December 19, 2024 • 31 mins
This week we discuss the NFL news of the day: The Atlanta Falcons benching starting QB Kirk Cousins in favor of Michael Penix Jr. We will discuss what went wrong in last week's loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Including a breakdown of QB Bryce Young's 4 turnover game. Then we look ahead to this Sunday's game against the Arizona Cardinals. Who will win??? Tune in to find out! Keep Pounding!!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Carolina Panthers football in my mind podcast.
(00:05):
I'm your host Luke Farber and what is in this mind today?
Well before we get to last week's game the absolute bludgeoning at the hands of
the Dallas Cowboys we're gonna talk about the NFL News of the Week which of
course is the benching of the hundred million dollar free agent quarterback
Kirk Cousins by the Atlanta Falcons and replacing him with the number nine
(00:27):
overall pick rookie QB Michael Pennex Jr. out of the University of Washington.
First of all I don't think any of us saw this coming that the Falcons were
actually going to draft a quarterback after signing a hundred million dollar
free agent quarterback but that's what they did. I definitely myself questioned
(00:48):
whether it would be good for the locker room or not. Now I haven't heard any
issues throughout the year coming out about that but obviously with the poor
play of Kirk Cousins over the last four to six weeks the Falcons felt like they
had no choice but to bench him. They were only one and four in their last five
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games with Kirk Cousins only throwing one touchdown during that time which is
pretty awful especially if you're talking about almost a 15 year vet who
has made multiple Pro Bowls and won division titles and all of this stuff. Now
I believe that a lot of people overhyped the Falcons as division favorites after
(01:35):
they got Kirk Cousins mostly because I think that Atlanta kind of had the same
thing going on as Denver when Denver traded for Russell Wilson and they're
like oh you know Russell leaves Seahawks and he goes oh well they've got all
these weapons they've got Jerry Judy they've got Noah Fant they've got
(01:56):
Javonte Williams you know all oh yeah this young talent but what we realized
really quickly afterwards was that the Seahawks had more talent than the
Broncos did in DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett and Jackson Smith and Jigba. I
(02:17):
think the same thing happened when Cousins went from Minnesota to Atlanta
everybody was raving about the skill position players in Atlanta Bijon
Robinson, Drake London, Kyle Pitts but really Bijon's only a second year
running back didn't do a ton his first year but has a ton of talent. Drake London
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yeah he's had a thousand yard season before but not particularly impressive
obviously didn't lead to many wins Kyle Pitts hasn't really done much of anything
since coming into the NFL sure these guys have some talent but let's look back
at Minnesota now you're telling me they're better than Justin Jefferson and
(03:01):
Addison I don't think so so I think the the state of their offense the state of
their franchise was overhyped in the beginning of the season anyway mostly
because the South has been bad for some years now and nobody took Tampa Bay
seriously I always thought Tampa was the front runner in this division and it
(03:24):
looks like that's the way that it's gonna head out unless Michael Penick
somehow finds a way to ignite the spark of the Falcons offense which Kirk
Cousins hasn't been able to do now will he I don't know you know sure some
rookies are able to come into the NFL and have some measure of success even
(03:48):
immediately you look at CJ Stroud and Bo Nicks and Jaden Daniels in in
particular now will he be able to do that now he's luckily he's had all year
to practice and to sit and to watch and to learn the offense so he should
actually be at a better starting point with his understanding of everything
(04:13):
than those other guys so he definitely has that going for him but he still has
no NFL experience which you know if you're a rookie getting your first NFL
experience in the last three games of the season trying to win all those three
games so you have a chance at your division title which you've been in
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contention for all season and in fact you've been in the lead for most of the
season it's it's an interesting situation I don't know how it's gonna
shake out I think it'll be fascinating to watch of course for me being a
Panthers fan you know I've always thought the Falcons are soft and they've
(04:56):
been soft this year and I would love to see Penick's come out and fall on his
face and see the Falcons fail and see them make another decision with cousins
and Penick's and their quarterback room and their offense that doesn't work that
would bring joy to my heart that's for sure anyway like I said I'm not sure
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what to expect you know it'll be interesting is if Penick's comes out and
just stinks up the joint in the first half on Sunday will they switch back to
cousins the announcement from the Falcons was that Penick's will be the
starter for the rest of the season so that's the last three game now I'm not
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sure why you come out and make that declaration unless maybe you're just
trying to put your confidence behind the young guy say hey you know we're gonna
ride with you doesn't matter how you do just to give him confidence to let it
rip I don't know you know but yeah what if he comes out and throws three first
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half interceptions on Sunday and they're getting beat at home by the Giants who
are the worst team in the league by like 20 to nothing or something are they
still gonna stick with Penick's then yeah I don't know especially because they
think that they're still in contention for the division crown which I really
don't think they are I mean we will beat the Bucs in the last game of the year so
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if they can kind of get close for then then they might maybe they'll have a shot
but anyway I love to see the Falcons floundering and failing just like just
about any other team in our division but you know I'm also a petty bitter sports
fan I'm not too too big to admit it I'd love to see everybody fail except for
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the Panthers although there are some teams that that do have a good place in
my heart I'm definitely rooting for Josh Allen Sean McDermott and the Bills you
know Carolina North as it were obviously they've had a ton of success ton more
success than we have since departing after our 2015 Super Bowl year but I
(07:12):
root for those guys definitely anyway moving on to a recap of last week's game
man after four weeks in a row of really competitive football against really good
division leading teams NFL leading teams the Chiefs the Eagles the Buccaneers you
(07:35):
know it's it was very disappointing to come out and CS go flat against the
Dallas Cowboys who have been a bad team this year and who are missing their
starting quarterback and are missing key pieces on the defensive side of the ball
they don't have a particularly great running back although he has done much
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better this second half of the year so yes it was very disappointing it was
also very disappointing to see Bryce turn the ball over four times it's one
thing that during this streak of us playing better and more competitive
football he had not been doing or not been doing very often right he threw one
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against the Eagles and the last one before that he threw against the Saints
but but honestly if we look back at that play I don't consider an interception
because of course he lofts the ball down the sideline to Lee get Lee get makes a
great bucket catch and then the defender just takes the ball away from him that's
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a catch and fumble as far as I'm concerned anyway it's one of the things
that Bryce had been doing a very good job at is taking care of the ball and
that did not happen this Sunday why didn't it happen well lots of different
reasons I'll tell you first of all the Cowboys defense got after us especially
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the defensive line other than the first drive of the game which ended in a
Bryce Young fumble and then our touchdown scoring drive in the second
half we couldn't get any sort of rhythm really going offensively and that
started because they stuffed our Chuba and our running game especially after
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that first quarter I mean he couldn't find any daylight and the O line was
just getting blown up which we have not seen a lot of this year so that was
surprising especially coming off all of our you know sick you know competitive
success in the last month or so however what you got to think is hey you know we
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just played all these playoff teams really close you know even the Eagles on
the road we had a chance to win at the end of the game if not for a drop
touchdown pass so you know we got Dallas coming into our house not a good team
not you know without their starting quarterback and maybe we just took our
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foot off the gas pedal maybe we got a little too comfortable reading the fact
that we were favored for the first time in a game for two two and a half seasons
so yeah maybe we just got a little ahead of ourselves and weren't ready to play I
mean that's what it looked like to me the O line struggled the D line
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struggled the D line struggles are not surprising because they've struggled all
year especially because of injury but you could kind of tell that Dallas was
the more hungry team Dallas was the team that was putting in or at least their
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effort was showing out more than ours so and without being able to run the ball
successfully obviously that puts our offensive line Bryce and the offense in
a bit of a pickle especially when you have pass rushers like my Micah Parsons
pin in their ears back and coming after you so we we were gonna have a hard time
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doing much of anything anyway but when you turn the ball over four times you're
just not gonna win those games that that does not happen so let's look at the
turnovers why do we turn the ball over well Bryce fumbled twice and he threw
two interceptions the fumbles were very concerning to me last year because I
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felt like it happened almost every game it's like every time Bryce would take
off to scramble every time there'd be somebody pursuing him outside of the
pocket he just wasn't ready or didn't seem ready for the physicality and
speed of NFL defenders and just the ball would come out almost every time he got
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hit it seemed it's kind of like Christian McCaffrey's rookie year if you
remember back you know he came in a league a lot smaller than he is now and
I remember being concerned because his first season in the league he couldn't
break a tackle to save his life if somebody got a pinky finger on him he'd
fall down it's it seemed that way last year with Bryce and his ball security he
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would fumble the ball so often that any time a defender was near him I'd hold my
breath that has not been the case this year now he has still fumbled more than
he should in my opinion he still needs to work on that get better at that but
it has been a lot better especially if you look back at the last month because
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of his decisiveness moving in and out of the pocket he's just a whole lot more
secure with the football especially because he doesn't wait to turn on the
gas if he needs to escape or if he needs to throw the ball away obviously he had
some trouble in that this game now that first fumble was on a scramble he had
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an amazing juke move to to leave Micah Parsons in the dust and get the first
down which was fantastic but then of course he dives out and just luckily
enough they punched it out right and it's just like hey you know they punched
right on the ball there's not a whole lot you can do about Bryce was trying to
make a play you can live with it in a certain way but when you're at home and
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you're not a great team you're a young team an inexperienced team making those
mistakes they're amplified so when you go down and and you've got a team on the
heels on your first drive of the game and you got a chance to go in and score
a touchdown go in and score a touchdown that's or at least get a field goal but
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if you fumble the ball away as the 49ers from last year Super Bowl you
might not get another chance for a while you got to score when you have the
chances and you got to put sevens on the board not three that's the biggest leap
obviously in points execution that our offense needs to make from this year
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in the last three games moving on to next season hopefully that should be a
little bit easier next year as we can add some more experienced and talented
playmakers around Bryce with our big pockets and free agency and looks like
we'll probably have a top-10 pick again this year so if there's a skill position
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guy that we can add that would be wonderful oh you know of course we need
D line too but I digress anyway first interception it was it was a third down
play it was a marginal pass interference call on the defense you know the guy
grabs Thielen around the waist and turns him as he's trying to bat the ball away
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and you know that doesn't get a called all the time but this one seemed to be a
little bit more heavy-handed it definitely could have been called it
wasn't guy bats the ball pops up in the air another defender intercepts it if
there's anything I could say about Bryce on that throw is that if it had come out
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a split second sooner it might have been a first down instead of an
interception and that that is the thing especially looking back at Bryce last
year and early season Bryce this year is that there wasn't that decisiveness he
didn't have the confidence to just pull the trigger let it rip and get it there
on time with anticipation so that's what I would say with this throw is it looked
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like it might have been just a tad late thrown and that's why the DB was able to
make the move on it that he did so you know that's that'll be in continual
thing for Bryce obviously just because he's played well over the past month
doesn't mean that he's not gonna have bad games doesn't mean that he's not
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gonna have hiccups I mean look at anybody veteran great
quarterbacks everybody has bad games it's just the way it goes every team has
bad games that's the way it goes how do you respond to your bad game we'll be
watching this week definitely so anyway moving on the next fumble you know it's
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a sack the guy interior lineman gets beat right away and Bryce has somebody
in his lap before he can move and they smack him on his hands and he drops the
ball that was kind of another play that was reminiscent of last year is you know
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when you get sacked in the pocket you got to be able to hold on to the ball I
mean some of them you can understand if defenders come from the blindsides
wipes at your arm swipes at the ball you know it's it's very easily done now this
guy was in full view of Bryce coming right at his face gotta be better at
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securing that ball but I you know I obviously he doesn't meet need me to
tell him that you know he knows it and I'm sure he's getting drilled on it
heavily especially this week you know the last interception was desperation
time you know makes an overthrow whatever the game was over at that point but
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anyway we're looking for a rebound from Bryce young from the offensive line from
the offense as a whole you know Arizona's defense is solid but they're not
great so we should have some opportunities the first thing that we
got to do is open up running holes for Chuba and work that play action game
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anyway going back to Dallas recap and what happened obviously they ran the
ball all over us like a lot of teams have this year you know I've I've
mentioned it a bunch of time losing Derek Brown your best defensive lineman
defensive captain in the first game of the year for the entire season really
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hurt losing Shaq Thompson in the fourth game of the year our other defensive
captain our green dot linebacker our tackle leader our leader in general
that really hurts your on defense so and and Trevin Wallace has been a really
nice find as far as a rookie he's come in he's grown he's an athlete he's a
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beast but he was out this last game and Claude Sherl is who I really like
especially as a special teams player doesn't quite have the speed the
ferocity the tackling prowess that Wallace does or at least it didn't seem
so in last week's game so we'll we'll get to see what happens this week see if
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Wallace is back or not anyway yeah they ran the ball all over us and the
pressure that we had been getting on quarterbacks for the last few weeks just
wasn't there we only pressured Cooper Rush on 10% of his drop backs and it
just wasn't good enough when we can't get pressure especially with the
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continued communication issues we've had in the secondary people get open people
get wide open even if they're CD lamb and you're trying to double them or
guard them one-on-one with the safety which is probably not the best idea but
when you play majority zone defense and the offense can manipulate who is
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covering who by shifts and motions and they did that to us and it costs us big
plays and touchdowns so I don't expect our defensive scheme to change anytime
soon but I think everybody would be a little bit more comfortable if JC
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traveled a little bit more if some of the corners traveled a little bit more
and and and we didn't get those one-on-one matchups with a top-five NFL
receiver and our strong safety anyway it was beat down it was not fun to watch it
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was also not fun to hear my man Gio commenting on it
Greg we love you but you know I'm not always thrilled with your announcing and
your assessment of the Panthers last week I thought was whatever we did not
look good it was not a pretty football game to watch obviously it was not
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reminiscent of when you were on the squad however like I said before we're
really young we're really inexperienced we're really injured so you know and and
bad games happen to everybody in the NFL every quarterback has bad games
everybody gets out physicaled from time to time and that's exactly what happened
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to us and it sucked to see especially after our month-long of success a
competitive success against quality football teams that was hard to watch so
what we'll be watching for is the rebound this week we'll see how it goes
but anyway what what to look for in this week's matchup we're going against
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Kyler Murray and James Connor in the backfield for Arizona Arizona's got a
solid offensive line they're not great they're not horrible but they've got an
great running quarterback in Kyler Murray who's got a terrific arm and is
going to pose problems for this defense because the couple times we've faced
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really running quarterbacks this year zone read teams it's it's been a mess
kind of you know we have not handled the zone read very well with the quarterback
run also James Connor is the number one running back in the NFL for breaking
tackles which is also not a good thing for our defense because obviously our run
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defense has been the worst part of our team and having to deal with a zone
read quarterback that's got speed up the yin-yang and the best tackle breaker in
the NFL is a running back that's a poor recipe for us having
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success now the great thing is we're back at home back at the bank and I got
to believe that the defense is going to bring better execution to the play to
the playing field this week you know I what am I basing that off of I'm basing
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that off of the fact that we're fighters that this coaching staff and the players
have not given up have clawed their way back into competitiveness in the second
half of the season and that's mostly what I wanted to see especially after
the first half of the year went so poorly it's like you got to see
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improvement you got to see improvement second half of the year and there has
been improvement yeah it hasn't necessarily led to a bunch of wins but
it's something to build off of and something to hopefully get a couple
wins down the stretch I mean it'd be awesome if we could win two of our last
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three games which I think is possible we could lose them all who knows but I
think that this game this game is gonna be key gonna be clutch to see what this
team is going to look like going down for the last three games and hopefully
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into next year now this team has shown a lot of fight and a lot of growth even
though it's young and inexperienced and injured so that's exactly what I expect
this Sunday I expect a much better executive effort especially on defense
from the defensive line and and on offense from the offensive line so we're
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gonna struggle against the run but I don't think we're gonna struggle as much
as last week because we got pride and those and we're gonna come to play so
who else do we have to worry about on their offense well Marvin Harrison
jr. their rookie wide receiver is very talented he hasn't had as good of a year
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as some of the other rookie receivers he seemed to have a lot of targets but not
many catches and I'm not exactly sure why that is we'll get a chance to look
at that up close on Sunday it's a nice thing about watching you know all these
games with all these teams from around the NFL you know we get to see our team
play every week and we know them but how do we get to know these other teams we
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we watch them play so it would be interesting to see how Harrison
functions as their number one wide receiver going over to our offensive
side of the ball obviously we're looking for a rebound game from the offensive
line and Bryce Young often everything starts every week with the offensive
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line and we've still I believe everybody's healthy up there and actually
Cade Mays as center since he's taken over for Corbett has made some pretty
good strides in the second half of the year I believe so I expect a much better
effort out of the offensive line much better execution and tubas the man he'll
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run through whatever he needs to run through and Mike Boone had a few good
carries last week which was nice to see especially you know I've been a
Blackshear fan and so it was tough to see him and Brooks go out in the same
game but Mike Boone was solid last week in the backup role and we'll look for
him to do that again obviously one thing that that Greg Olson did mention that I
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agreed with on the broadcast was kind of the lack of play action that was
happening especially in the first half last week because I mean that was the
little corner of the game that first quarter when the running game kind of
worked a little bit but the the play action game wasn't integrated into the
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passing game as much as it typically is so not sure why exactly schematically
that was for coach canalis but hopefully we'll see a little bit more play action
for opportunity with chunk plays this week it was great to see Jalen Coker
back our undrafted rookie free agent wide receiver has the longest touchdown
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catch of the year 83 yards at the end of the first half that was fantastic to see
you know all these guys are young Bryce included you know undrafted rookie free
agent wide receiver making big plays throughout the season but you can tell
he's also a rookie not quite as open as he can be you know miss chiming this that
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whatever a drop here and there but all of these rookies are getting very
valuable reps and honestly Bryce is getting very valuable reps working with
a very limited receiving core so how are they gonna respond how are we going to
produce this next week we'll see but obviously we're looking for Bryce to be
(28:56):
a little bit more efficient with his passing and obviously hold on to the
ball no fumbles no interceptions and obviously with the four turnovers from
last week that's got to be a point of emphasis during practice this week and I
expect him to come out and to take care of the ball now hopefully and we'll have
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to watch for this too that the four turnover performance doesn't make him
hesitant again right you still want to be confident to let the ball rip when you
need to you don't want to be second-guessing your throw oh oh he might
pick it off no you do that you already lost right so I'll definitely be looking
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to see what his timing and anticipation throws look like this week so anyway
those are our keys to the game we got to run the ball we got to hit the play
action chunk plays over top and we got to do as best we can to limit the run
especially the zone read from Kyler Murray and clamp down on Marvin
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Harrison jr. on the outside what's this game look like I think it's a really
competitive really close probably low-scoring game going down to the wire
unfortunately I think like a lot of the games over the last six weeks we
probably have our defense wear down from the running game by the end and Arizona
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is able to squeak it out because maybe they're able to hold on to the ball in
the four-minute offense or they're able to get the ball back with a minute to go
and we can't stop them so I'm gonna go with 20 to 18 Arizona Cardinals this
week but hopefully I'm wrong hey with any of these close games we're that
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close from winning and to win I say we need to get one of these games before
the end of the year and I think we will I'd love to see us get to hey if we get
all three I mean that's exactly how we want to end the game and the year but I
think this one is tough going up against this beastly running attack from Arizona
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so if we're gonna have a chance to win this game we have to limit their running
game and we have to score sevens not threes all right keep pounding enjoy the
game on Sunday I'll talk to you next week
Hello and welcome to the Carolina Panthers football in my mind podcast.
(00:05):
I'm your host Luke Farber and what is in this mind today?
Well before we get to last week's game the absolute bludgeoning at the hands of
the Dallas Cowboys we're gonna talk about the NFL News of the Week which of
course is the benching of the hundred million dollar free agent quarterback
Kirk Cousins by the Atlanta Falcons and replacing him with the number nine
(00:27):
overall pick rookie QB Michael Pennex Jr. out of the University of Washington.
First of all I don't think any of us saw this coming that the Falcons were
actually going to draft a quarterback after signing a hundred million dollar
free agent quarterback but that's what they did. I definitely myself questioned
(00:48):
whether it would be good for the locker room or not. Now I haven't heard any
issues throughout the year coming out about that but obviously with the poor
play of Kirk Cousins over the last four to six weeks the Falcons felt like they
had no choice but to bench him. They were only one and four in their last five
(01:10):
games with Kirk Cousins only throwing one touchdown during that time which is
pretty awful especially if you're talking about almost a 15 year vet who
has made multiple Pro Bowls and won division titles and all of this stuff. Now
I believe that a lot of people overhyped the Falcons as division favorites after
(01:35):
they got Kirk Cousins mostly because I think that Atlanta kind of had the same
thing going on as Denver when Denver traded for Russell Wilson and they're
like oh you know Russell leaves Seahawks and he goes oh well they've got all
these weapons they've got Jerry Judy they've got Noah Fant they've got
(01:56):
Javonte Williams you know all oh yeah this young talent but what we realized
really quickly afterwards was that the Seahawks had more talent than the
Broncos did in DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett and Jackson Smith and Jigba. I
(02:17):
think the same thing happened when Cousins went from Minnesota to Atlanta
everybody was raving about the skill position players in Atlanta Bijon
Robinson, Drake London, Kyle Pitts but really Bijon's only a second year
running back didn't do a ton his first year but has a ton of talent. Drake London
(02:39):
yeah he's had a thousand yard season before but not particularly impressive
obviously didn't lead to many wins Kyle Pitts hasn't really done much of anything
since coming into the NFL sure these guys have some talent but let's look back
at Minnesota now you're telling me they're better than Justin Jefferson and
(03:01):
Addison I don't think so so I think the the state of their offense the state of
their franchise was overhyped in the beginning of the season anyway mostly
because the South has been bad for some years now and nobody took Tampa Bay
seriously I always thought Tampa was the front runner in this division and it
(03:24):
looks like that's the way that it's gonna head out unless Michael Penick
somehow finds a way to ignite the spark of the Falcons offense which Kirk
Cousins hasn't been able to do now will he I don't know you know sure some
rookies are able to come into the NFL and have some measure of success even
(03:48):
immediately you look at CJ Stroud and Bo Nicks and Jaden Daniels in in
particular now will he be able to do that now he's luckily he's had all year
to practice and to sit and to watch and to learn the offense so he should
actually be at a better starting point with his understanding of everything
(04:13):
than those other guys so he definitely has that going for him but he still has
no NFL experience which you know if you're a rookie getting your first NFL
experience in the last three games of the season trying to win all those three
games so you have a chance at your division title which you've been in
(04:34):
contention for all season and in fact you've been in the lead for most of the
season it's it's an interesting situation I don't know how it's gonna
shake out I think it'll be fascinating to watch of course for me being a
Panthers fan you know I've always thought the Falcons are soft and they've
(04:56):
been soft this year and I would love to see Penick's come out and fall on his
face and see the Falcons fail and see them make another decision with cousins
and Penick's and their quarterback room and their offense that doesn't work that
would bring joy to my heart that's for sure anyway like I said I'm not sure
(05:21):
what to expect you know it'll be interesting is if Penick's comes out and
just stinks up the joint in the first half on Sunday will they switch back to
cousins the announcement from the Falcons was that Penick's will be the
starter for the rest of the season so that's the last three game now I'm not
(05:41):
sure why you come out and make that declaration unless maybe you're just
trying to put your confidence behind the young guy say hey you know we're gonna
ride with you doesn't matter how you do just to give him confidence to let it
rip I don't know you know but yeah what if he comes out and throws three first
(06:02):
half interceptions on Sunday and they're getting beat at home by the Giants who
are the worst team in the league by like 20 to nothing or something are they
still gonna stick with Penick's then yeah I don't know especially because they
think that they're still in contention for the division crown which I really
don't think they are I mean we will beat the Bucs in the last game of the year so
(06:26):
if they can kind of get close for then then they might maybe they'll have a shot
but anyway I love to see the Falcons floundering and failing just like just
about any other team in our division but you know I'm also a petty bitter sports
fan I'm not too too big to admit it I'd love to see everybody fail except for
(06:49):
the Panthers although there are some teams that that do have a good place in
my heart I'm definitely rooting for Josh Allen Sean McDermott and the Bills you
know Carolina North as it were obviously they've had a ton of success ton more
success than we have since departing after our 2015 Super Bowl year but I
(07:12):
root for those guys definitely anyway moving on to a recap of last week's game
man after four weeks in a row of really competitive football against really good
division leading teams NFL leading teams the Chiefs the Eagles the Buccaneers you
(07:35):
know it's it was very disappointing to come out and CS go flat against the
Dallas Cowboys who have been a bad team this year and who are missing their
starting quarterback and are missing key pieces on the defensive side of the ball
they don't have a particularly great running back although he has done much
(07:59):
better this second half of the year so yes it was very disappointing it was
also very disappointing to see Bryce turn the ball over four times it's one
thing that during this streak of us playing better and more competitive
football he had not been doing or not been doing very often right he threw one
(08:19):
against the Eagles and the last one before that he threw against the Saints
but but honestly if we look back at that play I don't consider an interception
because of course he lofts the ball down the sideline to Lee get Lee get makes a
great bucket catch and then the defender just takes the ball away from him that's
(08:42):
a catch and fumble as far as I'm concerned anyway it's one of the things
that Bryce had been doing a very good job at is taking care of the ball and
that did not happen this Sunday why didn't it happen well lots of different
reasons I'll tell you first of all the Cowboys defense got after us especially
(09:03):
the defensive line other than the first drive of the game which ended in a
Bryce Young fumble and then our touchdown scoring drive in the second
half we couldn't get any sort of rhythm really going offensively and that
started because they stuffed our Chuba and our running game especially after
(09:26):
that first quarter I mean he couldn't find any daylight and the O line was
just getting blown up which we have not seen a lot of this year so that was
surprising especially coming off all of our you know sick you know competitive
success in the last month or so however what you got to think is hey you know we
(09:49):
just played all these playoff teams really close you know even the Eagles on
the road we had a chance to win at the end of the game if not for a drop
touchdown pass so you know we got Dallas coming into our house not a good team
not you know without their starting quarterback and maybe we just took our
(10:10):
foot off the gas pedal maybe we got a little too comfortable reading the fact
that we were favored for the first time in a game for two two and a half seasons
so yeah maybe we just got a little ahead of ourselves and weren't ready to play I
mean that's what it looked like to me the O line struggled the D line
(10:34):
struggled the D line struggles are not surprising because they've struggled all
year especially because of injury but you could kind of tell that Dallas was
the more hungry team Dallas was the team that was putting in or at least their
(10:56):
effort was showing out more than ours so and without being able to run the ball
successfully obviously that puts our offensive line Bryce and the offense in
a bit of a pickle especially when you have pass rushers like my Micah Parsons
pin in their ears back and coming after you so we we were gonna have a hard time
(11:23):
doing much of anything anyway but when you turn the ball over four times you're
just not gonna win those games that that does not happen so let's look at the
turnovers why do we turn the ball over well Bryce fumbled twice and he threw
two interceptions the fumbles were very concerning to me last year because I
(11:43):
felt like it happened almost every game it's like every time Bryce would take
off to scramble every time there'd be somebody pursuing him outside of the
pocket he just wasn't ready or didn't seem ready for the physicality and
speed of NFL defenders and just the ball would come out almost every time he got
(12:06):
hit it seemed it's kind of like Christian McCaffrey's rookie year if you
remember back you know he came in a league a lot smaller than he is now and
I remember being concerned because his first season in the league he couldn't
break a tackle to save his life if somebody got a pinky finger on him he'd
fall down it's it seemed that way last year with Bryce and his ball security he
(12:30):
would fumble the ball so often that any time a defender was near him I'd hold my
breath that has not been the case this year now he has still fumbled more than
he should in my opinion he still needs to work on that get better at that but
it has been a lot better especially if you look back at the last month because
(12:55):
of his decisiveness moving in and out of the pocket he's just a whole lot more
secure with the football especially because he doesn't wait to turn on the
gas if he needs to escape or if he needs to throw the ball away obviously he had
some trouble in that this game now that first fumble was on a scramble he had
(13:19):
an amazing juke move to to leave Micah Parsons in the dust and get the first
down which was fantastic but then of course he dives out and just luckily
enough they punched it out right and it's just like hey you know they punched
right on the ball there's not a whole lot you can do about Bryce was trying to
make a play you can live with it in a certain way but when you're at home and
(13:45):
you're not a great team you're a young team an inexperienced team making those
mistakes they're amplified so when you go down and and you've got a team on the
heels on your first drive of the game and you got a chance to go in and score
a touchdown go in and score a touchdown that's or at least get a field goal but
(14:09):
if you fumble the ball away as the 49ers from last year Super Bowl you
might not get another chance for a while you got to score when you have the
chances and you got to put sevens on the board not three that's the biggest leap
obviously in points execution that our offense needs to make from this year
(14:33):
in the last three games moving on to next season hopefully that should be a
little bit easier next year as we can add some more experienced and talented
playmakers around Bryce with our big pockets and free agency and looks like
we'll probably have a top-10 pick again this year so if there's a skill position
(14:57):
guy that we can add that would be wonderful oh you know of course we need
D line too but I digress anyway first interception it was it was a third down
play it was a marginal pass interference call on the defense you know the guy
grabs Thielen around the waist and turns him as he's trying to bat the ball away
(15:19):
and you know that doesn't get a called all the time but this one seemed to be a
little bit more heavy-handed it definitely could have been called it
wasn't guy bats the ball pops up in the air another defender intercepts it if
there's anything I could say about Bryce on that throw is that if it had come out
(15:43):
a split second sooner it might have been a first down instead of an
interception and that that is the thing especially looking back at Bryce last
year and early season Bryce this year is that there wasn't that decisiveness he
didn't have the confidence to just pull the trigger let it rip and get it there
on time with anticipation so that's what I would say with this throw is it looked
(16:09):
like it might have been just a tad late thrown and that's why the DB was able to
make the move on it that he did so you know that's that'll be in continual
thing for Bryce obviously just because he's played well over the past month
doesn't mean that he's not gonna have bad games doesn't mean that he's not
(16:31):
gonna have hiccups I mean look at anybody veteran great
quarterbacks everybody has bad games it's just the way it goes every team has
bad games that's the way it goes how do you respond to your bad game we'll be
watching this week definitely so anyway moving on the next fumble you know it's
(16:59):
a sack the guy interior lineman gets beat right away and Bryce has somebody
in his lap before he can move and they smack him on his hands and he drops the
ball that was kind of another play that was reminiscent of last year is you know
(17:20):
when you get sacked in the pocket you got to be able to hold on to the ball I
mean some of them you can understand if defenders come from the blindsides
wipes at your arm swipes at the ball you know it's it's very easily done now this
guy was in full view of Bryce coming right at his face gotta be better at
(17:44):
securing that ball but I you know I obviously he doesn't meet need me to
tell him that you know he knows it and I'm sure he's getting drilled on it
heavily especially this week you know the last interception was desperation
time you know makes an overthrow whatever the game was over at that point but
(18:08):
anyway we're looking for a rebound from Bryce young from the offensive line from
the offense as a whole you know Arizona's defense is solid but they're not
great so we should have some opportunities the first thing that we
got to do is open up running holes for Chuba and work that play action game
(18:30):
anyway going back to Dallas recap and what happened obviously they ran the
ball all over us like a lot of teams have this year you know I've I've
mentioned it a bunch of time losing Derek Brown your best defensive lineman
defensive captain in the first game of the year for the entire season really
(18:51):
hurt losing Shaq Thompson in the fourth game of the year our other defensive
captain our green dot linebacker our tackle leader our leader in general
that really hurts your on defense so and and Trevin Wallace has been a really
nice find as far as a rookie he's come in he's grown he's an athlete he's a
(19:14):
beast but he was out this last game and Claude Sherl is who I really like
especially as a special teams player doesn't quite have the speed the
ferocity the tackling prowess that Wallace does or at least it didn't seem
so in last week's game so we'll we'll get to see what happens this week see if
(19:36):
Wallace is back or not anyway yeah they ran the ball all over us and the
pressure that we had been getting on quarterbacks for the last few weeks just
wasn't there we only pressured Cooper Rush on 10% of his drop backs and it
just wasn't good enough when we can't get pressure especially with the
(19:57):
continued communication issues we've had in the secondary people get open people
get wide open even if they're CD lamb and you're trying to double them or
guard them one-on-one with the safety which is probably not the best idea but
when you play majority zone defense and the offense can manipulate who is
(20:20):
covering who by shifts and motions and they did that to us and it costs us big
plays and touchdowns so I don't expect our defensive scheme to change anytime
soon but I think everybody would be a little bit more comfortable if JC
(20:42):
traveled a little bit more if some of the corners traveled a little bit more
and and and we didn't get those one-on-one matchups with a top-five NFL
receiver and our strong safety anyway it was beat down it was not fun to watch it
(21:04):
was also not fun to hear my man Gio commenting on it
Greg we love you but you know I'm not always thrilled with your announcing and
your assessment of the Panthers last week I thought was whatever we did not
look good it was not a pretty football game to watch obviously it was not
(21:27):
reminiscent of when you were on the squad however like I said before we're
really young we're really inexperienced we're really injured so you know and and
bad games happen to everybody in the NFL every quarterback has bad games
everybody gets out physicaled from time to time and that's exactly what happened
(21:52):
to us and it sucked to see especially after our month-long of success a
competitive success against quality football teams that was hard to watch so
what we'll be watching for is the rebound this week we'll see how it goes
but anyway what what to look for in this week's matchup we're going against
(22:19):
Kyler Murray and James Connor in the backfield for Arizona Arizona's got a
solid offensive line they're not great they're not horrible but they've got an
great running quarterback in Kyler Murray who's got a terrific arm and is
going to pose problems for this defense because the couple times we've faced
(22:43):
really running quarterbacks this year zone read teams it's it's been a mess
kind of you know we have not handled the zone read very well with the quarterback
run also James Connor is the number one running back in the NFL for breaking
tackles which is also not a good thing for our defense because obviously our run
(23:08):
defense has been the worst part of our team and having to deal with a zone
read quarterback that's got speed up the yin-yang and the best tackle breaker in
the NFL is a running back that's a poor recipe for us having
(23:29):
success now the great thing is we're back at home back at the bank and I got
to believe that the defense is going to bring better execution to the play to
the playing field this week you know I what am I basing that off of I'm basing
(23:49):
that off of the fact that we're fighters that this coaching staff and the players
have not given up have clawed their way back into competitiveness in the second
half of the season and that's mostly what I wanted to see especially after
the first half of the year went so poorly it's like you got to see
(24:10):
improvement you got to see improvement second half of the year and there has
been improvement yeah it hasn't necessarily led to a bunch of wins but
it's something to build off of and something to hopefully get a couple
wins down the stretch I mean it'd be awesome if we could win two of our last
(24:31):
three games which I think is possible we could lose them all who knows but I
think that this game this game is gonna be key gonna be clutch to see what this
team is going to look like going down for the last three games and hopefully
(24:52):
into next year now this team has shown a lot of fight and a lot of growth even
though it's young and inexperienced and injured so that's exactly what I expect
this Sunday I expect a much better executive effort especially on defense
from the defensive line and and on offense from the offensive line so we're
(25:18):
gonna struggle against the run but I don't think we're gonna struggle as much
as last week because we got pride and those and we're gonna come to play so
who else do we have to worry about on their offense well Marvin Harrison
jr. their rookie wide receiver is very talented he hasn't had as good of a year
(25:43):
as some of the other rookie receivers he seemed to have a lot of targets but not
many catches and I'm not exactly sure why that is we'll get a chance to look
at that up close on Sunday it's a nice thing about watching you know all these
games with all these teams from around the NFL you know we get to see our team
play every week and we know them but how do we get to know these other teams we
(26:07):
we watch them play so it would be interesting to see how Harrison
functions as their number one wide receiver going over to our offensive
side of the ball obviously we're looking for a rebound game from the offensive
line and Bryce Young often everything starts every week with the offensive
(26:32):
line and we've still I believe everybody's healthy up there and actually
Cade Mays as center since he's taken over for Corbett has made some pretty
good strides in the second half of the year I believe so I expect a much better
effort out of the offensive line much better execution and tubas the man he'll
(26:54):
run through whatever he needs to run through and Mike Boone had a few good
carries last week which was nice to see especially you know I've been a
Blackshear fan and so it was tough to see him and Brooks go out in the same
game but Mike Boone was solid last week in the backup role and we'll look for
him to do that again obviously one thing that that Greg Olson did mention that I
(27:21):
agreed with on the broadcast was kind of the lack of play action that was
happening especially in the first half last week because I mean that was the
little corner of the game that first quarter when the running game kind of
worked a little bit but the the play action game wasn't integrated into the
(27:43):
passing game as much as it typically is so not sure why exactly schematically
that was for coach canalis but hopefully we'll see a little bit more play action
for opportunity with chunk plays this week it was great to see Jalen Coker
back our undrafted rookie free agent wide receiver has the longest touchdown
(28:06):
catch of the year 83 yards at the end of the first half that was fantastic to see
you know all these guys are young Bryce included you know undrafted rookie free
agent wide receiver making big plays throughout the season but you can tell
he's also a rookie not quite as open as he can be you know miss chiming this that
(28:32):
whatever a drop here and there but all of these rookies are getting very
valuable reps and honestly Bryce is getting very valuable reps working with
a very limited receiving core so how are they gonna respond how are we going to
produce this next week we'll see but obviously we're looking for Bryce to be
(28:56):
a little bit more efficient with his passing and obviously hold on to the
ball no fumbles no interceptions and obviously with the four turnovers from
last week that's got to be a point of emphasis during practice this week and I
expect him to come out and to take care of the ball now hopefully and we'll have
(29:16):
to watch for this too that the four turnover performance doesn't make him
hesitant again right you still want to be confident to let the ball rip when you
need to you don't want to be second-guessing your throw oh oh he might
pick it off no you do that you already lost right so I'll definitely be looking
(29:39):
to see what his timing and anticipation throws look like this week so anyway
those are our keys to the game we got to run the ball we got to hit the play
action chunk plays over top and we got to do as best we can to limit the run
especially the zone read from Kyler Murray and clamp down on Marvin
(30:02):
Harrison jr. on the outside what's this game look like I think it's a really
competitive really close probably low-scoring game going down to the wire
unfortunately I think like a lot of the games over the last six weeks we
probably have our defense wear down from the running game by the end and Arizona
(30:28):
is able to squeak it out because maybe they're able to hold on to the ball in
the four-minute offense or they're able to get the ball back with a minute to go
and we can't stop them so I'm gonna go with 20 to 18 Arizona Cardinals this
week but hopefully I'm wrong hey with any of these close games we're that
(30:52):
close from winning and to win I say we need to get one of these games before
the end of the year and I think we will I'd love to see us get to hey if we get
all three I mean that's exactly how we want to end the game and the year but I
think this one is tough going up against this beastly running attack from Arizona
(31:19):
so if we're gonna have a chance to win this game we have to limit their running
game and we have to score sevens not threes all right keep pounding enjoy the
game on Sunday I'll talk to you next week
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