Speaker 1: This week on the Happy Half Hour. They've been talking
Speaker 1: for three years about building a defense so that you
Speaker 1: can just get league average quarterback play. We're not close
Speaker 1: to league average quarterback play right now. When passes get
Speaker 1: batted down the client of scrimmage, they get picked off
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. A defense that's been playing really
Speaker 1: well is just sitting there exhausted. Text It's time for
Speaker 1: the Happy Half Hour with your friends Kristen Balboni, Augusta Stone,
Speaker 1: and Darren Gannon. It's that time of the week. This
Speaker 1: podcast is brought to you by Prowling Vineyards, which is
Speaker 1: the official wine brand and wine club of the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 1: Each handcrafted wine mirrors the panthers bold attitude and the
Speaker 1: iconic flavors honor the two states we are proud to
Speaker 1: call home. Plus a portion of the proceeds support the
Speaker 1: Carolina Panthers charities, So learn more at Prowling Vineyards dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, it is Thursday morning, guys. How we feeling
Speaker 1: a stuff? I feel great. I have my coffee. I
Speaker 1: got some new disposable cups so I can stop like
Speaker 1: having to wash the same one over and over. Um,
Speaker 1: what are we putting in the coffee because I know
Speaker 1: there was a while where you were on a coffee
Speaker 1: and lemonade kick. I was, I was, So this is
Speaker 1: I just got the creamer yesterday. It's an almond sweet
Speaker 1: cream something like that. It's delicious. Now, something tells me,
Speaker 1: Darren is a black coffee. You know what, Darren? I
Speaker 1: am too. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't need a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. It's just about the drug. I need
Speaker 1: caffeine inside me. So it's uh, it's just a delivery.
Speaker 1: Dre just gets an ivy of Yeah, just shoot it
Speaker 1: right into my vein every morning. It's like going in
Speaker 1: getting the old changed. Let's go. So we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about everything today. We're gonna talk about the office. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the defense. We're gonna you know, some good,
Speaker 1: some bad. But before we do, we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: little palate cleanser with Darren. Darren, you told me something
Speaker 1: right before we came on the air, as if I
Speaker 1: should know about this, and I'd never heard about it.
Speaker 1: So can you please explain? It's only the greatest thing
Speaker 1: on the internet this week It's called fat Bear Week.
Speaker 1: It's Fat Bear Week. Everybody, let's celebrate um a National
Speaker 1: park in Alaska takes pictures of its bears every summer
Speaker 1: and fall, and then you know the bear. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: bears try to bulk up for hibernation because you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not gonna eat for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: you gotta load up in advance. There's a bear called
Speaker 1: Otis who wants ate forty two salmon in one day.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, um But they take before and after pictures
Speaker 1: of these bears, and you go online, if you just
Speaker 1: google Fat Bear Week, you can see the fat bears,
Speaker 1: and you know, you vote for your favorite fat bear.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to influence democracy. I want everybody
Speaker 1: to have a voice in this. But the correct fat
Speaker 1: bear this year is Bear nine oh one. Some of
Speaker 1: them just have numbers, but Bear nine oh one may
Speaker 1: or may not be pregnant, and she has loaded up.
Speaker 1: She is the bestest fat bear of them all. So
Speaker 1: vote early, vote often. I've today's the day nine o
Speaker 1: one is on the ballot, so maybe we're in the quarterfinals.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But Otis is a like a three
Speaker 1: time champion. I mean, my god, if he forty two
Speaker 1: salmon in a day, you ought to do something. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think nine oh one is coming strong this year,
Speaker 1: and she is a big fat bear. I did just
Speaker 1: google Fat Bear nine oh one, which is not something
Speaker 1: I ever thought I would google. And I see exactly
Speaker 1: what you're saying. I hope everyone who's listening is googling
Speaker 1: as well. She does look pregnant, yes, but awesome but
Speaker 1: not but and also yes, that's one of those things
Speaker 1: my wife taught me. She said, when you start a
Speaker 1: sentence with I love you, but you don't, don't do that.
Speaker 1: That's I love you, but you folded my shirts wrong,
Speaker 1: and I love you anyway. Where where are we fat
Speaker 1: Beer We? Yeah? I think that's what the whole podcast
Speaker 1: is going to be about. Right to talk about William
Speaker 1: the refrigerator Perry that brings it right back to football?
Speaker 1: Are all ramp out of this? Also, forty salmon in
Speaker 1: one day? Not all right? I appreciate Darren you setting
Speaker 1: the tone. I mean, it is the happy half hour
Speaker 1: podcast after all. But but now we've got to get
Speaker 1: to some business. Yeah. Um, look, let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: the offense here. I mean, I don't know what another
Speaker 1: transition from Fat Bear Week to the Panthers is so
Speaker 1: we're just going to talk about the offense. I think
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this podcast, aside from learning new
Speaker 1: things about fat Bear and i Oh one, you want
Speaker 1: to know what's going on. And I think the two
Speaker 1: of you have great insight into um the tenor around here,
Speaker 1: what what people are working on, and what you think. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's less happy, Uh this week the news hasn't been great.
Speaker 1: I mean, the offense is not in a good spot
Speaker 1: right now. And one of the things I've yelled about
Speaker 1: for years and years and years. When you watch this stuff,
Speaker 1: when you talk to coaches, when you talk to players,
Speaker 1: when you watch practice, you realize it's very seldom as
Speaker 1: simple as one thing. Absolutely, people want to make it
Speaker 1: about one thing and it's only this and only that.
Speaker 1: And listen, there are things that the Carolina Panthers are
Speaker 1: doing offensively that do not make it easy on Baker Mayfield.
Speaker 1: But right now, Baker Mayfield is kind of the biggest
Speaker 1: thing that's not working. I mean, Baker is not the
Speaker 1: player they've hope they were going to get. They've all
Speaker 1: they've been talking for three years about building a defense
Speaker 1: so that if you can just get league average quarterback
Speaker 1: play we're not close to league average quarterback play right now,
Speaker 1: Baker's down near the bottom. I mean, oddly enough. As
Speaker 1: I was going through this week's stats, he's actually third
Speaker 1: in the league and fourth quarter passer rating, which is weird.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of that was built on
Speaker 1: a couple of big plays. The Robbie play that Levis
Speaker 1: could play, and then that long drive at the end
Speaker 1: of the Cardinals game the other day, when you know,
Speaker 1: the Cardinals were up to scores, which makes it a
Speaker 1: little bit easier. But Baker has not been great. He's
Speaker 1: not been great on third down. Uh, He's getting past
Speaker 1: his battered down Atlanta scrimmage. He's tired of hearing people
Speaker 1: ask him about that already. But until the narrative changes,
Speaker 1: until he does something to give us something different to
Speaker 1: talk about, that's gonna continue to be a thing. Because
Speaker 1: when passes get batted down the client of scrimmage, they
Speaker 1: get picked off. Cardinals take short field and score all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, defense that's been playing really well for
Speaker 1: the first four weeks is just sitting there exhausted, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we can hold these guys to field goals,
Speaker 1: but we're still down now, and it's just until that
Speaker 1: stuff gets squared away, you don't know you see things.
Speaker 1: I mean, I honestly I talked to these people downstairs
Speaker 1: and they're like, there are moments when it looks right there,
Speaker 1: moments when it looks put together, but out there on
Speaker 1: Sundays it hasn't so far. I think one question that
Speaker 1: the fans have, and I mean maybe a lot of
Speaker 1: people have, is is why are the passes getting batted down?
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think it's a high thing. We saw
Speaker 1: and Kyler Murray is wick and and shorter than Baker Mayfield.
Speaker 1: We've seen like Drew Brees, right, yes, right? Do you
Speaker 1: have insight for either of you from from talking to
Speaker 1: people about what that is? And if it's a fixable problem,
Speaker 1: it can be fixable, and it can be fixed by
Speaker 1: offensive lineman. I mean, I guess to talk to Austin
Speaker 1: Corbette the other day about this and and the stuff
Speaker 1: that they do exactly exactly well. I mean the first
Speaker 1: thing is, you know, getting out in front of them,
Speaker 1: making sure you're going at them on their shoulders, keeping
Speaker 1: their hands, getting there. It's all about placement and like
Speaker 1: things like that. One person I did talk to was
Speaker 1: p J. Walker. He had a lot of just very
Speaker 1: specific mechanical things like he's like, I mean I've seen this,
Speaker 1: I know what it is, and he you know, as
Speaker 1: tangible as an answer he could, He's like arm angles
Speaker 1: sometimes to look less predictable, um of where exactly it's
Speaker 1: going to go. Um. But yeah, a lot of it's
Speaker 1: where you kind of attack people and you've got to
Speaker 1: make sure if you see their hands going up to
Speaker 1: it's like a visual thing. There's a lot of different
Speaker 1: pieces to it, sounds Brady Christiansen kind of made it
Speaker 1: sound kind of complicated, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: there's so many different factors. I think there are. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing what Darren said, as we all try
Speaker 1: to pin it on one thing, but football is a
Speaker 1: chess game and there's so many different things that go
Speaker 1: into it. I think it's a great point, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about all of the roles that
Speaker 1: they have to play, and that's just another one of them.
Speaker 1: I think in general, I mean, I would say the
Speaker 1: offensive line looks pretty good. I mean, you know, in general,
Speaker 1: but it's just those tiny, tiny little things and and
Speaker 1: they're very focused on, you know, trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: they just beat you and they're just all I gotta do.
Speaker 1: Just hands up. You watch the place happen. It's just
Speaker 1: so quick. And that's what D linemen are trained to do,
Speaker 1: is get your hands up. J. J. Watt is someone
Speaker 1: that's done that for years. And some of it is
Speaker 1: some of it can be solved by play calling. You
Speaker 1: can do certain things, I think one of the things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again, all this stuff is very complicated. But right now,
Speaker 1: I know people roll their eyes every year when they
Speaker 1: hear a coach talk about getting back to basics. But
Speaker 1: right now, Baker looks like a guy was making two
Speaker 1: men decisions at the line of scrimmage, and could they
Speaker 1: streamline things for him? Could they make it a little bit?
Speaker 1: You know, there's there are a lot of things going on,
Speaker 1: and when there's a lot of stuff going on, I
Speaker 1: think what you want to strip down and do is, um,
Speaker 1: you know, take the things you're good at, do more
Speaker 1: of those. The stuff you're struggling with, don't worry about
Speaker 1: that right now. Do the stuff you know you can do.
Speaker 1: And I think they can. That's the coaching cliche put
Speaker 1: guys in positions to succeed, and I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of where they have to get to right now. They've
Speaker 1: got to take the things Baker can do well we've
Speaker 1: seen some of them, and just do more of that.
Speaker 1: And also it would follow and we've heard um, Matt
Speaker 1: Rule say this, uh, and players other members of the
Speaker 1: coaching staff. Um. If you want to the capitalize on
Speaker 1: things that are done well in this offense is run
Speaker 1: the ball right. Christian two straight hundred yard games, gets
Speaker 1: eight carries last week. That's probably not enough carries out
Speaker 1: They're running the fewest offensive plays of any team in
Speaker 1: the league because their last in the league and third
Speaker 1: down conversion percentage. So again, this thing spirals a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I think if you people could have a do over,
Speaker 1: they would probably want to put the ball in Christian's
Speaker 1: hands more than two times running in the second half
Speaker 1: of last week's game. As our friend Jake Delone will
Speaker 1: say on the radio broadcast, you can't go wrong by
Speaker 1: putting it in the hands of your best player, or
Speaker 1: very rarely can you go wrong. Um. Another one another
Speaker 1: question that I you know, have been hearing a lot
Speaker 1: and that has been focused on a lot in the
Speaker 1: press conferences in the media is Baker's footwork. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to get you guys insight on what you've learned
Speaker 1: about that. I was talking to Matt Ryle yesterday for
Speaker 1: our TV interview and I said, you know, what are
Speaker 1: you challenging Baker with this week? When you want to
Speaker 1: see he said, I want his footwork to look the
Speaker 1: way it does in practice. And we see him in
Speaker 1: practice as well. So you know, again knowing that all
Speaker 1: the stuff is way more complicated than than the three
Speaker 1: of us know or anyone at home knows hypothetically, what
Speaker 1: are the reasons in which your footwork would look good
Speaker 1: in practice but it doesn't in games? Been in a
Speaker 1: hurry thinking about a lot of stuff. I mean being
Speaker 1: in a new environment where you don't know. I think
Speaker 1: that's the biggest thing too. And and listen, if they
Speaker 1: could you want to talk about getting in a time machine,
Speaker 1: if you could make this trade in April, so he
Speaker 1: had O T A S. So he's had plenty of
Speaker 1: practice time with all these people. You do that, but
Speaker 1: they trade for him in July for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 1: and um, you can't do that over now. But it's
Speaker 1: just a matter of reps. I think it's one of
Speaker 1: the things I looked at the other day is Baker
Speaker 1: has always and somebody made this point in the mail
Speaker 1: back in a question. You know, he's changed offensive coordinators
Speaker 1: a lot, and his best numbers came in weeks nine
Speaker 1: through twelve, you know, I mean, and it makes sense
Speaker 1: the more you do something, the better you get at it,
Speaker 1: and getting more reps and getting more comfortable seems to
Speaker 1: be a reasonable answer. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 1: week five o'clocks sticking and you're one in three right now,
Speaker 1: so you need to get some stuff fixed in a
Speaker 1: hurry if it's gonna get fixed. And I think it's
Speaker 1: that goes back to what I was saying earlier about
Speaker 1: looking like he's in a hurry because he knows what
Speaker 1: to do, he's been told what to do, he's seen
Speaker 1: how to do it. But when the game, when he
Speaker 1: takes a snap from pad elf Wine, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff gets loose. And when you're get
Speaker 1: in a hurry, bad things happen. So coaches talk about
Speaker 1: all the time, and I know, you know Matt's answer
Speaker 1: is the correct one. You know, be the same guy
Speaker 1: every day do the things you know that are correct
Speaker 1: and do them over and over, and things ought to
Speaker 1: work themselves out. But it's frustrating when you get in
Speaker 1: the course of a game and things the one thing
Speaker 1: goes wrong and then it's just this cascading series of problems. Well,
Speaker 1: the margin of air is so granular too. I talked
Speaker 1: with widers eivers coach Joe Daily last week just kind
Speaker 1: of about you know, we hear building chemistry with receivers
Speaker 1: all of the time, and last week Matt Role challenged
Speaker 1: the receivers to you know, just all of these things
Speaker 1: like get open and all that. But but I've found
Speaker 1: Daily's insights so fascinating because, um, I kind of hearing
Speaker 1: him talk made me think about my marching band roots
Speaker 1: where it's like they need to be in step, and
Speaker 1: I mean from like the second, like the way Baker's
Speaker 1: feet need to mirror the receiver's feet in the way
Speaker 1: where they know exactly what's going on. It's so much more.
Speaker 1: It's so just the margin marror is like so tiny,
Speaker 1: like you can't see my hands, but like I'm just
Speaker 1: it's eat batty. He's like there's no space between her
Speaker 1: and none zero. No, it's just so gran granular is
Speaker 1: so small, and and when you're like, like Darren said,
Speaker 1: you know, panicked isn't the word, but just you know,
Speaker 1: kind of getting in, getting loose, you know, thinking in
Speaker 1: your head too much. It keeps that from progressing. So
Speaker 1: you see these throws that you watch them and you're like,
Speaker 1: where in the world was that going? But it's because
Speaker 1: they're they're these tiny little things. And and whenever Joe
Speaker 1: Dailey told me that, I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this makes a lot more sense because you know the
Speaker 1: receivers there, d J. Moore and Robby Anderson, they're very
Speaker 1: you know, generally pretty calm, cool, collective people in general.
Speaker 1: But and you have Baker over here, who's still getting
Speaker 1: adjusted to things. He's still but but again, like Darren said,
Speaker 1: it's week five times a chicken, and there hasn't been
Speaker 1: marked improvement. There's an argument that things have not gotten
Speaker 1: any better, if stagnated to worse almost, So it's like
Speaker 1: where where do you go from that point? But it's
Speaker 1: it's the walking and step thing was just so fascinating
Speaker 1: to me. It's like you have to know exactly where
Speaker 1: the steps are planted, and that's the way to kind
Speaker 1: of get that chemistry, the word that we always hear,
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating. And again, the little things make big differences.
Speaker 1: You go back to that Giants game and you look
Speaker 1: at that thing again. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: think as armchair analysts look at films and read pff gray.
Speaker 1: It's that kind of thing. You don't know what the
Speaker 1: play call is. But but if a guy is who
Speaker 1: is supposed to run a fourteen yard route or break
Speaker 1: at fourteen yards and he breaks at twelve, he's gonna
Speaker 1: make his quarterback look like an idiot. And without knowing
Speaker 1: all that, you know, you know, people say, oh my god, Baker,
Speaker 1: did you know? That was horrible? How can he And
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's not necessarily Baker, and a
Speaker 1: couple of times early on it wasn't necessarily Baker. But
Speaker 1: he's also missed. I mean, he has straight up missed
Speaker 1: some balls and not been accurate. That's what's amazing is
Speaker 1: he is, you know, effectively a sixty percent career passer
Speaker 1: or completion percentage guy, and he is not at sixty
Speaker 1: percent guy right now. As he said, I think it
Speaker 1: was a week one, there was some excuse between him
Speaker 1: and Chi Smith. He said, I'm a very accurate quarterback
Speaker 1: and so I should put the ball And that is
Speaker 1: what you would associate with him in college, and um,
Speaker 1: with the Browns, you know that that is not something
Speaker 1: that has ever been an issue. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys insight into these things because I
Speaker 1: think that's what what fans are wondering, which is like,
Speaker 1: on a granular level, what are these things that we
Speaker 1: hear about that we see in the games, and can
Speaker 1: they get fixed? And he talked about it yesterday. I
Speaker 1: asked him if he kind of compares it to last
Speaker 1: year in Cleveland when he was hurt and not playing well.
Speaker 1: But and that's the weird thing about what's going on
Speaker 1: right now, what he's done over the last four weeks
Speaker 1: is worse than what he was putting on the streets
Speaker 1: when he was hurt last year. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: the red light that indicates it's more than just one thing. Um,
Speaker 1: because he's not been the same guy we're we're used
Speaker 1: to seeing. And I think, uh, he knows that. But
Speaker 1: he his whole thing yesterday was it's not philosophy, it's
Speaker 1: not a theory, it's I've got to do X, Y
Speaker 1: Z in the correct order and then everything will start
Speaker 1: to That's that's a thing when when Rule talks about
Speaker 1: we see it on tape. That's that's what he means
Speaker 1: when they turn on the tape. They're very specific. And
Speaker 1: Christian was funny, not funny, but insightful talking about it
Speaker 1: yesterday in the locker room. He's like, you know, they're
Speaker 1: not coaching bad football. The stuff they're showing us is correct,
Speaker 1: it works. It's on us to do it. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of where they are with Baker and everybody execution.
Speaker 1: Now that we've had a lot time to do it,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the defense. So we'll get the unfortunate
Speaker 1: news out of the way, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: optimism going forward with this defense. They are an impressive unit.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately bad news. First, Jeremy chin Um is on
Speaker 1: injured reserve now with a hamstring injury. Darren, what is
Speaker 1: the what is the latest with that? When you heard
Speaker 1: you could tell that one wasn't great. Uh. During the
Speaker 1: game Sunday, in the moment I play he plays six snaps,
Speaker 1: comes off the field and he tried to get on
Speaker 1: that bike. He tried to keep it warm him. He
Speaker 1: tried to move it around and then there was just
Speaker 1: you could tell there was that recognition of yeah no. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's a shame because Jeremy is such a valuable
Speaker 1: piece and the way they move him around, do different
Speaker 1: stuff with him. You know, we saw when he was
Speaker 1: blitzing and impacting plays early on. I mean, they can
Speaker 1: do so many things with Jeremy. You don't replace that
Speaker 1: with one guy. And I don't think they planned to.
Speaker 1: I mean it's gonna it's gonna be some combination of
Speaker 1: Miles Hartsfield, Justin Burroughs, maybe even Marquise Blayer, you know,
Speaker 1: different guys. Sean Chandler is primarily a special teams guy,
Speaker 1: but he can play some defense too occasionally. And and
Speaker 1: they're just going to have to mix and match personnel
Speaker 1: because you don't replace somebody like Jeremy with one guy. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's tough. I mean, that's that's the thing. When
Speaker 1: you look at this defense for all the spots they've
Speaker 1: been in, they're pretty good in red zone rankings because
Speaker 1: they're holding people to field goals when they have to
Speaker 1: defend short fields, They're they're getting pressure on people. Then
Speaker 1: if there aren't big sack numbers. You know, Burns is
Speaker 1: playing well, frank you luvuh my god, playing out of
Speaker 1: his mind. Yeah, I mean, and he's he's doing he's
Speaker 1: beat up and and Frankie's on the injury report with
Speaker 1: those shoulders again this week. And I think that's just
Speaker 1: gonna be kind of the way with him because he's
Speaker 1: a guy who's probably been a snap a game on
Speaker 1: defense guy, and because the defense is playing a lot
Speaker 1: of snaps, suddenly he's snap a game guy and that
Speaker 1: comes with a physical toll. And Frankie's starting to show
Speaker 1: some of that right now. But he's also always on
Speaker 1: the field and always around the ball, so I um,
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of things to latch onto.
Speaker 1: The They're in a similar spot to places they've been previously.
Speaker 1: And I don't just mean in twenty and twenty one.
Speaker 1: I mean I think back to oh two when Rodney
Speaker 1: Pete was the quarterback, and it's like, we're gonna win
Speaker 1: games twelve to nine, We're gonna we're gonna play you
Speaker 1: sixteen thirteen games and be perfectly tent with it. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of the spot they have to get themselves
Speaker 1: to right now. While they're getting stuff stored in on offense.
Speaker 1: And it should be said that Myles Hartsfield Shohn Chandler
Speaker 1: came in and played very well. Um, as you said,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Chin just six naps before you tell that that
Speaker 1: hamstring immediately, uh something was wrong and did not play
Speaker 1: most of the game. And this defense looked really good
Speaker 1: and performed well without him. And as you said, Justin
Speaker 1: Burrs now on the active roster from the practice squad,
Speaker 1: someone who has familiarity, has started a lot of games
Speaker 1: for this defense and cannot replace Jeremy Chin with just
Speaker 1: one person, as Darren so eloquently said, But good plan
Speaker 1: in place going forward considering that he will not be
Speaker 1: around for at least four weeks potentially more, and the
Speaker 1: defense is just going to have to continue make him
Speaker 1: place that's on them and they will. I fully, I
Speaker 1: fully believe that. And you know one guy who I
Speaker 1: always see on the field really being a difference maker.
Speaker 1: You hear the coaches talk talk about him, but you
Speaker 1: know when you're down there, standing there, you really see
Speaker 1: it in real time is Xavier Woods and Augusta. I
Speaker 1: know you are writing a piece on him or have
Speaker 1: written a piece on him, depending on when this comes
Speaker 1: out on Panthers dot com, tell me about what you've
Speaker 1: learned about him. Yes, so yesterday in the locker room,
Speaker 1: it was honestly just fascinating out to speak with J. C. Horne,
Speaker 1: Dante Jackson, and a little bit of C. J. Henderson,
Speaker 1: who's known as you know, more of a quiet guy.
Speaker 1: But um, he even got like some insight on just
Speaker 1: how much of an impact he has is as a veteran,
Speaker 1: as an older guys, a guy who've seen a lot
Speaker 1: but even past you know, his experience and all of that,
Speaker 1: which is extremely valuable. Everyone was talking about. He just
Speaker 1: has a very high football I you. Um, the thing
Speaker 1: about Xavier, just like as a person is, you know,
Speaker 1: on the sidelines and in the locker room, he's very
Speaker 1: you know to himself, he's reserved, he's mature and um.
Speaker 1: On the field, Hunt told me he's like a completely
Speaker 1: different person. He is super vocal, very communicative, and the
Speaker 1: things that he's communicating, I mean, j C. I love
Speaker 1: the way j C put it. Um. He I don't
Speaker 1: want to give like the context to j C. You know,
Speaker 1: he played three games last year. He's still getting used
Speaker 1: to the league. He was talking about how you get out,
Speaker 1: you run out of the tunnel. You have all of
Speaker 1: the the pageantry, the loud noise, and you go out
Speaker 1: on defense and everyone's cheering for you. And you can
Speaker 1: spend all weeks studying for like, you know, Okay, if
Speaker 1: I see this formation, this is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: X y Z. He's like, and we study and we
Speaker 1: know it, and then at that moment you're just like,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, you know, the moment is big and
Speaker 1: everything is loud, and I'm so excited, and he's like
Speaker 1: an Xavier Woods is back there and he's like a
Speaker 1: coach on the field and he like, you know, gets
Speaker 1: us back in line. And in a way, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: you see the way the defense is performing, how much
Speaker 1: of that is truly like Xavier Woods? You know, Hey,
Speaker 1: j C, this this that you know, it's it's just
Speaker 1: hearing the impact that he has. You know, he can
Speaker 1: calm people down. He has that presence and he's just
Speaker 1: a completely different animal. And and again, one of the
Speaker 1: other things j C told me was like he doesn't
Speaker 1: say a ton, So whenever he's off the field and
Speaker 1: he's telling you something, you're gonna listen because it's like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, he's saying this. So he just has
Speaker 1: that kind of commanding presence to him, and I think
Speaker 1: that's such a valuable piece in a second ary that
Speaker 1: is so incredibly young, I mean, second, third, fourth year
Speaker 1: people just like kind of lining the ways there. I mean,
Speaker 1: he he has experience, but more than anything, he's just
Speaker 1: he's intelligent. He Jacey's like he knows a play book
Speaker 1: better than anybody and he just got here this year,
Speaker 1: you know. I just I think that's absolutely extremely valuable.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes he can be overshadow because he
Speaker 1: isn't you know, the Dante Jackson personality or you know, J. C.
Speaker 1: Horne's kind of status. But he's and also you don't
Speaker 1: always don't always hear his name called in the game
Speaker 1: on big plays, but there is. But what he is
Speaker 1: doing is making sure that defense is playing together and
Speaker 1: making those big plays. He's the type of a field general,
Speaker 1: you know, and we've seen a lot of them on
Speaker 1: these Panthers defenses in the past, and we know exactly,
Speaker 1: um how important that is. You know, Luke Keekley, who's
Speaker 1: doing radio broadcast with us, cannot say enough about him.
Speaker 1: And I think that that says a lot about the
Speaker 1: type of person um and the type of leader that
Speaker 1: he is on the field, along with some of those
Speaker 1: other guys as well. I can't wait to read that
Speaker 1: a Gus. You know, it's great. There's all sorts of
Speaker 1: good stories in there, and J. C. Horne is just
Speaker 1: an awesome interview to you. Just got to give that
Speaker 1: shout out. Yes he is, Yes, he is one of
Speaker 1: the best voices too. I know that doesn't come across
Speaker 1: in written articles, but man, that like tenor of his voice,
Speaker 1: the gravelly thing, It's like, Man, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: good voice to have. He'd have it. He'd be good
Speaker 1: on a podcast. A great way to put that audio,
Speaker 1: But I would listen to an audio, but that's for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of defense, we're gonna end this with a live
Speaker 1: call from our very own Panther stats guy. Right. Usually
Speaker 1: Darren goes tracks him down and um and gets the
Speaker 1: stat of the week will stat of the week, But
Speaker 1: today we are going to do this live. I cannot wait.
Speaker 1: What a great way to end this. Okay, we have
Speaker 1: our very own Panther stats guy on the phone. You're
Speaker 1: in roots somewhere, Will, Where are you going? Well, this time,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to cone To That's right. I'm actually
Speaker 1: I'm actually going past lukeoff Eligant for all of you
Speaker 1: South Carolina's small town UH connoisseurs, I think you're just
Speaker 1: you just make up names. Are these two different places?
Speaker 1: Is that hyphenated? What are we talking? I think I
Speaker 1: think it's a hyphen The high school is hyphened. I
Speaker 1: think that they may fight each other over who has
Speaker 1: control of the river. I don't know if there's a river,
Speaker 1: but I think they're on both sides of it. I'm
Speaker 1: pulling for the loo. Goffs Augusta seems familiar. I've definitely
Speaker 1: seen the hyphen. I don't know if it was a
Speaker 1: high school, but my vague knowledge of South Carolina high
Speaker 1: school football. Yeah, yeah, that's exciting. So you're just you're
Speaker 1: just going to this, You're just going to this high
Speaker 1: school football game. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm going past it. Actually,
Speaker 1: we're going to uh to the coast to do a
Speaker 1: little Hurricane Ian clean up. Oh that's awesome. It's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, giving back to the community. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. So you have a
Speaker 1: stat for us today in the midst of all, you're
Speaker 1: doing driving, going to clean up, and you're still making
Speaker 1: time for us with a great defensive stat right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So last week Carolina scored a second straight defensive touchdown
Speaker 1: and consecutive games. Markis Haynes had the first one against
Speaker 1: the Saints. Frankie Luvu with the pick six against the Cardinals.
Speaker 1: The last time Caroline has done that was two thousand five.
Speaker 1: I think it was Chris Gamble and Will Witherspoon back
Speaker 1: to back games with a defensive touchdown. And don't even
Speaker 1: ask me when they've ever done three in a row,
Speaker 1: because I don't know because I haven't looked it up.
Speaker 1: But I do know that the last time that they
Speaker 1: hosted the forty niners in Bank America Stadium, Shack Thompson
Speaker 1: had a defensive touchdown. I like the sound of that,
Speaker 1: Will leaving us with some optimism here, Darren. Do you
Speaker 1: remember those two defensive touchdowns in five? I actually do that.
Speaker 1: That was a Chris simms uh interception in that first game,
Speaker 1: and the Will touchdown, the Will Wheelerspoon touchdown came off
Speaker 1: Jets legend Brooks Ballinger. Yeah so, and then Augusta just
Speaker 1: for funzies, how old were you in oh five? Oh five?
Speaker 1: I turned seven. Okay, all right, I'm out here watching
Speaker 1: Will Brooks Bollinger in the house. I'm sorry I had
Speaker 1: to do it. Will. We miss you. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the stat Please get there safe. And before we let
Speaker 1: you go, what are your thoughts on fat Bear week?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's gotta gotta take it right. We have
Speaker 1: discussed nine oh one already on this podcast. That was perfect.
Speaker 1: That that was not planned everybody, that was amazing. It's
Speaker 1: no better place to leave than that. Who sticks the
Speaker 1: landing better than panther stags? Oh my gosh, nobody will
Speaker 1: thank you, Darren Augusta, thank you, and thank you all
Speaker 1: for listening. We'll see you next week on The Happy
Speaker 1: Half Hour Podcast