Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Carolina Panthers football in my mind podcast.
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I'm your host Luke Farber and what is in my mind today?
Well we suffered another blowout loss on the road last week at the commanders.
It's been a tough season so far obviously.
I don't have to tell any of you that.
I was at the casino watching again.
I figured the only time I went to the casino was our game against Vegas.
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So you know we were bound to have some good luck.
Well the first drive looked great until Dalton threw a pick six.
And I tell you my head and my heart just sank as that happened.
But I told myself hey no you're here you're getting to watch your favorite football team.
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This is a good day.
Don't let our difficult season ruin your afternoon.
And luckily I didn't.
Yeah it was not a fun watch and I was glad to be gone when the game was over.
But I was still able to mildly enjoy myself.
I got a good bartender Keely who takes great care of me.
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And you know you get little conversations here and there that are worth it.
But anyway let's recap what happened.
First drive of the game looked great.
We were picking up chunk plays.
Dalton was getting a bunch of people involved.
Miles Sanders, Jatavian Sanders, Chuba, Deontay.
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We're moving the ball great picking up chunk plays.
And then on a second down and ten going left off the line of scrimmage right in front of
the referee Chuba gets a face mask that is not called.
And I hate to complain about the refs because every football player knows it.
Every athlete that is worth their salt knows it.
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The refs don't determine the outcome of the game.
Even if they make bad calls, even if they make a bad call at the very last play they
don't determine the outcome of the game.
It is up to you as a player and as a coach to perform and make plays regardless of what
happens with the referees.
That being said, when your roster is challenged and you're a young team and you don't have
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a whole lot of margin for error, one little setback like that can start a cascade of system
failures that end up to a blowout loss.
And that seems to be exactly what happened.
Because after that play, after the non-face mask call, we're facing a third and nine just
outside the red zone, we're still in decent shape.
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But what happens, you know, we call a screen to Miles Sanders and they get too much pressure
on Dalton too quickly and he lets it go before Sanders is ready and sure enough it passes
right over his shoulder into the waiting arms of a defender who takes it to the end zone.
And our day didn't get much better after that.
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In fact, you could say it got worse.
It was 37 to nothing before we scored our first points.
But hey, let's see what happened.
I mean, obviously Dalton threw two interceptions in the first quarter.
You're not going to win many games if your quarterback turns the ball over twice in the
first quarter and especially if one's returned for a touchdown by the defense.
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The thing that is difficult about this is, you know, other than that Vegas game, our
road performances have left a lot to be desired, especially if you're looking at the last two
in Chicago and Washington.
Really, you know, those were the games that are offensive line performed the poorest.
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Those defensive linemen got after us in both of those games.
And it's a bit concerning when, you know, you're just more up for games at home than
you are on the road.
You know, there isn't that stamina, that capability, that toughness there yet.
Obviously, like I said, young team, new coaching staff, we're not there yet.
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But we want to see improvement after this year goes along, as this year goes along.
We can't be getting blown out 40 to 7 on the road or at home in another six weeks.
We don't want to see that.
Or if it does happen, just have it be an outlier.
We want to be competitive.
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Unfortunately, it's hard to be competitive when you have as many injuries as we do.
But we'll get to that later.
Like I said, our offensive line had a poor game.
Those are our two poorest games as far as I'm concerned against Chicago and Washington,
both on the road.
Defensive lines got after us.
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This time they even shut down the run game.
Before in Chicago and all these other games, the run game was still effective.
They were able to get to Dalton as a passer.
But in this game, we couldn't even get the run going.
Two ball only averaged 3.1 a carry.
And we only ran the ball as a team 23 times.
But of course, if you're down 17 to nothing in the first quarter, it makes it really hard
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to stick to the running game.
In my opinion, we shouldn't be getting far away from the running game no matter what
the score is, because we just don't have the personnel to pass it 50 times a game and score
40 points a game.
We just don't have that.
But we do have a solid running game.
And to keep the games closer, to keep us competitive, and to keep the confidence in our team up
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that can make some plays, we got to lean into that running game.
Well, we also had a difficult time pass protecting.
We gave up pressures on 50% of the drop backs, which is way too much.
Dalton only got sacked twice, but two interceptions as well.
So that's not good.
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Luckily, we did have a couple of highlights.
Let's be positive.
Let's find the good and the offensive performance.
Too bad a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
And at least we got on the board.
We didn't get shut out.
So there's a positive.
Then JT Sanders finally has a decent game.
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I think this is a tight end with a lot of pass receiving potential.
And he had six catches for 61 yards.
So not ground shaking, earth shattering statistics, but a positive sign from a young rookie who
honestly we need to step up.
Other than that, our offense just really didn't get anything going all day long.
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And that was tough to see.
But we move on.
We hit the practice field.
We keep pounding.
We get back to the field.
Now defense, obviously our defense is in a really tough spot.
Last week, this week, we are signing players off of other teams practice squads onto our
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roster, which is a horrible sign because not only does that mean that we don't have the
bodies on our roster or in our practice squad number wise, but also talent wise.
If we're pulling players off other teams practice squads, ours is not in a good spot.
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Anyway, back to those injuries.
We had three of our four starting defensive linemen out, both of our inside linebackers
out and half of our secondary out.
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Because basically we have three starters from our team as we started the year out of 11.
That's horrible.
Especially when two of those starters were our two defensive captains and our best players,
Derrick Brown, our best defensive lineman and Shaq Thompson, our best linebacker.
We can't win without players.
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I mean, that's just the way it is.
So obviously we couldn't stop the run.
We've been horrible at stopping the run this year.
The commanders had 37 carries for 214 yards, 5.8 a pop.
It's just, that's horrible.
It's unacceptable.
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If we can't stop the run, teams don't even need to pass.
In fact, until the last drive of the game on Sunday, Washington had two passing yards,
yet it was 20 something to nothing.
If you can't stop the run, you're not going to be able to stop anyway.
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It got off to a horrible start, obviously.
Luckily, we haven't played too many mobile quarterbacks so far this year because on the
first play, zone read by Jayden Daniels, he takes the ball 46 yards.
And that continued with Jayden Daniels while he was in and Mariotta is that we couldn't
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get a beat on the zone read at all.
We're always making the wrong read and they gashed us every time.
Unfortunately, with the injuries we have sustained and the way the play has gone at this point,
we have the worst defense in the league.
We're giving up the most points in the league.
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And like I said before, our young injured pleaded offense as well, just can't keep up.
So really, that's where that running the football as many times as you can, even if you aren't
amazingly successful at it, it's going to shorten the game and it's going to help your
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pleaded defense.
Please coach, please run the ball.
Anyway, that is over.
Last week is done.
We don't have to see the commanders again this year.
So what did we get to do?
We got to go on the road again to Denver, obviously the mile high city.
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So not only is it most of the way across the country, but it's also sitting at over 5,200
feet elevation and that's going to make the defense even more tired.
Anyway, that's another thing with this next road game is are we going to come to play?
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Are we going to be ready?
Are we going to be able to fire off the ball or are we just going to kind of get whipped
upfront like we have the last two road games?
I don't know.
Is it going to be another blowout?
I don't know.
Looking at the injury report this week, I mean, says everything.
We have 22 players with injury designations, including our starting quarterback, our top
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two wide receivers, our best defensive linemen.
It's a mess.
And of course, Denver only has five on their injury report and so much in the NFL has to
do with how healthy you are as a team.
So we may be in for another long day.
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We'll see.
Obviously, one of those injuries, Andy Dalton got in a car accident, unfortunately, and
is a little banged up on his throwing hand.
So Bryce Young gets a start this week, which I'm not going to say I'm excited to see Bryce
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play quarterback this week because I don't think excitement is the right word.
Am I interested?
Absolutely.
Do I want to see him play well?
100%.
Do I think he will?
The cards are stacked against him pretty high.
I've already laid out the case with our defense being completely bandaged up and awful.
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And as I mentioned before, our top two wide receivers are out of this game.
So not only does Bryce get to come in for a game on the road against the Denver defense,
who is 10th in the league in giving up rushing yards and second in the league in sacks, but
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he has to do it without his two starting wide receivers, who are the only veterans really
on the squad, Deontay Johnson and Adam Thielen, and has got to play with a rookie, Xavier
LeGette, another rookie, Jalen Coker, unsigned free agent.
Our second year wide receiver, Jonathan Mingo, has seen his snap count go down so far this
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year because he hasn't been performing, but obviously he needs to get in there and do
something.
Furthermore, he's a bet, but a fairly limited possession receiver, not a big play kind of
guy.
So what are we going to do about this?
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Well, the O-line has to be great.
The O-line has to be great for us to have a chance.
We have to run the ball well, and Bryce has to get the ball out of his hand quick, and
we're also going to not only have to be efficient at the quick passing game, but one of the
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things that Bryce has not done well in his career so far is throw the ball more than
15 yards down the field.
He doesn't take shots very often and seems a little timid, and the pressure gets to him
very quickly.
He is going to need to improve at that vastly today for us to have a chance.
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We have to throw the ball over their heads, otherwise they're just going to sit on the
line of scrimmage and stuff tuba and those quick passes, and it's going to be really
hard to watch because we aren't going to get any traction on offense.
If they don't have any fear of us doing something that is going to be profound on offense, it's
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going to be a long day.
So if I'm the coach, I'm dialing up a shot or two immediately.
Max protect, play action, and get LeGette running across the field away from the defense on
a deep post or corner and hit him with it, Bryce.
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We've all seen the little snapshots of practice this week.
It's like, oh, Bryce is this, Bryce is that, oh, all these throws.
You know what?
We've seen it before.
We've seen it in training camp.
We need to see it on Sundays.
We need to see it on the field.
And like I said, he is unfortunately really going up against Rock and a Hard Place this
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week with our depleted roster being on the road against Denver, against a really good
defense and against one of the best head coaches in football, Sean Payton.
I hate the guy with a passion, but I can't deny how good he is.
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So anyway, we're going up against a tough assignment this week, but we'll just do what
we can and see what happens.
Obviously another thing I'm looking for from the offense hopefully is can JT Sanders build
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on his progress from last week, the 6 for 61?
Can he go over that?
Can he get another handful of catches?
Can he get in the end zone?
That would be awesome to see.
Now obviously our defense going up against their offense, they don't have an explosive
offense.
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And another one of their wide receivers is out this week because he suffered a gunshot
wound this last week, unfortunately.
Never want to see that.
But the Broncos strength in offense is their offensive line and running the football and
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efficient passing with rookie quarterback Bo Nix.
And he has been efficient, which is what they need to win the game, especially with a good
defense.
So I look for the Broncos to run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, because of course
Payton had those great offensive lines in New Orleans and those great running backs.
And that's what drove Drew Brees and that offense.
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It was the running game.
So I'm putting it on the defense basically, they got to sell out to stop Williams in that
running game at all costs if we're going to have any chance in this game.
And like I said, being at mile high elevation, the offense has got to do their best to control
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the ball and keep our defense on the sideline.
That's the only way we're going to have a shot in this game.
So run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, coach.
Stop the run.
Don't turn the ball over.
And we're going to need to get to Nix and we're going to need to get a turnover or
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two if we have a chance.
And yes, we're probably going to get Clowney back, so hopefully the pass rush should be
a bit better.
But we're still waiting for a bunch of other guys to come off the injured list.
And we can't count on a great pass rush.
So we're just going to have to be sticky in coverage and play our butts off.
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That is the one thing in these last few road losses, we just haven't seen that energy,
especially offensively.
And I'm definitely going to be interested to see how the O-line and everybody is firing
off the ball this week, especially after the blowout loss on the road last week and having
another road game this week.
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Anyway, like I said before, we got a lot of chips stacked against us this week.
It might be a long day.
In fact, that's kind of what I'm picking.
Let me go Broncos 28, Panthers 10.
Hopefully we can see some good stuff out of Bryce.
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I don't know.
But let's try and show some progress with the young guys, with the effort, and give
them a good game.
And who knows, maybe sneak one out.
Because the Broncos don't have a great offense.
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If we can just somehow manage to slow the game down and stay close, maybe we can steal
one leg.
Anyway, we'll see.
Everybody have a great weekend.
Keep pounding.
Go Panthers.
I'll talk to you next week.