Happy half Howard, Hello, friends, look at that.

There's so much festivity happening around us.

Welcome to the Happy half Hour.

We got a tree, We've got our sponsors.

Yeah, yeah, there's a little l for no Onlman and I don't know what that is, but he's festive.

He's sitting here, he's ready to partake in some deep Eddy.

That's right, he's sitting next to the deep Eddy.

So if that starts, if the level starts going down over the course of December, you'll know whose fault it is.

He is not mine.

Thank you to our friends from deep Eddy who bring you this fine holiday festival of good feelings.

And after the Carolina Panthers did their business to the Los Angeles Rams yesterday afternoon, there was a lot of festivities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Friends, there were I was driving home last night and there were so many people out in South End and their panthers closed, still celebrating having a good old time.

And buddy, did they earn it?

Like that one was?

Everybody was a part of that one.

Ashon Robinson kept saying last night that he was like that was complimentary football, complimentary football, complimentary football.

Over and over and over.

And you know, Dave Canalis also gave a lot of credit to the fans and he said, you know, they played a huge, huge part of it.

We could hear you in the press box even behind the glass, the keep chanting chance, the Cuba chance, although Mike Jackson did politely request to remember not to do those on offense.

But you know, it was an exciting time.

People got caught up in the moment, got caught.

Up in the moment, and it was raining, it was cold, like nobody would have been blamed if they had dipped out.

But people stayed, People were loud, made a difference, made a difference on the third down where the Rams took a delay of game towards the end of the game that backed them up into a surefire passing down and Derek Brown took advantage with a game winning sack fumble.

Yeah, no doubt, and we'll and we'll get to all them.

Sorry, I got kind of ahead of myself.

I got excited.

That game contained multitudes, but you did touch on one thing I wanted to mention.

Dave Canalis is the son of a preacher, and you can tell that because he's got the cadence of a preacher every now and then, because he just kind of dropped very casually into that postgame presser.

It was wet, they were loud, and I was like, oh, Preacher's gonna bring it home.

Here it comes, you know, and he did.

It was such a cool atmosphere here at Bank of America Stadium, not necessarily a full house, because I think the weather diminished some of that Thanksgiving weekend a lot of people are traveling, might have dampened some of that literally and figuratively.

And you know, it's one of those games where, however many people were inside the doors, in ten years, two hundred and fifty thousand people will say they were there.

Oh yeah, I was there that day.

I was there the day Chuba Hubbard's dragging people around, Jalen Cooker's pulling a guy like a waggon down field for the last ten yards.

I mean, that's what it's going to be like.

It was that kind of memorable game as you may have heard.

I've been around here for a minute, I have heard.

It was as memorable a game, just the whole setting scene, meaning of it, as I've experienced in a long long time.

I mean, it's gonna be one of those things the way people remember and DL will recognize as he crawls through our shot in a little bit that Steelers game in ninety six and the goal line stand to beat the Steelers, win the division, you know, go to the playoffs, all that kind of stuff.

In the second year of existence, first year in this building.

It's gonna be like that because your Carolina Panthers learned on Sunday afternoon that they can do this thing.

They as much as any particular of the game, and they've made steady improvement over the course of the year.

We've talked about taking the long view of this thing.

That moment right there when the best team in the NFL rolled into your building and you gave them the business.

They decided at that moment, oh, we can do this.

This is a we can that.

This is us.

Dave's always talking about this, this might be us.

And that's a game where they found themselves in those games last year and couldn't find a way to close them out and to finish them.

That's been the difference, it seems like this year is finding a way to close out those games.

There have been some losses.

A lot of the losses have been blowouts for the most part, other than the Cardinals game early on.

That was a game they had a chance to come back and win, but they got down big to start.

The other losses that, you know, I'm thinking the Bill's game.

The Saints game was a close one that they didn't They weren't able to bring it out a win.

But a lot of these closer games they have found ways to win, none bigger than this one.

And sometimes you can look at those games and go, oh, well, the Rams did this, or didn't do this, or you know, they messed up there.

The Rams didn't play a bad game at all yesterday.

They didn't play an unlucky they didn't have an unlucky game.

They were clean.

They didn't have a penalty until two and a half minutes left in the game, and it was that delay of game.

They scored four touchdown.

They scored four touchdown.

They were explosive, they bottled up the run here and there at different times.

On defense, they got after Bryce with Byron Young.

I mean, the Rams played a good game.

The Panthers just played a better game.

And that's the kind of games where they've been looking for to know, Okay, we can win.

We can win the low scoring ones like we did in Green Bay.

We can win these shootouts.

They already want to shoot out with Dallas earlier this year, but that one kind of had an asterisk next to it a lot of times in the national narrative because of what the Cowboys defense was at that point.

You can't deny this one.

They won the game in every way they possibly could have.

Now, it's about the consistency.

Okay, you had a disappointing loss last week, huge win this week.

You go into the bye week, and then you come back after a bye week and you play a currently two to ten team saying they'll have another game between now and then.

How do you make sure you're not a letdown again and to keep that consistency.

Yeah, it truly is.

I was talking to Ikiakwanu, and there's only a handful of guys.

I mean, the topic comes up every now and the last time the Panthers did this, the last time you were in a playoff hunt.

When you're playing these meaningful games, Some of these guys, about a dozen or so of them, were still around in twenty two for the end of the Steve wilks eras interim coach when they got on that weird run and they actually played for the division lead on New Year's Day down in Tampa.

But this game out here today, yesterday reminded me a lot of the Detroit game the week before.

And those of you who were here will remember, because it was twenty degrees outside, freezing cold.

Everybody was miserable, and the Carolina Panthers ran for three hundred and twenty yards and it wasn't because it was fancy, and it was because they wanted to do that specific thing in an aggressive way to the Detroit lines, and they did it.

And that's what that game reminded me of yesterday.

It was just I was having flashbacks to Detroit twenty two because it was just a drum beat of running.

I mean, you got those steady tube of Hubbard five and six yards at a time, just straight down the middle, no finess, power blocking, power running, and it was a statement of intent game.

Rather than any masterful X and ODE design or any play calling Dave Canalis did.

It was just, hey, we're gonna run it on you.

Watch us do this.

Yeah, And that's what they did throughout the day.

And you know what was really interesting as well was I went back and watched the Sean McVay press conference after the game, and he said it was no secret what they were gonna do.

He and he's right because Dave canals record out all Chuba Hubbard basically said it all week leading up to the game.

We're gonna run.

We're gonna run.

We're gonna run.

Everybody in the building knew what they were gonna do.

When Sean McVay said, like, it was no secret what they were gonna try to do, they they talked about it.

We knew they were gonna try to run it, and they still just did it.

And that's always a good feeling as a team when you you know and they know, and everybody knows what you're gonna do, and you're just stronger and bigger and more.

What's the word, I'm looking aggressive?

Aggressive?

Yeah, here's the thing.

Here's the angel on top of that tree this week, folks too, that's Cuba Hubbard.

Uh.

Chewba Hubbard got back to being Chewba Hubbard.

He was a guy.

He dealt with some injuries the middle of the year.

He had a cap problem knocked him out for a couple of games.

He admitted that he wasn't himself for a couple of weeks after that, he looked like Chewba Hubbard again, and you saw.

I mean, this was the first time.

I asked him and Rico both after the game about it, and I said, is this kind of proof of that concept of what it looks like when you're both eating and he said yeah.

I mean, Cuba said, I love doing this with my dog.

Rico and these two were getting along.

They're adults.

It's not like a competitive thing.

There's no bad feelings or anything like that.

Because Canalis talks about it all the time, like you want to have two guys who can run at one hundred percent on every snap there in the game.

And I mean, Cuba is He's such a key part of this thing.

And I think that's why this game stood in such relief for me and what in thinking about the development of this team.

Cuba Hubbard is one of the standard bears for what Dave Canalis wants to do.

This guy is mister work ethic.

I am a dad.

I have a fetish about work ethic.

I want to talk about it all the time.

I want to emphasize it to people.

I saw a stranger with a kid and a Cuba jersey on the way into the game, and I was like, yeah, good work, dad, way to put your kid in a hard workingman's jersey.

I love that.

And that's just it's one of those things.

Cuba embodies all that stuff that Dave Canalis preaches, and he has since the day he walked in the door.

I mean, he's had to work for what he earned.

He spends the time, he prepares, he does all those things every week three hours before kickoff.

You know, you can count on me talking to Jim z Okie on the Panthers pregame show hearing a national anthem that is being rehearsed prior to the game, and Cuba's down there on the jugs machine three hours and change before kickoff.

He's out at practice an hour before every single practice, getting himself ready for that day.

And he started bringing people along when Xcel had to drop in Philadelphia last year.

He's on the drugs machine with Cuba the next weekend practice.

Corey Thornton, Bless his heart, who's out for the year with a broken ankle.

Corey became part of the Cuba Youth and was showing up early for every practice, and having those dudes who will drag people along and show them the way is so central to kind of building that program.

So I mean that's why I came.

There are a million particular things you could zoom in on about that game, but I mean, just thematically, it was so important for these guys because it was your dude's doing it.

It was Cuba leading the way offensively, which just I mean, he runs like a metronome.

He keeps the rhythm for the entire thing.

And Bryce made plays.

Listen, Bryce had another good day, uh you know, three touchdowns, another game winning drive, eleven for his career, more than anybody at his age in NFL history, more than any quarterback in the NFL period over the last three years since he's been in the league.

I mean, he keeps stacking it up and he keeps making plays like that.

But that stuff's available because you've run, you can you can throw forty three yard darts on fourth and two because you've got the Rams playing you, honest, because this man right here, Touba Hubbard, was getting work done.

And then also just to kind of add to that the flip side of it too, there might if they're both healthy.

There might be a week playing i mean next week or playing the Saints whatever, that next game is where Rico is the one that gets a few more carries.

They actually got pretty even carries.

Rico had one more, Yeah, Cuba has seventeen recoil.

This was a ra team where the defense kind of allowed them to run between the tackles a little bit more.

That's where Cuba kind of makes his bread and butter.

Rico's really good on the outside.

Depending on what defense they're playing, it might be a game where Rico has a better you know, yards per carry and gets a few more.

This week it was Cuba.

It kind of proved that you need both of them, you know, Versus Atlanta, Rico was a little bit more of a bellcal even though Cuba I think was averaging like six yards of carry that game.

They're both necessary.

This is what we talked about all off season because they offer different things, because they are different types of backs.

You want both of them.

I think you really have started to see that the past few weeks.

That was a perfect balance with both of them yesterday, and because Rico still made his runs as well, he kept things moving.

He had somewhere he was able to bounce outside.

He had a huge first down pick up at one point that way, I think this is what Dave Canalis had kind of always envisioned.

And it might not be a fifty to fifty time share every week.

That's fine, it might swing week to week.

But then to add on to all of that, to have the guys, and especially to have a guy like Cuba who's like, how are we going to do it the week to week?

Don't care, like, let's just get it done, that's so crucial.

You talk about him dragging guys along and training, he was dragging guys on the field yesterday too.

They all were.

Jalen Cocher drug Emmanuel Forbes for the last ten yards into the end zone for his touchdown.

Yeah, it was.

It was definitely that kind of game where it was going to be physical and the team that you know was going to administer more punishment was the one that was going to win that game, and yesterday it was the Carolina Panthers.

I kind of joked with you during the game there were people yelling, Uh, last week, there were people yelling about, oh, Dave Kanalis should give the play call into somebody else.

Midway through that game, I said, surprise, he gave it to Darren Gant to run it.

That's right, He's gonna run it thirty five times today.

Every it's when it's any question about what's about to happen, I will look at Cassidy next to me in the box and I'll say, you know what this is, don't you.

It could be like fourth and twelve and he's like, you know what, this is a running down.

Now.

There was one play yesterday though, where Darren was like, Nope, don't like this, and then they got it.

It was it was a fourth down.

I think they ran it.

No, I forget what it was.

It might have been the Jalen Cocher fourth down.

No, no, no, no, it wasn't.

It was like a two back set with uh it was a fourth down.

Yeah, I think they might have run it.

I want to say Rico picked it up.

It was the fourth down before the eventual field goal down here on this end of the field, because they you know, they converted it and then got stopped and then kicked the field goal.

But rather than fourth in one, I was in the I was of the mind of go ahead and kick the fifty yard field goal.

Let fits do his thing from there.

Uh, because I do like points.

Don't get me into any J J.

Janssen greg Olsen conversations about two point conversions in time of game and stuff like that.

I just I like having points and I like being in that position of controlling as much as I can control.

So that just turned it into more of a chip shot for Fitzgerald.

Yeah, they got there the hard way, but that was kind of the nature of that game.

Again, this was a running game.

This was a Chewba Hubbard kind of game.

I think we would be remiss to not acknowledge what a lot of people said in that postgame.

Bryce Young's got that dog in him in certain situations.

I mean, when his back's against the wall, when you're in that late game situation, those numbers don't lie.

I mean, eleven game winning drives is something.

I mean, he's got a vibe about him that when games are close, they're in it.

At the end, he'll get that little sly smile on his face and it's like something's getting ready to happen.

And fourth and two forty three yard touchdown pass, of course, Yeah, why not that.

Fourth and two to a team Mac for the touchdown.

That may have been the best throw I've seen Bryce s Young make, Yeah in his NFL career.

Like it was not only the throw being just completely on the money, but to get to t Mac, I think he was his like third progression in that play.

He started left, he went right.

It was supposed to be a little like leak out to the tight end just to get past the sticks.

And Bryce was like, eh, I got t Mac streaking down the field past tom Manuel Forbes, who had not given up a touchdown since week four until he gave up one the previous drive to Jailing Coker.

Yeah, but he had, you know, not given a touchdown up in weeks.

And here I got my rookie streaking across the middle of the field.

Sure, let's get it to him in the rain, in the cold, to deliver to to find Tea Mac and then to deliver that ball in that situation.

And like again, this was no piddly little pass rush coming down on him.

This is Byron Young Jared Verse like, this is a huge This is a good pass rushing RAMS team.

And to stand in there, he had a great pocket.

Shuba Hubbard had a huge block on that play to give Bryce a little bit more time as well.

He blocked that the guy was starting to spin off Ikey and I need to go back and see who it was.

The guy was starting to spin, not Ikey, Taylor Moton, I'm sorry, was spinning off Taylor Moton, and Cuba blocked him back into Taylor and from there Moten just kind of grabbed him and held him up and Bryce had time.

All the factors came in and then the throw itself one of, if not the best throw I've seen Bryce Young making his NFL career.

Yolo.

Bryce is a sight to behold.

I mean, he is such a controlled young man.

His press conference vibe is always so understated.

He never wants to go to overboard saying anything particularly you know, colorful or anything like that.

But when he's out there on the field and he gets that look in his eyes ites like uh oh, something's coming and it doesn't happen every week.

I mean, he's you know, I understand why people are, you know, feeling some sort of way about the Carolina Panthers because it's not the same thing every week.

You know, you do.

Get the sign of a growing team.

You get clonkers like San Francisco or like New Orleans, and then every now and then you get one of the oh you get the Green Bay game, and it's like, holy crap, this team's really figuring it out.

Canal has said today, I mean it's a sign of a maturing team.

It's a sign of a team that's still learning this stuff.

And that's one of the things I think is kind of the bedrock lessons about the twenty twenty five Panthers is young quarterback Twenty four year old Bryce Young still the youngest quarterback in the division.

The Falcons and the Saints have drafted guys who are older than him each of the last two years.

Funny still young GM and Dan Morgan still a young coach In Dave Canalis, a lot of people are doing things for the first receiving in their life.

Dave Canalis coached his thirtieth game of NFL football as a head coach.

That's actually crazy.

I mean it's wild.

Think about it.

If you go to a Super Bowl, that's like only that's a season and a half.

Yeah, that is how long he has been on the job.

I mean he's done this thirty times.

Because he's around He's been around Pete Carroll for so long, He's adopted so many those vibes that you kind of feel like Dave's been at this a lot longer than he has.

But he's been calling plays for two and a half seasons, he's been a head coach for one and a half season, basically, and there's stuff happening around him all the time that's brand new experience for him.

And I think that goes for a lot of people across the board.

I mean, you've got guys around here like Dom Caper's, you've got the Jim Calwell's offering experience from time to time.

But these are young people doing things.

And you know what happens when you get a bunch of young people together, Mistakes get made.

Sometimes they're learning, they're growing, but man, it's every now and then when they catch one like that, it's exciting to see.

And like on that note, and I'm sure somebody will fact check me, and Matt will tell me if there's something in the YouTube comments that may fact checking me.

I don't think they have really, for the most part, made the same mistakes game to game.

Mistakes have absolutely been made in different games, but they haven't at least this year, to my knowledge, really made the same mistakes from one loss to another, or from a game to a I mean, can you can you think of any I mean.

The first two the only time they've lost back to back games.

And by the way, there was quite a story on Panthers dot Com getting game when she this one right here, who I like a lot, never mind how I treat her sometimes, this one right here wrote about how the Panthers hadn't lost back to back weeks since weeks one and two.

So they've figured out that resilience piece of it.

You would just rather not need to be resilient.

Yeah, time, I think that's.

One of the what it makes for a better story.

That's one of the growing challenges that they'll figure out over time.

But for right now, given the opportunity, as the wise old man once said, it beats the alternative.

So yeah, we'll take We'll take the resilience exactly.

And you're growing together.

I mean, I know we've said this before, but J.

J.

Jensen said this at the end of last season.

You know, when you're.

Sitting there and at what a five and twelve season and and it's like, oh, okay, well there's improvement.

But here we go again at the same time, and JJ said, you've got a GM, a quarterback, and a coach that are on the same timeline.

Do you know how rare it is in the NFL to have all three of those things on the same timeline.

He's like, this is so exciting for this team.

Yep, And buddy, he was right, yep, no doubt.

Don't tell JJ that though he doesn't his head doesn't need to get any bigger.

Yeah, that's all right.

Hey, speaking of growing, we gonna need a bigger tree because this next one up here on the top of the tree, that would be That would be dB.

And of all my heads on sticks, the Derek Brown head on a stick might be the biggest.

I mean, in real life, Derek's got a large head.

Derek's a large human being, and that played a big part in this game.

Early on, that first Nick Scott interception, I think that came off about right.

Yeah, it came off somewhere in the Derek Brown facial region and straight in the hands of Nick Scott.

Nick ain't gonna give away that gift, but it was.

It was the early indication that Derek was gonna make a big impact on this game.

I mean he deflects that early pass, it gets turned into the interception.

When the game was on the line and Matt Stafford had the ball, you know, possibly on the verge of doing Matt Stafford things.

Derek Brown chasing him down, knocks that ball loose, sack, force, fumble, ball game.

Yeah.

Ashan Robinson was so funny.

He's like, as soon as I saw that ball come out, I thought to myself, like, oh that's ballgame.

Like at that point it was over.

That's what you want those guys to do when the game is on the line like that.

You need your Derek Browns to step up and make a play.

That's why you pay him all that money.

That's why you make him a captain.

That's why this is.

This is kind of his team.

He has really taken the reins of that locker room this season.

We've seen it time and again, over and over, big things, small things.

He has.

He may not always even be the most vocal.

He's so funny, which people don't realize, but he's willing to just kind of like work and he'd take He speaks up when he needs to, and he makes sure that locker room is moved in the same direction.

You've got your more vocal guys like Ashan Robinson, who's just a mastro or maestro at like pregame speeches.

Ashan Robinson is so good at those.

But he's working in tandem with Derek Brown.

Those two know what they want this team to be and what it can become.

And it's really Derek who is the leader of that locker room, I would say almost more than anybody else.

And those are the guys that when the game is on the line, you trust them to make a play.

And he did it in the biggest way.

Yeah, no doubt.

I also again, oh sorry, let me I forgot to add something.

Also in a good leader mode, humble as he is, dB gave a lot of credit to everybody else on that play.

He said the only reason he was able to get to Stafford, and he's right if you go back and watch it is because Turk collapsed the pocket and pushed Stafford up.

And then he said, you know, as soon as the ball was out, DJ Wanham was there to pick it up and he made the comment, you know DJ wantum.

He said he has affected the game so much this year in ways that never show up on a stat sheet, but he's always there to help facilitate a play and he was in the right place at the right time because of that.

You know, it wasn't luck.

He knew where he was supposed to be for a play to get made, and he was there when Derek knocked that ball out, was able to pick it up for the recovery.

Yeah, no doubt.

And again, we'll we'll talk a lot more in the weeks to come about the next things next and playoff implications and all those kind of things.

But I really do believe that in a lot of ways, this game was a huge step in the development of a young team because primarily because cats like these two your core guys people.

Dan Morgan has extended You give a man a contract, you're telling the world this is what we want to be about.

They extended Derek, They extended Cuba the middle of last season.

J C.

Horn, even though he wasn't out there on the field yesterday, is that guy at cornerback.

He leads all cornerbacks in the NFL and Pro Bowl voting and fanbase to go vote Pro Bowl.

So everybody go vote for JC and go vote for this guy.

The fact that Derek Brown's not among the top ten in Pro Bowl voting at his position is just ridiculous.

That's crazy.

Two years ago, when dB set the NFL's all time record for tackles in a season by defensive lineman, he was not in the top ten of fan voting.

Still went to the Pro Bowl because the coaches and the players they know.

So if you want to be smart like coaches and players and smart like us, go vote for dB for the Pro Bowl.

He'd appreciate that.

And also it's just the right thing to do.

I mean, come on, so here we go.

It is seven and six, going into a bye week.

I feel like the angel on top of that tree should start singing, you.

Know, Charlie Brown tree.

Never Yeah, it's very festive.

Don't you make fun of that little tree?

It's a good little tree.

Did I make fun of it?

See, you've got a negative attitude.

Sometimes you'll take things in a direction nobody ever intend.

I told our photographer Andrew Stein, one of the good, great ones here, he said something to me earlier, and I said, you know, somebody's been getting a little mauvy lately, And he goes, am I getting mouthy?

Or am I just finally coming into my own here at the.

Panthers one or the other.

But a lot of people are starting to come into their own with the Carolina Panthers.

That's almost like I set you right up there.

That's right, you did.

It's called bringing it back around to the top.

I mean, it really did.

Guys are coming into their own.

They're starting to believe that this is an actual thing that is happening, and maybe it is.

They're seven and six.

They've got a week to sit back and rest and relax and take a little time.

Here's a pro tip.

If I ask you where you're going for the bye week, what are you going to tell me?

None of your business.

That's right, that's the only appropriate answer.

Once upon a time, Steve Smith started to tell me a story about a trip him and his family we're going to take.

And I said, that's a great story.

I'd love to write about it.

He said, Nope.

You tell people where I'm going, he'll rob my house.

So don't rob Casty's house.

She's gonna be there, don't come to mind.

I'll be sitting on the porch with a dog and a gun as far as you know.

But no, it's bye week.

We all need a break.

It's been fantastic.

It's been a lot to break down.

There's a lot more coming your way on Panthers dot com, So keep it locked onto the dot com, keep it locked onto the YouTube channel for the next week.

We've got goodies scattered out for you all week.

We got all kinds of stuff playing.

But that's gonna take care of us for today, and that's gonna take care of us for this week.

Next week, after we're rested and relaxed, possibly tan as far as you know, I'm not telling you where I'm going, but I could be tan.

After all that, we'll start setting up playoff possibilities, because that's a real thing we're talking about in December now.

No more talk about draft picks.

Aikiakwan who said, we've talked about changing the narrative, and we have.

We ain't talking about draft picks.

We're not talking about ruining other people's season.

They've got something to play for themselves and so I can't wait to see it all come together.

We'll see you and we'll start down that process of that last month of the season next week when we circle back on the next Happy half Hour

Firef