
nothing not to impune the athleticism of J. J. Jansen,
Andy Dalton and Sam Martin. But if you're going to
be old backup, quarterback, long snapper, punter or three positions,
you can afford to be old at you know, these
guys are very seldom sprinting sixty yards downfield trying to
(07:41):
catch somebody.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Matt. Matt Prater came off the couch and forty one
years old and kicked a game winning field goal last night.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
That's right, that's where.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
You can afford to pull a forty one year old
on the count. I am it was impressive. Good for him.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I am here for the old dudes. I am in
solidarity with them.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
But when you're trying to build a sustainable thing, which
is the point of all this, you know, you have
to build it around rookies, in first, second year guys.
You've got to build it around. Even in free agency
when they went out they signed Bobby Brown when he
was still twenty four years old. He's turned twenty five cents.
But they've got rookies on this roster who are older
(08:18):
than Bobby Brown, who's played four years in the league
and has Super Bowl ring.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
From the Rams.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Nick Gorton was drafted at twenty that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You know, Nick Gordon's mom is j J Janssen's age,
so just.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Insane se and JJ loves it when we point that
out too. He's a big fan of us, remembering exactly
how old he is. But you know, again, that's a
long way of saying some of this was going to happen.
We talked about expectations in the preseason and a team
that went from two wins to five wins.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
What does improvement look like? What does better look like?
Is better? Seven? Is better?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Eight?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
We'll we'll find out over the course of a long,
long season, but there's sixteen more that used to go
and we'll see how this thing shakes out.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And it's also important to note that, like we can
look here, and we can, it's up to us to
kind of sit here and commentate and even adjudicate a
little bit and be like, okay, young team a lot.
I think you know four new starters will also credicate.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Can we prevaricate? No, can we masticate? We can we
chew this.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
One up slightly? Pontificate?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
See, but when you talk to the guys in the
locker room, they're not making those excuses. Yeah, you know,
DJ Wantum said yesterday, it doesn't matter how many new
starters we have on the defense. It doesn't matter how
many new guys have rolled in here. We've had all
off season. We shouldn't have been having communication issues out there,
and we did. That has to be fixed, no doubt,
and so you know, we can kind of just dive
(09:47):
into those parts they are not doing something.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
There is a baseline of accountability happening there because it's
you can't ignore it. I mean, you could sit here
and say nothing's wrong. Things were wrong. And that's what
Dave walked in the door talking about today, is we
know the things that are wrong and there are things
we should have been better at. So I just think
(10:11):
it's gonna be fascinating to see how they recover from this,
what next week looks like, and how they go into
the Arizona game. A couple other things to get to
out of yesterday's game. The one other other piece of
bad news, Sir Searn Wharton, one of those defensive starters
that came in in free agency.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
It's going to miss some time.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
He canal has said today he's gonna miss between two
and four weeks.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
With a hamstring.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Don't know yet if that's gonna be the kind of
transaction or kind of injury that puts him on the
transaction list as a injured reserve, which would rule him
out for four We'll see in the next couple of
days how that goes either way. Not having Turk Wharton
doesn't help a defense that's got to go play an
Arizona team that's got a little mobile quarterback who can
(10:56):
run around and make stuff happen.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And I'm sure the question then becomes, if it's two
to four, why not put him on IR. But if
you if you think you could get him back in two,
then it's worth holding his spot because you get him back,
you can the moment you put him on IR, he
has to miss.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
For right and you only get eight of those returns
during the course of a year. And they've got a
couple of guys Jalen Kocher, Lebrian Ray another defensive lineman
who's part of that rotation, are on IR now and
possibility tomorrow. Mathis we won't see again this year. He
tore the ACL he's out for the year. But when
you start going through the numbers and they got into
those calculations last year of do we use that spot
(11:37):
on this guy or this guy?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
What about this guy?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
You know, and you start running out of designated for
return spot. So if you don't have to use it,
you probably shouldn't. And I think a lot of that's
going to be medical and based on what they find
out from an MRI and what they you know, learn
in the next couple of days, because obviously turk Warton's
the guy they thought a lot of that's why they
went out and signed him in the first couple of
(11:59):
hours the agency. And it's gonna be tough. It's one
more adjustment they've got to make.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
A bit of good news though, that we did learn
today kind of on that front is it seems like
ikey Akwanu was gonna be back sooner rather than later.
Canal has seemed hopeful and positive that you know, he
had been trending in the right direction. It's been just
over two weeks since he had his appendectomy. Two weeks
in a day. That's average for return, especially for an office.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Every guyablished on this podcast last week, Every appendix is different,
especially when it's outside of your body.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Outside of your body, so you know, but yeah, we'll
see if he's back on the practice field Wednesday. He
said he hopes to get Pratt Jones back out there
as well. He had a little bit of an ankle
soreness that they tested again this morning.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So right, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
If you play in the NFL, you're gonna wake up
on Monday morning and you're gonna hurt.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
If you played in I wake.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Up on Monday after a game and hurt and I
didn't even play.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Oh boy, that's because it was very, very hot. So yeah,
I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
We'll see if they get Ikey back on the field
this week in practice, that would certainly help. It's not
that yosh Neimen was deficient in ways that contributed to
that kind of result.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Again, that would be reductive and wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
So we strive to eliminate more ignorance than we create
in the given day. Thank you, Mick Mixon for that
pearl of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
We'll see how things develop.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I would anticipate when you think about the things that
they did yesterday, it's not hard to imagine you get
Ikyakwanu back on the field.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
You continue to lean on Chewba Hubbard. Here's a thing.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
When everything else goes wrong for the Carolina Panthers, Cuba
Hubbard is a thing that is generally going to go well.
And he didn't have the number of rushing attempts he
usually ends up with.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I mean, Chuba, I think, uh finished? What was it? Sixteen? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Sixteen for fifty seven on the ground. Not as usual
Cuba Hubbard rushing line. But he gets a late touchdown.
And I have said it before and I believe this
with all my heart. Having guys like Chewba Hubbard as
a part of that core of leaders on the roster
is so important, especially when you got a lot of
young guys, because it would have been so easy for
(14:13):
a team to roll over late. Chewba Hubbard's still out
there grinding with two minutes left in that game, with
five minutes left in that game, even though it was
apparent that it probably wasn't going to go the Carolina
Panthers way. And so having guys with that kind of
personality is critical if you want to grow this thing.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That twenty seven yard touchdown also went down as a
pass yep, but I would count it towards his rushing
yards because he picked up every single one of them
with his legs. Yeah, and his kept his balance by
putting his arm down, like you said, could have gone
down at that point, but still found a way to
get into the end zone to make sure they got
on the board. So that's what you need. We saw
(14:51):
a good bit of Rico Daudle yesterday too. Yeah, at
one point, I think they were trading off series in
the second half.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, and Rico is still going to be that change up.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
He's still to be the other running back in this equation,
but he's a guy, and I think as you think
back over the preseason, there's still a lot of ways
they want to use Rico Dubtle that we haven't seen
on the field in the regular season, and those will
likely come to fruition in the coming weeks and months,
and we'll see that and we'll all talk about it
(15:20):
when it happens. But I think having a couple of
backs like that allows you to change pace because when
things are going poorly a lot of times, the thing
you want to do is whatever it was you've been doing,
let's do something different.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
So I think that's where Rico comes into play.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
The other thing, and again I don't want to ever
be accused of trying to polish up something that was
not a great result. But I do think it was
a good sign for the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
The game Tetero McMillan had. Yeah, I mean Tea.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Matt goes out there, five catches for sixty eight yards.
A couple of those Tea mat catches where it's like, oh.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Oh, yeah, that's why you got drafted.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
And so I think as he and Bryce continue to
develop chemistry, continue to work together, and continue to figure
each other out, that's a pretty good place to start.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah. Another guy that took accountability today that touchdown pass
that was dropped. If you go back and watch the replay,
Tyson Campbell had his arm pretty much in a bind
and yeah, yeah, Tea Maac basically said like that doesn't matter.
I get another hand on it and come in with it,
and so took responsibility for that finished with. He is
(16:31):
now the third highest rookie debut for a Panthers receiver
behind Kelvin Benjamin and Moose.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
And some guy named Moose and Muhammad Moose.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Had the most. If you I'm gonna step out a
little bit here, there was a pass, there was a
pass as well that got called as DPI, so it
was gonna be that spot anyways. I think if it
had not been even if it had not been DBI,
they could have counted that as a catch. That's kind
(17:03):
of up to the team. Do you want to take
the penalty or do you want to look at it
as a catch. You're guaranteed the spot with the penalty, right,
You got to look at the tape for the catch.
But I think if you look at it too, it
looked like he pretty much had it. If that gets
counted as a catch, that was around thirty yards, he
might have ended one or two.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
A promising note from the game to realize what they
saw and Tedoroo McMillan and what he could be for
this offense.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And again, you know what you can count on, Intoba Hubbard.
You believe that that offensive line is going to protect well,
is going to create lanes for the running attack. You
know you got a couple of thousand yard backs behind you.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
If t Matt.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Grows into that guy who can be that one a
target every week that is making big plays, is getting
on highlight shows, all the fun stuff. I think there's
an opportunity. You can kind of see the avenue for
that offense to evolve. But again, all of this is
contingent on Bryce Young playing better. Can't turn it over
(18:05):
three times a game if you want to win a
bunch of.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Games in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I mean, if you're two down in the turnover margin
in the NFL, you're.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Pretty much gonna lose. Yeah, so taking care of the
balls obvious win the game. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I mean it's very seldom simple, but that's one of
those areas you look at it one of the lenses
you look at it through a lot of times, it's
kind of that simple. You turn it over the way
they did yesterday, you make the mistakes they did, you
missed the tackles they did yesterday. It's gonna get like yesterday.
Yesterday's game got I'm tongue to I know, right, or
(18:41):
at least saying them all the time instead of writing
them is one.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
This is one of those days.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I think if we had a cocktail sponsor, it would
be a good thing because we could just kind of
call this show and go home and try to forget
about what happened behind us, both this this podcast and otherwise. So, uh, Anyway,
big week coming up ahead to forward, time to move forward.
We will see you back here on Thursday, where we'll
break down Arizona week, what we've learned in the in
(19:07):
the ensuing two days Tuesday and Wednesday, if there's any transactions,
any moves made, anything like that, and going into a
big Cardinals week gave place where the Carolina Panthers have
had some success in recent years. And maybe I'll and
maybe I'll tell the Vinny Testa Verdie in Arizona story
one more time.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Because I never get test of Verdi story. It's a
good time.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Come back on Thursday.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
We may well do that.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
We'll see you guys here on Thursday. Until then, this
has been a happy half hour
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