Speaker 1: This week on a Happy half Hour.
Speaker 2: The one thing I can tell you for sure about
Speaker 2: Dan Morgan, if he tells you he's gonna draft the
Speaker 2: best player available.
Speaker 3: Regardless of position, believe him.
Speaker 2: Dan is one of those guys who is going to
Speaker 2: trust that board. He's going to see what it's telling
Speaker 2: him and he's just gonna follow it.
Speaker 3: What's up, Cow, It's.
Speaker 1: Time for the Happy Half Hour, presented by Southern Star,
Speaker 1: an official bourbon of the Carolina Panthers. Here are your hosts,
Speaker 1: Darren Gant and Cassidy Hill.
Speaker 2: Hello friends, and welcome to a post blizzard edition the
Speaker 2: Happy Half Hour.
Speaker 3: Have we all survived or we're all here?
Speaker 4: There was a little bit of ice in the grass
Speaker 4: outside of my porch.
Speaker 2: D L's in the room podcast, Matt is safely behind
Speaker 2: the monitors.
Speaker 3: You're here, I'm here. We seem to have made it.
Speaker 3: We survived.
Speaker 4: My parents in Mobile, Alabama got seven inches.
Speaker 2: See, I think to my thing on this is, if
Speaker 2: it's this cold for this long you only get a
Speaker 2: half inch of snow, That's that's mean. That's spiteful on
Speaker 2: somebody's part. So good for your parents for being able
Speaker 2: to enjoy it in Mobile in suburban mobile Alabama.
Speaker 4: That's my thought process. When it's like starting to thunder
Speaker 4: and it gets humid, just rain, Like, don't be obnoxious
Speaker 4: about it. Just rain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're new here in the Carolinas, aren't you.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, you come from Alabama where they
Speaker 2: actually got snow.
Speaker 3: Previously, you lived in Green Bay.
Speaker 2: Where there is right now where it snows like starting
Speaker 2: in September and ending in May or something. You know,
Speaker 2: so you've got to be treating this whole thing your
Speaker 2: first good Charlotte blizzard as.
Speaker 3: Come on that.
Speaker 4: I was running around yesterday running some errands and there
Speaker 4: was no one on the road, not a thing, like
Speaker 4: maybe two other people on the interstate when I went
Speaker 4: to my hair appointment. And I get to the hair
Speaker 4: appointment and the lady's like, yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 4: didn't come in today. And I was like, you know
Speaker 4: what's so funny is I have a car that I
Speaker 4: bought when I lived in Wisconsin because I didn't know
Speaker 4: how to drive in the snow when I first got there.
Speaker 4: And I just pushed a little button that says winter weather,
Speaker 4: and the car goes and does what it needs to
Speaker 4: do to drive in winter weather and I didn't even
Speaker 4: have to push that button yesterday.
Speaker 3: Wow, I just drove. Yeah, I stayed at home.
Speaker 2: I was out in it a little bit Tuesday night
Speaker 2: when it started covering the roads and I had to
Speaker 2: drive a grand total of about five blocks back to
Speaker 2: my house. And at one point I was the only
Speaker 2: car on a particular street, and just because I'm a jerk,
Speaker 2: I jammed on the brakes just to see what would happen,
Speaker 2: and I slid a little bit.
Speaker 3: It wasn't dramatic.
Speaker 2: Everyone is safe, but at that point I was just like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's nothing for me out here in this world. I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna park, going to house, have a glass a
Speaker 2: eggnog or something, and call it a night. Speaking of which,
Speaker 2: we were neglectful coming out of the top of the podcast.
Speaker 4: We got distracted quick, my bad.
Speaker 2: This is the Happy Half Hour Prevented, presented by our
Speaker 2: friends at Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the
Speaker 2: Carolina Panthers celebrate the spirit of the Carolinas, which Matt
Speaker 2: might have to take that out and put it back at.
Speaker 3: The top at some point.
Speaker 2: But a blizzard edition of The Happy Half Hour presented
Speaker 2: by our friends at Southern Star, an official bourbon partner
Speaker 2: at the Carolina Panthers celebrate the spirit of the Carolina.
Speaker 4: Does reading it twice make up for not reading it
Speaker 4: at the top?
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe it does.
Speaker 2: Matt's gonna work his podcast magic on this when it
Speaker 2: make us sound professional. But yeah, as Matt, yeah, there
Speaker 2: you go, there you go. So you're probably pro blizzard, right.
Speaker 4: I love a good snow day. I if I have
Speaker 4: an excuse to not have to leave the house and
Speaker 4: don't have to tell me twice, I'll light a candle.
Speaker 4: I like to have the house clean for this, So
Speaker 4: if I know a snow day is coming, I'll clean
Speaker 4: the night before so that I can just sit and enjoy.
Speaker 4: I'll light a candle, I'll make some soup, and then
Speaker 4: I usually will turn on like one of about five
Speaker 4: different entertainment things. I'll either turn on Lord of the
Speaker 4: Rings Two Towers. Sometimes you're Turn of the King, depends
Speaker 4: on what mood I'm in, or an episode of the
Speaker 4: BBC series Classic Sherlock with Bennerdict Cumberbats, or any of
Speaker 4: the Harry Potters, Okay, preferably the first one if it's
Speaker 4: a snow day, or like Pride and Prejudice, The Kiera
Speaker 4: Knightly Version or football.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: I you know I tend to my main thing on
Speaker 2: snow days is I like to prepare in advance, right,
Speaker 2: Thank the boy Scouts for that. When I grew up
Speaker 2: in it, I lived it. Yes, I was an Eagle
Speaker 2: Scout the whole nine yards. So be prepared has kind
Speaker 2: of been instilled in me from an early age, and.
Speaker 3: I take it to ridiculous extreme.
Speaker 2: So in advance of Charlotte blizzards, I'm that guy who
Speaker 2: goes to Harris Teeter.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't go crazy with the bread and milk.
Speaker 2: That's a cliche and I avoid cliches as often as possible.
Speaker 4: So instead you get just at whatever.
Speaker 3: I feel like cooking.
Speaker 2: And it may be you know, it's oftentimes suit, but
Speaker 2: a lot of times it's just whatever wife and I
Speaker 2: feel like cooking. Whatever we feel like eating, will buy
Speaker 2: a bunch of that, and I just cook for days
Speaker 2: and days and days.
Speaker 3: So when we get a blizzard to like this week's blizzard.
Speaker 2: That's gone by the middle of the next afternoon, No,
Speaker 2: it's a Charlotte blizzard.
Speaker 3: I mean, we hadn't had snow here.
Speaker 2: Get humor us, Okay, we hadn't had snow in over
Speaker 2: three years in any measurable amount.
Speaker 4: So I did get one blizzard when I lived in
Speaker 4: Green Bay or what classified as a blizzard. Do you
Speaker 4: know how much?
Speaker 3: What's a Green Bay blizzard?
Speaker 4: I went out and measured it and at one point
Speaker 4: we were up to eighteen inches.
Speaker 3: Holy cat, foot and a half. A foot and a
Speaker 3: half's a lot of snow.
Speaker 4: That was a lot of snow. That was pretty much overnight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I still remember.
Speaker 4: Somebody went to work the next day. It was crazy.
Speaker 4: What do you people do with?
Speaker 2: This is how you can tell I'm an old because
Speaker 2: I start these stories with.
Speaker 3: I remember back in the winter of ninety three, we had.
Speaker 4: A blizzard in Alabama in ninety three, the Great Blizzard.
Speaker 3: The Great Blizzard, I mean, listen, the Great Blizzard of
Speaker 3: ninety three hit during my spring break of my second
Speaker 3: senior year in college.
Speaker 4: Was in March.
Speaker 2: It was March, so spring break I had come off
Speaker 2: the mountain and spring break got extended two weeks.
Speaker 3: That year the mountain. John couldn't get back up the mountain.
Speaker 2: I mean it was there was over a foot of
Speaker 2: snow in suburban Hickory, which is only an hour away
Speaker 2: from Boone and you couldn't get back to Boone proper.
Speaker 2: So everybody got a nice two week spring break that year.
Speaker 2: But I still the elders speak of the blizzard.
Speaker 4: In the Blizzard of ninety three is actually one of
Speaker 4: my first, like real core memories as a child, like
Speaker 4: I was. I was three years old, and it's not
Speaker 4: like I can remember a lot of it, but the
Speaker 4: one thing I remember about it. So we lived in
Speaker 4: Birmingham and we got a good bit of snow. Obviously,
Speaker 4: my cousin Daniel was born during the Blizzard of ninety three.
Speaker 3: That's a good story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But we were at my Aunt Dot's house, my
Speaker 4: gret my great aunt's house in Bessemer home with Jameis
Speaker 4: Winston and my Aunt Dot, and we knew snow was coming,
Speaker 4: but nobody knew it was going to be that bad.
Speaker 4: This part my parents had filled in over the years.
Speaker 4: So we got stuck at my Aunt Dot's house for
Speaker 4: three days. And when we went back home, my parents
Speaker 4: had put our dog in the house because they just
Speaker 4: knew it was going to be cold. But we were
Speaker 4: thinking we'd be back home that night. Well we would
Speaker 4: get home three days later. Oh God, and this is
Speaker 4: what I remember. My dad opens the door and that dog,
Speaker 4: her name was Lady. She was a black German shepherd.
Speaker 4: She runs out, she just does her business for like
Speaker 4: twenty minutes straight.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: If my dad goes into checks. She never once messed
Speaker 4: in the house the whole three days she had held it,
Speaker 4: held it for three days.
Speaker 3: See, that's a good dog.
Speaker 4: Right, that's a very good dog. She was a good dog.
Speaker 4: And I just remember standing there on the front porch
Speaker 4: and watching her go get in that snow for twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: That also means that Lady didn't eat for three days.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: It was awful.
Speaker 4: We felt so bad, but we had no idea we
Speaker 4: were gonna get stuck.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 2: I had my favorite dog ever. I had an old
Speaker 2: beagle named mister Bean. And I could leave mister Bean
Speaker 2: at home alone for like four hours and he would
Speaker 2: get into something. Yeah, I mean he was a beagle.
Speaker 2: He sniffed thing. So if there was ever loose food
Speaker 2: in one of my you know, in my work bag,
Speaker 2: if there was ever a granola bar or something in
Speaker 2: side pocket, he ate zippers out of my work bags
Speaker 2: to get to food that was inside the back. When
Speaker 2: I had like gone to the grocery store. So I
Speaker 2: could only imagine leaving him home alone for three days.
Speaker 4: He would have eaten.
Speaker 3: He would have been fine. He would have found food.
Speaker 3: You know, I wonder if.
Speaker 4: Lady found food. And I just obviously was not old
Speaker 4: enough to remember that part of it. I should ask
Speaker 4: my parents.
Speaker 2: Mister Bean was bad about like if I ever had
Speaker 2: a bag of potatoes sitting on the floor of the
Speaker 2: pantry or something, he would eat a raw potato.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, at any rate, So now we've covered blizzards and
Speaker 2: and dog stories. Dogs and blizzard stories. Good dogs, They're all.
Speaker 2: They're all good dogs. But at some point we got
Speaker 2: to talk about football. It's in our contract. You you
Speaker 2: mentioned watching football. I've got a weird thing and and
Speaker 2: I have done this for a long time. I love
Speaker 2: the game of football. Let me just say this right
Speaker 2: out at the top.
Speaker 3: An interesting wild card weekend.
Speaker 2: I work very hard to avoid football, and I only
Speaker 2: and I only watch football if I think it's going
Speaker 2: to be good, because wild card weekend is usually bad
Speaker 2: football fun. So so last weekend was the weekend where
Speaker 2: I re engage with the football industrial complex. Because after
Speaker 2: an eighteen game regular season or an eighteen week regular season.
Speaker 2: Darren needs a break, all right, Darren needs to turn
Speaker 2: off for a minute and not football for a second.
Speaker 2: But I usually tune back in this weekend because Divisional
Speaker 2: round is when it gets good.
Speaker 3: That's the good stuff.
Speaker 2: So I was like, everybody else in America is like,
Speaker 2: take this Baltimore Buffalo game and shoot it straight into
Speaker 2: my vans.
Speaker 3: I need more of that.
Speaker 2: In my life, and you wat, I saw parts of that.
Speaker 2: When things that happened late at night are often lost
Speaker 2: on me, but I did see the end of that one.
Speaker 2: Hats off to our old friend Jeremy Chen. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: definitely a friend of the program. We're very happy for
Speaker 2: Jeremy and Frankie Luvu that they're enjoying success in Washington both.
Speaker 3: Yep, no doubt.
Speaker 2: And I just think though that that I thought that
Speaker 2: Buffalo Baltimore game. I don't know about you, but I
Speaker 2: kind of approach that as well, there's your super Bowl,
Speaker 2: the rest you'll just figure it out.
Speaker 4: I approached it the same way, and I was slightly
Speaker 4: disappointed that I felt like it wasn't as good of
Speaker 4: a game as we were should have gotten, and it
Speaker 4: was purely because of Baltimore mistakes. Granted, it was still
Speaker 4: a close game up until the very very end, because
Speaker 4: you know Baltimore is good enough to overcome some of
Speaker 4: those mistakes. It almost makes you wonder, well, of course,
Speaker 4: it makes you wonder, like without those three mistakes, does
Speaker 4: Baltimore win that game? They probably do, But you know it,
Speaker 4: being in Buffalo was always going to be hard to overcome.
Speaker 4: Especially you have to wonder too if some of those
Speaker 4: drops were because of how cold it was.
Speaker 3: It didn't help. Yeah, and that's Mark Andrew's heart.
Speaker 4: By the way, I know such a good player and
Speaker 4: I hate that this is what's gonna get remembered.
Speaker 2: Well, the good news about it is it happened in Buffalo,
Speaker 2: and the Buffalo fans, who you know, I tease the
Speaker 2: Buffalo fans, most of whom live in Charlotte now, And
Speaker 2: they came and never went back. Nobody ever, other than
Speaker 2: Brandon Bean and Sean McDermott, no one has ever moved
Speaker 2: from Charlotte to Buffalo. They're the only ones. They blazed
Speaker 2: that trail and took some of their old friends with them.
Speaker 2: But the Buffalo fans respond to stuff like this. They've
Speaker 2: been making donations to Mark Andrew's foundation. They did a
Speaker 2: similar They did a similar thing when the Bengals, quarterbacked
Speaker 2: by our friend Andy Dalton, beat somebody to get Buffalo
Speaker 2: into the playoffs for the first time in a long time.
Speaker 2: They flooded Andy's foundation with donations. So I love the
Speaker 2: fact that they're responding in the right way. And it's
Speaker 2: just it's a shame to see because Mark Andrews has
Speaker 2: been so good of a player for such a long
Speaker 2: time for that to be the kind of thing that's defining.
Speaker 4: I love that their pettiness is still kind. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: Buffalo of.
Speaker 3: Them, Yeah, it's nice.
Speaker 2: I mean it's almost a menace, o'de a nice kind
Speaker 2: of thing, But yeah, I do like that about them.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, fun fan base. And I will say this,
Speaker 4: Baltimore I thought was one of the best teams in
Speaker 4: the NFL this year. That was kind of who I
Speaker 4: wanted to see make it to the super Bowl, just
Speaker 4: to kind of put a cap on all they've done
Speaker 4: this year. But Buffalo's fan base has waited a long
Speaker 4: long time to be in this place again, and they
Speaker 4: had what four super Bowl appearances in a row in
Speaker 4: the night race with no when So you've got to
Speaker 4: feel for that fan base who has been so dedicated
Speaker 4: even in the dark years, and so it'll be cool
Speaker 4: to see that fan base on a national stage if
Speaker 4: that's where they if they make it through this weekend again,
Speaker 4: of course, they've got their big bad wolf that they've
Speaker 4: got to get through. First. They've lost to Kansas City
Speaker 4: in this round how many times?
Speaker 2: Now, all of the times, all of the time, all
Speaker 2: of the times, every time, I mean at three of
Speaker 2: the last four years. I think it was because I
Speaker 2: remember looking that up when they traded in the draft
Speaker 2: and Buffalo traded the pick that turned into Xavier Worthy,
Speaker 2: you know, to the Chiefs, and I was like, why
Speaker 2: would you give a speed receiver to the team that
Speaker 2: knocked you out of the playoffs three of the last
Speaker 2: four years, So that part of it baffled me.
Speaker 4: And the Chiefs are doing their Chiefs things. They're getting
Speaker 4: super strong.
Speaker 2: And they've now reached that point that the Patriots used
Speaker 2: to occupy. In my head, I was the idiot who
Speaker 2: for a while said, this is the year the Patriots
Speaker 2: finally fall off the cliff.
Speaker 3: They can't keep doing this forever.
Speaker 2: And then they kept doing it, and they kept doing it,
Speaker 2: They kept winning and they've just kind of reached that point.
Speaker 2: I almost assume Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are going
Speaker 2: to win until they don't, and even then, even when
Speaker 2: they don't, I'm gonna assume they're going to come back
Speaker 2: and win the next year too.
Speaker 3: I mean, they've just kind of reached that point.
Speaker 2: I agree that Buffalo is probably the better team over
Speaker 2: the course of this season. You know, we had a
Speaker 2: good up close look at the Chiefs and it reminds
Speaker 2: me a little bit of what happened he in twenty fifteen. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's the worst nine and oh team I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: This is the worst ten and oh team I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: This is the worst fifteen to one team I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: They weren't very good. Yeah, offensively this year. They aren't
Speaker 2: that same product that we're used to seeing Patrick Mahomes,
Speaker 2: but dang, they keep not losing.
Speaker 4: Right. They find their ways, and I'm sure people would
Speaker 4: say part of that is because of help, and we
Speaker 4: can talk about that later, but they find ways. When
Speaker 4: you're a defense and you're letting Travis Kelcey get between
Speaker 4: you and just sit in a soft part of the zone,
Speaker 4: he's gonna beat you. Every time he's somebody said the
Speaker 4: other day and they're so true. He has reached that
Speaker 4: point of his career where he now just outslows everyone
Speaker 4: else around it.
Speaker 3: That's my goal. I want to outslow somebody, and.
Speaker 4: That's where he's at and he's doing it well. And
Speaker 4: you can't let Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes figure out
Speaker 4: that they're really really good together. And that's exactly what
Speaker 4: happened the other day against the Texans. That being said,
Speaker 4: I do want to ask you a question about this.
Speaker 4: Yeh Do you think let me provese it by saying this,
Speaker 4: I can't really blame Patrick Mahomes for using the rules
Speaker 4: to his advantage when they can do so. He's just
Speaker 4: playing the game the way it was set up to
Speaker 4: be played.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: Do you foresee a world where some of these rules
Speaker 4: are changed in response to how he is playing the game.
Speaker 4: As far as the sliding, the fake sliding, the flopping out.
Speaker 2: Of bounds, well, I mean flopping ad bounds fake slide.
Speaker 2: I mean you can penalize somebody for a fake slide
Speaker 2: I mean, or just the thing that I think is
Speaker 2: never gonna happen, is the league's gonna make it easier
Speaker 2: to hit quarterbacks. That's not a thing Big Shield's ever
Speaker 2: gonna do.
Speaker 4: So I don't foresee roughing the passer ever going.
Speaker 2: Back, right, I mean, it's not ever going to go
Speaker 2: back to the old days where Dan Fouts was being
Speaker 2: carried off on a stretcher after no. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: just saying people of his era had to take shots
Speaker 2: that guys these days never have to experience.
Speaker 3: But I don't fault him for it. I mean he's
Speaker 3: found the edge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's and that's the name of the game, especially
Speaker 2: when you get to this point in the playoffs when
Speaker 2: there's four teams left, find that small edge, and that's
Speaker 2: how they maintain that level. It's how the Patriots maintained
Speaker 2: that level for a long time. You know, Tom Brady
Speaker 2: was Tom Brady, but Bill Belichick was good at finding
Speaker 2: that little thing that he knew and you didn't, right,
Speaker 2: And you know that's what great ones do. So I
Speaker 2: don't hold it against Patrick Mahomes. I also don't think
Speaker 2: anything's ever going to change in terms of protecting quarterbacks.
Speaker 2: And I don't think it should because you know, I
Speaker 2: want to see you know, I wouldn't have wanted to
Speaker 2: see whoever Baltimore's backup quarterback versus whoever Buffalo's backup quarterback
Speaker 2: happened to have been. I don't even I want to
Speaker 2: see Josh Allen versus Lamar Jackson in January. I want
Speaker 2: to see Josh Allen versus Patrick mahoonme. So these guys
Speaker 2: have to be protected, you know the other side of
Speaker 2: that bracket. The Philadelphia Eagles just annoy me, and not
Speaker 2: for the reason they probably annoy other people.
Speaker 3: They don't run enough. Yeah, a pass is a wasted play.
Speaker 3: And listen.
Speaker 2: Aj Brown is a brilliant player, and he's leading book clubs,
Speaker 2: and I support literacy, so I'm pro aj Brown here.
Speaker 2: If there's ever been a team that should run more,
Speaker 2: it's that one. And you've over complicated it, Sirianni. You've
Speaker 2: you've made this harder than it needed to be. You've
Speaker 2: got that offensive line, and you've got Saquon friggin Barker.
Speaker 2: Turn around and hand it to that man, even when
Speaker 2: Hurtz was dinged up and wasn't as mobile as he
Speaker 2: usually is. Just turn around and hand it to big Boy,
Speaker 2: over and over and over until it doesn't work. For
Speaker 2: about ten plays in a row, And here's the thing too.
Speaker 4: I have said this ahead of the Eagles last like
Speaker 4: three games, and this is not in any way to
Speaker 4: toot my own horn. It's just to prove I don't
Speaker 4: think everybody is watching the Eagles as closely as they
Speaker 4: think they have until it comes time to end a
Speaker 4: game like this. The Eagles, and I think I saw
Speaker 4: this when we went there to play them. They have
Speaker 4: a passing game that has some superstars and AJ Brown
Speaker 4: and DeVante Smith. They do not have a passing game
Speaker 4: that can carry them a whole game. If you shut
Speaker 4: down Saquon Barkley and so like, or if you go
Speaker 4: away from Saquon Barkley, that passing game should supplement the
Speaker 4: running game. It should never be the game plan. It
Speaker 4: can't carry them through a whole game. So well partnered
Speaker 4: with your point of like, why are you not handing
Speaker 4: the ball to Saquon Barkley, Yeah, I think they're making
Speaker 4: it more complicated than it needs to be.
Speaker 3: I think it could. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know that Jalen Hurts is the quarterback to
Speaker 2: necessarily do it. I mean, yeah, you look at I mean,
Speaker 2: give Patrick Mahomes, AJ Brown and Devontae Smith right, and
Speaker 2: see what happen happens, and that still looks a lot different.
Speaker 2: And that's no slight. You know, Hurts has figured out
Speaker 2: his lane. He's figured out how to make it work
Speaker 2: as good as what he does.
Speaker 4: He just needs to be allowed to do what he does. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and she's only throwing one downfield down twenty yard pass
Speaker 4: a game.
Speaker 2: That's fine, and that might be too many. Just do
Speaker 2: nothing but run, I just I I. The games that
Speaker 2: stick out into my mind often are the ones that
Speaker 2: are weird for one reason or another and include a
Speaker 2: lot of running, because I do like a short football game.
Speaker 4: We almost got to score a gomi this past weekend,
Speaker 4: but then somebody, oh the Chiefs, yep, and then they
Speaker 4: took the safety.
Speaker 2: And that once I figured out how to find score
Speaker 2: agami on the internet, that changed a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: for me, because every now and then you just see
Speaker 2: random scores and wait for somebody. Our old friend young
Speaker 2: Will I would be like, young Will, is this score gomi?
Speaker 4: And he would where did you find it? I just
Speaker 4: wait for somebody to tweet it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's there's an inn.
Speaker 2: There's a website that's got Yeah, it's got the whole
Speaker 2: graft On there so you can look to every possible value,
Speaker 2: see it's either filled in or not, and it'll give
Speaker 2: you the games played and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So fun with Scoregami. But I do love a good
Speaker 2: two and a half hour football game, and I think
Speaker 2: about I think about Christmas Eve two thousand and six
Speaker 2: more often than I ever should, not because of warm
Speaker 2: holiday memories, but because that was today. The Carolina Panthers
Speaker 2: effectively invented the wildcat and did nothing but single wing
Speaker 2: run the whole game with the Angelo Williams, and they
Speaker 2: were down quarterbacks. Jake was hurt. Back up Chris Winky
Speaker 2: was also hurt. He was had a rib thing, couldn't
Speaker 2: really throw. The only touchdown of that game was a
Speaker 2: one yard pass from Chris Winky to Jeff King, because
Speaker 2: that was about as far as Chris could throw a
Speaker 2: football that day, was one yard away. But the Carolina
Speaker 2: Panthers ran the ball fifty two times and it was amazing.
Speaker 2: It was awesome to watch. I think about Detroit. I
Speaker 2: think about Detroit here a couple of years ago when
Speaker 2: it was about a million degrees below zero or twenty.
Speaker 2: Once you get under thirty, it's just like absolute zero.
Speaker 3: I stationed Zebra. It's the worst ever.
Speaker 2: I lose sight of the differences in degrees once it
Speaker 2: reaches a certain point. But when the Lions came in
Speaker 2: here the other year and the Carolina Panthers run for
Speaker 2: three to twenty, yeah, I mean Deontay Foreman, I think
Speaker 2: was one sixty five two but one twenty five and
Speaker 2: you know, hung thirty seven points on the lines and
Speaker 2: kept that, you know, playoff push alive in twenty two.
Speaker 2: So those are the kind of games that stick out
Speaker 2: into my memory. That's why I was secretly hoping for
Speaker 2: Eagles Ravens. Yeah, because a good two and a half
Speaker 2: hour Super Bowl would have been a thing to behold.
Speaker 4: And Sequon Barkley versus Derrick Henry would have been fun
Speaker 4: to watch. Man's talk about Lamar Josh. Let me get
Speaker 4: see Saquon versus Derrick Henry.
Speaker 3: That's old man, Hey.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Detroit, I thought about Detroit a lot during
Speaker 2: our blizzard, as one does. While I was watching their
Speaker 2: coordinators go on and become head coaches all over the NFL.
Speaker 2: Ben Johnson finally took a job. Aaron Glenn gets the
Speaker 2: Jets job. Best of luck to both of those guys.
Speaker 2: But the main thing that kept running through my mind was,
Speaker 2: ain't me right?
Speaker 4: Don't have to do with a courage and search this year.
Speaker 3: No coaching search for this kid this year.
Speaker 2: And I was just sitting there on the couch yesterday
Speaker 2: watching it not snow anymore and again, if it's going
Speaker 2: to be this cold for this long and it's no
Speaker 2: more snow than we got, and that's hateful. I was
Speaker 2: just thinking how fortunate the Carolina Panthers are to be
Speaker 2: in this position where on January twenty second and twenty third,
Speaker 2: nobody's talking about them.
Speaker 4: A friend called me on my way in today and
Speaker 4: he was like, what are you doing. I said, I'm
Speaker 4: heading to work and he said, Cassidy, it's eleven forty Jake,
Speaker 4: I don't have to deal with the coaches search this year.
Speaker 4: I'm going in when I want to.
Speaker 2: And that's that's not only good for me and you,
Speaker 2: that's good for the product here because for the first
Speaker 2: time in a long time, the Carolina Panthers are in
Speaker 2: a spot where they can build year after year, and
Speaker 2: that's just gonna help in so many ways. I mean,
Speaker 2: you still see, you know, most of the people are
Speaker 2: out of the building. You'll still see some of the
Speaker 2: coaches and some of the injured guys coming in for
Speaker 2: you year every stuff like that. Those guys are here,
Speaker 2: but things have gotten quiet, and it needs to be
Speaker 2: quiet because with any you know, it's just like when
Speaker 2: you're lifting weights working out, You've got to have recovery time.
Speaker 2: And the Carolina Panthers have that recovery time right now,
Speaker 2: and they've got a chance to build on something year
Speaker 2: after year for the first time really since it Cam
Speaker 2: Newton was the quarterback.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And as we've said a few times now, being
Speaker 4: able to have so many people on the same timeline
Speaker 4: in the same window is mixed for an exciting time
Speaker 4: and excited to see what next year could bring.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was gonna say, and before you know it,
Speaker 2: it's going to be back into off season mode. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're going to Mobile next week Senior Bowl kicks in.
Speaker 2: Dan and Dave will celebrate their one year anniversary together.
Speaker 4: Could we get them a gift?
Speaker 2: We should or one year's paper, right, yeah, one year's paper.
Speaker 2: We should print out Panthers dot Com and present it
Speaker 2: to them or something. But no, those guys are going
Speaker 2: to be right back to work. Next week scouting and
Speaker 2: getting ready for and it's on.
Speaker 4: And then we'll be heading to East West here in
Speaker 4: the next day or two.
Speaker 3: Yep, Dan's head to the East West.
Speaker 2: I know, uh, he'll join Dave down in Mobile at
Speaker 2: some point. And then it's on because then you go
Speaker 2: straight from the the All Star Games, the Combine, free
Speaker 2: agency and its own. Yeah, and it's on for the
Speaker 2: next couple of weeks. So the good news is we've
Speaker 2: had our opportunity to rest during the blizzard.
Speaker 4: Right but thank god we had that blizzard so we
Speaker 4: could get an app. I'm excited about this year leading
Speaker 4: up to the draft as well, because I think we're
Speaker 4: in a fun position, at least for us. I don't
Speaker 4: know how the scouts feel, or Dan and Day feel,
Speaker 4: but for me and you, it feels like a fun position.
Speaker 4: It's not high enough where it feels inevitable of who
Speaker 4: it will be. There's still a little bit of mystery there,
Speaker 4: but it's still in the top ten, so you know
Speaker 4: you're gonna get a big name. You know, we spent
Speaker 4: most of we spent all the way up until the
Speaker 4: last possible second of last year's draft cycle. I think
Speaker 4: we didn't have a first round pick, and it was
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of speculation about who's still gonna
Speaker 4: be there in the second round. Year before that, everybody
Speaker 4: knows who's probably going to number one overall, And so
Speaker 4: I think this year is gonna be kind of fun
Speaker 4: to kind of look at who is available, who is
Speaker 4: a top ten talent versus what they might need. You know,
Speaker 4: do you go for who's still there versus what you
Speaker 4: need to feel? I don't know. It's gonna make for
Speaker 4: an exciting combine, exciting Senior Bowl, exciting pro days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: The one thing I know for sure, and we've got
Speaker 2: all spring to talk about, you know, draft prospects, this,
Speaker 2: that and the other. The one thing I can tell
Speaker 2: you for sure about Dan Morgan, if he tells you
Speaker 2: he's going to draft the best player available.
Speaker 3: Regardless of position, believe him.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: I think Dan is one of those guys who is
Speaker 2: going to trust that board. He's going to see what
Speaker 2: it's telling him and he's just going to follow it
Speaker 2: to the letter.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: And the Panthers honestly aren't a spot where, you know,
Speaker 2: if the right receiver is there, they can't say no
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 3: If the right whatever I mean.
Speaker 2: Pass rusher is obviously going to get a lot of attention,
Speaker 2: Defensive lines obviously going to get a lot of attention.
Speaker 2: But I just think that they're in a position where
Speaker 2: they can listen to what that board's telling him, and
Speaker 2: if somebody's sticking out there in front of them, then
Speaker 2: I don't think you hesitate taking you know, whether it's
Speaker 2: a fill in the blank, it could be one of
Speaker 2: any number of positions, and they're roster is not to
Speaker 2: the point yet where you say, oh, they absolutely can't
Speaker 2: draft one of those.
Speaker 4: You know who I'm really excited to kind of look into,
Speaker 4: and I don't admittedly know enough about him to know
Speaker 4: where he is projected. I'll kind of find this more
Speaker 4: out in Mobile next week, but after watching that National
Speaker 4: Championship game, I'm really excited to see Xavier Watts at
Speaker 4: the Senior Bowl. He's a Notre Dame safety. He was
Speaker 4: one of the few bright spots on Notre Dame's defense
Speaker 4: on Monday Night and is a ballhawk. He's like he
Speaker 4: leads college football and interceptions the past two years, but
Speaker 4: still can come up and you know, tackle in the box.
Speaker 4: He's a good little safety and he's big for a
Speaker 4: safety too.
Speaker 3: You just described him as a good little safety and
Speaker 3: then I know it.
Speaker 4: A good little safety is like the way a girl
Speaker 4: would say it, like that's the good yo. He's such
Speaker 4: a cute little thing. Oh okay, you know, like a puppy.
Speaker 2: So anyway, all right, Well, we will get in depth
Speaker 2: into all the pre draft stuff in future editions, but
Speaker 2: for now, we've covered the blizzard, We've covered the playoffs,
Speaker 2: championship game week in tune in next week we'll break
Speaker 2: down the pre super Bowl stuff.
Speaker 3: You may be on the road. We'll have to we'll
Speaker 3: figure out, we'll figure out the scheduling and all that.
Speaker 4: Matt recorded our entire conversation about the ocean before we
Speaker 4: got started, and we can.
Speaker 3: Just roll in and just run that in.
Speaker 2: Just remember, folks, the sea is a road game. Nothing
Speaker 2: good happened happens for you there.
Speaker 3: Take that.
Speaker 2: Be prepared for the next blizzard, which may come and
Speaker 2: it may not.
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna put a snow machine in your front yard
Speaker 3: And we'll see you next week on the Happy Half Hour.