October 6, 2025 • 23 mins
Today on the Happy Half Hour, Darin and Kassidy react to the Panthers thrilling comeback win over the Dolphins, highlight the key contributors to Sunday's victory, and so much more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Happy half Hour. Hello friends, and welcome to a
very special Monday edition of The Happy half Hour. People
are happier, I gather the Happy.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Half Hour is happier when people are happy. See I
have a way with words.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I mean it's right there in the title she has
away with words. I hired at her right words. This
is why we do things here. We do them on purpose.
And you know what we do them. We do it
for our sponsors. Thanks to our friends from Deep Eddie
for sponsoring this episode of The Happy half Hour. You
too can be a part of the action by entering
the Deep Eddies Sweet SIPs Sweepstakes. There it is, I
(00:36):
am getting better and better at there.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
To start saying it five times fast, like Sally sells
sea shells.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
By the time it's easy for you to say. It's
not like Sweet Sip sweep steaks. You can join all
the fun by entering the Sweet Sip Sweepstakes between now
and October twenty six. Come up with your custom cocktail
using Deep Eddie Vodka and you could win a fabulous
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Saints game, access to the one Carolina Sweet and all
(01:04):
the private deep Eddy Sweet swag that comes with that.
It's going to be a good.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Time some deep Eddy Sweet swag.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, we got to work on that. I'll do anything
just about for free booze and the T and a
T shirt. But that has been my custom in life.
Thanks to our friends at Deep Edty for hooking us
up with that. And it's going to be a good
time for everybody on November ninth. And if it's kind
of like that game yesterday, it's definitely going to be
a good time for everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, buddy, that was a ride. Wasn't it? A seventeen
o deficit? To come back from that matches the biggest
comeback in franchise history, which I think it has now
been done four times.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Four times.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, And what a day. I mean, so many things
to talk about. Where do you even want to start.
Let's throw a dart at the board and pick one.
Rico Dowdle two hundred and thirty four all purpose yards
incredible day. Two hundred and six rushing yards, which ties
him with Jonathan Stewart for the second best single game
rushing performance in French history. His all purpose scrimmageyards Trail's
(02:03):
only Christian McCaffrey, who had a pair of two hundred
and thirty seven yard performances. Quite a day from Ricoda.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Pretty good collection of names. Pattle is now among.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And I think the single game rushing he only trails.
He and Jonathan Stewart now only trailed the Angela Williams.
What's going to be fun now is what happens when
Cheba Hubbard is healthy again. And you know, Dave kind
of said today like it's a good problem to have,
it's the Champagne problem. Well, when you've got two backs,
it can be done. You see the Detroit Lions doing
(02:34):
it right now with Jamar Gibbs and David Montgomery.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And again we've seen it here. Yeah, Angelo and Jonathan
each went for eleven hundred yards in two thousand and eight.
We've seen it here to a lesser degree with Deontay
Foreman and Cuba Hubbard during his younger years. So I mean,
working those two guys in tandem is a thing that
can be done. But one of the things that's the
reality of this situation is it's really hard to play
(02:58):
seventeen games of professional football in and Cuba missing a
little time with that calf injuries just that's why Rico
Dowdle's here, because Dave Canalis has made running the ball
central to what they want to do. So have a
couple thousand yard backs so that you can seriously say
this is what we're about, no matter what happens. And
yesterday was a perfect example. I mean, if you're not starting,
(03:21):
you're just talking about opportunity, and when Rico got his,
he definitely made the most of it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And I think what is what we saw yesterday as well,
is because Rico had kind of been spelling Cuba here
and there, and they were trading off series during the
first few weeks, you really saw what Rico brings differently
than Cuba. They're both so so good at what they
do in their own right, but they do do they
do have a little bit of a different game. Cuba
is so good between the tackles, straight up the middle.
(03:48):
That's really where he kind of makes his bread and butter.
Rico's a little better like that outside zone stuff, and
that's really where That's how he got a thousand yards
at Dallas last year, is kind of bouncing outside and
you saw him do that a lot yesterday. They had
a lot of success running to the right, which Dave
Canal has kind of, you know, really praised Brady Christiansen,
(04:09):
Taylor Moten today and Rico even got to a point
where he was asking for certain plays that would do that,
and he tore one off just open the second half
with a fifty three yard rush that was a very
particular It was a He asked Brad Ezack and Dave
Canalis to call that play, and Dave said he told
him like, okay, well I'm gonna call it early. You
better be ready, and he was, and that's exactly what
(04:31):
it was.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It was.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It was a pitch he ran outside. He told us
last night, he said, you know, that was a lot
of like inside zone stuff that kind of bounces out.
He's like that, don't really run that here and or
they had not in the past, just because that's not
necessarily Cuba's game.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But you kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Saw how you could balance these two guys when Cuba
is back and have them both running the offense at
the same time, maybe even on the field at the
same time.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And I think more important than and the play itself
or whether it's inside you know, all the football jargon
that people like to use in times like this, The
reality is being able to run is the most important
part of this because as you saw, I mean there
were early turnovers again, just like the Arizona game, got
in an unfortunate early hole, and instead of being down
(05:22):
seventeen to nothing and saying, oh my god, we have
to throw, we have to get caught up in a hurry,
they just did normal football. And I love the way
Dave Canalis talks about we got back to our normal football.
What does normal football mean? Normal means running the ball.
And yes, I am aware, I'm a very old person.
All of my football references are old. I refer to
(05:43):
old people who used to do this one hundred years ago.
But it works, and I just love it so much
because if you can play old man football, if you
can keep chains moving just by running the ball, I
mean really, I mean, with all due respect to everybody
involved in that back, the thing they needed while down
seventeen was the stability that came with just turned around,
(06:06):
handing it to Rico and letting him grind off a
couple first downs in a row. Because when you're in
that moment, what you need is to breathe, what you
need is to extend a drive, a little bit give
the defense a chance to breathe and just stay in
that normal mode where it has such a stabilizing effect
on both sides of the ball that that's why so
(06:27):
many people throughout the history of football, me included, believe
that's still the basis of any successful offense is being
able to get a first down without throwing it all
over the yard.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
After the second turnover, and they were down I think
seventeen nothing the drive when the offense came back out
on the field, they rent The first five plays of
that drive were a run. And Rico talked about it
last night and said that said to me that Dave
still trusted us to get back in this game, and
(06:58):
he trusted me to do my it, and so it did.
It's it to your point. It helped settle them down.
It helped keep the game plan going. It also sent
a message, hey, we're down seventeen. Oh it's still really
really early in this game. We can get back into this.
And the way we get back into it is just
keep I almost said, keep pounding, unironically, keep pounding at
(07:23):
it play by play, get back into it. Don't let
one play bleed into the next. Just kind of go
with our game plan and it worked.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And by the way, twenty second time out, that's gonna
take way longer than twenty seconds because it's Darren soapbox time.
How cool was that Melanie Mills had to keep pounding drum,
the widow of Sam Mills, the man who said the
words themselves, His widow was here in the end zone
before the game, hitting the keep pounding drum, surrounded by
Panthers legends, I mean, Mike Rocker and all those dudes
(07:53):
were down there with her, and it was really I
still and I mean, I'm sitting here and it's not
just because it's forty five degrees in this studio. I'm
sitting here with chills because having talked to so many
of the guys who were around for the original version
of that speech, Sam's whole thing was, it's not just
persevering through hard times. It's not just pushing when that's
(08:16):
the only thing you know how to do. It's doing
it for the guide next to you, and it's being
surrounded by people who are doing it for each other.
So I mean, and maybe it's just me and I've
spent a good third of my life telling the Sam
Mills story over and over as often as anybody wants
to hear it. But it was super cool to see
that happening in Melanie, surrounded by everybody in that end zone,
(08:38):
making that happen a super cool moment for so many
people in this.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Stadium, and then for that to be the game where
it happened at too, where they kind of epitomized that
exact mindset.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
It's almost like the universe was talking to us and
we should just listen sometimes. But it was super cool.
Now we get back to the football. I mean we
talked about then and stabilizing things. The reality was they
found themselves in another hole that they had to get
out of, and Bryce turned it over and they were
(09:08):
very clear, they've got to clean that stuff up. They
can't have the early turnovers and Bryce making those two
mistakes early on got them in that mode. But I
think Bryce also deserves a ton of credit for getting
them out of that hole. I loved. I loved one
of my favorite little moments from that postgame locker room.
I was talking to Derek Brown, and Derek is not
(09:31):
a guy who is really into hyperbole, right, Derek is
not a guy. He is not here to advance your narrative.
He's just telling you exactly what he believes happened in
the way he saw it. And I asked him about
those situations and he was like, listen, man, he's getting
to be where he wants to be. He said, he
(09:53):
walks to me after the second turnover when he threw
the pick. He said, he walks up to me straight
on the sidelines and said, go get it back for
me and we'll go. And I think everybody thinks of Bryce,
says press conference Bryce, because he's super excited, he's super grateful,
all those things. But Bryce has got a little salt
about him in those situations on the field and amongst
(10:15):
his teammates. I think you saw a little bit of
it in that miked up clip that we had last night,
where you see a little bit of that coming out,
that swagger, whatever you want to call it. Bryce has
got more of that than I think a lot of
people who only see press conferences believe to be the case.
But for a Derek Brown to stand there and say
(10:36):
we believe he's going to do this, that matters because
as they build this thing around players, and Dave Canalys
has talked over and over about wanting it to be
player led. Having a Bryce showing and a Derek Brown
having that conversation rather than having a coach jump on
Bryce and say you can't do that, you can't do that,
you gotta do this, you gotta do that. Those two
(10:58):
are solving the problem themselves. That's part A, but part
B is Bryce began to deal. I mean, down seventeen
to nothing, Yes, they ran the ball well, but he
solved a lot of problems with that touchdown pass to XL.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, because everyone felt like a weight was lifted off.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Of a lot of people. I mean both of those
guys on either end of that play, but also Dave Canalis,
you know, Dan Morgan and a lot of people because
XL getting back into the flow of this was a
thing they believed was gonna happen, but until they saw
it happen. And I mean, I just loved the throw
because Bryce Bryce. It was one of those where he
threw it before XL broke to it. Yeah, and it
(11:37):
was an anticipation throw and he was counting on his big,
fast guy being at the right place at the right
time and then catching it. Guess what he did.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And you know, most people credit to the announcer who
called this out during the game too. So much fun
to go back and watch the game too and listen
to Eric Collins, thank you, I was blanking.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Listen Eric Collins did mix in. They're hanging on like
a cat on a screen door and the only thing
we were missing was del Curry going, yeah, they are.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It was fun to listen to him to it. A
lot of times. A quarterback in that situation, especially if
you go back and watch what X was doing on
that play, would have thrown it towards the back corner.
He really that was an anticipation throw, and that was
a trust throw to trust that Laguet was gonna come
out and get his hands out and a moment of
(12:29):
credit for Excel too. He's put a lot of work
in to get better at the hand catches because he
kind of came in being a body catch guy. That
was a pure hands catch in the ends on yesterday.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And we've talked about before. I mean X he's not
quite to that Cuba Hubbard level, but he's a jugs
machine guy now. And that began after the Philadelphia game
last year when he went to hang with Cuba and
to fix what he believed is a problem. And you
heard so many versions of that in that post game
locker room of we see the work he's put into this,
(13:03):
we know how seriously he takes this.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, and then back to just the point about Bryce
kind of dealing two huge fourth down plays in the
game yesterday, one of them to t Mac earlier in
the game that was on the drive with the with
the lyget touchdown, broke free from a would be sack,
thought he was gonna run. Everybody in the in the stadium,
including myself, thought he was gonna run.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
He didn't.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He set himself up with two guys coming right at
him and to get that ball off down to Tea
Mac down the sideline and trust and trust him to
kind of pull that catch in with a guy on him.
That kept that drive moving and then they were able
to score. And that that was when the fourth down
was right, yeah, fourth and fourth y yeah, yeah, yeah,
and they were able to score start their comeback and
(13:49):
then uh the drive the final go ahead touchdown to
Mitchell Evans. That drive got extended because of a fourth
down play to Jimmy Horn. How cool for Jimmy Horn
in his first game to have that and the trust,
the placement and everything from Bryce. That drive also had
a great play from Bryce to Loget. That was his
second catch of the day where it get kind of
(14:11):
broke free from Russell Douglas, a veteran smart player and
Leaguett saw a soft spot and kind of broke free
from it and Bryce found him there took it. Bryce
took a hit as he threw that ball to He
knew he was going to take a hit and stood
in there and got it off. So, yes, two bad turnovers.
Bryce would be the first to tell you that he was,
(14:31):
like you said, he got them back into it as well. Yeah,
no doubt, And that doesn't take anything away from what
ric o'dowdell did.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And while you talked about Bryce standing in the pocket
and taking a hit, I took a hit another hit
off this day Monday, because Mondays are late nights followed
by early mornings and long days.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I was downstairs earlier and as one does when J. J.
Jansen is there, you get pulled into a fun conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
But I said like coffee machine.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, And I was like, what are you doing? And
he goes, I'm going home, And he goes, what are
you doing? And I said, I'm settling in, buddy, because
I just got here, that's right. And he was like,
why did you just get here? And I said, mondays
are weird days.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, they tend to last a long time, and so
they're brought to you by our good friend caffeine never fails.
But anyway, no, I mean to that point, Bryce deserves
a lot of credit because a he kept plays alive.
He stood in the pocket a couple times and took
some shots, and it was a hard situation and I
think he needed to prove that he was capable of
(15:27):
that to a lot of people, even though a lot
of those guys in the locker room talk over and
over about how much they believe that's what he's got
in him. So at the same time, this stood as
proof of concept, okay, and it stood as proof of
concept for a lot of people. It wasn't just Bryce,
it was the fact you could run. And I think structurally,
(15:49):
I just love the fact that on that last drive
you had three plays coming down the stretch going to
guys who were drafted on the third day of this
year's draft. I mean Jimmy Horne, the touchdown driver. Yeah,
the final touchdown drive you had Mitchell Evans, your fifth
round pick, catching the game winning touchdown. You had Jimmy Ebb,
Jimmy Horn, the sixth round pick who hadn't even been
(16:11):
active for a game yet, catching that huge fourth down play.
But even after Rico left the game to go chug
pickle juice on the sideline because he had a cramp,
Trevor Etn comes in and rips off a couple of
runs to keep that thing moving.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So we had a huge first down run right to
get them to the four yard line on that drive.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So when you think about what this the global what
it means having draft picks produce, having those rookies who
you talk about trusting, stepping up and earning that trust
and showing you why you should trust them, it was
just all good things for the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Darren, Yes, I'm gonna I know comparison is the thief
of joy. Uh oh, but I'm going to compare this.
This match just shot me a look. I think he's
scared about what I'm going to say. I know that
there's always talk like we can't help as the human
people to look back. We use history to explain our
present time. I was thinking about this last night, and
(17:11):
I was sitting there kind of watching back some of
the game and thinking through and thinking about the fact
that they came back from seventeen nothing twenty twenty three.
Before I came here, I was covering the Packers that year.
That was Jordan Love's first year as a starting quarterback,
but he had obviously played some before that, so a
little bit different than Bryce, who has been the starter
since he's been here. But I started thinking, I was like, man,
(17:33):
this season feels eerily similar to that twenty twenty three
Packers team, just because during training camp you could tell
they had so many pieces and so many young pieces,
but you could also tell they were gonna have some
growing pains to go through. They had a thirty something
win in the first couple of weeks, they had a
close loss, and then they had a game at home
(17:57):
that where they got into a seventeen oh hole and
came back and won that game, and then lost the
next couple but fought back into that season as a
wild card. And I'm not saying that's what's going to happen,
but that seventeen oh game where they came back and
won was dependent on a lot of rookies, and that's
when you finally started to see, like some of the
(18:18):
things that you saw in training camp that were possible
really start to click with Jordan Love and his rookies.
And you saw the pass rush on that Packer's defense
really kind of find it scroove in that win as well.
And sitting there, like I said, watching the game last night,
and I was like, man, this feels like that Packer
Saints game where they want they came back and won
that game.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
See, that's the kind of football expertise you only get
from CASTIDG. Hill of cancer dot com. Let me tell
you about the football expertise of Castig Hill of characters
dot com. Oh my gosh, you know what.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I know what he's about to say, and then I
have a counterpoint.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
In this is a quick another twenty second time out
that's going to turn into a longer story. She plays
fantasy football here in the league with some friends that
I'm not a part of. She told me before the
game she had to make a couple of tough decisions.
She decided to play manager. Does yeah, she had. She
decided to play Justin Fields at quarterback this week because
(19:10):
she thought he had a favorable match up against a
Cowboys defense that hadn't done well in terms of fantasy points.
And uh, And I said, well that's a bold call.
Who are you benching to make way for Justin Fields?
Tell the people.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Patrick Mahomes, which could still work in my favor, because
I'm interested to see what he does tonight.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Naturally, right as one does.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You've bench a how many time MVP who has just
or a Justin Field? Garrett Wilson, Again, fantasy football not
real football, but there is not a world.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You a piece of advice yesterday, though that was so
bad that I will never take fantasy football advice from
him again.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
He's probably a good idea.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I made a what I thought was a smart manager
choice to start David Montgomery and camp' skataboo, which meant
Derrick Henry went to the bench, and Aaron made so
much fun of me he bullied me into switching that,
and I started Derrick Henry and I benched David Montgomery,
and Buddy, was that the wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I didn't tell you to bench David Montgomery. That's crazy.
Only an idiot would do that. You got a Derrick Henry,
you play a Derrick Henry. You got a running game.
You trust your run game. You got a.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Quarterback, gotta almost you got a quarterback.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Who can make plays downfield. You trust that guy to
make those plays. It's almost thematic and it's like we've
brought this back around to the top. But anyway, now,
there was so much good stuff yesterday, and we'll get
into it later when we catch you guys on Thursday.
Getting into this Dallas.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Game moment for the pass rush though too, no doubt,
I mean three sacks, nine tackles for loss.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yep, wow. And just run defense in general, nineteen yards.
I was talking to some of the guys in locker
room today the run defense last year, we can't. I mean,
it's completely different than it was last year. But when
you think about a team that gave up two hundred
yards a game on the ground for six straight games
to close season, it was not great. And they went
(21:02):
out and brought in a bunch of people because they
knew they had to change it. But it has changed.
Nineteen yards allowed on the ground to the Miami Dolphins,
which it doesn't matter who you're playing against, nineteen yards
rushing that team is not going to win very many games.
Second fewest in a single game in franchise history, behind
the fifteen fourteen fifteen fourteen they allowed to Washington in
(21:25):
twenty fifteen. So I mean, just an all around good day.
Pass rush got loosened up. As you mentioned, run defense
was great and continues to get better week after week.
They see that thing stabilizing, and again, it's kind of
that proof concept. You see all those little elements that
we've been talking about all off season, and Sunday a
(21:46):
lot of those things came together at once.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
They're in the top fifteen. And rush defense now, which
is a nineteen yard game, will help with that.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
But which, again, for those of you who are around
for last season, that's just bananas, but it it's very real.
The Carolina Panthers are are working on something here. And
it's just not to say I don't want to harsh
anybody's mellow, damping anybody's enthusiasm. Enjoy your deep eddy and
celebrate with your friends, because you should. These chances are rare.
(22:14):
You should enjoy them. But yesterday was that day when
some of those little threads started coming together and turning
into something greater. So it'll be interesting to see how
they build on it. Here's the other cool part. They
get to build on it right here in this building again.
Sunday Dallas Cowboys come into town. Yeah, don't make don't
(22:35):
make me tell another Sam Mill's story about what happened
before that Dallas Cowboys playoff game. I will tell that
story over and over again. Serious a story. Pull a string.
Pull a string in Darren's back and watch him go
for the next fifteen minutes. So at any rate, four
Melanie meals and everybody who was surrounding that keep pounding
drum for all the fans out in the stands who
(22:56):
enjoyed a super cool day. I mean just seeing the
videos of people out there listening to Sweet Caroline having
themselves the time. That was good. Thanks to our friends
at Deep Betty, Thanks to Cassiy Matt behind the board.
Our duck friend right here, Chuck, he's good luck. Now
we'll call him Chuck the Duck in honor of JJ
Janssen's hockey team where they chuck a puck. That just
came to me. You were talking about JJ, So are smarty?
(23:17):
I know, right? At any rate, Thanks to everybody, We'll
see you Thursday on the Happy Half Hour.
The Happy half Hour. Hello friends, and welcome to a
very special Monday edition of The Happy half Hour. People
are happier, I gather the Happy.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Half Hour is happier when people are happy. See I
have a way with words.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I mean it's right there in the title she has
away with words. I hired at her right words. This
is why we do things here. We do them on purpose.
And you know what we do them. We do it
for our sponsors. Thanks to our friends from Deep Eddie
for sponsoring this episode of The Happy half Hour. You
too can be a part of the action by entering
the Deep Eddies Sweet SIPs Sweepstakes. There it is, I
(00:36):
am getting better and better at there.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
To start saying it five times fast, like Sally sells
sea shells.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
By the time it's easy for you to say. It's
not like Sweet Sip sweep steaks. You can join all
the fun by entering the Sweet Sip Sweepstakes between now
and October twenty six. Come up with your custom cocktail
using Deep Eddie Vodka and you could win a fabulous
prize package which includes two tots to the November ninth
Saints game, access to the one Carolina Sweet and all
(01:04):
the private deep Eddy Sweet swag that comes with that.
It's going to be a good.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Time some deep Eddy Sweet swag.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, we got to work on that. I'll do anything
just about for free booze and the T and a
T shirt. But that has been my custom in life.
Thanks to our friends at Deep Edty for hooking us
up with that. And it's going to be a good
time for everybody on November ninth. And if it's kind
of like that game yesterday, it's definitely going to be
a good time for everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, buddy, that was a ride. Wasn't it? A seventeen
o deficit? To come back from that matches the biggest
comeback in franchise history, which I think it has now
been done four times.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Four times.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, And what a day. I mean, so many things
to talk about. Where do you even want to start.
Let's throw a dart at the board and pick one.
Rico Dowdle two hundred and thirty four all purpose yards
incredible day. Two hundred and six rushing yards, which ties
him with Jonathan Stewart for the second best single game
rushing performance in French history. His all purpose scrimmageyards Trail's
(02:03):
only Christian McCaffrey, who had a pair of two hundred
and thirty seven yard performances. Quite a day from Ricoda.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Pretty good collection of names. Pattle is now among.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And I think the single game rushing he only trails.
He and Jonathan Stewart now only trailed the Angela Williams.
What's going to be fun now is what happens when
Cheba Hubbard is healthy again. And you know, Dave kind
of said today like it's a good problem to have,
it's the Champagne problem. Well, when you've got two backs,
it can be done. You see the Detroit Lions doing
(02:34):
it right now with Jamar Gibbs and David Montgomery.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And again we've seen it here. Yeah, Angelo and Jonathan
each went for eleven hundred yards in two thousand and eight.
We've seen it here to a lesser degree with Deontay
Foreman and Cuba Hubbard during his younger years. So I mean,
working those two guys in tandem is a thing that
can be done. But one of the things that's the
reality of this situation is it's really hard to play
(02:58):
seventeen games of professional football in and Cuba missing a
little time with that calf injuries just that's why Rico
Dowdle's here, because Dave Canalis has made running the ball
central to what they want to do. So have a
couple thousand yard backs so that you can seriously say
this is what we're about, no matter what happens. And
yesterday was a perfect example. I mean, if you're not starting,
(03:21):
you're just talking about opportunity, and when Rico got his,
he definitely made the most of it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And I think what is what we saw yesterday as well,
is because Rico had kind of been spelling Cuba here
and there, and they were trading off series during the
first few weeks, you really saw what Rico brings differently
than Cuba. They're both so so good at what they
do in their own right, but they do do they
do have a little bit of a different game. Cuba
is so good between the tackles, straight up the middle.
(03:48):
That's really where he kind of makes his bread and butter.
Rico's a little better like that outside zone stuff, and
that's really where That's how he got a thousand yards
at Dallas last year, is kind of bouncing outside and
you saw him do that a lot yesterday. They had
a lot of success running to the right, which Dave
Canal has kind of, you know, really praised Brady Christiansen,
(04:09):
Taylor Moten today and Rico even got to a point
where he was asking for certain plays that would do that,
and he tore one off just open the second half
with a fifty three yard rush that was a very
particular It was a He asked Brad Ezack and Dave
Canalis to call that play, and Dave said he told
him like, okay, well I'm gonna call it early. You
better be ready, and he was, and that's exactly what
(04:31):
it was.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It was.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It was a pitch he ran outside. He told us
last night, he said, you know, that was a lot
of like inside zone stuff that kind of bounces out.
He's like that, don't really run that here and or
they had not in the past, just because that's not
necessarily Cuba's game.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But you kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Saw how you could balance these two guys when Cuba
is back and have them both running the offense at
the same time, maybe even on the field at the
same time.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And I think more important than and the play itself
or whether it's inside you know, all the football jargon
that people like to use in times like this, The
reality is being able to run is the most important
part of this because as you saw, I mean there
were early turnovers again, just like the Arizona game, got
in an unfortunate early hole, and instead of being down
(05:22):
seventeen to nothing and saying, oh my god, we have
to throw, we have to get caught up in a hurry,
they just did normal football. And I love the way
Dave Canalis talks about we got back to our normal football.
What does normal football mean? Normal means running the ball.
And yes, I am aware, I'm a very old person.
All of my football references are old. I refer to
(05:43):
old people who used to do this one hundred years ago.
But it works, and I just love it so much
because if you can play old man football, if you
can keep chains moving just by running the ball, I
mean really, I mean, with all due respect to everybody
involved in that back, the thing they needed while down
seventeen was the stability that came with just turned around,
(06:06):
handing it to Rico and letting him grind off a
couple first downs in a row. Because when you're in
that moment, what you need is to breathe, what you
need is to extend a drive, a little bit give
the defense a chance to breathe and just stay in
that normal mode where it has such a stabilizing effect
on both sides of the ball that that's why so
(06:27):
many people throughout the history of football, me included, believe
that's still the basis of any successful offense is being
able to get a first down without throwing it all
over the yard.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
After the second turnover, and they were down I think
seventeen nothing the drive when the offense came back out
on the field, they rent The first five plays of
that drive were a run. And Rico talked about it
last night and said that said to me that Dave
still trusted us to get back in this game, and
(06:58):
he trusted me to do my it, and so it did.
It's it to your point. It helped settle them down.
It helped keep the game plan going. It also sent
a message, hey, we're down seventeen. Oh it's still really
really early in this game. We can get back into this.
And the way we get back into it is just
keep I almost said, keep pounding, unironically, keep pounding at
(07:23):
it play by play, get back into it. Don't let
one play bleed into the next. Just kind of go
with our game plan and it worked.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And by the way, twenty second time out, that's gonna
take way longer than twenty seconds because it's Darren soapbox time.
How cool was that Melanie Mills had to keep pounding drum,
the widow of Sam Mills, the man who said the
words themselves, His widow was here in the end zone
before the game, hitting the keep pounding drum, surrounded by
Panthers legends, I mean, Mike Rocker and all those dudes
(07:53):
were down there with her, and it was really I
still and I mean, I'm sitting here and it's not
just because it's forty five degrees in this studio. I'm
sitting here with chills because having talked to so many
of the guys who were around for the original version
of that speech, Sam's whole thing was, it's not just
persevering through hard times. It's not just pushing when that's
(08:16):
the only thing you know how to do. It's doing
it for the guide next to you, and it's being
surrounded by people who are doing it for each other.
So I mean, and maybe it's just me and I've
spent a good third of my life telling the Sam
Mills story over and over as often as anybody wants
to hear it. But it was super cool to see
that happening in Melanie, surrounded by everybody in that end zone,
(08:38):
making that happen a super cool moment for so many
people in this.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Stadium, and then for that to be the game where
it happened at too, where they kind of epitomized that
exact mindset.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
It's almost like the universe was talking to us and
we should just listen sometimes. But it was super cool.
Now we get back to the football. I mean we
talked about then and stabilizing things. The reality was they
found themselves in another hole that they had to get
out of, and Bryce turned it over and they were
(09:08):
very clear, they've got to clean that stuff up. They
can't have the early turnovers and Bryce making those two
mistakes early on got them in that mode. But I
think Bryce also deserves a ton of credit for getting
them out of that hole. I loved. I loved one
of my favorite little moments from that postgame locker room.
I was talking to Derek Brown, and Derek is not
(09:31):
a guy who is really into hyperbole, right, Derek is
not a guy. He is not here to advance your narrative.
He's just telling you exactly what he believes happened in
the way he saw it. And I asked him about
those situations and he was like, listen, man, he's getting
to be where he wants to be. He said, he
(09:53):
walks to me after the second turnover when he threw
the pick. He said, he walks up to me straight
on the sidelines and said, go get it back for
me and we'll go. And I think everybody thinks of Bryce,
says press conference Bryce, because he's super excited, he's super grateful,
all those things. But Bryce has got a little salt
about him in those situations on the field and amongst
(10:15):
his teammates. I think you saw a little bit of
it in that miked up clip that we had last night,
where you see a little bit of that coming out,
that swagger, whatever you want to call it. Bryce has
got more of that than I think a lot of
people who only see press conferences believe to be the case.
But for a Derek Brown to stand there and say
(10:36):
we believe he's going to do this, that matters because
as they build this thing around players, and Dave Canalys
has talked over and over about wanting it to be
player led. Having a Bryce showing and a Derek Brown
having that conversation rather than having a coach jump on
Bryce and say you can't do that, you can't do that,
you gotta do this, you gotta do that. Those two
(10:58):
are solving the problem themselves. That's part A, but part
B is Bryce began to deal. I mean, down seventeen
to nothing, Yes, they ran the ball well, but he
solved a lot of problems with that touchdown pass to XL.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, because everyone felt like a weight was lifted off.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Of a lot of people. I mean both of those
guys on either end of that play, but also Dave Canalis,
you know, Dan Morgan and a lot of people because
XL getting back into the flow of this was a
thing they believed was gonna happen, but until they saw
it happen. And I mean, I just loved the throw
because Bryce Bryce. It was one of those where he
threw it before XL broke to it. Yeah, and it
(11:37):
was an anticipation throw and he was counting on his big,
fast guy being at the right place at the right
time and then catching it. Guess what he did.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And you know, most people credit to the announcer who
called this out during the game too. So much fun
to go back and watch the game too and listen
to Eric Collins, thank you, I was blanking.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Listen Eric Collins did mix in. They're hanging on like
a cat on a screen door and the only thing
we were missing was del Curry going, yeah, they are.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It was fun to listen to him to it. A
lot of times. A quarterback in that situation, especially if
you go back and watch what X was doing on
that play, would have thrown it towards the back corner.
He really that was an anticipation throw, and that was
a trust throw to trust that Laguet was gonna come
out and get his hands out and a moment of
(12:29):
credit for Excel too. He's put a lot of work
in to get better at the hand catches because he
kind of came in being a body catch guy. That
was a pure hands catch in the ends on yesterday.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And we've talked about before. I mean X he's not
quite to that Cuba Hubbard level, but he's a jugs
machine guy now. And that began after the Philadelphia game
last year when he went to hang with Cuba and
to fix what he believed is a problem. And you
heard so many versions of that in that post game
locker room of we see the work he's put into this,
(13:03):
we know how seriously he takes this.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, and then back to just the point about Bryce
kind of dealing two huge fourth down plays in the
game yesterday, one of them to t Mac earlier in
the game that was on the drive with the with
the lyget touchdown, broke free from a would be sack,
thought he was gonna run. Everybody in the in the stadium,
including myself, thought he was gonna run.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
He didn't.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He set himself up with two guys coming right at
him and to get that ball off down to Tea
Mac down the sideline and trust and trust him to
kind of pull that catch in with a guy on him.
That kept that drive moving and then they were able
to score. And that that was when the fourth down
was right, yeah, fourth and fourth y yeah, yeah, yeah,
and they were able to score start their comeback and
(13:49):
then uh the drive the final go ahead touchdown to
Mitchell Evans. That drive got extended because of a fourth
down play to Jimmy Horn. How cool for Jimmy Horn
in his first game to have that and the trust,
the placement and everything from Bryce. That drive also had
a great play from Bryce to Loget. That was his
second catch of the day where it get kind of
(14:11):
broke free from Russell Douglas, a veteran smart player and
Leaguett saw a soft spot and kind of broke free
from it and Bryce found him there took it. Bryce
took a hit as he threw that ball to He
knew he was going to take a hit and stood
in there and got it off. So, yes, two bad turnovers.
Bryce would be the first to tell you that he was,
(14:31):
like you said, he got them back into it as well. Yeah,
no doubt, And that doesn't take anything away from what
ric o'dowdell did.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And while you talked about Bryce standing in the pocket
and taking a hit, I took a hit another hit
off this day Monday, because Mondays are late nights followed
by early mornings and long days.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I was downstairs earlier and as one does when J. J.
Jansen is there, you get pulled into a fun conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
But I said like coffee machine.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, And I was like, what are you doing? And
he goes, I'm going home, And he goes, what are
you doing? And I said, I'm settling in, buddy, because
I just got here, that's right. And he was like,
why did you just get here? And I said, mondays
are weird days.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, they tend to last a long time, and so
they're brought to you by our good friend caffeine never fails.
But anyway, no, I mean to that point, Bryce deserves
a lot of credit because a he kept plays alive.
He stood in the pocket a couple times and took
some shots, and it was a hard situation and I
think he needed to prove that he was capable of
(15:27):
that to a lot of people, even though a lot
of those guys in the locker room talk over and
over about how much they believe that's what he's got
in him. So at the same time, this stood as
proof of concept, okay, and it stood as proof of
concept for a lot of people. It wasn't just Bryce,
it was the fact you could run. And I think structurally,
(15:49):
I just love the fact that on that last drive
you had three plays coming down the stretch going to
guys who were drafted on the third day of this
year's draft. I mean Jimmy Horne, the touchdown driver. Yeah,
the final touchdown drive you had Mitchell Evans, your fifth
round pick, catching the game winning touchdown. You had Jimmy Ebb,
Jimmy Horn, the sixth round pick who hadn't even been
(16:11):
active for a game yet, catching that huge fourth down play.
But even after Rico left the game to go chug
pickle juice on the sideline because he had a cramp,
Trevor Etn comes in and rips off a couple of
runs to keep that thing moving.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So we had a huge first down run right to
get them to the four yard line on that drive.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So when you think about what this the global what
it means having draft picks produce, having those rookies who
you talk about trusting, stepping up and earning that trust
and showing you why you should trust them, it was
just all good things for the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Darren, Yes, I'm gonna I know comparison is the thief
of joy. Uh oh, but I'm going to compare this.
This match just shot me a look. I think he's
scared about what I'm going to say. I know that
there's always talk like we can't help as the human
people to look back. We use history to explain our
present time. I was thinking about this last night, and
(17:11):
I was sitting there kind of watching back some of
the game and thinking through and thinking about the fact
that they came back from seventeen nothing twenty twenty three.
Before I came here, I was covering the Packers that year.
That was Jordan Love's first year as a starting quarterback,
but he had obviously played some before that, so a
little bit different than Bryce, who has been the starter
since he's been here. But I started thinking, I was like, man,
(17:33):
this season feels eerily similar to that twenty twenty three
Packers team, just because during training camp you could tell
they had so many pieces and so many young pieces,
but you could also tell they were gonna have some
growing pains to go through. They had a thirty something
win in the first couple of weeks, they had a
close loss, and then they had a game at home
(17:57):
that where they got into a seventeen oh hole and
came back and won that game, and then lost the
next couple but fought back into that season as a
wild card. And I'm not saying that's what's going to happen,
but that seventeen oh game where they came back and
won was dependent on a lot of rookies, and that's
when you finally started to see, like some of the
(18:18):
things that you saw in training camp that were possible
really start to click with Jordan Love and his rookies.
And you saw the pass rush on that Packer's defense
really kind of find it scroove in that win as well.
And sitting there, like I said, watching the game last night,
and I was like, man, this feels like that Packer
Saints game where they want they came back and won
that game.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
See, that's the kind of football expertise you only get
from CASTIDG. Hill of cancer dot com. Let me tell
you about the football expertise of Castig Hill of characters
dot com. Oh my gosh, you know what.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I know what he's about to say, and then I
have a counterpoint.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
In this is a quick another twenty second time out
that's going to turn into a longer story. She plays
fantasy football here in the league with some friends that
I'm not a part of. She told me before the
game she had to make a couple of tough decisions.
She decided to play manager. Does yeah, she had. She
decided to play Justin Fields at quarterback this week because
(19:10):
she thought he had a favorable match up against a
Cowboys defense that hadn't done well in terms of fantasy points.
And uh, And I said, well that's a bold call.
Who are you benching to make way for Justin Fields?
Tell the people.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Patrick Mahomes, which could still work in my favor, because
I'm interested to see what he does tonight.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Naturally, right as one does.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You've bench a how many time MVP who has just
or a Justin Field? Garrett Wilson, Again, fantasy football not
real football, but there is not a world.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You a piece of advice yesterday, though that was so
bad that I will never take fantasy football advice from
him again.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
He's probably a good idea.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I made a what I thought was a smart manager
choice to start David Montgomery and camp' skataboo, which meant
Derrick Henry went to the bench, and Aaron made so
much fun of me he bullied me into switching that,
and I started Derrick Henry and I benched David Montgomery,
and Buddy, was that the wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I didn't tell you to bench David Montgomery. That's crazy.
Only an idiot would do that. You got a Derrick Henry,
you play a Derrick Henry. You got a running game.
You trust your run game. You got a.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Quarterback, gotta almost you got a quarterback.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Who can make plays downfield. You trust that guy to
make those plays. It's almost thematic and it's like we've
brought this back around to the top. But anyway, now,
there was so much good stuff yesterday, and we'll get
into it later when we catch you guys on Thursday.
Getting into this Dallas.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Game moment for the pass rush though too, no doubt,
I mean three sacks, nine tackles for loss.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yep, wow. And just run defense in general, nineteen yards.
I was talking to some of the guys in locker
room today the run defense last year, we can't. I mean,
it's completely different than it was last year. But when
you think about a team that gave up two hundred
yards a game on the ground for six straight games
to close season, it was not great. And they went
(21:02):
out and brought in a bunch of people because they
knew they had to change it. But it has changed.
Nineteen yards allowed on the ground to the Miami Dolphins,
which it doesn't matter who you're playing against, nineteen yards
rushing that team is not going to win very many games.
Second fewest in a single game in franchise history, behind
the fifteen fourteen fifteen fourteen they allowed to Washington in
(21:25):
twenty fifteen. So I mean, just an all around good day.
Pass rush got loosened up. As you mentioned, run defense
was great and continues to get better week after week.
They see that thing stabilizing, and again, it's kind of
that proof concept. You see all those little elements that
we've been talking about all off season, and Sunday a
(21:46):
lot of those things came together at once.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
They're in the top fifteen. And rush defense now, which
is a nineteen yard game, will help with that.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
But which, again, for those of you who are around
for last season, that's just bananas, but it it's very real.
The Carolina Panthers are are working on something here. And
it's just not to say I don't want to harsh
anybody's mellow, damping anybody's enthusiasm. Enjoy your deep eddy and
celebrate with your friends, because you should. These chances are rare.
(22:14):
You should enjoy them. But yesterday was that day when
some of those little threads started coming together and turning
into something greater. So it'll be interesting to see how
they build on it. Here's the other cool part. They
get to build on it right here in this building again.
Sunday Dallas Cowboys come into town. Yeah, don't make don't
(22:35):
make me tell another Sam Mill's story about what happened
before that Dallas Cowboys playoff game. I will tell that
story over and over again. Serious a story. Pull a string.
Pull a string in Darren's back and watch him go
for the next fifteen minutes. So at any rate, four
Melanie meals and everybody who was surrounding that keep pounding
drum for all the fans out in the stands who
(22:56):
enjoyed a super cool day. I mean just seeing the
videos of people out there listening to Sweet Caroline having
themselves the time. That was good. Thanks to our friends
at Deep Betty, Thanks to Cassiy Matt behind the board.
Our duck friend right here, Chuck, he's good luck. Now
we'll call him Chuck the Duck in honor of JJ
Janssen's hockey team where they chuck a puck. That just
came to me. You were talking about JJ, So are smarty?
(23:17):
I know, right? At any rate, Thanks to everybody, We'll
see you Thursday on the Happy Half Hour.
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