Speaker 1: This week on a Happy Half Hour.
Speaker 2: One of the things that kind of jumped out at
Speaker 2: me about this schedule is you got the Saints in
Speaker 2: week one, and then we think we know the Chargers
Speaker 2: are going to be a certain way based on Jim
Speaker 2: Harbaugh and Justin Herbert, but that's a whole new team.
Speaker 2: And then you get either Gardner Minshew and Aidan O'Connell
Speaker 2: and the Raiders in week three.
Speaker 3: Touchdown cow whoa.
Speaker 1: It's 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 the Happy Half Hour. And
Speaker 2: it's a very special Happy half Hour this week because
Speaker 2: we now have a sponsor, DA DA. That's right, the
Speaker 2: Happy Half Hour presented by a Southern Star, an official
Speaker 2: bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers, celebrate the spirit of
Speaker 2: the Carolinas. And since it's after eight o'clock on schedule
Speaker 2: release night, I feel pretty good about opening a little
Speaker 2: Southern Star later on and enjoying the sponsors product while
Speaker 2: we savor our brand new, freshly minted twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: Carolina Panthers schedule D D D.
Speaker 4: I can confirm that this sponsor is the highlight of
Speaker 4: Darren's year so far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a good thing. I think this is
Speaker 2: a true. One of the great truisms of the NFL
Speaker 2: is know your personnel. So if if the good folks
Speaker 2: at Southern Star are listening, know that I am on
Speaker 2: your side and I am a fan of your product already.
Speaker 3: Yea, so it's really in that teacup.
Speaker 2: Dar No, no question it is brown. At any rate,
Speaker 2: we got a schedule, gang, and as I am sure
Speaker 2: you've all seen by furiously Refreshingpanthers dot com, now that
Speaker 2: we're after eight pm on the East Coast here in
Speaker 2: the United States of America, where sixteen of the seventeen
Speaker 2: games will be played, you now know that Carolina Panthers
Speaker 2: are in fact playing the people they were already going
Speaker 2: to be playing in a specific order.
Speaker 3: So right, we already knew who they were playing and where.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now we.
Speaker 3: Just know when.
Speaker 2: Now we just know when. And it really does I
Speaker 2: make fun of it sometimes because I do think the
Speaker 2: marketing of it and the you know, over the topness
Speaker 2: of the whole thing is altogether Yeah, when we released
Speaker 2: the release release the other day, that was one of
Speaker 2: my favorite moments. But no, it provides a framework and
Speaker 2: it makes some of this stuff real. I mean, all
Speaker 2: of this stuff has been an abstract concept so far
Speaker 2: this season. And now that you know that on September
Speaker 2: the eighth, Carolina Panthers are going to go to New
Speaker 2: Orleans and see their old friends, the Saints and get
Speaker 2: this thing started, that's when it becomes a little more real.
Speaker 2: That's when it becomes hey, Okay, here's here's where we're at.
Speaker 2: And again, if you haven't looked at this schedule, we're
Speaker 2: gonna be talking about it in thirty thousand foot kind
Speaker 2: of views. Again, I encourage you visit, spend some time
Speaker 2: on Panthers dot com, enjoy the videos, enjoy the schedule itself,
Speaker 2: and buy tickets for the home games. That's the thing
Speaker 2: we're trying to get you to do here, folks.
Speaker 3: That's really what we're here for, and you can.
Speaker 2: See it all yourself, but we're going to just kind
Speaker 2: of talk about it in general terms. I think for me,
Speaker 2: one of the things that jumped off the page first
Speaker 2: is all of them games are on Sunday, which means
Speaker 2: no Thursday night football, no Monday night football, no short weeks.
Speaker 2: And that's the football takeaway from me. I mean, I
Speaker 2: know people feel some sort of way about primetime games
Speaker 2: and is it a sign of disrespect? Hey, the team
Speaker 2: is doing fifteen last year. I think expecting a lot
Speaker 2: of primetime appearances was probably unrealistic if you thought that
Speaker 2: was going to be the case. But listen, from a
Speaker 2: strictly football standpoint, being able to stay on the same
Speaker 2: routine and to have regular rest before ever every game
Speaker 2: is huge for the football people. And that's the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, we can look at this thing for us
Speaker 2: and what we think about it is one thing, But
Speaker 2: for the football people, that regular rest is a big, big,
Speaker 2: big deal.
Speaker 4: Even there are games in the four o'clock hour, two
Speaker 4: of them are out West, so those will be like
Speaker 4: one o'clock local time. And then Darren remind our listeners
Speaker 4: and me, is it the first eight weeks or the
Speaker 4: last eight weeks that can be flexed.
Speaker 3: For prime time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a stretch late in the year that can
Speaker 2: be flexed. I think it's from like week ten to
Speaker 2: ten to seventeen minus week. You know, the week of
Speaker 2: Christmas basically is the thing they're not gonna monkey around with,
Speaker 2: but there is some opportunity. If the season goes really well,
Speaker 2: they've become a lot more interesting than the network's anticipated
Speaker 2: them being at this point, then you know, hey, they're
Speaker 2: gonna get their opportunities to be seen. But I think
Speaker 2: for right now, you know, as I look at this schedule,
Speaker 2: one of the things that I kind of like about
Speaker 2: it from their standpoint is all the heavies are in
Speaker 2: the back end. Dave Canalis gets a chance to get
Speaker 2: his feet wet as an NFL head coach with a
Speaker 2: brand new team against the favorable half of the schedule
Speaker 2: in the first two games in the first two months
Speaker 2: of the year. And again, if you haven't refreshed Panthers
Speaker 2: dot Com already, we're talking about starting the season at
Speaker 2: New Orleans Chargers here for the September fifteenth home opener.
Speaker 2: Then you go to Las Vegas in week three. Week
Speaker 2: four brings Cincinnati, Joe Burrow comes into Bank of America
Speaker 2: stadiums one everybody's gonna want to see. And then in
Speaker 2: week five you go to Chicago before Atlanta comes here,
Speaker 2: and then at Washington at Denver gets you through October,
Speaker 2: and as you look at those teams, you might say
Speaker 2: to yourself, hey, none of those teams went to the
Speaker 2: playoffs last year, and you would be correct. And again,
Speaker 2: when you're two and fifteen, all of this stuff is
Speaker 2: kind of relative because they're looking at you the same way.
Speaker 2: But on the whole, would you rather have all your
Speaker 2: playoff teams? Would you rather be playing k C right
Speaker 2: out of the shoot? Would you rather be, you know,
Speaker 2: looking at the Cowboys and the Bucks and the Eagles
Speaker 2: in the early stages of a new project. No, you
Speaker 2: would not. You'd rather ease into this thing. And we
Speaker 2: don't know what any of these teams are gonna look
Speaker 2: like by this time either.
Speaker 4: And this goes into the point of like it's once
Speaker 4: you know, when you're playing these teams, you can kind
Speaker 4: of start to figure out what the season might look like.
Speaker 4: I mean, I hesitate to put a number on anything
Speaker 4: because it can always come back to bite you. But
Speaker 4: you could feasibly go and be going into the by
Speaker 4: at five hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's possibilities there. One of the things
Speaker 2: that kind of jumped out at me about the schedule is,
Speaker 2: you know, again, you got the Saints in Week one
Speaker 2: and you kind of know what you're getting when you're
Speaker 2: going to New Orleans. They bring in Chase Young this offseason,
Speaker 2: and that's gonna change the way they look defensively. But
Speaker 2: it's the Saint, so you kind of know what you're
Speaker 2: gonna expect. And then in terms of expectations, we think
Speaker 2: we know that Chargers are gonna be a certain way
Speaker 2: based on Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert. But that's a
Speaker 2: whole new team. I mean, it's Chargers minus Keenan All
Speaker 2: and minus Mike Williams. So what are they gonna be? Like,
Speaker 2: we have no idea right now. And then you get
Speaker 2: either Gardner Minshew and Aiden O'Connell and the Raiders in
Speaker 2: Week three.
Speaker 4: I mean, of those first ten teams, Darren, I would
Speaker 4: honestly say, the Bengals are the only ones you're facing
Speaker 4: before the bye that already have an established quarterback, wide
Speaker 4: receiver duo and an established defense. Other than that, I mean,
Speaker 4: you get you're gonna have to face Kleb Williams. That's
Speaker 4: the last two number ones facing off. Even though that's
Speaker 4: a one o'clock game, I think people are gonna have
Speaker 4: their eyes on that to see if you know it's
Speaker 4: gonna be Bryce versus Caleb. That's exactly what it's gonna be.
Speaker 4: But you're getting them in week five. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think it usually takes and you can probably speak to
Speaker 4: this better than I can, it usually takes a quarterback,
Speaker 4: wide receiver, new offense, a rookie quarterback, a good first
Speaker 4: half of the season. And that's that's pretty liberally, I
Speaker 4: would say conservatively, it takes a good three fourths of
Speaker 4: his first season to really get comfortable and so you
Speaker 4: catch them early, which which kind of bodes well when
Speaker 4: you do have a returning quarterback. Yes, it's albeit a
Speaker 4: two and fifteen team, but a returning quarterback he's going
Speaker 4: to have Adam Thlan, who he's already comfortable with. You've
Speaker 4: got some consistency there that these other teams other than
Speaker 4: the Bengals won't really have already.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as I looked those last two games in October,
Speaker 2: I mean, you you've got, you know, at Jaden Daniels
Speaker 2: and the what the artist formerly known as the Washington
Speaker 2: football team, and then your guess is as good as
Speaker 2: mine at quarterback for the Broncos in Week eight, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's is that Bo Nicks, Is that Jared'stidham is it
Speaker 2: Zach Wilson.
Speaker 3: Could be playing quarterback for the I have no idea.
Speaker 2: It's you know, Sean Payton might try to find a
Speaker 2: way to get through to come back. You never know,
Speaker 2: but it is It's definitely reasonable when you look at
Speaker 2: that thing early on in the season. And I think
Speaker 2: that's a positive because, as we've discussed all off season,
Speaker 2: it's a whole new deal. You know, we can try
Speaker 2: to guess what we think this offense is going to
Speaker 2: look like, what Bryce is going to be like, what
Speaker 2: the passing game is going to be like, with a
Speaker 2: lot of new parts but a lot of it's going
Speaker 2: to be let's learn together. And the way this this
Speaker 2: schedule sets up kind of gives you that opportunity. When
Speaker 2: you looked at this thing, what was the other stuff
Speaker 2: that kind of jumped off the bat at you.
Speaker 4: Well, obviously you're going to be facing the defending Super
Speaker 4: Bowl champs. You do get them coming off a bye
Speaker 4: which you know could be favorable. But it's still Kansas City.
Speaker 2: Right And again that's Week twelve. Kansas City here on
Speaker 2: November twenty fourth, the week after the bye week which
Speaker 2: they earned after the trip to Germany to face the
Speaker 2: Giants here did in that.
Speaker 4: Bye week after Germany is huge. I know it seems
Speaker 4: like a given, but I covered a team who turned
Speaker 4: down the bye week after the international game and it
Speaker 4: bit them in the butt like nothing you've ever seen.
Speaker 4: And so having that bye week there is huge. The
Speaker 4: two games in the top half of the schedule that
Speaker 4: could be a little bit more difficult, the Chargers and
Speaker 4: the Bengals. You get them both at home in September,
Speaker 4: both teams. That mean the Chargers are going to be
Speaker 4: coming from seventy two no humidity that I'm not saying
Speaker 4: that these are all like a surefire win, but there
Speaker 4: it's a favorable schedule before that bye week, and then
Speaker 4: only two sets of back to back road games at
Speaker 4: Washington and at Denver. Washington at least you're in the
Speaker 4: same time zone. You know, it's a short flight back,
Speaker 4: so that's not going to be difficult. Denver, you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's a little tough, but it's not a long
Speaker 4: stretch of bad road games are or undoable. The other
Speaker 4: back to back road games are at Tampa and at Atlanta. Again,
Speaker 4: that's not a bad road trip, and so and I
Speaker 4: think you had already into this out no primetime games,
Speaker 4: no holiday games. It'll be nice not playing on Christmas
Speaker 4: for a while. I feel like it's spent three or
Speaker 4: four years in a row I've played on Christmas.
Speaker 2: Right, and I feel you know. And again, we'll throw
Speaker 2: it back to last season, just briefly, because we don't
Speaker 2: want to think back on last season too too long.
Speaker 2: But Cassi g Hill's first game here with us at
Speaker 2: the Carolina Panthers happened to be.
Speaker 3: On Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2: Christmas Eve. What kind of jerk hired her to start
Speaker 2: on Christmas Eve? Oh wait, that was me? But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's what I end up. I mean, selfishly, when
Speaker 2: I get a glimpse at this schedule, my very first
Speaker 2: thing is, where's this football team I cover around Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Check? That would be at home. Where's this football team
Speaker 2: I cover on Christmas? Check? That would be at home.
Speaker 2: This is great for Darren? Do that? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: that's how I always And it's funny. Different guys on
Speaker 2: this on the team probably look at the same way.
Speaker 2: I mean, old dudes with kids like Jay Jansen are
Speaker 2: probably thinking about the holidays stuff just as well. You know,
Speaker 2: anybody with kids is going to be looking at it
Speaker 2: that way. But that's just kind of how I've always
Speaker 2: My big three things always when I look at the
Speaker 2: schedule for Darren purposes are Thanksgiving, Christmas, how cold am
Speaker 2: I going to be in the second half of the year,
Speaker 2: and really, other than at Philadelphia in week fourteen on
Speaker 2: December eighth, not a lot of cold weather in our
Speaker 2: future other than that which we get here in Mayberry.
Speaker 4: And I'm actually kind of excited about that because have
Speaker 4: you ever been to Philly around Christmas?
Speaker 2: I have been, Yes, I've spent some time. Yes, it
Speaker 2: is really something.
Speaker 4: One more selfish note was, since we're being selfish for
Speaker 4: a second.
Speaker 2: And I think we're in titled, I'm.
Speaker 4: Really excited that two of the preseason games are in
Speaker 4: the Northeast. Like, yeah, take me to that cooler weather
Speaker 4: in August for a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's kind of nice. Those preseason dates at
Speaker 2: New England and at Buffalo are going to be Let's
Speaker 2: just promise that nobody kicks anything in Buffalo. Okay, because
Speaker 2: preseason gets Buffalo, do it? We don't even want to
Speaker 2: talk about that.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's a story there there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is, Well, we'll do that off the air.
Speaker 2: We're just not gonna invoke that anymore than already have.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so there's a schedule, and now it's a
Speaker 2: little more real. We'll, uh, you know, we'll we'll, we'll
Speaker 2: get a chance to digest this all a little more deeply.
Speaker 2: This thing just came out tonight, as you folks know,
Speaker 2: so uh, that's why we had to record this emergency
Speaker 2: happy half hour to get it in your hands as
Speaker 2: quickly as we possible possibly could. But as always, there's
Speaker 2: other stuff going on. Cassy, you are our eyes and
Speaker 2: ears at Rookie Minnie camp last weekend. I actually took
Speaker 2: a couple of days to you know, oh see my
Speaker 2: daughter graduate from college. No congratulations, baby girl. We're all
Speaker 2: very proud of her. We love her. She's the best.
Speaker 3: Don't graduate as a trap, which.
Speaker 2: Don't let her hear you say that, please. So anyway, yeah,
Speaker 2: somebody hire a baby girl. But you were here for
Speaker 2: Rookie Minnie camp and and it wasn't a rookie minting
Speaker 2: camps all these one of those things. It's it's a
Speaker 2: mile post but not you know, it's not terribly significant
Speaker 2: because they're not running around in pads, you can't really
Speaker 2: tell a whole lot, and it's such a limited cast.
Speaker 2: But from what you saw out there this weekend, what
Speaker 2: came what came across one.
Speaker 4: Thing, and this is gonna sound cliche, but I promise
Speaker 4: you is true from having what stood out there for
Speaker 4: the two days of rookiemnting camp is Xavier Lagette is fluid,
Speaker 4: and that's something that you don't always use for a
Speaker 4: guy that's, you know, over six feet two twenty five ish.
Speaker 4: I think there's been a little bit of discrepancy about
Speaker 4: his height, but I'd say around six two ish.
Speaker 2: He's a big He's big, is what we're trying to say.
Speaker 4: Very clearly, a big guy. And he's so fluid. He's
Speaker 4: so smooth. He has a speed. We already knew that,
Speaker 4: but there were several times he was either going to
Speaker 4: the sideline or cutting across the middle where he could
Speaker 4: just kind of flip and either you know, catch it
Speaker 4: over his shoulder or turn around, and you know, if
Speaker 4: there was a defender there, which there wasn't, but if
Speaker 4: there had been a defender there, you would realize he
Speaker 4: would have been blocking him out. He was just so
Speaker 4: so smooth, and that's the word that came out that
Speaker 4: I kept thinking of the most while watching him, right,
Speaker 4: because you expect somebody that's that big to be a
Speaker 4: little bit more of a bruiser with their style, but
Speaker 4: he's not. And so it was interesting that that was noticeable.
Speaker 4: And then he came to the podium after that first practice.
Speaker 2: Oh, he did not come to a podium.
Speaker 3: He came to electric thank you very much after that first.
Speaker 4: Practice, and made a point to bring that up himself
Speaker 4: and said that that was something that he had been
Speaker 4: knocked for during the draft process because he felt, and
Speaker 4: you know, this is always up to his discretion, but
Speaker 4: he felt at South Carolina he wasn't asked to be
Speaker 4: that type of receiver. He was asked to be a
Speaker 4: you know, somebody that just ran go routes, deep routes,
Speaker 4: get down there and win a fifty to fifty ball
Speaker 4: and win a contested catch, which he can do is
Speaker 4: a bigger guy, but he never felt like he was
Speaker 4: asked to kind of be that everything guy in the
Speaker 4: middle of the field. He said, so I want, he said,
Speaker 4: that's something that was brought up to me a lot
Speaker 4: during the draft process, to the point that even coaches
Speaker 4: of NFL teams were saying something to him about it,
Speaker 4: so he worked with two different receiver schools during the
Speaker 4: draft process to really focus on that specifically that part
Speaker 4: of his game. And I think it stood out right
Speaker 4: away Darren Richard, right.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was cool reading your stuff coming
Speaker 2: out of the weekend. I mean, when a guy walks
Speaker 2: in the door, you know, as a first round pick,
Speaker 2: there's obviously expectations that go with that, But when you
Speaker 2: walk in the door aware of what you need to
Speaker 2: work on, and you begin with here's what I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get better at, that's always a good place. I mean,
Speaker 2: for all the other stuff that's going to happen. You
Speaker 2: want guys to come in with something to prove, not
Speaker 2: necessarily a chip on their shoulder type of thing, but
Speaker 2: here's what I've got to get better at. Here's what
Speaker 2: I want them to coach me up on and improve on.
Speaker 2: And if he can do that, then I think they've
Speaker 2: got an opportunity to make some strides on offense, because again,
Speaker 2: look at what they've done all off season. They go
Speaker 2: get t Johnson, who what does he do? He gets
Speaker 2: open and makes place, So you go get a big
Speaker 2: go get it guy, and when he walks in the
Speaker 2: door working on you know, his ability to get open,
Speaker 2: his ability to get it out of breaks. You kind
Speaker 2: of like the possibilities that creates for Bryce showing in
Speaker 2: the offense.
Speaker 4: Especially because when you looked at this receiving corps before
Speaker 4: the draft and you say, Okay, what do they need.
Speaker 4: They need a guy that can go deep, and that
Speaker 4: felt like that's what they got with Xavier rel Get.
Speaker 4: But now if he can do some of this other
Speaker 4: stuff as well, so to speak, that just allows Dave
Speaker 4: Canalis bride ends it to kind of interchange these receivers
Speaker 4: and you're never going to know what one specific guy
Speaker 4: is going to do. And so if that's what Leaguett
Speaker 4: is focusing on this offseason, that's going to pay dividends
Speaker 4: in the season because now they can line all three
Speaker 4: of them up anywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt. And in Jonathan Brook's second round pick,
Speaker 2: not doing a lot. Obviously, he's still coming back off
Speaker 2: that ACL He's gonna be doing a lot of watching
Speaker 2: and rehabit on the side for a little bit, but
Speaker 2: all signs are positive with him. The other one that
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about is Jitavian Sam Sanders. Yes,
Speaker 2: JT walked in the door, sit in the bar high
Speaker 2: for himself.
Speaker 3: Yes he did.
Speaker 1: And I like that.
Speaker 4: I know he's got a little he's got a little
Speaker 4: something something to him. He's got a little umph and
Speaker 4: it's just hard not to like the kid.
Speaker 2: He's uh, tell people to stop trying to FaceTime me.
Speaker 2: The schedules already out.
Speaker 4: People, you don't they're extrained to reach you about your
Speaker 4: extended car warned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that. Either that or I don't know
Speaker 2: how to turn the sound off on my computer.
Speaker 3: Grandma baron over here. Yeah, we'll show you.
Speaker 4: So the thing about j T is is he's so
Speaker 4: like sure of himself, but in a not in a
Speaker 4: cocky way, and you just can't help. But like a
Speaker 4: kid like that, he knows what he does, and he
Speaker 4: knows what he does well and how to make that
Speaker 4: work on a football field. I thought the most interesting
Speaker 4: thing that kind of came out of his press conference,
Speaker 4: and we didn't write about it on Panther's dot comya
Speaker 4: because we want to talk to other rookies, is that
Speaker 4: he has started leading a study group for any and
Speaker 4: all that want to come, you know, sort of informal.
Speaker 4: They look at the playbook, they look at film, but
Speaker 4: he's just kind of taking that extra step to pull
Speaker 4: guys together outside of their scheduled time together and kind
Speaker 4: of say, hey, let's look over this again so that
Speaker 4: we can all be on the same page when we're
Speaker 4: coming back in here, right, And you know, coaches probably
Speaker 4: going to love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these rookies come in I mean in every year,
Speaker 2: a rookie class comes in behind, obviously because their veteran
Speaker 2: teammates have been here, you know, going through off season
Speaker 2: workouts and that kind of stuff for weeks and weeks.
Speaker 2: They're walking in behind immediately. But this year it's a
Speaker 2: little bit less because it is a brand new staff.
Speaker 2: So while the Adam Thielens of the world have been
Speaker 2: working through this offense with Bryce for weeks, it's still new.
Speaker 2: You know, they're still you know, four weeks into this process,
Speaker 2: so it's not as much of a head start as
Speaker 2: it is, you know, in a normal situation where a
Speaker 2: coach is coming off of you know, an off season
Speaker 2: and building into the second and third year of a plan.
Speaker 4: And then the thing you said about him setting a
Speaker 4: high bar for himself just gonna touch on that he
Speaker 4: did it's that high bar for himself. He said, I
Speaker 4: want to be the next Greg Olsen. I want to
Speaker 4: be the next face of this offense. And I did
Speaker 4: the age math and Olsen is someone that senders would
Speaker 4: have watched a lot growing up.
Speaker 3: And he did say he did watch him.
Speaker 4: You know, they always probably say that, but he did
Speaker 4: mention watching him a lot growing up, and he said
Speaker 4: he was kind of the first wave of this new
Speaker 4: tight end. And that's exactly what Sanders is as well.
Speaker 4: He's an incredible pass catcher. He called over six hundred
Speaker 4: balls at Texas the last two years apiece. It's over
Speaker 4: twelve hundred in his last two years total. And so
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, six hundred yards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if he caught six hundred passes at Texas, he
Speaker 2: would have probably been a first round pick.
Speaker 3: Six hundred yards each year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And again, good production out of that position is
Speaker 2: something that they haven't necessarily had. I mean nothing against
Speaker 2: any of the existing guys. Tommy Tremble, I think is
Speaker 2: still kind of turning into something new in front of
Speaker 2: us every year. He's added a little something to his
Speaker 2: game every off season, and I think he's continued to
Speaker 2: grow into a player. But having that kind of thread
Speaker 2: at that position is something they haven't had. So I'm
Speaker 2: looking forward to getting the training camp and kind of
Speaker 2: seeing what that looks like in real life, because there
Speaker 2: is so much new being thrown together, and there is
Speaker 2: so much that we're gonna kind of learn together as
Speaker 2: we watch this thing. But definitely getting that first glimpse
Speaker 2: of them seeing some of those highlights, you know, seeing
Speaker 2: big o'xl you know, up there twisting and making catches
Speaker 2: and doing things in rookie mini camp, It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: that's a thing. And then even in some of the
Speaker 2: video from this week during a you know, off season
Speaker 2: workouts here now that the veterans and rookies are together,
Speaker 2: and you see Bryce throwing to him, you see Bryce
Speaker 2: working with some of these new targets like okay, all right,
Speaker 2: I see what they were thinking. So anyway, that.
Speaker 4: Is a one small qualifier before we finished just what
Speaker 4: in terms of the schedule, yep, you know, we keep
Speaker 4: looking at Okay, you know the first half of these
Speaker 4: games there there's a lot of winnable games in there.
Speaker 4: They're facing rookie quarterbacks. I think they face like four
Speaker 4: rookie quarterbacks or something like that. Potentially depending on who's
Speaker 4: lining up for some of these teams, but this is
Speaker 4: still Yes, you have a coaching staff on defense that returned,
Speaker 4: a coaching staff on offense that have worked together, and
Speaker 4: a quarterback who's more familiar with his receivers this year,
Speaker 4: but this is still a new staff, a first time
Speaker 4: head coach, and the staff coming in and implementing a
Speaker 4: new offense. So there's gonna be some growing pains on
Speaker 4: both sides. So just remember that when you're looking at
Speaker 4: the schedule.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, as we mentioned, no playoff teams from
Speaker 2: last year in the first half of that schedule, you
Speaker 2: don't see a playoff team from twenty twenty three until
Speaker 2: post by.
Speaker 3: And then you see nothing but penal and then.
Speaker 2: You see five out of your next six opponents where
Speaker 2: teams who were involved in the playoffs last year. So
Speaker 2: it's obviously you never know when that stuff's going to
Speaker 2: carry over from year to year. We don't know you
Speaker 2: know how things are going to change between now and
Speaker 2: November December, but at least now we know the who's
Speaker 2: and the winds and the where So it's always a
Speaker 2: it's always a mile post during an off season. Now
Speaker 2: it's real, and now you can start making plans. Now
Speaker 2: you can buy your plane tickets, figure out where you
Speaker 2: want to go on the road. We'll see in Las
Speaker 2: Vegas in September. We'll see in Germany in November. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be cool. It's a season. Now, it's a schedule.
Speaker 2: It's real, it's tangible, and we can put our hands
Speaker 2: on it and print it out and start thinking about
Speaker 2: what the next six months of our lives are going
Speaker 2: to be like. So as we give you guys a
Speaker 2: chance to digest it all, you can digest it all
Speaker 2: with our friends at Southern Star. Because again I'll say
Speaker 2: it again going out, this is the Happy half Hour
Speaker 2: presented by a Southern Star, an official bourbon of the
Speaker 2: Carolina Panthers, celebrating the spirit of the Carolinas with us.
Speaker 3: The happiest of happy happen.
Speaker 2: Here we go