December 8, 2025 • 18 mins
This week on the Happy Half Hour, Darin and Kassidy recap the Saints-Bucs game, react to the Panthers being in 1st place in the NFC South, preview this weekend's game against the Saints and so much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Half Hour. Hello friends, Flice, Novi Dodd. Look at
that the tree. It's festive in addition to all the
other things. It's Victory Monday us. Why not sure? The
Carolina Panthers did not play football yesterday. It remains victory
Monday thanks to their friends in New Orleans who took
(00:22):
care of business down in Tampa Bay. And now, all
of a sudden, ladies and gentlemen, your Carolina Panthers are
tied for first place in the NFC South with four
to play. We're gonna break it all down for you
on this episode of The Happy Half Hour, brought to
you by our friends at Deep Eddie Vodkain. Look how
happy this is. This is a scene from Charlie Brown
Christmas right there, it really is. It's You've got our
(00:45):
It's practically woodstock sitting on top of that bottle of
Deep Eddie. That's Chuck the Duck. He's an old friend
of the show. It's you know where it's beginning to
feel a lot like Christmas in some places. But it's
just victory Monday here. It's all football, all the time.
Bonus Monday and your Carolina pan.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Anytime you can win, your bye week, that's a that's
a good bye week. And that's essentially what happened for
the Panthers this week because they kind of won in
a couple of ways, like stick with me here. They
won in the obvious way in that the Saints beat
the Bucks, and so now the Panthers, like you said,
are tied for first in the division. They also got
a really really good look at the two teams they
(01:22):
have to beat over the next four weeks if they
want to stay in that spot. Dave Canalis was funny today.
He was like, I got he said, I usually try
to watch games if I'm able to just watch a
game instead of film. He's like, it usually started to
try to still watch it just to you know, watch
the ball, and he said, I got a little emotional
watching that game yesterday. He's like it's hard not to
(01:44):
because you know, he knew what was at stake. And
then the guys in the locker room are really interesting
talking about it as well, because they were like, you know,
we kind of got an unfettered look at these two
teams that we're gonna have to face, and you know,
Christian rose Boom was like, yeah, of course, it's always
a little easier on the IP because you can pause
and you can really look at stuff. But they were
able to see the full game, not just through x'es
(02:06):
and o's, but also just kind of the the moxie.
I guess you could say that the New Orleans Saints
have been playing with the past couple of weeks and
the fight that they have, and you know, Turk Wharton,
nixt Gohrton, they all kind of made the comment like
it was it was good to see that. And remember,
this is a team that walked in here week ten
and handed the Panthers a loss seventeen to seven loss
(02:29):
in there on home stadium, and it was good to
kind of be reminded of that and to see how
tough the Saints are playing and keep that in mind
as they begin preparations and get into the logistics of
the x'es and o's this week.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, that Tyler Schuck boy, he's got something going on.
And I said that with the confidence of a man
who learned how to pronounce his last name five weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You need to be very careful how you pronounced it.
I got to give credit to the Saints too, for
leaning into his name some of their tweets yesterday were
cracking me up. The best one with him walking off
the field like be like, yeah, it came into Tampa
and shucked things up. Oh, I'm like, Okay, that's a
good one. That's a good one. Tip the hat to that.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
That one can go down a lot of bad roads.
You can get yourself into travel with Tyler jokes in
a hurry.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Nick s Gorton told us back before weeke ten, he
was like, I trained with this kid. He's like, y'all
and well, he's not even a kid. He's twenty six
years old. He's like, y'all need to watch out for Tyler,
like he's a he's a good little quarterback. And they've
certainly started to rally around him the past couple of weeks.
It's gonna make it a much more interesting matchup on
Sunday than I think we thought it would be a
few weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And we'll get it more
into the Saints later in the week. Unlike last week
when I promised a second edition, you know, I forgot
that there was this thing called Thanksgiving the other week.
We never got around to that one. But uh where
we'll be back for you later this week to get
deeper into the Saints portion of this thing. But one
of the things, sorry we jumped an That's that's the
(04:00):
beauty of this podcast. It's such a well planned podcast.
It's all right here in the hieroglyphics.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
But he did yell at me for not reading this
thing right before we started.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
That's right, that there's important stuff in here. You've just
got to know it all to to. We put a
breakdown of the playoff permutations on Panthers dot com earlier today.
We do it so you don't have to. The short
version of this all is the New Orleans Saints this
week is the most important game of them all because
it's the one this week. And that's the thing football
(04:30):
people always say. And I know football players and coaches
can't buy into this, but I know you people, our fans,
our listeners, our consumers are our friends. Really, it's we're
all family here. People are very interested. The short version
of this is this is all going to come down
to three games. It's going to come down to Saints
(04:51):
Panthers this week, Falcons, Bucks on Thursday night and a
couple of Bucks Panthers games and when you've got the
team you're tied with twice. You know right now they
haven't played head to head. Second tiebreaker's division. They're both
sitting there at two and one, so that one's tied.
The third tiebreaker is actually common games, so you get
into the games they played against the NFC West and
(05:12):
AFC East, and in that one, the Bucks have an
advantage for now, but they've each got a game to
be played because Panthers still got Seattle, Bucks still got Miami.
The Bucks are ahead by a game and that tiebreaker
at the moment, but if Carolina Panthers beat Seattle in
week seventeen and then the Bucks lose, then you're tied
(05:36):
there again. Then it goes down to conference record. At
the moment, the Panthers are a half game ahead of
the Bucks and that one. Then you go to strength
the victory, which is a Panthers advantage because they've got
a better grade of wins than the Bucks do as
his present, because of the Packers in the Rams and
more wins against teams that are in that six to
(05:57):
seven win stripe like Dallas, other than just a bunch
of threes and fours, which is a long way of
saying go beat the Bucks.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I was about to say, you know, I'm about to
pull a Dare in here and be like, none of
this matters if you just take care of your games
against the Buck that's right.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And that's the thing. I really don't like doing math.
Ask her if she enjoys doing math.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
There was no way I was ever going to do
that story that went up today.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Actually a little bit of longhand math is not the
worst thing in my world because if I can, you know,
if I can get out my pencil in piece paper
and make it make sense, that that feels good every
now and then.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But you appreciate math and theory, that doesn't mean I
can do it.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That doesn't mean you want to do it or want
to sign up for it. But no, the reality is
having those two games against the Bucks is huge because
that's where this division is going to be decided, and
so much, so much has been made of the improvement
this team that has made over the course of the year.
But Canalis talked about it today and he said, it's
(06:55):
easy to get guys attention because they see what's right
there in front of them. I mean, the old idea,
and I loved it. Canalis got into Dad mode today.
He was dropping some of that Dad wisdom today. He
even said the words out loud, how you'll do anythings,
how you'll do everything, And I just was like, yeah,
Dad mode activate.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I was like, oh, mark that one off on the
Bengo board, but I've had that one yet this year.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
That's right. I mean, it's such a classic of Dad wisdom,
you know, and it applies to cleaning the garage or
playing the Buccaneers for the NFC South title. Having that thing,
you know what, it just made me think of what's.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
At that trip that I'm gonna call it a field
trip that he took them on last year to the
Hendrick motorspops.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Hendrick Motorsports and the guy cleaning up the grease. Yeah,
those guys were the most immaculately detailed people and he
took them on that trip on purpose because a they're
super successful at what they do and to that point.
But right now, I mean, and he said it, it's
right there in front of us. If you miss the
lesson right now, what are.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You even doing paying attention?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You ain't paying attention, But because the stakes are there,
and it's been such a minute since the Carolina Panthers
have played these games with stakes. As we've talked about before.
Twenty two had a playoff run the game out here
against the Lions when it was minus a million degrees
outside or twenty I don't know. Oh, and they run
(08:19):
for three to twenty against the Lions and Ben Johnson's offense.
That was a memorable game. But everybody knew there was
a coaching search coming on the back side of it,
and everything was interim at that point, most of the
players and the coaches too. So this one feels so
different for these guys, and because it's such a new team,
because it's so fresh, because it's such a young team,
(08:40):
these guys are kind of coming at this thing clean,
you know, and there aren't that many people who are
around from the twenty two games to begin with. And
because his team's so young, it feels fresh. And again,
just walking through the locker room today, you can sense
that excitement in there for what's in front of them.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
And on that note too, I think it you got
to give credit to Dan Morgan for being very intentional
about who he brought in over the past two offseasons.
Because Turk Wharton said today, you know, he's been on
teams that have played these sort of meaningful games at
this point of the year, the first four years for
his career playing with the Kansas City Chiefs, And he said,
(09:18):
you know, and there's a guy two lockers down from
a Mayshawn Robinson that's kind of been in the same position.
A lot of guys here that won Super Bowls, won
a Super Bowl with the Rams, obviously, like we said,
Turk who's run won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs
a couple of times. And so you don't have guys
that have been here doing it for the Panthers before.
I mean, Derek Brown is from twenty two still, j C.
(09:40):
Horn also, you know, Brady Christensen, guys like that. But
Brady's not playing point being that Dan was very very
intentional about who he brought in here across the multitude
of levels. Of course, what they do on the field
is going to be the biggest part of it, but
what they bring to the locker room was also a
big part of it. He told us that when they
brought these guys in here, you're starting to see it
pay off right now. Because Turk said he kind of
(10:03):
stood up in his position room this morning and was like, guys,
I've been in these games. I've been in these December
games where everything's in front of you, and this is
where you know, the rubber meets the road and you
have to really lock in. He said. He kind of
just gave a speech to his whole unit, and then
Canalis echoed it in the team meeting, and that's where
you might not have the experience of doing this in
(10:26):
a panther's helmet, but you still have that experience in
the locker room. And those are the guys that are
stepping up right now.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, no doubt. And I did a math here. It
is exactly eight dudes on this roster right now who
are around for those twenty two games that started to matter. Yep, dB, yep,
JJ Jansen, Uh huh, he's been here for a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, it was an easy one. That was a gimme.
J c Horn Yep, Brady, Well, he's on ir okay, Tommy.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Tommy Cuba. Yeah, the class of twenty two, how many
am I at? You're at five right now, So I
got three. I'll give you a hint. It's Taylor Mote
and Austin Corbett, Nikkiakwana it's a lot of offensive linemen
on that list, so you know, again, that's kind of
(11:16):
those guys. They've been here, they've seen some things. And
it was funny after the Rams game the other week
talking to Austin about it because he was on that
Rams Super Bowl team comes here to build something and
then is in the position of okay, now we're this close.
Now you can feel it. That's why guys get so
emotional about this stuff because the guys who have been
(11:38):
here through that and then the getting back up to
this point, it means a lot to them. They've got
skin in this game.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, and that's what you want it to be. Football
is Oh gosh. I could never say this word right,
and I would have just said it with confidence. However,
but I can feel you getting ready to make fun
of me. I'm here cyclical.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That cyclically is exactly right. And by the way, I
reject that, I am here to support you. I always
have been.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Is that the truth?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
You know? Every now and in you say something home
school issh, and I have to call it to everyone's
attention because I'm kind of a bully sometimes I've.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Been Football's thick clickle. Yeah, it is because think about
even just something as simple as who are the top
teams in the NFL right now? In your opinion?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I mean, the Rams are still that team.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Rams, Broncos, Patriots.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
When was the last time those teams were really really relevant?
About ten years ago?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It's been a minute for some time, yes, And I.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Think you could argue the same for the Panthers. And
so it comes in waves, and the important thing is
being able to catch it when it comes back your
way and knowing what to do with it, and they're
definitely learning how to do that. Does that mean that
they're about to go on a playoff rut this year?
I don't know. But they've taken on the lessons that
have been presented to them and they've they've passed some
(12:57):
of them, they have not passed others been but they've
been able to bounce back from it. To me, no
matter what happens the rest of the four games this year,
it makes me very excited to see what happens next season.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, I mean, and I know I'm looking ahead, but
that's because it is a building team. It is a
young team. It's a team that was put together intentionally,
as you said, for stuff like this I mean having
so many fresh faces around here was absolutely on purpose
and in the way they build it. So it's it
is a good sign for what's to come. Speaking of
(13:29):
good signs, we walked out on that practice field a
little bit today and rain and cold and friends, it
is cold. Yeah, it is cold. It was practically snowing.
It was feeding.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
At one point it was actually sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
There is stuff I will call snow. Whether Brad Panovitch
recognizes it or not, it felt snowy to me. Charlotte
snow dog on it. It was a Charlotte blizzard out there.
The Carolina Panthers practiced anyway, and every dudes run around.
Christian Roseboom was out there feeling good again.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
J C.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Horn claud chair. Let's still in a concussion protocol, but
Canalis said they were trending toward getting back out there.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
They're able to do individual stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
There were dudes out there running around, and that's a
good thing.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
There was I'm trying to think there were more people
than that too. Who else was out there.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Well, I mean Claude and JC let me pull it,
let me do it.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, we said that one.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Oh tramon Merrick's back. He was suspended. I mean that
was that was not a injury absence. That was just
it was not an injury to him anyway. But yeah,
Cade mays, there you go. There's the other one I
was fishing for. So getting guys back on the field
starts to stabilize things. That's the other great thing a
(14:40):
week awful do for you.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, Lathan Ransom wasn't able to practice, but you know,
he's still kind of coming back from that hand. We
saw Robert hunt over in the return to play area,
still not quite there where they want him to be yet,
but trending in such a way where it's not out
of the realm of possibility to see him back this season,
which is just incredible to say given the injury. So yeah,
(15:03):
exciting this. A lot of guys even made this comment
today that when the schedule first came out and they
saw week fourteen by they were like, are you kidding me?
Week fourteen?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And they were like, now, sitting here where we are now,
it came at the perfect time. You had just kind
of a string of defensive injuries right there, and to
have a week to get healthy to bounce back right
before you make arguably the most important stretch of your
schedule in front of you. It was very fortuitous.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, it was. Speaking of fortuitous, a break is good
for everybody. I don't know about you, but I'm as
fresh as a daisy right now. Are you really as
fresh as you're gonna be? Fifteen?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
If you were a sarcastic or not, I actually felt great.
I was excited to get back in here today. I
texted Darren this on Saturday. I believe it was, because
again I'm not sure. At one point on what turned
out to be Saturday, I literally asked myself, what day
is it? Because I had no idea. I had to
go find my I had to go find my phone,
which I didn't even know where that was either. Yeah,
(16:06):
So I go pull my phone out from a couch
cushion and looked at it. The phone could have said Friday, Saturday,
or Sunday and nothing would have surprised me. Yeah, because
I had no concept of what the time was. And
that's what you know. It was a very refreshing time.
Excited to get back on here because this next month
is going to be a sprint. But this is what
you do it for.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, you know what I got into a situation wife
and I took a couple of days, went up to
the mountains, just kind of chilled for a little bit,
didn't do a lot of work. And I get she
tells me, I get twitchy at a certain point there.
She's like, I can tell when I'm losing you. Like
around July fifteenth, She's like, no more vacations, Darren's done,
he's in training camp Mudd, He's ready to go. She
(16:47):
was like, I can tell when you're no longer with
me and you just need to go back to work
and do the thing. I was able to hold that
off until about last night when I started sketching out
some of these tiebreakers scenario.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
But that was me yesterday when I like forced myself
to not do anything for a couple of days, just
caught up on TV, you know, really important things. And
then yesterday I was sitting there watching games and I
was like, I could be getting work done, and so
knocked out a couple of stories ahead of time, just
to get ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And yeah, see this is why I like this one.
She's she works hard, she's always into it, she's ready
to go.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I watched enough TV to get me by I was like,
I got to get back to work.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, it's that time, and it is definitely time to
get back to work. So keep it like on the
Panthers dot com again. We've got your helpful playoff simulator.
Sure not, I don't know simulator explainer. How about that
explainer per primer that'll work? Your playoff primer is sitting
(17:48):
there on Panthers dot com all the latest from Monday.
You got a cool story coming about just the dudes
watching it on TV and what NFL players are like
when they're reduced to fans, and so that that's all
good stuff. Keeping locked on the YouTube channel Panthers dot
com from the next couple of days. As his team
ramps up and starts having stakes, we're gonna have more
stuff coming your way. So it's that way for us
(18:10):
to We appreciate you guys joining us, Thank you for
the thank you for being here for this episode of
the very Festive Happy Half Hour presented by our friends
Deep Betty, and we'll see you later on this week
Happy Half Hour. Hello friends, Flice, Novi Dodd. Look at
that the tree. It's festive in addition to all the
other things. It's Victory Monday us. Why not sure? The
Carolina Panthers did not play football yesterday. It remains victory
Monday thanks to their friends in New Orleans who took
(00:22):
care of business down in Tampa Bay. And now, all
of a sudden, ladies and gentlemen, your Carolina Panthers are
tied for first place in the NFC South with four
to play. We're gonna break it all down for you
on this episode of The Happy Half Hour, brought to
you by our friends at Deep Eddie Vodkain. Look how
happy this is. This is a scene from Charlie Brown
Christmas right there, it really is. It's You've got our
(00:45):
It's practically woodstock sitting on top of that bottle of
Deep Eddie. That's Chuck the Duck. He's an old friend
of the show. It's you know where it's beginning to
feel a lot like Christmas in some places. But it's
just victory Monday here. It's all football, all the time.
Bonus Monday and your Carolina pan.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Anytime you can win, your bye week, that's a that's
a good bye week. And that's essentially what happened for
the Panthers this week because they kind of won in
a couple of ways, like stick with me here. They
won in the obvious way in that the Saints beat
the Bucks, and so now the Panthers, like you said,
are tied for first in the division. They also got
a really really good look at the two teams they
(01:22):
have to beat over the next four weeks if they
want to stay in that spot. Dave Canalis was funny today.
He was like, I got he said, I usually try
to watch games if I'm able to just watch a
game instead of film. He's like, it usually started to
try to still watch it just to you know, watch
the ball, and he said, I got a little emotional
watching that game yesterday. He's like it's hard not to
(01:44):
because you know, he knew what was at stake. And
then the guys in the locker room are really interesting
talking about it as well, because they were like, you know,
we kind of got an unfettered look at these two
teams that we're gonna have to face, and you know,
Christian rose Boom was like, yeah, of course, it's always
a little easier on the IP because you can pause
and you can really look at stuff. But they were
able to see the full game, not just through x'es
(02:06):
and o's, but also just kind of the the moxie.
I guess you could say that the New Orleans Saints
have been playing with the past couple of weeks and
the fight that they have, and you know, Turk Wharton,
nixt Gohrton, they all kind of made the comment like
it was it was good to see that. And remember,
this is a team that walked in here week ten
and handed the Panthers a loss seventeen to seven loss
(02:29):
in there on home stadium, and it was good to
kind of be reminded of that and to see how
tough the Saints are playing and keep that in mind
as they begin preparations and get into the logistics of
the x'es and o's this week.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, that Tyler Schuck boy, he's got something going on.
And I said that with the confidence of a man
who learned how to pronounce his last name five weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You need to be very careful how you pronounced it.
I got to give credit to the Saints too, for
leaning into his name some of their tweets yesterday were
cracking me up. The best one with him walking off
the field like be like, yeah, it came into Tampa
and shucked things up. Oh, I'm like, Okay, that's a
good one. That's a good one. Tip the hat to that.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
That one can go down a lot of bad roads.
You can get yourself into travel with Tyler jokes in
a hurry.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Nick s Gorton told us back before weeke ten, he
was like, I trained with this kid. He's like, y'all
and well, he's not even a kid. He's twenty six
years old. He's like, y'all need to watch out for Tyler,
like he's a he's a good little quarterback. And they've
certainly started to rally around him the past couple of weeks.
It's gonna make it a much more interesting matchup on
Sunday than I think we thought it would be a
few weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And we'll get it more
into the Saints later in the week. Unlike last week
when I promised a second edition, you know, I forgot
that there was this thing called Thanksgiving the other week.
We never got around to that one. But uh where
we'll be back for you later this week to get
deeper into the Saints portion of this thing. But one
of the things, sorry we jumped an That's that's the
(04:00):
beauty of this podcast. It's such a well planned podcast.
It's all right here in the hieroglyphics.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
But he did yell at me for not reading this
thing right before we started.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
That's right, that there's important stuff in here. You've just
got to know it all to to. We put a
breakdown of the playoff permutations on Panthers dot com earlier today.
We do it so you don't have to. The short
version of this all is the New Orleans Saints this
week is the most important game of them all because
it's the one this week. And that's the thing football
(04:30):
people always say. And I know football players and coaches
can't buy into this, but I know you people, our fans,
our listeners, our consumers are our friends. Really, it's we're
all family here. People are very interested. The short version
of this is this is all going to come down
to three games. It's going to come down to Saints
(04:51):
Panthers this week, Falcons, Bucks on Thursday night and a
couple of Bucks Panthers games and when you've got the
team you're tied with twice. You know right now they
haven't played head to head. Second tiebreaker's division. They're both
sitting there at two and one, so that one's tied.
The third tiebreaker is actually common games, so you get
into the games they played against the NFC West and
(05:12):
AFC East, and in that one, the Bucks have an
advantage for now, but they've each got a game to
be played because Panthers still got Seattle, Bucks still got Miami.
The Bucks are ahead by a game and that tiebreaker
at the moment, but if Carolina Panthers beat Seattle in
week seventeen and then the Bucks lose, then you're tied
(05:36):
there again. Then it goes down to conference record. At
the moment, the Panthers are a half game ahead of
the Bucks and that one. Then you go to strength
the victory, which is a Panthers advantage because they've got
a better grade of wins than the Bucks do as
his present, because of the Packers in the Rams and
more wins against teams that are in that six to
(05:57):
seven win stripe like Dallas, other than just a bunch
of threes and fours, which is a long way of
saying go beat the Bucks.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I was about to say, you know, I'm about to
pull a Dare in here and be like, none of
this matters if you just take care of your games
against the Buck that's right.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And that's the thing. I really don't like doing math.
Ask her if she enjoys doing math.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
There was no way I was ever going to do
that story that went up today.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Actually a little bit of longhand math is not the
worst thing in my world because if I can, you know,
if I can get out my pencil in piece paper
and make it make sense, that that feels good every
now and then.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But you appreciate math and theory, that doesn't mean I
can do it.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That doesn't mean you want to do it or want
to sign up for it. But no, the reality is
having those two games against the Bucks is huge because
that's where this division is going to be decided, and
so much, so much has been made of the improvement
this team that has made over the course of the year.
But Canalis talked about it today and he said, it's
(06:55):
easy to get guys attention because they see what's right
there in front of them. I mean, the old idea,
and I loved it. Canalis got into Dad mode today.
He was dropping some of that Dad wisdom today. He
even said the words out loud, how you'll do anythings,
how you'll do everything, And I just was like, yeah,
Dad mode activate.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I was like, oh, mark that one off on the
Bengo board, but I've had that one yet this year.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
That's right. I mean, it's such a classic of Dad wisdom,
you know, and it applies to cleaning the garage or
playing the Buccaneers for the NFC South title. Having that thing,
you know what, it just made me think of what's.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
At that trip that I'm gonna call it a field
trip that he took them on last year to the
Hendrick motorspops.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Hendrick Motorsports and the guy cleaning up the grease. Yeah,
those guys were the most immaculately detailed people and he
took them on that trip on purpose because a they're
super successful at what they do and to that point.
But right now, I mean, and he said it, it's
right there in front of us. If you miss the
lesson right now, what are.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You even doing paying attention?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You ain't paying attention, But because the stakes are there,
and it's been such a minute since the Carolina Panthers
have played these games with stakes. As we've talked about before.
Twenty two had a playoff run the game out here
against the Lions when it was minus a million degrees
outside or twenty I don't know. Oh, and they run
(08:19):
for three to twenty against the Lions and Ben Johnson's offense.
That was a memorable game. But everybody knew there was
a coaching search coming on the back side of it,
and everything was interim at that point, most of the
players and the coaches too. So this one feels so
different for these guys, and because it's such a new team,
because it's so fresh, because it's such a young team,
(08:40):
these guys are kind of coming at this thing clean,
you know, and there aren't that many people who are
around from the twenty two games to begin with. And
because his team's so young, it feels fresh. And again,
just walking through the locker room today, you can sense
that excitement in there for what's in front of them.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
And on that note too, I think it you got
to give credit to Dan Morgan for being very intentional
about who he brought in over the past two offseasons.
Because Turk Wharton said today, you know, he's been on
teams that have played these sort of meaningful games at
this point of the year, the first four years for
his career playing with the Kansas City Chiefs, And he said,
(09:18):
you know, and there's a guy two lockers down from
a Mayshawn Robinson that's kind of been in the same position.
A lot of guys here that won Super Bowls, won
a Super Bowl with the Rams, obviously, like we said,
Turk who's run won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs
a couple of times. And so you don't have guys
that have been here doing it for the Panthers before.
I mean, Derek Brown is from twenty two still, j C.
(09:40):
Horn also, you know, Brady Christensen, guys like that. But
Brady's not playing point being that Dan was very very
intentional about who he brought in here across the multitude
of levels. Of course, what they do on the field
is going to be the biggest part of it, but
what they bring to the locker room was also a
big part of it. He told us that when they
brought these guys in here, you're starting to see it
pay off right now. Because Turk said he kind of
(10:03):
stood up in his position room this morning and was like, guys,
I've been in these games. I've been in these December
games where everything's in front of you, and this is
where you know, the rubber meets the road and you
have to really lock in. He said. He kind of
just gave a speech to his whole unit, and then
Canalis echoed it in the team meeting, and that's where
you might not have the experience of doing this in
(10:26):
a panther's helmet, but you still have that experience in
the locker room. And those are the guys that are
stepping up right now.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, no doubt. And I did a math here. It
is exactly eight dudes on this roster right now who
are around for those twenty two games that started to matter. Yep, dB, yep,
JJ Jansen, Uh huh, he's been here for a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, it was an easy one. That was a gimme.
J c Horn Yep, Brady, Well, he's on ir okay, Tommy.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Tommy Cuba. Yeah, the class of twenty two, how many
am I at? You're at five right now, So I
got three. I'll give you a hint. It's Taylor Mote
and Austin Corbett, Nikkiakwana it's a lot of offensive linemen
on that list, so you know, again, that's kind of
(11:16):
those guys. They've been here, they've seen some things. And
it was funny after the Rams game the other week
talking to Austin about it because he was on that
Rams Super Bowl team comes here to build something and
then is in the position of okay, now we're this close.
Now you can feel it. That's why guys get so
emotional about this stuff because the guys who have been
(11:38):
here through that and then the getting back up to
this point, it means a lot to them. They've got
skin in this game.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, and that's what you want it to be. Football
is Oh gosh. I could never say this word right,
and I would have just said it with confidence. However,
but I can feel you getting ready to make fun
of me. I'm here cyclical.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That cyclically is exactly right. And by the way, I
reject that, I am here to support you. I always
have been.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Is that the truth?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
You know? Every now and in you say something home
school issh, and I have to call it to everyone's
attention because I'm kind of a bully sometimes I've.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Been Football's thick clickle. Yeah, it is because think about
even just something as simple as who are the top
teams in the NFL right now? In your opinion?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I mean, the Rams are still that team.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Rams, Broncos, Patriots.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
When was the last time those teams were really really relevant?
About ten years ago?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It's been a minute for some time, yes, And I.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Think you could argue the same for the Panthers. And
so it comes in waves, and the important thing is
being able to catch it when it comes back your
way and knowing what to do with it, and they're
definitely learning how to do that. Does that mean that
they're about to go on a playoff rut this year?
I don't know. But they've taken on the lessons that
have been presented to them and they've they've passed some
(12:57):
of them, they have not passed others been but they've
been able to bounce back from it. To me, no
matter what happens the rest of the four games this year,
it makes me very excited to see what happens next season.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, I mean, and I know I'm looking ahead, but
that's because it is a building team. It is a
young team. It's a team that was put together intentionally,
as you said, for stuff like this I mean having
so many fresh faces around here was absolutely on purpose
and in the way they build it. So it's it
is a good sign for what's to come. Speaking of
(13:29):
good signs, we walked out on that practice field a
little bit today and rain and cold and friends, it
is cold. Yeah, it is cold. It was practically snowing.
It was feeding.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
At one point it was actually sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
There is stuff I will call snow. Whether Brad Panovitch
recognizes it or not, it felt snowy to me. Charlotte
snow dog on it. It was a Charlotte blizzard out there.
The Carolina Panthers practiced anyway, and every dudes run around.
Christian Roseboom was out there feeling good again.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
J C.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Horn claud chair. Let's still in a concussion protocol, but
Canalis said they were trending toward getting back out there.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
They're able to do individual stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
There were dudes out there running around, and that's a
good thing.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
There was I'm trying to think there were more people
than that too. Who else was out there.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Well, I mean Claude and JC let me pull it,
let me do it.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, we said that one.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Oh tramon Merrick's back. He was suspended. I mean that
was that was not a injury absence. That was just
it was not an injury to him anyway. But yeah,
Cade mays, there you go. There's the other one I
was fishing for. So getting guys back on the field
starts to stabilize things. That's the other great thing a
(14:40):
week awful do for you.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, Lathan Ransom wasn't able to practice, but you know,
he's still kind of coming back from that hand. We
saw Robert hunt over in the return to play area,
still not quite there where they want him to be yet,
but trending in such a way where it's not out
of the realm of possibility to see him back this season,
which is just incredible to say given the injury. So yeah,
(15:03):
exciting this. A lot of guys even made this comment
today that when the schedule first came out and they
saw week fourteen by they were like, are you kidding me?
Week fourteen?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And they were like, now, sitting here where we are now,
it came at the perfect time. You had just kind
of a string of defensive injuries right there, and to
have a week to get healthy to bounce back right
before you make arguably the most important stretch of your
schedule in front of you. It was very fortuitous.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, it was. Speaking of fortuitous, a break is good
for everybody. I don't know about you, but I'm as
fresh as a daisy right now. Are you really as
fresh as you're gonna be? Fifteen?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
If you were a sarcastic or not, I actually felt great.
I was excited to get back in here today. I
texted Darren this on Saturday. I believe it was, because
again I'm not sure. At one point on what turned
out to be Saturday, I literally asked myself, what day
is it? Because I had no idea. I had to
go find my I had to go find my phone,
which I didn't even know where that was either. Yeah,
(16:06):
So I go pull my phone out from a couch
cushion and looked at it. The phone could have said Friday, Saturday,
or Sunday and nothing would have surprised me. Yeah, because
I had no concept of what the time was. And
that's what you know. It was a very refreshing time.
Excited to get back on here because this next month
is going to be a sprint. But this is what
you do it for.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, you know what I got into a situation wife
and I took a couple of days, went up to
the mountains, just kind of chilled for a little bit,
didn't do a lot of work. And I get she
tells me, I get twitchy at a certain point there.
She's like, I can tell when I'm losing you. Like
around July fifteenth, She's like, no more vacations, Darren's done,
he's in training camp Mudd, He's ready to go. She
(16:47):
was like, I can tell when you're no longer with
me and you just need to go back to work
and do the thing. I was able to hold that
off until about last night when I started sketching out
some of these tiebreakers scenario.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
But that was me yesterday when I like forced myself
to not do anything for a couple of days, just
caught up on TV, you know, really important things. And
then yesterday I was sitting there watching games and I
was like, I could be getting work done, and so
knocked out a couple of stories ahead of time, just
to get ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And yeah, see this is why I like this one.
She's she works hard, she's always into it, she's ready
to go.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I watched enough TV to get me by I was like,
I got to get back to work.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, it's that time, and it is definitely time to
get back to work. So keep it like on the
Panthers dot com again. We've got your helpful playoff simulator.
Sure not, I don't know simulator explainer. How about that
explainer per primer that'll work? Your playoff primer is sitting
(17:48):
there on Panthers dot com all the latest from Monday.
You got a cool story coming about just the dudes
watching it on TV and what NFL players are like
when they're reduced to fans, and so that that's all
good stuff. Keeping locked on the YouTube channel Panthers dot
com from the next couple of days. As his team
ramps up and starts having stakes, we're gonna have more
stuff coming your way. So it's that way for us
(18:10):
to We appreciate you guys joining us, Thank you for
the thank you for being here for this episode of
the very Festive Happy Half Hour presented by our friends
Deep Betty, and we'll see you later on this week
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