Speaker 1: This week on the Happy half Hour.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a reason to assume that they
Speaker 2: need to go all in and throw everything out in
Speaker 2: a preseason game.
Speaker 3: And I agree.
Speaker 2: I mean, the goal is to evaluate, stay healthy with
Speaker 2: your starters, and you know, see the fundamentals, especially with
Speaker 2: a guy like Bryce Young and all these new weapons.
Speaker 2: I mean, you look down and we talked about it,
Speaker 2: but the offense is completely different.
Speaker 3: They're still learning at each other's.
Speaker 4: Right, It's time for the Happy Half Hour with your
Speaker 4: friends Kristin Balboni, Augusta Stone, and Darren Gannon. All right,
Speaker 4: welcome to the Happy half Hour, preseason post Spartanburg edition.
Speaker 3: Woo hoo, we're back.
Speaker 4: We're happy to be home from Spartanburg. She's Augusta Stone.
Speaker 4: I'm Darren Gant podcast Mats behind the Board. We may
Speaker 4: involve him at some point in this broadcast. We were
Speaker 4: If we seem a little disheveled early in this podcast,
Speaker 4: it's because we're all running a little bit late. Matt
Speaker 4: got stuck in traffic and Augusta got stuck in one
Speaker 4: of the most common ways the Panther's digital network gets stuck.
Speaker 4: By specialist in the cafeteria while acquiring coffee. Johnny Hecker
Speaker 4: was the culprit this morning, wasn't he hey?
Speaker 3: To be fair?
Speaker 2: We were both walking in together and I was in
Speaker 2: my classic quick trot, I would say, and then Johnny
Speaker 2: pulls up beside me. You know, I say, hey, Johnny,
Speaker 2: good morning, stops me. He goes, hey, Gusta, you're a writer.
Speaker 2: Do you play word games? And I immediately was on it. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 2: I am a devout New York Times games person. And
Speaker 2: then he wants to talk about my favorite new game
Speaker 2: Connections and I was about to give him some spoilers,
Speaker 2: and then he stopped me. He was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2: I've only looked at it. I don't have the puzzles
Speaker 2: solved yet. And then I had to stop myself because
Speaker 2: this morning, unfortunately, it was a failure for me. And
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about the last two categories and
Speaker 2: how frustrating they were, but he told me he would
Speaker 2: follow up. So I will, as Darren says, do a
Speaker 2: journalism later today find Johnny ask him how his connections went,
Speaker 2: because mine went very poorly this morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's an addictive little game. I am.
Speaker 4: I am into that. I have found the archive. I've
Speaker 4: gone back to the June ones. I've found the bootleg
Speaker 4: archive that New York Times doesn't actually show you yet.
Speaker 4: Big wordle person, big connection person, big spelling bee person,
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 1: I am actually a little bit.
Speaker 4: I am a little bit obsessive about spelling bee because
Speaker 4: I will sit there while I'm drinking coffee and will
Speaker 4: not rise from my chair until I reach the genius
Speaker 4: level each day. So it's like that's how I start
Speaker 4: my day. I refuse to accept amazing or nice as
Speaker 4: a benchmark.
Speaker 1: I have to get to be. I have to get
Speaker 1: to genius before I even get out of the house.
Speaker 3: So wordle person, absolutely, wordle person. And then also do
Speaker 3: you do the daily Mini Crossword?
Speaker 4: Do the daily Mini? Sometimes not as committed to that
Speaker 4: as others. What your what's your wordal word to start with?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I actually rotate, which is a wild vibe.
Speaker 2: I know this morning, I think it was risky. But
Speaker 2: I like to try to get I like to try
Speaker 2: to get a Y in there early and use multiple
Speaker 2: combinations of letters, so no repeating letters.
Speaker 3: But I do not devote myself.
Speaker 2: My mother actually starts out with stone every morning, and
Speaker 2: she is very set on that.
Speaker 3: But no, what's yours.
Speaker 1: That's fair enough. And Stone is a solid one.
Speaker 4: It's got most of your classic Wheel of Fortune letters
Speaker 4: r STLNE and you get the E at the end,
Speaker 4: so that's always good. And I usually begin each day
Speaker 4: with chaos.
Speaker 3: That's fitting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it feels like a metaphor or something for life.
Speaker 4: So anyway, we have spent a good five minutes talking
Speaker 4: about Wordle and New York Times games because we'd rather
Speaker 4: do that than talk about the Jets game. That was
Speaker 4: not great, Bob, And I think everybody knows it. And
Speaker 4: the best thing you know for these guys is it
Speaker 4: is now Wednesday morning, and they've got a walk through
Speaker 4: practice kind of today before they get on the plane
Speaker 4: tomorrow and go to New York to face the other
Speaker 4: New York team. And I think everybody's just kind of
Speaker 4: ready to get to that one because it went so
Speaker 4: poorly last Saturday night, twenty seven to nothing loss. Here
Speaker 4: first preseason shutout loss since two thousand, believe it or not,
Speaker 4: for whatever that's worth. And the answer is absolutely nothing.
Speaker 4: And I think that's kind of the way they are
Speaker 4: approaching it. I mean, you don't want to minimize the
Speaker 4: fact that they played poorly. And I'm not papering over
Speaker 4: the fact that it was a bad decision, but preseason
Speaker 4: games ultimately meaningless.
Speaker 1: What's meaningfull is some.
Speaker 4: Of the individual patterns that emerged during that game. And
Speaker 4: one of those patterns was the offensive line played far
Speaker 4: more poorly than they anticipated. I mean, five sacks on
Speaker 4: the night for Matt Corral took four of them, got
Speaker 4: the ball knocked loose, Wance sacked fumble through the Corral
Speaker 4: through the interception light. But the quarterback play, even though
Speaker 4: that's the thing most people lock in on in the preseason,
Speaker 4: wasn't even that big a deal. But the offensive line
Speaker 4: was so far beyond the expectation they had of that
Speaker 4: group that it kind of stood out as an outlier.
Speaker 2: And that's part of the thing I think we've talked
Speaker 2: about a little bit, and I've talked about with some
Speaker 2: of my friends, my parents. But if you looked at
Speaker 2: if you had gone back to when we recorded this
Speaker 2: like two or three weeks ago, and we were to
Speaker 2: outline maybe five or six groups that we were like, okay,
Speaker 2: let's hone in on this and see this. We thought
Speaker 2: the offensive line was pretty steady, so even past like, yes,
Speaker 2: it was a really really bad night for them. It
Speaker 2: was also very distant from the expectations we had because
Speaker 2: last year went so well, and I think it would
Speaker 2: be a miss to blame it all on that one
Speaker 2: right guard spot. I think James Campen talked about how
Speaker 2: you know, everybody's being held accountable and that big meeting
Speaker 2: that you wrote about extremely well, and that James Campen
Speaker 2: was not in the mood to talk about the details
Speaker 2: of I think that's kind of rocking them, you know
Speaker 2: in a way that's gonna help. I mean, we saw
Speaker 2: I saw in practice yesterday a lot of different guys
Speaker 2: they were putting in the right guard spot. I think
Speaker 2: that's gonna be something that a lot of people be
Speaker 2: looking at. But it was kind of across the board,
Speaker 2: just a tough day, and I think it it might
Speaker 2: be a necessary wake up call, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 2: we came in you know, all these high expectations, don't
Speaker 2: fall underneath the stone as it all falls down, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Like it's kind of like like that.
Speaker 2: But I agree with you on the quarterback play. I've
Speaker 2: seen some people on Twitter talking about, like, oh man,
Speaker 2: like quarterbacks blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: It's like, especially Bryce Young.
Speaker 2: If you look at what Bryce did, Bryce wasn't bad
Speaker 2: when you think about what he was dealing with. I mean,
Speaker 2: popped up from those three hits counting the sack, didn't
Speaker 2: make any really poor decisions and kind of showed that
Speaker 2: poise that we talked about, like he was very calm
Speaker 2: while everything in front of him kind of collapsed.
Speaker 3: And I think that's something that you.
Speaker 2: Know, we should as much as you can surmise from
Speaker 2: what six pass attempts, I think that's kind of something
Speaker 2: you can you can rest on or look at and
Speaker 2: be like, Okay, this was a positive amid.
Speaker 3: What was going on in front of him that was
Speaker 3: not ideal, right.
Speaker 4: Right, And that's the thing, right Guard's gonna get a
Speaker 4: lot of attention because that's the one spot that's getting rotated.
Speaker 1: The bunch of candidates.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's basically four dudes who could end up
Speaker 4: in that job next week. And Frank Craig said he
Speaker 4: wants to make a decision kind of after this game
Speaker 4: so that whoever the five is going to be has
Speaker 4: an opportunity to work in the Lions game, the final
Speaker 4: preseason game and then through the preseason to get ready
Speaker 4: for the opener, So we should have news on.
Speaker 1: That fairly soon.
Speaker 4: And having chandlers of violins at or Nash Jensen back
Speaker 4: on the field this week should help as part of
Speaker 4: the evaluation process. But you know, Kid Mays wasn't out
Speaker 4: there practice yesterday and we'll see how things go with him.
Speaker 4: But there's still a lot of unknown with that position.
Speaker 4: That wasn't to me even the problem looking back at
Speaker 4: that game. You almost hate to say it, but iky
Speaker 4: Aquanu did not have a good opening night. Ikey struggled
Speaker 4: a little bit. We know he is not that kind
Speaker 4: of player based on what he showed us last year,
Speaker 4: and Camping was very quick to say that. I mean,
Speaker 4: he was kind of giving me a hard time in
Speaker 4: the press conference of days, Like I remember early in
Speaker 4: camp Darren asking me, is Ikey ever gonna win a
Speaker 4: one on one in practice?
Speaker 1: And that was the case.
Speaker 4: Ikey was getting an education early in camp from Brian
Speaker 4: Burns last year, and he kind of settled into it.
Speaker 4: I mean, Miles Garrett got the better of him in
Speaker 4: the opener. There were some struggles early on for Ikey,
Speaker 4: but Ikey settled into a groove where I think this
Speaker 4: year is going to be a different challenge, though, is
Speaker 4: second half of last year when they were just teeing
Speaker 4: it up and running at fifty times a game that's
Speaker 4: built for iky Ikwanu.
Speaker 1: That's his game.
Speaker 4: He wants to lean on people, be aggressive. He's great
Speaker 4: in the run game. He struggled with those pass rushers
Speaker 4: from the Jets the other night, and I think that's
Speaker 4: something he's got to get cleaned up a little bit too,
Speaker 4: because obviously this offense is going to be different. I
Speaker 4: do you know, everybody likes to say, oh, we don't
Speaker 4: know what the offense is going to look like. We're
Speaker 4: not calling the regular season offense in the preseason. I
Speaker 4: do not anticipate fifty rushing attempts per game from Frank
Speaker 4: Reich and Thomas Brown this year. I just don't think
Speaker 4: that's the direction this thing's head. And so it's incumbent
Speaker 4: on Ikey to be a little more polished, and I
Speaker 4: think this Giant's game. They've still got some good players
Speaker 4: in their front seven, and Wink Martindale, their coordinator, is
Speaker 4: kind of known for bringing people from different directions, doing
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff to try to create confusion. So
Speaker 4: I think this game ought to be a pretty good
Speaker 4: barometer for what they're actually going to be. Now we'll
Speaker 4: see how it all develops. And if they fix everything
Speaker 4: in the preseason and they beat the Giants twenty seven
Speaker 4: to nothing, that does not mean all as well heading
Speaker 4: into the opener, anymore than losing to the Jets twenty
Speaker 4: seven to nothing meant the sky is falling. So I
Speaker 4: think it's important to keep preseason games in their appropriate
Speaker 4: context exactly.
Speaker 2: And I had a question for you just out of curiosity,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to preface this with this week's specific
Speaker 2: I know Morgan Jenkins, who works in our website management
Speaker 2: side helps us out with a lot of the streaming
Speaker 2: and stuff. She was talking about, Oh my goodness, all
Speaker 2: the questions about this vanilla generic offense, Like they this
Speaker 2: is a storyline that people are eating up right now,
Speaker 2: and we Frank called it himself generic, and then then
Speaker 2: we're vanilla got floated around somehow, and so generic vanilla
Speaker 2: whatever you're gonna call it. Like you've said in some
Speaker 2: of our conversations, vanilla is delicious and wonderful and there's
Speaker 2: no reason to have a negative connotation with it.
Speaker 3: But when you hear a lot of that talk.
Speaker 2: What is your I guess not concern level or your
Speaker 2: how much stock you place in Frank going up there
Speaker 2: saying we called a generic game, Thomas Brown yesterday saying
Speaker 2: we're not trying to necessarily show everything generic in the preseason.
Speaker 3: In terms of evaluation, what is your thought on.
Speaker 4: That, Darren Well, Basically, Frank let Thomas Brown call the
Speaker 4: plays in the second half the other night, which a
Speaker 4: is really good for Frank and good for Thomas as
Speaker 4: as he develops as a play caller and as a
Speaker 4: coach in the league. I think you've seen different instances,
Speaker 4: Mike Vrabel that Drell Williams, his assistant head coach call
Speaker 4: basically be the head coach for their first preseason game.
Speaker 4: And I think as you give guys opportunities, that's important.
Speaker 4: It's cool that Thomas got to order for himself. He
Speaker 4: was ordering off the kids menu. I mean, I don't
Speaker 4: know the specific number, but the playsheet that was available
Speaker 4: to those guys going into the game.
Speaker 1: Let's just say it was very limited.
Speaker 4: You know, And if they have you know, X to
Speaker 4: the tenth power on the playsheet for the Falcons game.
Speaker 4: In the opener, it's about X in this game. I mean,
Speaker 4: they are not operating with a full deck of cards.
Speaker 4: They're I mean, I don't even want to hazard to
Speaker 4: guess at how few plays they were actually choosing from,
Speaker 4: but it's not a lot. And I think because of that,
Speaker 4: you know, they were just trying to get some of
Speaker 4: the fundamental stuff together. Let Brice get them in and
Speaker 4: out of the huddle, throw a few passes, get out
Speaker 4: of that game clean, and you know they would have
Speaker 4: hoped it went a little better than that. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I just think that they are so And Frank even
Speaker 4: said he's going to air on the side of not
Speaker 4: showing anything because you know, I think there is a temptation.
Speaker 4: You want a good result, You want guys to be
Speaker 4: able to move the ball down the field, but it's
Speaker 4: more important to them to a get out of the
Speaker 4: preseason healthy, be not you know, tip their hand for
Speaker 4: those two division games. And again, I think that's kind
Speaker 4: of an important point because this division has always seemed
Speaker 4: to be one full of word a word of the
Speaker 4: day chaos. So nine to eight is typically going to
Speaker 4: have you in contention in this division. So I think
Speaker 4: from that standpoint, those first two games against Falcons and Saints.
Speaker 4: You want to have them guessing as much as you
Speaker 4: possibly can, so they're just not going to show a
Speaker 4: bunch of stuff exactly.
Speaker 2: And that's what Frank talked about specifically after the game,
Speaker 2: especially in the context of, like you said, those early
Speaker 2: Division games, I mean, starting out at Atlanta and then
Speaker 2: I think it's the Saints right afterward on Monday, right like,
Speaker 2: if you're thinking about the schedule, I mean as back
Speaker 2: to back, and you don't want to you don't want
Speaker 2: to show your cards one, and you also want to
Speaker 2: look very good in those two because they are so
Speaker 2: important the way the schedule was arranged.
Speaker 3: But no, I agree, I think I think it.
Speaker 2: Also is a testament to what we've seen from Frank
Speaker 2: since he got here, about how he just kind of
Speaker 2: methodically and in a regiment kind of way, you know,
Speaker 2: goes about things. There's not a ton of panic from him,
Speaker 2: even though they lost twenty seven to nothing in a
Speaker 2: preseason game, which I mean, I put as much stock
Speaker 2: in preseason games as you do, and as most people
Speaker 2: should have, just like, Okay, it's an evaluation process and
Speaker 2: there's gonna be points on the board, but that's not
Speaker 2: really the point. And I agree that when you think
Speaker 2: about it in the context of Thomas Brown calling the
Speaker 2: plays in the second half, obviously that's going to I mean, naturally,
Speaker 2: you're building trust right there. You're building a foundation, so
Speaker 2: you don't start throwing out everything.
Speaker 3: And maybe, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I think Thomas Brown may have alluded to a
Speaker 2: little bit, you know, spicing up a smidge, but it's
Speaker 2: not like he's throwing in, you know, a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of strawberries and syrups next week into his vanilla ice cream.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe they'll have a sprinkle of cinnamon perhaps,
Speaker 2: or maybe they'll just leave it like that. But I
Speaker 2: don't think there's a reason to assume that they need
Speaker 2: to go all in and throw everything out just to
Speaker 2: you know, in a preseason game. And and I agree,
Speaker 2: I mean, the goal is to evaluate, stay healthy with
Speaker 2: your starters and kind of you know, see the fundamentals,
Speaker 2: especially with a guy like Bryce Young and all these
Speaker 2: new weapons. I mean, you look down and we talked
Speaker 2: about it, but the offense is completely different. They're still
Speaker 2: learning each other. And I think that's part of the
Speaker 2: part of what we need to focus on as well,
Speaker 2: because we still have a little bit less than a
Speaker 2: month till September tenth, first game and my birthday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know what your birthday aside, God, we
Speaker 4: could talk about ice cream flavors, we could talk about
Speaker 4: birthday presents, we could talk about any.
Speaker 1: Number of things.
Speaker 4: Now, I mean, seriously, the preseason in the NFL it's
Speaker 4: basically get out a bit healthy, learn individual things about
Speaker 4: individual people. I was just sitting here thinking, and you know,
Speaker 4: because my brain is the way it is, I was
Speaker 4: trying to think the most memorable preseason.
Speaker 1: Moments in Panthers history.
Speaker 4: And you know, you could talk about individual plays or
Speaker 4: games or certain people.
Speaker 1: You saw.
Speaker 4: The one thing that sticks out in my mind because
Speaker 4: the last preseason shutout was in Pittsburgh and three Rivers Stadium,
Speaker 4: which no longer exists. In two thousand, I got to
Speaker 4: thinking about games in Pittsburgh and Steelers Panthers used to
Speaker 4: be the preseason finale every year, and I one of
Speaker 4: my fondest preseason memories was the day the Panthers had
Speaker 4: a young defensive tackle named Phillyami mau Mau, which I liked,
Speaker 4: saying a whole lot. And in one of those games
Speaker 4: at Pittsburgh, Villyami mau Mau once tackled Chris Fuamata Mafalla.
Speaker 1: And that was a lot of fun for me and
Speaker 1: I remember that.
Speaker 3: I hope you got to talk about that on the
Speaker 3: radio a whole lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just liked saying Billiami Mau Mau.
Speaker 3: Where's he at?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: How's he doing?
Speaker 4: I have no idea. We should probably look him up.
Speaker 4: That could be a research question for podcast mad over there.
Speaker 4: He could find Villiami Mau Mau for us and see
Speaker 4: if he's doing.
Speaker 1: I hope he's doing well.
Speaker 4: I hope we haven't made sport of the fact that
Speaker 4: he had a name full of vowels and he tackled
Speaker 4: a man with even more vowels in his name.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, preseason, preseason, preseason. I think it
Speaker 3: is kind of that last slog.
Speaker 2: You know, we get out of Spartanburg, we're feeling thrilled,
Speaker 2: you know, back in Charlotte, and now we're like, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, get through it, like you said, healthy and
Speaker 2: all that, and then you get to the first game.
Speaker 2: I think I think they were kind of in that
Speaker 2: lull right now of just trying to see what they got.
Speaker 2: And also I thought about it this way, but I
Speaker 2: don't know, we would be anticipating some cutdowns at this point,
Speaker 2: and now it's all at once, so it's kind of
Speaker 2: not slowed down. But I guess from our perspective, sort
Speaker 2: of sort of given a time where training camp's like, whoa,
Speaker 2: everyone's in front of us, and now there is that roster,
Speaker 2: they're going to figure it out, and then it all
Speaker 2: goes at once versus whenever it kind of trickled.
Speaker 3: I think that's kind of what we be focusing on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the league, the rules this year, instead of having
Speaker 4: a cut to eighty five eighty you know, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera. There's one cutdown day, yeah, this year, and
Speaker 4: it's August twenty ninth, Tuesday, a week when you've got
Speaker 4: to take your roster from ninety to fit the quote
Speaker 4: unquote final fifty three. Even though that's always in a
Speaker 4: little bit of flux, I don't anticipate. I mean, my
Speaker 4: guess is you'll see teams start kind of parting ways
Speaker 4: with some guys maybe early next week. And I don't
Speaker 4: know that teams will necessarily still carry ninety. They can
Speaker 4: if they want to, but my guess is you'll start
Speaker 4: to see some guys filtering away early on just because
Speaker 4: if there's a guy you knows not making the roster,
Speaker 4: you know, is it worth the risk of carrying him
Speaker 4: into a game?
Speaker 1: That kind of thing.
Speaker 4: So I think teams will begin that process gradually. But yeah,
Speaker 4: cutdown Day on the twenty ninth is going to be
Speaker 4: a big dramatic difference. I mean, personnel guys around the
Speaker 4: league basically are going to be looking at an extra
Speaker 4: three hundred names and what's.
Speaker 1: A chaotic day for them?
Speaker 4: And there's that word again, So we you know, we
Speaker 4: can we can get to that next week on the
Speaker 4: Happy half Hour. As we get closer to the season,
Speaker 4: we're going to be on a little bit more regular
Speaker 4: schedule for you guys with all our stuff with mail
Speaker 4: bags with Happy half Hours, and we've got some new
Speaker 4: stuff coming this year, with some new people and different
Speaker 4: things coming in, so it's going to be an interesting season.
Speaker 4: What else you got, Mad? Are you dialing up Jordan
Speaker 4: and Jake over there?
Speaker 1: Are they?
Speaker 5: Yeah? We were doing Jordan Jake this afternoon after you guys,
Speaker 5: and then I looked up mal Mal and I not if,
Speaker 5: assuming I spelled it correctly, there's not a lot of
Speaker 5: information on what he's up to.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's all right.
Speaker 4: There wasn't a lot of information on his career. He
Speaker 4: wasn't in here terribly long, but he did have a
Speaker 4: wonderful name, and we remember him fondly from tackling Chris
Speaker 4: Huama the ma Falla Darren.
Speaker 2: I had a question for you, Jemmy, about we we
Speaker 2: talked about the preseason game and obviously a lot of
Speaker 2: the guys that were getting a ton of time, there
Speaker 2: aren't guys necessarily talk about a lot. Is there anyone
Speaker 2: in particular, especially through that second half that you were like, huh,
Speaker 2: you know, he could lobby for a spot on that roster?
Speaker 4: I think if anybody stood out to me, And it's
Speaker 4: and again, this is kind of a dangerous game to
Speaker 4: play because when you go down, when you go down
Speaker 4: that road of trying to project roles for people who
Speaker 4: may not even be on the fifty three. The one
Speaker 4: guy I kind of figured he's going to be on
Speaker 4: the roster, but Eric Rowe stood out. He is a
Speaker 4: guy who is making a couple of big hits. He
Speaker 4: is going to He's a little bit like Kamu gruge Hill.
Speaker 4: He is probably going to be on this roster as
Speaker 4: a core special teams player, but he can make some
Speaker 4: plays on defense. I mean, this guy's been around the
Speaker 4: block and played on some good defenses and been a
Speaker 4: part of things that matter. So seeing him step up
Speaker 4: and make some plays kind of remind you. Okay, even
Speaker 4: though Jamie Robinson's guy they've got some long term hopes for,
Speaker 4: they like the.
Speaker 1: Potential he shows.
Speaker 4: He's Roe is probably your third safety, and he's that
Speaker 4: guy who, if anything happened to Von Bell or Xavier
Speaker 4: Woods could step in and keep you at that same
Speaker 4: kind of level, that same smart veteran in the back,
Speaker 4: who's going to be who's going to be capable and
Speaker 4: able to step in. But he put a shot on
Speaker 4: a guy out here the other night that I think
Speaker 4: he still might be feeling. And Roe is, you know,
Speaker 4: he's an interesting cat. Every team's got a couple of
Speaker 4: those guys, And because of all the turnover on this
Speaker 4: roster this offseason, some of those names you're used to
Speaker 4: see in those usual special teamers, whether the last couple
Speaker 4: of years it was a Sean Chandler or a Brandon
Speaker 4: Zilstra before that, they're gonna.
Speaker 1: Be new guys in those roles.
Speaker 4: And Kamu and Eric I think are going to be
Speaker 4: a couple of those this year who are going to
Speaker 4: be out there creating a little chaos with Sam Franklin
Speaker 4: and the boys.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, well, I was gonna talk about Sam Franklin just
Speaker 2: because you know, we I don't think we've heard a
Speaker 2: ton about him from a defensive standpoint, because he is
Speaker 2: the special teams guy and he has his role there.
Speaker 2: But he was kind of if you look at that
Speaker 2: look at the game from the Panthers point of view,
Speaker 2: there were really a couple of plays, specifically on defense,
Speaker 2: where you're like, oh, yeah, getting pumped. Like I think
Speaker 2: about the Barno sack, that was a big deal, and
Speaker 2: then I think about the Franklin pick and that was
Speaker 2: really exciting for him. I mean seeing him make a
Speaker 2: play on defense, I think was was pretty big, and
Speaker 2: that was late in the game. But you don't think
Speaker 2: of I mean you just mentioned you know, backup safeties
Speaker 2: and Eric Rowe is a guy. We saw him a ton.
Speaker 2: I saw him a lot during training camp. He was
Speaker 2: out there a ton. He got a ton of looks,
Speaker 2: so you could tell that they were, you know, checking
Speaker 2: him out. But no, I thought Sam Franklin getting getting
Speaker 2: the pick, I mean you look at kind of the
Speaker 2: the lone flash points two of them, Barno and Franklin
Speaker 2: Barno specifically with that Sack. I mean, I tweeted about it,
Speaker 2: but I didn't see a ton you know, comeing deer
Speaker 2: in training camp and he just sort of flash and
Speaker 2: h he got a cool celebration.
Speaker 3: We have a cool photo of it. I've seen a
Speaker 3: couple of times.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he I think he was a guy that
Speaker 2: was a that was a positive spot, and there was
Speaker 2: I don't know if there was necessarily any point where,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, would he make.
Speaker 3: The roster because you know, he's just come off the
Speaker 3: draft last year. But I mean he looked, he looked good.
Speaker 4: Sam Sam's such an interesting cat anyway. I mean, there
Speaker 4: are a couple of things about Sam. Number one, he's
Speaker 4: high energy. He lives to play special teams. He started
Speaker 4: to get recognized league wide as one of those guys.
Speaker 4: Every team's got that one. I mean, and there are
Speaker 4: people like Matthew Slater in New England who have made
Speaker 4: a fifteen plus year career out of just being a
Speaker 4: special teamer. Sam's on the verge of becoming one of
Speaker 4: those cats who can just impact the game so much
Speaker 4: that they keep him around even though he doesn't have
Speaker 4: a well defined role on.
Speaker 1: Offense or defense. Sam's also borderline insane, but in the
Speaker 1: best way.
Speaker 4: He Sam is an agitator. Sam is a agent of chaos.
Speaker 4: Sam is a I'm gonna use that word as much
Speaker 4: as I can in this podcast. We should do, we
Speaker 4: should do account. We'll get Matt to add in a
Speaker 4: sound effect every time I say it, or it's like
Speaker 4: rip pee wee. Herman Paul Rubins died the other week,
Speaker 4: So in honor of pee wee, chaos is our word
Speaker 4: of the day.
Speaker 2: Take a sip of water every time during says chaos
Speaker 2: at any rate.
Speaker 4: But no. Sam is an agitator, and Sam is great
Speaker 4: at getting under the skins of opponents. One of my
Speaker 4: favorite parts of the joint practices was when they were
Speaker 4: doing punt drills, watching Sam get under the.
Speaker 1: Skin of all the jets.
Speaker 4: And I walked past him after that practice that afternoon
Speaker 4: in Spartanburg, and I said, Sam, just out of curiosity,
Speaker 4: how many almost fights did you get in?
Speaker 1: And he kind of laughed and he said maybe one,
Speaker 1: maybe more than that.
Speaker 4: You know, and he kind of he exists to stir
Speaker 4: things up in the special team, so he's a fun
Speaker 4: guy to watch during those settings and seeing him make
Speaker 4: a pick. I mean, Sam made some plays late last
Speaker 4: year when he had to play a little defense too,
Speaker 4: so he is a guy who can do some things.
Speaker 4: And I think that's kind of what you're trying to
Speaker 4: learn in the I mean, you've got a general sense
Speaker 4: right now of what the starting lineup's gonna look like.
Speaker 4: I think you're trying to figure out what those depth
Speaker 4: pieces are and how you put together because Chris Taber
Speaker 4: and the special teams basically have to work with leftovers.
Speaker 4: I mean, his job is like being a chef on Chopped.
Speaker 4: I mean you get the mystery basket and you got
Speaker 4: to make a meal out of it because you never
Speaker 4: know what you're getting until that roster set going into
Speaker 4: the opener, and you know, I think when you go
Speaker 4: through guys like Franklin, Rowe, cam O, those are gonna
Speaker 4: be some of his core pieces and then after that
Speaker 4: it's your guess as good as mine because everything is
Speaker 4: on the table at that point. I do think there's
Speaker 4: the possibility for some degree of change in this roster
Speaker 4: because there's some spots that they're still looking at, honestly
Speaker 4: trying to improve this roster, going through final cuts and
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So but for the most part, you're looking for your
Speaker 1: your depth.
Speaker 4: Guys, you're trying to figure out who players twenty three
Speaker 4: through fifty three are on this roster. Yeah, probably twenty
Speaker 4: six through fifty three, because specialist we've got a pretty
Speaker 4: good idea about So, speaking of specialists, I think it's
Speaker 4: almost time just head downstairs for a cup of coffee
Speaker 4: with JJ Janssen. He will doubtless be in front of
Speaker 4: the coffee machine because I think he takes in about
Speaker 4: eight cups a day, and that will occupy the rest
Speaker 4: of our morning.
Speaker 3: I believe, and it will definitely get us to lunchtime.
Speaker 2: And one thing about JJ Jansen, I remember this from camp,
Speaker 2: but he is a hot coffee like devote.
Speaker 3: He doesn't do it iced.
Speaker 2: He will criticize your ice and say you need to
Speaker 2: drink it hot and it'll be ninety degrees. I remember
Speaker 2: moving day, I have my iced coffee and he's over here.
Speaker 3: Like what are you doing. I'm like JJ w'arreing Sparnberg.
Speaker 3: It's eighty five degrees at eight am.
Speaker 2: Hot coffee guy, and he will definitely be there and
Speaker 2: that will take you huge weelve.
Speaker 4: He is a traditionalist. He is a hot coffee black guy,
Speaker 4: just like me. The thicker the better, give me a
Speaker 4: good cup of truck stop black. I'm not you know,
Speaker 4: I know you're an experimental with many. Yeah, your coffee
Speaker 4: label over there is about the length of many of
Speaker 4: the stories I write. It's that's got a lot of
Speaker 4: words on it. What does that say?
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's very specific as well. This is a
Speaker 2: medium iced with two liquid cane sugar and almond milk,
Speaker 2: and it originally comes with three, but I figured out
Speaker 2: the perfect formula you only need two of the pumps.
Speaker 2: So this is about as specifically odd as it gets.
Speaker 2: And I hate I love doing on the app because
Speaker 2: on the app they don't ask you questions. When you
Speaker 2: walk up the and the nice barista is like, what
Speaker 2: do you like and you tell them specifically pump number,
Speaker 2: they kind of WinCE.
Speaker 3: So but I am very specific.
Speaker 4: So I fear as podcasters go, Matt, are we higher
Speaker 4: maintenance or lower maintenance than Jordan and Jake?
Speaker 5: Then the two Prima Donna superstars, You guys are definitely
Speaker 5: more low maintenance.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, that coffee order of hers makes me wonder and.
Speaker 5: I'm not the one having to fill the order though.
Speaker 5: That's fair.
Speaker 4: So so for your podcast needs, we're low maintenance. For
Speaker 4: your coffee needs. You do not want to see young again.
Speaker 1: I would not want that. Note. Yeah, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be out on my break.
Speaker 4: I'll see I will be having a smoke on the
Speaker 4: on the loading dock when she comes walking in the door.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so anyway, all right, I think that's as
Speaker 4: good a place to leave this thing as any other.
Speaker 4: We avoided talking about the Jets game as much as
Speaker 4: we could. We talked coffee orders, ice cream flavors, New
Speaker 4: York Times, word games, and embraced the chaos of it all.