November 7, 2025 • 22 mins
Celebrate 30 seasons of Carolina Panthers football with Jim Szoke. Join him as he sits down with the key figures who shaped the past 30 seasons, reminiscing on the moments that made Panther's history. This week's guest is former Panthers broadcaster, Mick Mixon.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today, we talked with the voice of the Carolina Panthers
for seventeen years, and the voice of that very important
season twenty fifteen when the Panthers nearly did the impossible
and still had one of the great.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Seasons in the history of the NFL.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
We're going to.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Reflect on Super Bowl fifty, the twenty fifteen season with
our friend Nick Mixon today.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Thirty seasons of Panther football. A celebration of the players, coaches,
and other key figures who've contributed to the organizational success.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
All right, that's all the open you get, Mick, it's
your opal gym here, and we think back to ten
years ago the Super Bowl fifty season and.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Start as a broadcast team went.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It was yourself and Eugene and me and Jordan Gross,
and we had a lot of fun, a lot of
great road trips and traveling together there. And little did
we know when that season began what we were getting into,
because the year before, of course, was when they rallied
and won four in a row and then won a
playoff game and seven eight one was good enough to
win the division. We thought that was an accomplishment, and
(01:03):
then this team goes fifteen and one starts out of
fourteen to zero on their way to Super Bowl fifty,
and we're certainly I could go game by game, but
big picture, as you look back, is it almost surreal
that that team went seventeen and one heading into that
Super Bowl game and just you go back again the
year before, winning the last four regular season games to
get ready for that one. I mean, you think about
how things have been by a large sense, and that's
(01:25):
an amazing accomplishment.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Yeah, I think that team Zoke had, that team won
and I generally, and it's great hearing your voice.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Brother. I cherished our time together. Man. We had so
much fun.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
And one of the great joys of working with you
is when people would come up to me and say, man,
I cracked up when you and Zochie said X y
Z and I could not remember, and I really thought
that we had said that off air. So I think
for both of us, the line between our on air
and off air comfortability with each other and what we
said our filter became was a little gray. So I
(01:59):
think hopefully that was an okay thing for the listeners
and the people that were along with us for those journeys.
But Zoke, I remember when I first started working with
you guys in five I remember Marty Hernie and John
Fox saying in Foxy's office, you'd rather not go to
(02:20):
a Super Bowl than you would go and lose. And
I thought, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's still
a great accomplishment to get there. You can't win it
if you don't go. I thought, these are two these
are two guys. I respect their football pedigree, but they
don't know what they're talking about. Then comes the after
(02:42):
party after Super Bowl fifty and as you and I
have talked about over the years, a ten piece horn
band that doesn't really realize that the Panthers have lost,
that nobody's wanted to hear cool in the gang, and
you get up and boogie shrimp the size of bananas.
This I sculpture, this huge hotel ballroom, and it was
(03:03):
like a durned death. And I reflected back to Coach
Fox and Marty Hernie and I thought, you know what,
I kind of see now. I still think. I still
think it's fantastic to go. That team will be remembered
as one of the all time great teams in Panther history.
Even if the Panthers win five straight Super Bowls. That
twenty fifteen team will have a special place in the
(03:25):
Panthers Panther fans, hearts, and in the team's history.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
But dang man, it was it could. Had the Panthers
won that game.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Now people would talk about that twenty fifteen team as
one of the greatest teams in the history of the NFL,
don't you think.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I actually had that conversation recently with Brad Nortman, who
was the punter on that team, and he said he
remembers watching ESPN like it was either the morning of
the day before the game and he's just walking through,
you know, in the hotel they always have the meal
rooms and all that kind of stuff of the TV playing,
and they literally said at one of those talk shows
on ESPN, if the Panthers win, are they the greatest
(04:07):
team ever? Because obviously the seventy two Dolphins would be
in that conversation, but kind of in a more modern
era of a more balanced competition, if you are the
way the league is set up, you know, would this
be the greatest team in the history of the NFL?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And that's what they were playing for.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And you know, again, you go seventeen and one heading
into that game and then you lose by two touchdowns
the game it wasn't a two touchdown game. I mean
people will also forget it was basically a one score
game most of the way. But I think we all
agree and talking with the players and coaches and all
the different people we've been talking to about it this year,
it just was flat. It was just like a little
bit of everything. It was a little bit of a
(04:45):
miskick on special teams, fumble by a guy who doesn't
normally fumble, it, drops pass by a receiver that you
could argue maybe caught the ball. Just those little Nixon
bruises that led to it being what it was and
in the end, just not good enough to win because
if you look at the numbers, the defense held Peyton
Manning to nothing. I mean, I threw for I don't
(05:06):
have the statta from me, but he threw for about
one hundred and thirty yards with no touchdowns and a pick.
That was Peyton Manning's last game, and they still won
the game because of course their defense played really well
at times.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
At the training camp the following summer, so summer of
twenty sixteen training camp, I hopes to go back to
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
You still got a.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Powerful team, rock stars everywhere you'd look. But lunch one
day after a morning practice, really hot, and about two
weeks into training camp, Luke Keighley sits down at the
table where or I happened to be sitting in several others,
and somebody brings up the game and Keighley puts his
salt shaker down and looks at all of us and
(05:49):
he said, I will never forget.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
I had studied Peyton Manning for two weeks.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I knew every down, every distance, every substitution pattern, every
personnel grouping, every shift, every motion.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
And they come out in middle of the third quarter.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
They come out in exactly the formation I'm looking for.
I know the play. I know where Peyton Manning is
gonna go with the ball. He cocks his arm. I
jumped route. It's gonna be a pick six, and we're
gonna have the lead in Super Bowl fifty Zo. All
of us listening to Luke Keigley, I mean, we're just
not even on the edge of our you know, any cliche.
We're just it was so we're just listening to him
(06:27):
tell the story. He says, I jumped rout Manning's gonna
throw it right to me, and in that instant, KK
Short comes around from behind and tips Manning's elbow and
the ball lands five yards off to the right incomplete.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
It was a great play.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
But I was already I had in my mind, I
had already scored, We already had the lead. I was
playing in my end zone celebration, and oh gosh, it
just hit all of us like a just like a
bank safe had been dropped on our heads.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
We just went uh.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
But it just shows you how thin the margins are
in any any any NFL game, but in that game
in particular, man came so close.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
But what a fun ride you met? What what games
do you remember? For some reason, the Dallas trip sticks
out in my mind.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Oh yeah, no yet that was that was really you
know what Thanksgiving Day and the only time we've had
a Thanksgiving Day game, and just the physicality of the
way they tore up Tony Romo.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
And the Dallas Cowboys. That was fun.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And you talk about Luke Keickley, he did have a
pick six that day and he did play really well.
The other one that comes to mind to me that
stands out is like going to Seattle, back then was
like it was something like that was like nobody comes
out of there with a win, and so we're four
to o and we go in there after playing at
Tampa Bay the week before you have the bye week,
so literally two weeks before, but the previous game and
(08:00):
go into Seattle and that late win with Greg Olsen
getting the touchdown twenty seven to twenty three, and Seattle
was kind of the standard at that time. I thought
going into that twelfth Man and going into Seattle winning
that game early on really said Okay, this team can
play with probably anybody the rest of the way.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
That's a great memory.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
I remember the plane ride home from that game, Greg
Olsen talked, he talked, talked about a running play where
somebody didn't block, or maybe it was a short pass
that he caught and somebody missed a block and he
got a jarring tackle. It hit him so hard it
probably hurt his parents and their parents. But he talked
(08:39):
about that one play for four hours and fifty five
minutes the entire every time I walked up down the
aisle to use the restroom, Olsen is talking to JJ
Jensen or anybody, a flight attendant, anybody who cares to listen.
He just it's why he's so good on air now.
He just is just totally football all the time. I
(09:02):
remember the Thanksgiving day trip because, for a lot of reasons,
but Ron and Stephanie Rivera invited the entire team travel
party for a Thanksgiving meal in the hotel except me,
you and Kevin Donnelly, and the three of us end
(09:22):
up at this Italian restaurant eating chicken marsala for Thanksgiving meal.
I look at Coach the next day, I said, Coach,
mixing M I x O N Room eleven oh eight.
He said, he got a big old smile. He said, sorry, bro,
we'll get you next time. Yeah, next time we're undefeated
(09:46):
and the birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Sunshine, and we'll think of you.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
But I'm only telling that story really just because of
the respect that I know you and I held coaching in.
I mean, just he was he was. I think he
was the kind of coach where the players they didn't
want to let him down. I mean, I just think
he had a really nice touch with with those teams.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Now, my goal.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I've done about half of my podcast for this season,
as i've got Coach Rivera as one of my on
the checklist. I'm sure I'll get him, and so I know,
of course Mick knows I. But I saw a coach
when he was doing a broadcast late in the season
last year, right around Christmas time, and he was doing
a national radio game before he took the col job
that he's in now as a general manager. And I
(10:35):
see him up in the booth area and the hallways
up there.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We talked a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
I'm getting in my car in the parking deck and
it was and it's like one other cars, you know.
The postgame shows rolled on and everything's happen. Everyone's left,
and it's Coach Rivera. We stand there, talk a little bit. MARKO,
let me get a selfie. I go not for social media.
I almost send this to Mick, and so I send
that to Mick. And what was fun was kind of
watching the two of you and I would chime in,
but kind of three of us interacting through the holiday
(11:00):
weekend about just catching up and sharing some thoughts and
Merry Christmases and all that stuff for three or four days.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I mean, that's just what he is. He's just a
good human being.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
We take the TV show together every Wednesday, and I
would come in and normally I.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Would wear my suits would be gray or navy.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Or you know, I wasn't really big on earth tones,
but my wife had given me this kind of chestnut
colored Swede type I'm sure was Foe Sway, but a blazer.
So I wear this blazer and I walk in. It's
near Halloween and Coach Rivera's wearing this orange sweater. I
walk in the studio and Coach Vera starts shaking his head.
(11:40):
He says, nope, he called me Michelson. He says, Michelson.
I don't like you.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
I like you better in navy and gray. I don't
like you better. I don't like you in.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
These this color. I said, let me get this straight,
I said, I got. I'm taking fashion advice from the
great Pumpkin over here. And you know, we all cracked
up and had a good time. But you probably don't
get there certain coaches that we could name.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Where you probably don't get.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, you'll get a lot of you'll get a lot
of Bob Crane references from other.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Coaches that you would from Ron Rivera.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
When you've got a Ron Rivera and you got your
Ron Rivera's as we like, and Darnham he's good at
everything because he was as I mentioned doing that broadcast
last year. Before that, he had done television I think
in Chicago some other places when he was between coaching
jobs after retiring as a player. Uh so he knew
that business to it. He enjoyed, he got it. He
(12:42):
enjoyed that. But the season just unfolds the point where
you're like, going, this could be like I got the
perfect season, like seventy two Miami Dolphins and they have
play as many regular season games as Carolina did. We
get all the way to fourteen and oh two to
go lose by one touchdown seven points at Atlanta and
Peanut Tillman gets season ending injury in that game, and
they bounced back and beat Tampa Bay by you know,
(13:04):
twenty eight as it turns out, the last game of
the regular season. We'll talk about the playoffs at the moment,
but to cap that that regular season, I mean, what
a run and how fun might that have been to
get into the postseason.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
With a perfect record. I mean, no one's getting too greedy.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
We'll take winning a super Bowl, but what would that
have been like to like go completely run the table
all the way through.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
I know, and then to have that loss be against
the greatly detested divisional rival Atlanta Falcons. There were some
people in the aftermath of that game zoke that said
that I never really subscribed.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
To this, but I heard you, We heard it a
lot was that, Okay, this is this is good.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
This takes this takes the pressure off, the pressure relief
valve of an undefeated season, taking that into the postseason.
But I don't think I've never once gotten the sense
that any of our players or coaches thought that way.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I mean, they it's sort of as trite as it is.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
You take them one game at the time. I mean,
you just rack him up and you know, you play
the next one. And it would have been fantastic to
have run the table on the on the regular season.
But the some of the wins, I mean, just think
about Cam Newton coming into the.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
End of the stadium.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
He'd come out stadium just starting to fill up, and
here comes Cam Newton with his arms out like airplane wings,
banking across the northeast wind sailing all the summer breeze.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
I mean, just the pied piper of fun.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
The other players on I mean every every so many
just iconic Panthers on that team, and just the joy
that they played with was contagious.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And the number, you know, as we look at it,
I mean, it's hard to come up with a Pro
Bowl player too. Like in today's Panthers world, you've got
Derek Brown's been there, obvious, Lee j C.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Horn got there last year. So you know, you feel.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Fortunate if you've got to maybe three Pro Bowl players.
But you look at that roster and you could go
in their careers anyway, maybe not all in that particular year,
but for their careers. How many Pro Bowl players? You
mentioned Luke Keikley earlier, but Josh Norman was playing at
the heights of his ability, had Thomas Davis playing through
the injury, Ryan Khalill Cam You mentioned you had great
(15:22):
running backs like Jonathan Stewart on that team.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I mean, the team was just loaded with star players
that were.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Longtime guys with the organization too. You mentioned, you know,
KK Short and some of the great players. I mean,
just the list goes on and on of just tremendous talent,
the likes of which were some of the all time
in the history of the team.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Even some of the other guys, and I'm thinking of
Mike Tolbert, I mean, just a total pro fun to
be around.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Another Pro Bowl player though exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, Jericho Coachery knew how to handle his business, knew
how to how to perform at a high level, get
ready for a game, help help the younger players with
some things.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
That and that team was so who else was on
was Kurt Coleman.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Kurk Coleman, Charles Johnson, Roman Harper, Trey Boston. I mean
that team, that team was loaded. I mean just like
with you know, like the guys that weren't the Pro
Bowl players were longtime NFL guys that had, you know,
really prestigious careers, like you think about Ted Ginn.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You mentioned Jericho Katchery.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I mean these were guys Starlatulala was was at that
time very good in his career. So it was again
just a really loaded team all the way through. And
that was Shaq Thompson's rookie year by the way, he
was a He was a rookie first round pick that
year on that team. So a lot of fun personalities
and obviously talented players.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
That was fun.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And then they go into the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I'm a couple of these two games together, the two
home games, Seattle ends up being thirty one to twenty four.
It was thirty one nothing if I'm remembering right. And
then it was a blowout of Arizona in the NFC
Championship games. George scored forty whatever points we scored in
that one. And then so you feel like at that point,
the way you're blowing through playoff teams. Super Bowl may
(17:16):
not be a blowout, but it's just like, how much
are we gonna win by? Because Denver was considered a
solid defensive team, but they were not a spectacular team
getting there.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
That was the hard part about the way the season ended.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I think that was how I think the Panthers had
already beaten two teams to get to the super Bowl
that were better than Denver.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
And I know it's hard to measure that. It's just
my opinion.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I'm not trying to export this, but I felt like
so much of the hard work had been done and
then Denver. I think Denver and the Panthers play ten
times neutral site, Panthers probably win seven of those. I
just think the Panthers were a better team. But anyway,
back to those two games up. Their's Only game is
the one I'll never forget, mainly because the ramp up
(18:05):
to the game. You know, I've always loved the sociology
of of of football, how it brings people together. I
remember coming to the game and parking, getting there early,
like like you and I do it did and and
like you still do, and just seeing all kinds of people,
I mean, black, white, Democrat, Republican, young, old, rich, poor
(18:27):
Juju Tyler didn't everybody, everybody pulling in the same direction,
everybody hugging, high fiving.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Is this gonna be our day? Can we do it?
And the city was just off the chain.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
That stadium, anything, anything the Panthers did, and they did
a lot of good things early.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
The noise just I can.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I got chills right now just thinking about the noise
flooring Bank of America Stadium, how you and I had
to raise our voices up a few extra decibels just
to feel like.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
Be heard into a microphone.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Even it was a black and you look back and you're
thankful to be a part of it. You wish it
would have gone one more. Would it have changed, you know,
somebody's actual life, you know, for the players. Yeah, you
always have that ring and you always have the thought
of what would be like to win. That's why you
play the game, is to be a champion. But overall,
there was so much to be proud of, and you
(19:19):
got to the super Bowl, and I get the sentiment
you said at the beginning about John Fox and Marty
Hearning about you'd rather not get to the super Bowl
but lose it. But I disagree because then you take
away winning the NFC championship game. I think that win
over Arizona, the way that city felt after that win,
that was your championship moment.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
As it turned out.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
You wish it wasn't the final stop as far as
winning championships for that season, but that was quite an accomplishment.
Forty nine to fifteen, by the way, was a score
of that game, and that was one of the most
dominating things against a really unbelievably talented Bruce Arians Arizona
team that year.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Yeah, they had it rolling two, I mean smoking.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
And after that game one day, I don't know the
next middle of the next week, Riley Fields Panthers director
of community relations walked down to my office and he said, Mick,
can you need you to m see a little pepper
Alley gonna be uptown at Beard and Park, just just
you know, come up there and introduce coach and some players.
(20:16):
And I said, yeah, sure. So I remember telling my
wife my bride's name is down I.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Call her Donny.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I said, Donny, you want to come up in this
little pepper alley and won't take long. I just probably
got to hand out some T shirts and introduced coach
and she said sure. So she came to the stadium
and then she and I walked uptown.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Dumb old me. I'm thinking, you know, maybe a couple
hundred people be up there. Be kind of cool.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
There are thirty thousand people in uptown Charlotte for a
pepper ally.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Huge stage top Cats.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
I mean I walked up the stage stairs and looked
out on the crowd, and I just went, this must
feel this is like what Bruce Springsteen feels like looking
out over over a crowd.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
I mean, the excitement was It's just and you think
you think, at least I did.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Anyway, Okay, now the Panthers have figured out how to
get to one of these the next year or two,
Let's get there and then close the deal and the
rest is history, as we know, because we've never had
back to back winning seasons exactly. But that's one of
the lessons that I think hard lessons that pro football
teaches you is that it is so hard to be
(21:25):
consistently good and just to our points of earlier in
the conversation, just getting there, just to get there.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
It is so so special.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
It's the best season in Panthers history. We've had thirty
one years of them. It's gonna be a tough one
to top. The only thing on the top it obviously,
is to win it all. That's a great place to
leave it right there. Great stories, Mick, and always fun
to catch up with you, my friend, whether it's I'm
the air or off the air. I'm glad that the
retirement in life with Donnie and the family in Burlington
is going just the way you wanted it to.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Oh there's nothing like it, but I appreciate it, appreciate it,
and thanks for thanks for all the fun, the laughs
and memories, and thanks for being the total pro that
you are.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Thirty seasons of Panther football
Today, we talked with the voice of the Carolina Panthers
for seventeen years, and the voice of that very important
season twenty fifteen when the Panthers nearly did the impossible
and still had one of the great.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Seasons in the history of the NFL.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
We're going to.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Reflect on Super Bowl fifty, the twenty fifteen season with
our friend Nick Mixon today.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Thirty seasons of Panther football. A celebration of the players, coaches,
and other key figures who've contributed to the organizational success.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
All right, that's all the open you get, Mick, it's
your opal gym here, and we think back to ten
years ago the Super Bowl fifty season and.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Start as a broadcast team went.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It was yourself and Eugene and me and Jordan Gross,
and we had a lot of fun, a lot of
great road trips and traveling together there. And little did
we know when that season began what we were getting into,
because the year before, of course, was when they rallied
and won four in a row and then won a
playoff game and seven eight one was good enough to
win the division. We thought that was an accomplishment, and
(01:03):
then this team goes fifteen and one starts out of
fourteen to zero on their way to Super Bowl fifty,
and we're certainly I could go game by game, but
big picture, as you look back, is it almost surreal
that that team went seventeen and one heading into that
Super Bowl game and just you go back again the
year before, winning the last four regular season games to
get ready for that one. I mean, you think about
how things have been by a large sense, and that's
(01:25):
an amazing accomplishment.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Yeah, I think that team Zoke had, that team won
and I generally, and it's great hearing your voice.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Brother. I cherished our time together. Man. We had so
much fun.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
And one of the great joys of working with you
is when people would come up to me and say, man,
I cracked up when you and Zochie said X y
Z and I could not remember, and I really thought
that we had said that off air. So I think
for both of us, the line between our on air
and off air comfortability with each other and what we
said our filter became was a little gray. So I
(01:59):
think hopefully that was an okay thing for the listeners
and the people that were along with us for those journeys.
But Zoke, I remember when I first started working with
you guys in five I remember Marty Hernie and John
Fox saying in Foxy's office, you'd rather not go to
(02:20):
a Super Bowl than you would go and lose. And
I thought, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's still
a great accomplishment to get there. You can't win it
if you don't go. I thought, these are two these
are two guys. I respect their football pedigree, but they
don't know what they're talking about. Then comes the after
(02:42):
party after Super Bowl fifty and as you and I
have talked about over the years, a ten piece horn
band that doesn't really realize that the Panthers have lost,
that nobody's wanted to hear cool in the gang, and
you get up and boogie shrimp the size of bananas.
This I sculpture, this huge hotel ballroom, and it was
(03:03):
like a durned death. And I reflected back to Coach
Fox and Marty Hernie and I thought, you know what,
I kind of see now. I still think. I still
think it's fantastic to go. That team will be remembered
as one of the all time great teams in Panther history.
Even if the Panthers win five straight Super Bowls. That
twenty fifteen team will have a special place in the
(03:25):
Panthers Panther fans, hearts, and in the team's history.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
But dang man, it was it could. Had the Panthers
won that game.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Now people would talk about that twenty fifteen team as
one of the greatest teams in the history of the NFL,
don't you think.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I actually had that conversation recently with Brad Nortman, who
was the punter on that team, and he said he
remembers watching ESPN like it was either the morning of
the day before the game and he's just walking through,
you know, in the hotel they always have the meal
rooms and all that kind of stuff of the TV playing,
and they literally said at one of those talk shows
on ESPN, if the Panthers win, are they the greatest
(04:07):
team ever? Because obviously the seventy two Dolphins would be
in that conversation, but kind of in a more modern
era of a more balanced competition, if you are the
way the league is set up, you know, would this
be the greatest team in the history of the NFL?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And that's what they were playing for.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And you know, again, you go seventeen and one heading
into that game and then you lose by two touchdowns
the game it wasn't a two touchdown game. I mean
people will also forget it was basically a one score
game most of the way. But I think we all
agree and talking with the players and coaches and all
the different people we've been talking to about it this year,
it just was flat. It was just like a little
bit of everything. It was a little bit of a
(04:45):
miskick on special teams, fumble by a guy who doesn't
normally fumble, it, drops pass by a receiver that you
could argue maybe caught the ball. Just those little Nixon
bruises that led to it being what it was and
in the end, just not good enough to win because
if you look at the numbers, the defense held Peyton
Manning to nothing. I mean, I threw for I don't
(05:06):
have the statta from me, but he threw for about
one hundred and thirty yards with no touchdowns and a pick.
That was Peyton Manning's last game, and they still won
the game because of course their defense played really well
at times.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
At the training camp the following summer, so summer of
twenty sixteen training camp, I hopes to go back to
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
You still got a.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Powerful team, rock stars everywhere you'd look. But lunch one
day after a morning practice, really hot, and about two
weeks into training camp, Luke Keighley sits down at the
table where or I happened to be sitting in several others,
and somebody brings up the game and Keighley puts his
salt shaker down and looks at all of us and
(05:49):
he said, I will never forget.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
I had studied Peyton Manning for two weeks.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I knew every down, every distance, every substitution pattern, every
personnel grouping, every shift, every motion.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
And they come out in middle of the third quarter.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
They come out in exactly the formation I'm looking for.
I know the play. I know where Peyton Manning is
gonna go with the ball. He cocks his arm. I
jumped route. It's gonna be a pick six, and we're
gonna have the lead in Super Bowl fifty Zo. All
of us listening to Luke Keigley, I mean, we're just
not even on the edge of our you know, any cliche.
We're just it was so we're just listening to him
(06:27):
tell the story. He says, I jumped rout Manning's gonna
throw it right to me, and in that instant, KK
Short comes around from behind and tips Manning's elbow and
the ball lands five yards off to the right incomplete.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
It was a great play.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
But I was already I had in my mind, I
had already scored, We already had the lead. I was
playing in my end zone celebration, and oh gosh, it
just hit all of us like a just like a
bank safe had been dropped on our heads.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
We just went uh.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
But it just shows you how thin the margins are
in any any any NFL game, but in that game
in particular, man came so close.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
But what a fun ride you met? What what games
do you remember? For some reason, the Dallas trip sticks
out in my mind.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Oh yeah, no yet that was that was really you
know what Thanksgiving Day and the only time we've had
a Thanksgiving Day game, and just the physicality of the
way they tore up Tony Romo.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
And the Dallas Cowboys. That was fun.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And you talk about Luke Keickley, he did have a
pick six that day and he did play really well.
The other one that comes to mind to me that
stands out is like going to Seattle, back then was
like it was something like that was like nobody comes
out of there with a win, and so we're four
to o and we go in there after playing at
Tampa Bay the week before you have the bye week,
so literally two weeks before, but the previous game and
(08:00):
go into Seattle and that late win with Greg Olsen
getting the touchdown twenty seven to twenty three, and Seattle
was kind of the standard at that time. I thought
going into that twelfth Man and going into Seattle winning
that game early on really said Okay, this team can
play with probably anybody the rest of the way.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
That's a great memory.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
I remember the plane ride home from that game, Greg
Olsen talked, he talked, talked about a running play where
somebody didn't block, or maybe it was a short pass
that he caught and somebody missed a block and he
got a jarring tackle. It hit him so hard it
probably hurt his parents and their parents. But he talked
(08:39):
about that one play for four hours and fifty five
minutes the entire every time I walked up down the
aisle to use the restroom, Olsen is talking to JJ
Jensen or anybody, a flight attendant, anybody who cares to listen.
He just it's why he's so good on air now.
He just is just totally football all the time. I
(09:02):
remember the Thanksgiving day trip because, for a lot of reasons,
but Ron and Stephanie Rivera invited the entire team travel
party for a Thanksgiving meal in the hotel except me,
you and Kevin Donnelly, and the three of us end
(09:22):
up at this Italian restaurant eating chicken marsala for Thanksgiving meal.
I look at Coach the next day, I said, Coach,
mixing M I x O N Room eleven oh eight.
He said, he got a big old smile. He said, sorry, bro,
we'll get you next time. Yeah, next time we're undefeated
(09:46):
and the birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Sunshine, and we'll think of you.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
But I'm only telling that story really just because of
the respect that I know you and I held coaching in.
I mean, just he was he was. I think he
was the kind of coach where the players they didn't
want to let him down. I mean, I just think
he had a really nice touch with with those teams.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Now, my goal.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I've done about half of my podcast for this season,
as i've got Coach Rivera as one of my on
the checklist. I'm sure I'll get him, and so I know,
of course Mick knows I. But I saw a coach
when he was doing a broadcast late in the season
last year, right around Christmas time, and he was doing
a national radio game before he took the col job
that he's in now as a general manager. And I
(10:35):
see him up in the booth area and the hallways
up there.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We talked a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
I'm getting in my car in the parking deck and
it was and it's like one other cars, you know.
The postgame shows rolled on and everything's happen. Everyone's left,
and it's Coach Rivera. We stand there, talk a little bit. MARKO,
let me get a selfie. I go not for social media.
I almost send this to Mick, and so I send
that to Mick. And what was fun was kind of
watching the two of you and I would chime in,
but kind of three of us interacting through the holiday
(11:00):
weekend about just catching up and sharing some thoughts and
Merry Christmases and all that stuff for three or four days.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I mean, that's just what he is. He's just a
good human being.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
We take the TV show together every Wednesday, and I
would come in and normally I.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Would wear my suits would be gray or navy.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Or you know, I wasn't really big on earth tones,
but my wife had given me this kind of chestnut
colored Swede type I'm sure was Foe Sway, but a blazer.
So I wear this blazer and I walk in. It's
near Halloween and Coach Rivera's wearing this orange sweater. I
walk in the studio and Coach Vera starts shaking his head.
(11:40):
He says, nope, he called me Michelson. He says, Michelson.
I don't like you.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
I like you better in navy and gray. I don't
like you better. I don't like you in.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
These this color. I said, let me get this straight,
I said, I got. I'm taking fashion advice from the
great Pumpkin over here. And you know, we all cracked
up and had a good time. But you probably don't
get there certain coaches that we could name.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Where you probably don't get.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, you'll get a lot of you'll get a lot
of Bob Crane references from other.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Coaches that you would from Ron Rivera.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
When you've got a Ron Rivera and you got your
Ron Rivera's as we like, and Darnham he's good at
everything because he was as I mentioned doing that broadcast
last year. Before that, he had done television I think
in Chicago some other places when he was between coaching
jobs after retiring as a player. Uh so he knew
that business to it. He enjoyed, he got it. He
(12:42):
enjoyed that. But the season just unfolds the point where
you're like, going, this could be like I got the
perfect season, like seventy two Miami Dolphins and they have
play as many regular season games as Carolina did. We
get all the way to fourteen and oh two to
go lose by one touchdown seven points at Atlanta and
Peanut Tillman gets season ending injury in that game, and
they bounced back and beat Tampa Bay by you know,
(13:04):
twenty eight as it turns out, the last game of
the regular season. We'll talk about the playoffs at the moment,
but to cap that that regular season, I mean, what
a run and how fun might that have been to
get into the postseason.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
With a perfect record. I mean, no one's getting too greedy.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
We'll take winning a super Bowl, but what would that
have been like to like go completely run the table
all the way through.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
I know, and then to have that loss be against
the greatly detested divisional rival Atlanta Falcons. There were some
people in the aftermath of that game zoke that said
that I never really subscribed.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
To this, but I heard you, We heard it a
lot was that, Okay, this is this is good.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
This takes this takes the pressure off, the pressure relief
valve of an undefeated season, taking that into the postseason.
But I don't think I've never once gotten the sense
that any of our players or coaches thought that way.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I mean, they it's sort of as trite as it is.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
You take them one game at the time. I mean,
you just rack him up and you know, you play
the next one. And it would have been fantastic to
have run the table on the on the regular season.
But the some of the wins, I mean, just think
about Cam Newton coming into the.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
End of the stadium.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
He'd come out stadium just starting to fill up, and
here comes Cam Newton with his arms out like airplane wings,
banking across the northeast wind sailing all the summer breeze.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
I mean, just the pied piper of fun.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
The other players on I mean every every so many
just iconic Panthers on that team, and just the joy
that they played with was contagious.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And the number, you know, as we look at it,
I mean, it's hard to come up with a Pro
Bowl player too. Like in today's Panthers world, you've got
Derek Brown's been there, obvious, Lee j C.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Horn got there last year. So you know, you feel.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Fortunate if you've got to maybe three Pro Bowl players.
But you look at that roster and you could go
in their careers anyway, maybe not all in that particular year,
but for their careers. How many Pro Bowl players? You
mentioned Luke Keikley earlier, but Josh Norman was playing at
the heights of his ability, had Thomas Davis playing through
the injury, Ryan Khalill Cam You mentioned you had great
(15:22):
running backs like Jonathan Stewart on that team.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I mean, the team was just loaded with star players
that were.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Longtime guys with the organization too. You mentioned, you know,
KK Short and some of the great players. I mean,
just the list goes on and on of just tremendous talent,
the likes of which were some of the all time
in the history of the team.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Even some of the other guys, and I'm thinking of
Mike Tolbert, I mean, just a total pro fun to
be around.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Another Pro Bowl player though exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, Jericho Coachery knew how to handle his business, knew
how to how to perform at a high level, get
ready for a game, help help the younger players with
some things.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
That and that team was so who else was on
was Kurt Coleman.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Kurk Coleman, Charles Johnson, Roman Harper, Trey Boston. I mean
that team, that team was loaded. I mean just like
with you know, like the guys that weren't the Pro
Bowl players were longtime NFL guys that had, you know,
really prestigious careers, like you think about Ted Ginn.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You mentioned Jericho Katchery.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I mean these were guys Starlatulala was was at that
time very good in his career. So it was again
just a really loaded team all the way through. And
that was Shaq Thompson's rookie year by the way, he
was a He was a rookie first round pick that
year on that team. So a lot of fun personalities
and obviously talented players.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
That was fun.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And then they go into the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I'm a couple of these two games together, the two
home games, Seattle ends up being thirty one to twenty four.
It was thirty one nothing if I'm remembering right. And
then it was a blowout of Arizona in the NFC
Championship games. George scored forty whatever points we scored in
that one. And then so you feel like at that point,
the way you're blowing through playoff teams. Super Bowl may
(17:16):
not be a blowout, but it's just like, how much
are we gonna win by? Because Denver was considered a
solid defensive team, but they were not a spectacular team
getting there.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
That was the hard part about the way the season ended.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I think that was how I think the Panthers had
already beaten two teams to get to the super Bowl
that were better than Denver.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
And I know it's hard to measure that. It's just
my opinion.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I'm not trying to export this, but I felt like
so much of the hard work had been done and
then Denver. I think Denver and the Panthers play ten
times neutral site, Panthers probably win seven of those. I
just think the Panthers were a better team. But anyway,
back to those two games up. Their's Only game is
the one I'll never forget, mainly because the ramp up
(18:05):
to the game. You know, I've always loved the sociology
of of of football, how it brings people together. I
remember coming to the game and parking, getting there early,
like like you and I do it did and and
like you still do, and just seeing all kinds of people,
I mean, black, white, Democrat, Republican, young, old, rich, poor
(18:27):
Juju Tyler didn't everybody, everybody pulling in the same direction,
everybody hugging, high fiving.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Is this gonna be our day? Can we do it?
And the city was just off the chain.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
That stadium, anything, anything the Panthers did, and they did
a lot of good things early.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
The noise just I can.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I got chills right now just thinking about the noise
flooring Bank of America Stadium, how you and I had
to raise our voices up a few extra decibels just
to feel like.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
Be heard into a microphone.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Even it was a black and you look back and you're
thankful to be a part of it. You wish it
would have gone one more. Would it have changed, you know,
somebody's actual life, you know, for the players. Yeah, you
always have that ring and you always have the thought
of what would be like to win. That's why you
play the game, is to be a champion. But overall,
there was so much to be proud of, and you
(19:19):
got to the super Bowl, and I get the sentiment
you said at the beginning about John Fox and Marty
Hearning about you'd rather not get to the super Bowl
but lose it. But I disagree because then you take
away winning the NFC championship game. I think that win
over Arizona, the way that city felt after that win,
that was your championship moment.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
As it turned out.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
You wish it wasn't the final stop as far as
winning championships for that season, but that was quite an accomplishment.
Forty nine to fifteen, by the way, was a score
of that game, and that was one of the most
dominating things against a really unbelievably talented Bruce Arians Arizona
team that year.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Yeah, they had it rolling two, I mean smoking.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
And after that game one day, I don't know the
next middle of the next week, Riley Fields Panthers director
of community relations walked down to my office and he said, Mick,
can you need you to m see a little pepper
Alley gonna be uptown at Beard and Park, just just
you know, come up there and introduce coach and some players.
(20:16):
And I said, yeah, sure. So I remember telling my
wife my bride's name is down I.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Call her Donny.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I said, Donny, you want to come up in this
little pepper alley and won't take long. I just probably
got to hand out some T shirts and introduced coach
and she said sure. So she came to the stadium
and then she and I walked uptown.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Dumb old me. I'm thinking, you know, maybe a couple
hundred people be up there. Be kind of cool.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
There are thirty thousand people in uptown Charlotte for a
pepper ally.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Huge stage top Cats.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
I mean I walked up the stage stairs and looked
out on the crowd, and I just went, this must
feel this is like what Bruce Springsteen feels like looking
out over over a crowd.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
I mean, the excitement was It's just and you think
you think, at least I did.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Anyway, Okay, now the Panthers have figured out how to
get to one of these the next year or two,
Let's get there and then close the deal and the
rest is history, as we know, because we've never had
back to back winning seasons exactly. But that's one of
the lessons that I think hard lessons that pro football
teaches you is that it is so hard to be
(21:25):
consistently good and just to our points of earlier in
the conversation, just getting there, just to get there.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
It is so so special.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
It's the best season in Panthers history. We've had thirty
one years of them. It's gonna be a tough one
to top. The only thing on the top it obviously,
is to win it all. That's a great place to
leave it right there. Great stories, Mick, and always fun
to catch up with you, my friend, whether it's I'm
the air or off the air. I'm glad that the
retirement in life with Donnie and the family in Burlington
is going just the way you wanted it to.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Oh there's nothing like it, but I appreciate it, appreciate it,
and thanks for thanks for all the fun, the laughs
and memories, and thanks for being the total pro that
you are.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Thirty seasons of Panther football
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