Speaker 1: This week on the Happy half Hour.
Speaker 2: I can't leave the house without one of the neighbor's
Speaker 2: a friend at church saying.
Speaker 1: What's going on with Burns?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So the idea that he's out there on the practice
Speaker 2: field yesterday, I think kind of puts to rest.
Speaker 1: A lot of the concerns people had.
Speaker 2: We'll see if it resolves itself in the next forty
Speaker 2: eight to seventy two hours.
Speaker 4: SUT's own cow r.
Speaker 1: Right, it's time for the Happy Half Hour with your
Speaker 1: friends Kristin Balboni, Augusta Stone and Darren Gannon. All Right,
Speaker 1: welcome back.
Speaker 2: It's the Happy half Hour regular season edition. We're finally here,
Speaker 2: and I think since we're in a celebratory mood, it's
Speaker 2: probably worth pointing out that this episode of The Happy
Speaker 2: Half Hours brought to you by Prowling Vineyards, Napa Valley.
Speaker 2: It's the official wine brand and wine club of the
Speaker 2: Carolina Panthers. These premium selections celebrate the great people of
Speaker 2: the Carolinas and the panthers hunger to achieve that excellence
Speaker 2: on and off the field. Each handcrafted wine mirrors the
Speaker 2: Panther's bold attitude and the iconic flavors on are the
Speaker 2: two states we're proud to call home. Experience the benefits
Speaker 2: and lifestyle while giving back to the community as a
Speaker 2: portion of the proceeds support the Carolina Panthers' charities. Learn
Speaker 2: more at Prowlingvineyards dot com. I will be learning more
Speaker 2: at Prowlingvineyards dot com. I want to find out more.
Speaker 5: I'm always interested in in some wine, let me tell you.
Speaker 5: And I'm turning twenty five this weekend, so.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, are you old enough to drink?
Speaker 5: I've been there for almost four years, so, which is
Speaker 5: not a very long time. Oh no, we're turning the
Speaker 5: corner in my twenties on game day, Game day, Game day.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, you'll be old enough to rent a car and
Speaker 2: go to this game. So yeah, life is good for
Speaker 2: the Carolina Panthers and Augusta Stone. And I'm Darren Kant
Speaker 2: and I'm assuming everybody knows who you are. So anyway,
Speaker 2: it's regular season time, and all of a sudden, after
Speaker 2: months and months of build up, in weeks and weeks
Speaker 2: of anxiety over cuts and rosters and all this kind
Speaker 2: of fun stuff, it's here.
Speaker 1: There's a game.
Speaker 2: There's actual football to talk about and we've been all
Speaker 2: over it all week.
Speaker 1: So Augusta, Atlanta, are you ready?
Speaker 4: I am ready. I'm excited.
Speaker 5: I think it's really cool that the Panthers are starting
Speaker 5: out two games in the division, one on the road.
Speaker 4: Starting on the road's pretty cool.
Speaker 5: I think I read in game notes or wrote down
Speaker 5: or something that they haven't started on the road in
Speaker 5: the last four or five years, So that's kind of
Speaker 5: cool to start there. Not going too far down. I
Speaker 5: eighty five should be an interesting matchup. I think a
Speaker 5: lot of people, a lot of the things I'm hearing
Speaker 5: from my buddies and people talking about it is like
Speaker 5: they're expecting a really good one, So it's kind of
Speaker 5: a good litmus test for what's going on.
Speaker 4: My parents will be there, they're excited about it.
Speaker 5: So a lot of people I think are excited, not
Speaker 5: only just because I mean debut of Bryce Young, which
Speaker 5: I know you wrote about, pretty good story about that
Speaker 5: at Panthers dot com, and kind of the rooky debuts,
Speaker 5: but also you know, kind of see in how they
Speaker 5: measure up against the division, which I mean as always
Speaker 5: or as of late NFC souse always kind of for grabs,
Speaker 5: even if you're in a rebuild mode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the thing about this game. I mean
Speaker 2: by opening with the Falcons, you know, if you're playing
Speaker 2: the Chiefs in week one, you know exactly what's coming.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, here comes Patrick Mahomes. But when you
Speaker 2: think about the Falcons, I don't I have a general
Speaker 2: sense that they are going to want to run it.
Speaker 2: I mean, when you look at the personnel they already had,
Speaker 2: they were kind of built that way, and then you
Speaker 2: add Bjean Robinson to the mix, It's like, Okay, these
Speaker 2: guys want to play a two hour and twenty five
Speaker 2: minute football game. They want to keep the clock moving,
Speaker 2: keep the ball on the ground, reduce the number of
Speaker 2: times Desmond Ritter.
Speaker 1: Has to put the ball in the air.
Speaker 2: And that makes sense, except I don't really, I mean,
Speaker 2: we don't know for sure that's the way they're going,
Speaker 2: the same way Frank Reich has talked about, almost bragged
Speaker 2: about not showing what this offense is going to look
Speaker 2: like it in the opener. So I think the idea
Speaker 2: that we're still trying to figure out what the these
Speaker 2: two teams want to be. I mean, as we've covered, well,
Speaker 2: we know this division is always up for grabs, we
Speaker 2: know this division is always a little bit of a
Speaker 2: mess in the best kind of way. It's like that
Speaker 2: fun relative you have that you know you never know
Speaker 2: quite what to expect from him, but it's generally a
Speaker 2: good time.
Speaker 1: That's the NFC South.
Speaker 2: So it's it's going to be curious to me to
Speaker 2: kind of see how this game develops, because I think
Speaker 2: both these teams are still when you think about the
Speaker 2: age of the quarterbacks and the relative inexperience, they're still
Speaker 2: figuring it out. We're going to be in experimental mode
Speaker 2: for the first month of this season, so trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what's going to happen in Week one is
Speaker 2: your guess is as good as mine, because I feel
Speaker 2: like I've got a decent handle on what they want
Speaker 2: to do, but I don't know how it's going to
Speaker 2: come together because of some of the particulars of the week.
Speaker 5: I like the comment that you made about how Frank
Speaker 5: Reich is almost proud of how little he showed in
Speaker 5: the preseason. I think going into game WEEKI feels pretty
Speaker 5: good to to not rest on that, but to be like, Okay,
Speaker 5: keptain vanilla. That was purposeful, and now they have the
Speaker 5: opportunity to kind of you know, you didn't show too
Speaker 5: much of your hand, didn't show too much of Bryce Young,
Speaker 5: what can he do? Didn't show any Miles Sanders, which
Speaker 5: I think is a really exciting aspect of this that
Speaker 5: we maybe haven't talked about a ton, but I think
Speaker 5: he has the potential to be a real big game changer.
Speaker 5: But I agree with you with the Panther or not
Speaker 5: the Panthers, the Falcons, I mean, just committing to the
Speaker 5: run game.
Speaker 4: I remember when they took Bijon. I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: so that's what we're going to do here.
Speaker 5: It was very, very loud, So I'd be surprised to
Speaker 5: see a ton of Desmond Ridder just because you have
Speaker 5: all of you your ground game. I mean, Tyler Algier
Speaker 5: looked good last year, I remember, and that was that
Speaker 5: was a name that I don't think a lot of
Speaker 5: people talked about, but I mean I think he rushed
Speaker 5: for over a thousand yards on the year. And I
Speaker 5: remember those Panthers games where I was like, okay, so yeah,
Speaker 5: and then they bring in Beijeon.
Speaker 4: Who's everyone super excited?
Speaker 5: I know fantasy people are super excited and they're all
Speaker 5: watching them. I've heard that I'm like, Okay, that's you know,
Speaker 5: we'll see, We'll see. But there's so many different I
Speaker 5: think new young guys too. When I wrote about the
Speaker 5: Falcons this week for I Know Your Faux Preview that
Speaker 5: we do every Tuesday at Panthers dot Com, some of
Speaker 5: my favorite things because it's not a huge lift, but
Speaker 5: it's also a ton of time to research and doing
Speaker 5: them in with the preseason kind of the only thing
Speaker 5: to look at. You just look at all the moving
Speaker 5: parts they've put together, and similarly to how you look
Speaker 5: at the or the Panthers offense, and it's all just
Speaker 5: a bunch of new people. That's kind of what the
Speaker 5: Falcons defensive front looks like. I mean, they just kind
Speaker 5: of poach guys from all over the place, and I
Speaker 5: think that'll be cool to see how that kind of
Speaker 5: matches up with the offensive line here. I'm thinking of
Speaker 5: some names right now, but I wrote about them. But
Speaker 5: just a lot of new guys, a lot of new faces.
Speaker 5: So it's going to be interesting to see how it
Speaker 5: all comes together because there's really not a ton you
Speaker 5: can do to prep for what that unit's gonna look
Speaker 5: like all together.
Speaker 2: Right, and again, we've kind of talked about this offense
Speaker 2: as an abstract concept all off season. Now it's a
Speaker 2: concrete thing, and now there are very particular things that
Speaker 2: are going to impact it. One of it's going to
Speaker 2: be injuries, and realistically, the number of receivers the Carolina
Speaker 2: Panthers have on that injury report is going to add
Speaker 2: to the mystery about what this offense wants to look
Speaker 2: like when it grows up. Because Adam Theoa was added
Speaker 2: to the list yesterday with an ankle. As we tape
Speaker 2: this podcast, it is ten am, which is why it's
Speaker 2: too early for prowling nyards. But we're open to experimenting
Speaker 2: later in the day for sure. But as we sit
Speaker 2: here Thursday morning, we don't know what Adam's going to
Speaker 2: do on the practice field today.
Speaker 1: If anything.
Speaker 2: DJ Chark didn't practice yesterday with that hamstring, you know.
Speaker 2: And then you've got Terris some question about Terras Marshall,
Speaker 2: he was a little limited. You've got leviscas Chanal. It's
Speaker 2: cleared from the concussion protocol. But Amir Smith Marsett tweaks
Speaker 2: an ankle. He's listed as full participant yesterday, so be
Speaker 2: curious to see what he does today and if you
Speaker 2: go into a game without any combination of one or
Speaker 2: two of those guys, I don't even know what to
Speaker 2: fairly expect from a.
Speaker 5: Passing game, especially Adam feel and we saw Bryce target
Speaker 5: him a lot in the preseason first touchdown, I think
Speaker 5: that was his favorite target in the last preseason game
Speaker 5: against Detroit when he looked most comfortable. And I think
Speaker 5: that gives an opportunity just with all the injuries that receiver,
Speaker 5: I think it gives an opportunity for those tight ends
Speaker 5: that Frank Reich and the staff really seemed to believe in,
Speaker 5: especially hayden Hurst.
Speaker 4: Didn't see a ton of him in the preseason, you.
Speaker 5: Know, getting his targets because when the offense was constructed,
Speaker 5: I think a lot of focus was put on kind
Speaker 5: of reliable, veteran guys who have been around the league
Speaker 5: to kind of pair with Bryce. So you had the
Speaker 5: feelings the Charks, the hearsts with Chark and now feeling
Speaker 5: you know, popping up on the injury report. I think
Speaker 5: there's there's there's good reason to assume that maybe hayden
Speaker 5: Hurst will get it, you know, more looks, and then
Speaker 5: maybe that was part of their their you know, Vanilla
Speaker 5: zing or making generic or whatever you want to say
Speaker 5: they were doing in the preseason, that they're going to
Speaker 5: get more touches to the tight ends. You'll see maybe
Speaker 5: more Ian Thomas, Tommy Trimble, Zevan Sullivan's on ir But
Speaker 5: but they have a lot of guys there, so why
Speaker 5: not use them as potential targets.
Speaker 4: And then also, like I said, I think I don't.
Speaker 5: I think we'd be amiss to not expect to see
Speaker 5: quite a bit of Miles Sanders just because we haven't.
Speaker 4: So seeing him at all is going to be like, oh,
Speaker 4: look look at that something new.
Speaker 2: And again, the thing about the is and we don't
Speaker 2: know what he's going to do on the practice field today,
Speaker 2: if anything, So stay tuned later to Panthers dot Com
Speaker 2: for that injury report this afternoon. But Felan's always been
Speaker 2: a guy who will miss some practice time but is
Speaker 2: played in games. I mean, he was played in all
Speaker 2: seventeen last year, you know, and as you get older,
Speaker 2: you know, I think there's a natural concern about some
Speaker 2: of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But Adam's always.
Speaker 2: Been a guy who's pretty available, So I would be
Speaker 2: maybe surprised based on what we know at the moment,
Speaker 2: if he was going to miss the game.
Speaker 1: But we'll see.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of it depends on how he
Speaker 2: responds the next couple of days and what he's actually
Speaker 2: able to do, so we'll see how it goes with feeling.
Speaker 2: But that just kind of adds to a little bit
Speaker 2: of the concern. And again, you mentioned Bryce in the
Speaker 2: story I wrote about him last night. The thing with
Speaker 2: Bryce is, as much as we've talked about him, as
Speaker 2: much build up as there's been about the number one
Speaker 2: overall pick, the reality is number one pick quarterbacks are
Speaker 2: not guaranteed to be immediately successful.
Speaker 1: In fact, they're almost famously unsuccessful.
Speaker 2: At first, I went back looked through the archives and
Speaker 2: of the last eleven over the last thirty years, eleven
Speaker 2: number one picked quarterbacks started their team's opener as rookies.
Speaker 2: One of them won that game, and that was Panther's legend,
Speaker 2: David Carr with the Houston Texans in two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: And you know, he won that game against the Cowboys,
Speaker 2: but he got sacked six times and that was kind
Speaker 2: of a omen for what was to come for poor
Speaker 2: David in Houston. And hopefully that's not the case for Bryce.
Speaker 2: But even the best quarterbacks, and when you think about
Speaker 2: guys who are getting picked first overall, you know, your
Speaker 2: Peyton Mannings of the world have generally struggled in that opener.
Speaker 2: It's been tough for them because it's so much different.
Speaker 2: Even though Bryce played at a high level at Alabama,
Speaker 2: it's different at the NFL. And you know, I know
Speaker 2: a lot of times the number one pick belongs to
Speaker 2: teams that were abject awful the year before, and the
Speaker 2: Panthers were not that last year. So Bryce is coming
Speaker 2: into a little better situation than a lot of those guys.
Speaker 2: But it's still one of the realities. And Frank talked
Speaker 2: about that yesterday, kind of balancing that need to think
Speaker 2: about developing Bryce for the long term versus getting him
Speaker 2: ready for Atlanta, and Frank I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 2: He talked about, you know, we have to be cognizant
Speaker 2: he is still a rookie, so we can't give him
Speaker 2: everything you'd ordinarily give a guy because you've got to
Speaker 2: build these things gradually.
Speaker 5: Exactly, and you kind of mentioned it, but I think
Speaker 5: having the prior history and you wrote about this yesterday
Speaker 5: in the Bryce story, but he is very much so
Speaker 5: the kind of guy that doesn't look beyond where his
Speaker 5: feet are planted, and I think that's kind of a
Speaker 5: healthy mindset to have going into especially two division games
Speaker 5: at the very top and one on the road. I
Speaker 5: think one of the benefits to drafting Bryce Young and
Speaker 5: something that we talked about a lot when he first
Speaker 5: got here, and I've talked about it a lot, but
Speaker 5: just kind of the maturity level for guy who's only
Speaker 5: twenty two years old and a rookie and all those things.
Speaker 5: I mean, he kind of doesn't doesn't behave as such,
Speaker 5: and I think that not being rattled will be good
Speaker 5: because if it doesn't necessarily turn out perfect, I think
Speaker 5: the last person to be panicking will be Bryce Young,
Speaker 5: which is which is definitely what you want, I think,
Speaker 5: without whatever happens. But one thing I was thinking about
Speaker 5: just now was how they're starting out and Mercedes Been Stadium.
Speaker 5: Bryce Young has played there a lot, and he's played
Speaker 5: very well there As someone who grew up following the
Speaker 5: University of Georgia, I've watched him put up really good
Speaker 5: performances there in college, so I think it's gonna be
Speaker 5: kind of a flashback for me. I remember SEC Championship.
Speaker 5: I think it was twenty twenty one. I mean, he
Speaker 5: just like completely destroyed Georgia in there, so I remember
Speaker 5: that quite well. So he's had success there in that
Speaker 5: physical stadium before I was thinking about it because I
Speaker 5: was like when I started in the NFL, all these new.
Speaker 4: Places I got to go. He's pretty experienced there, so
Speaker 4: that's kind of cool that. I mean, you know that
Speaker 4: that kind of circle energy.
Speaker 2: But there's no cheering in the press box, nor are
Speaker 2: there any fields in the press box. Don't don't hold
Speaker 2: what Bryce did against your beloved.
Speaker 5: If anything, it gave me an added sense of like dang,
Speaker 5: like like I don't know, if anything, it just adds
Speaker 5: to the level of impressiveness. I wouldn't say impression, but yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, we're ten minutes into this podcast. We're ten
Speaker 2: minutes into this happy half hour, and there's a giant
Speaker 2: elephant standing in the other corner of the room.
Speaker 1: Everybody goodness again.
Speaker 2: I feel like I need to timestamp my entire life
Speaker 2: because everything can change with one phone call. But as
Speaker 2: we sit here shortly after ten am on a Thursday,
Speaker 2: that Brian Burns thing is still a thing. You know,
Speaker 2: Brian's negotiating a contract with the team, and it's always
Speaker 2: tricky business.
Speaker 1: When the money gets involved.
Speaker 2: I think Matt, you should you should lead Jordan and
Speaker 2: Jake into talking about this, because when the business of
Speaker 2: the business becomes the business, it gets a little sticky.
Speaker 2: And everybody's been kind of walking around this week wondering
Speaker 2: what's going on. I can't leave the house without one
Speaker 2: of the neighbors friend at church saying.
Speaker 1: What's going on with Burns? You know.
Speaker 2: So the idea that he's out there on the practice
Speaker 2: field yesterday, I think kind of puts to rest a
Speaker 2: lot of the concerns people had when he, you know,
Speaker 2: skipped a couple of practices last week and early this week.
Speaker 1: He didn't participate in the walk through on Monday.
Speaker 2: But Burns was out there on the practice field yesterday
Speaker 2: and he was a participant. It's not like this was
Speaker 2: a you know, take one reup or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was out there and Brian has said
Speaker 2: pretty reliably through this process that being a part of
Speaker 2: this thing and being out there on the field was
Speaker 2: important to him. And you know, again, we'll see how
Speaker 2: the business reality comes in, but I think that's one
Speaker 2: of the things that this team benefits from by having
Speaker 2: a Frank Reich in charge, because Frank's been in locker rooms.
Speaker 2: He knows what it's like to be teammates with guys
Speaker 2: and to be the guy who is involved in some
Speaker 2: degree of discussion with the front office about your money,
Speaker 2: because everybody's money is important to them and the team
Speaker 2: has certain goals, but all these individuals have their own
Speaker 2: families to feed, futures to think about, and that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. So it gets a little messy every now
Speaker 2: and then, and it makes people uncomfortable when it becomes
Speaker 2: a thing. But we'll see if it resolves itself in
Speaker 2: the next forty eight to seventy two hours.
Speaker 5: And Frank talked yesterday and his teammates have kind of
Speaker 5: Brian's teammates have reflected this that it hasn't been a
Speaker 5: distraction even though he wasn't on the practice field for
Speaker 5: those two days. He was there yesterday, which is you
Speaker 5: know what Shaq Thompson had alluded to when he was interviewed.
Speaker 5: He was there, he was practicing, he was a full participant,
Speaker 5: wasn't on the injury report.
Speaker 4: Nothing to worry about there.
Speaker 5: I think that's a testament to I think how he
Speaker 5: carried himself throughout the off season through training camp, like
Speaker 5: you mentioned, always being around, not being the kind of distraction.
Speaker 5: And then I like the point that you brought up
Speaker 5: as well, Darren, about Frank Reich and having the player
Speaker 5: experience coaching experience. I mean, it goes back to the
Speaker 5: story that you wrote during training camp about how the
Speaker 5: coaching staff has a ton of playing experience. When the
Speaker 5: business side kind of collides here, they know how to look.
Speaker 4: At it from those angles in a unique way.
Speaker 5: A lot of those guys doing, especially Frank, and I
Speaker 5: think that's a lot of perspective that allows for maturity
Speaker 5: in these in these settings right that we've seen.
Speaker 2: And I was just it was a side conversation yesterday
Speaker 2: walking out to the practice field alongside Josh McCown and
Speaker 2: Josh was the quarterback here at the time when Julius
Speaker 2: Peppers wanted to leave town, and Julius wanted to leave
Speaker 2: town for reasons that had every as we wrote in
Speaker 2: his Hall of Honor story back in the summer, Julius
Speaker 2: just kind of wanted to get out of Charlotte and
Speaker 2: get out of the fish bowl of being the Carolina
Speaker 2: kid who was the number one pick of the Panthers,
Speaker 2: who was always local. He just wanted to get out
Speaker 2: and see the world and learn more about being Julius.
Speaker 2: And it had more to do with that than the
Speaker 2: Carolina Panthers or the defensive scheme or anything like that.
Speaker 2: But Josh was around here when Julius demanded a trade
Speaker 2: and Marty Hernie, the GM at the time, just kind
Speaker 2: of said, yeah, no, we're not doing that, and Julius.
Speaker 1: Continued to play.
Speaker 2: So the business is very in your face when it's
Speaker 2: right there happening. But over the course of a long season,
Speaker 2: you know, everybody knows. Everybody's got business to do. And
Speaker 2: Josh kind of laughed about that and thinking about the
Speaker 2: Julius thing back in nine and he said, you know what,
Speaker 2: the business always takes care of itself.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how it resolves itself with Brian one
Speaker 1: way or another.
Speaker 2: He's under contract, and you know, it's obviously a big
Speaker 2: part of this thing. So Frank's a Frank's got a
Speaker 2: unique little situation to navigate here. But I like that
Speaker 2: with Frank's maturity and his perspective as a former player,
Speaker 2: he's able to kind of remove himself from the business
Speaker 2: and make sure Brian knows. Hey, you're pretty important to
Speaker 2: this deal too. I've got your back over here while
Speaker 2: this is going on.
Speaker 4: Anyway, Absolutely, absolutely so.
Speaker 5: I think that elephant in the side of the room
Speaker 5: is taking care of for now.
Speaker 2: We talk about other elephants. Who is your favorite fictional elephant?
Speaker 5: Oh, my favorite fictional elephant? Oh, Dumbo, easy one, the
Speaker 5: cute little Disney one.
Speaker 2: Right, dum Dumbo's okay, Dumbo's okay. I would probably go
Speaker 2: bi Bar early on. Oh no, you're not a bar fan. No,
Speaker 2: what's your beef with Babar? Why do you hate elephant?
Speaker 4: Is that like you?
Speaker 5: Is that European British that vibe? Those little British cartoons
Speaker 5: always made me nervous.
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, wait, I need to dig down into this
Speaker 2: a little more. Are there other cartoons that make you nervous? Uh?
Speaker 4: Oh that's a good one, okay.
Speaker 5: Uh fantastic mister Fox, the Claymation stuff. I cannot watch
Speaker 5: that as a kid, but I did like Wallison grammet
Speaker 5: So even though it was like scarier, but like something
Speaker 5: about like stop motion right, stop motion kind of freaks
Speaker 5: me out a little bit.
Speaker 4: Let's see, let's see you other.
Speaker 1: Fantastic mister Fox underrated Wes Anderson movie.
Speaker 5: Ye, I'm not a Wes Anderson fan. That's another thing
Speaker 5: that we can get into in another time. Even though
Speaker 5: I think I would have so aesthetically, I'm not. Let's see, yeah,
Speaker 5: Fantastics or Fox is like the top of the list.
Speaker 5: My sister like, so when we came out, my sister
Speaker 5: and I were pretty young. I remember both of us
Speaker 5: being like, oh, my goodness at the movie trailers whatever.
Speaker 5: I felt like a betrayal. When we were in middle
Speaker 5: school and she watched it for the first time and
Speaker 5: liked it, I was like, where did our childhood go?
Speaker 5: It was like a bit that we were like scared
Speaker 5: of this movie. And then my sister was like, oh,
Speaker 5: it's actually really good. But I'm twenty five years old
Speaker 5: almost I still refuse to watch it. That's probably the
Speaker 5: number one one. This got really irreverent really fast.
Speaker 2: See this started with elephants and now we're on cartoons.
Speaker 1: We hate.
Speaker 2: I gotta I gotta tell you. When my kids were small,
Speaker 2: I developed a seething hatred of Kayu.
Speaker 4: I know that's where you're going with that.
Speaker 1: That little bald I just don't like his energy at all.
Speaker 1: It's like Oh my gosh, I stepped in a puddle.
Speaker 1: Everything's gonna be fine. Let's sing a song. I hate
Speaker 1: you Kayu.
Speaker 4: His little sister was so cute though.
Speaker 5: I actually watched a ton of Kayu. His little sister,
Speaker 5: Rosy with the red hair.
Speaker 2: She looked like, yeah, Rosie was fine. I wanted Kyu
Speaker 2: to wander out in traffic or something. I just hadn't
Speaker 2: you know? I had no use for Kyu.
Speaker 4: Oh, I was a Barney kid.
Speaker 2: I would I would offer my kids bribes to watch
Speaker 2: something other than Kyu. It's like, you want some candy,
Speaker 2: hand me the remote.
Speaker 3: Have some coffee for your old And this is a
Speaker 3: podcast about how Darren hates Kayu instead of Carolina Panthers football,
Speaker 3: which is the thing we're supposed to be talking about.
Speaker 1: So yeah, anyway.
Speaker 5: I hope that elephant wasn't Bibar. I always thought it
Speaker 5: was Babar. I don't know if I ever watched that show.
Speaker 2: There's a Bibar reference in Fletch, and that's almost certainly
Speaker 2: a movie you're not familiar with either. And at this
Speaker 2: point we should probably go back to talking about football,
Speaker 2: I guess. So anyway, what else you got coming this week?
Speaker 2: You just published right before we walked into the room.
Speaker 2: A deep dive into Von Bell and his family tell
Speaker 2: us about vonn Yes.
Speaker 4: Von a very very interesting guy.
Speaker 5: I think one of the things when he got here
Speaker 5: that we talked about I think we talked about on
Speaker 5: the podcast, but how he brought a different to the
Speaker 5: locker room. He definitely has a different kind of attitude.
Speaker 5: I think it comes with his maturity level, his age,
Speaker 5: and how long he's been in the league.
Speaker 4: But he's the kind of guy that'll be chirping with Douce.
Speaker 5: Day one minute, playing you know, games with his teammates
Speaker 5: in the locker room, and another I mean just automatically
Speaker 5: came in, sort of jelled and I got to speak
Speaker 5: with his mother, and he has been through a lot
Speaker 5: in the last three years, between his brother passing away
Speaker 5: in a car accident, his father very shortly afterward being
Speaker 5: diagnosed with cancer, and then his father passed away not
Speaker 5: too long after he signed here, actually signed.
Speaker 4: Here in March.
Speaker 5: His dad passed in early April, so a lot of
Speaker 5: changes happened. And the cool way that I was able
Speaker 5: to kind of tell the story from talking with him
Speaker 5: and his mother was he grew up you know, the
Speaker 5: younger brother to Valante, who was four years older than him.
Speaker 5: Both of his parents were older siblings. They were very
Speaker 5: much so a type a sort of family. He said that,
Speaker 5: you know, they always knew chores done, then you can play,
Speaker 5: you know, then you can do all this, and he
Speaker 5: said it was it was one of those things that
Speaker 5: like he didn't he didn't resent it.
Speaker 4: It was just kind of the way it always was.
Speaker 4: He was a.
Speaker 5: Business mindset a kid and kind of growing up with
Speaker 5: all those people. Now two of them are unfortunately gone,
Speaker 5: so he is emulating kind of the behaviors that he show.
Speaker 5: He watched them and uh learned from them, and he's
Speaker 5: brought it here and uh, I think it was it
Speaker 5: was a really cool way to kind of dive into
Speaker 5: who he is as a person, let fans get to
Speaker 5: know him, you know, acquired from the Bengals, spent some
Speaker 5: time with the Saints. He's also from my hometown, so
Speaker 5: I've been following him since he was in high school.
Speaker 5: So it was real cool to kind of be able
Speaker 5: to get the stories told. And I appreciated his vulnerability
Speaker 5: and his mother's about talking about just the just a
Speaker 5: rougher time, I mean, going through a lot of loss,
Speaker 5: losing two people pretty early, and they're strong and lean
Speaker 5: on their faith and you know, still smile when they
Speaker 5: were telling me stories and stuff, which was really cool.
Speaker 4: So I really enjoyed it. I hope people enjoy reading it.
Speaker 5: One of those guys that you know, doesn't really talk
Speaker 5: in front of press conference is a whole lot, so
Speaker 5: I thought he deserves some some shine and people getting
Speaker 5: to know him a little bit better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you watch Panthers Confidential, you know that
Speaker 2: Bond's not necessarily a quiet fellow. Him and Do Staley
Speaker 2: have been the entertaining subplot of the entire offseason, and
Speaker 2: if you watch Confidential, you got a little glimpse of that.
Speaker 2: But let me tell you that was a little glimpse
Speaker 2: of that. Those two are high comedy on a daily basis.
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: And I think that helped him kind of kind of
Speaker 5: gel really quickly with the guys in there, that that
Speaker 5: whole like secondary group is kind of like that.
Speaker 4: They're always kind of poking and prodded at each other.
Speaker 5: It's fun group, and he fitted extremely well, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of I think that helped him sort of gel
Speaker 5: and become that kind of guy.
Speaker 4: I mean, I have a quote in there from JC
Speaker 4: Horn calling.
Speaker 5: Him professionals saying he kind of, you know, watches his
Speaker 5: behaviors and wants to be like him. And I mean,
Speaker 5: he's not a bad guy to model after. He you know,
Speaker 5: I remember watching the game where he sent helps send
Speaker 5: the Bengals to the super Bowl that season when they
Speaker 5: made it against the Rams and he caught that pick
Speaker 5: in overtime against Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 4: I mean things like that. It's just he's a playmaker.
Speaker 4: He's a real big guy.
Speaker 5: I also remember Shaq Thompson telling us in the offseason
Speaker 5: that he was one of the more underrated pickups. So
Speaker 5: on and off the field, he's been a huge addition,
Speaker 5: and I don't think it's been talked about, but I
Speaker 5: think it deserves more talking about.
Speaker 4: And we'll see it, you know, come to Fruition in
Speaker 4: the season.
Speaker 5: But he's one of those guys i'd say, definitely, definitely
Speaker 5: keep your eyes out for him because he's a good Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Panthers hired von Bel to add a little experience
Speaker 2: to that secondary. We hired you to tell stories like
Speaker 2: Von Bell, so good stuff. Everybody check it out this
Speaker 2: afternoon if you get a chance read that Von Bell
Speaker 2: story on Panthers dot com and stick with us all
Speaker 2: day because there's a lot of stuff happening all at once.
Speaker 2: It's drink from the fire hose season. It's week one.
Speaker 2: It's football season. Everybody, welcome to it. The next time
Speaker 2: we talk to you, we'll have a result of a
Speaker 2: game to dissect, and we'll do that next week on
Speaker 2: the Happy half Hour.
Speaker 4: Firefour