Happy Half Hour.

Hello friends, and welcome to another edition of the Happy Half Hour.

We really got to consider that name on days like to day, because it's I don't think there's too much happy out there in the world.

But here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna do our part to kind of talk about what we saw, which was, as of course, not great, Bob.

But there's a lot of things to be gleaned from a game like that, and a lot of things I think you can carry forward, so it's worthwhile to get into some of that.

So as always, we'd like to think our sponsors, our friends.

Over at Deep Eddie Vodka, you can push that button on the big screen behind me and enter the Deep Eddie Vodka Sweet Sip Sweep Steaks.

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What a good time that's gonna be.

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There's gonna be cocktails, there's gonna be fun, there's going to be community there, And really, isn't that all we're looking for?

I love football and deep edity.

Deep Eddy is all about I think it is.

So whether it's Deep Eddy, whatever you're h whatever you're looking for this evening, find a little community, find a little warmth.

I am going with my biscuit pillow.

I've got my friend here.

I think on days like today, it's important to surround yourself with things that make you happy.

So this biscuit pillow, a little bit of Deep Eddy.

I think that's gonna take care of me tonight.

Bo Jangles and Deep Eddy.

That's all Darren needs in the world.

That's right.

All I need to survive is this notebook, this pen, my duck friend, a bottle water, some Deep Eddy, a biscuit pillow, and a little bit of football talk, but not too much.

So thanks to our friends at Deep Eddy, we might as well get into this so for it.

As I said, not great Bob Patriots forty two, Panthers thirteen.

This was a game with a lot of stuff going on at one time.

Without putting too fine a point on it, but one of the things that I took away from that game, and I think it's lost in a lot of the conversations, because if you listen to Dave Canalis's press conference earlier today, if you tune into Dave on Panther Talk tonight, you'll hear a lot of these themes.

He keeps getting asked about, are you gonna do this, Are you gonna do this, You're gonna change this person, Are you gonna fire this person?

Are you gonna change quarterbacks?

Are you gonna change schemes?

Dave is not getting stuck at this thirty thousand foot level of football right now.

What he's drilling into is some of that granular stuff.

And there's a lot of it with this game.

I mean in his press conference today where the reporters, I mean, he talked about specific things.

He wasn't talking about, Oh, I don't believe in our entire defensive structure.

He was talking about Shaw Smith Wade knows instead of punching at that ball he's supposed to wrap the second guy's supposed to punch.

He rather than talking at length about keeping whatever player on the roster at this particular point, he talked about Trevor etn inside of five.

Let that roll into the end zone.

If it does stick at the one, we'll play from there.

Otherwise, know where you're at.

Look around their teaching moments, and I mean, I think that's kind of endemic of Dave's whole mindset, is he's always looking for that teaching point.

He's always looking for this specific football stuff rather than the great big philosophical stuff.

And he's looking to get back to work, and frankly, that's the only thing that's going to fix this.

And Dave also, we talk about this so much during the off season, and you hear players mentioned it a lot at the end of last year, is they've realized one thing about their head coach, Dave Canalis is the same person every day when Lou's drawl.

You know, he's gonna come in to kind of be the same person, the same upbeat, positive, but also just you know, demanding those little things be done right.

He's not gonna make any sort of like emotional decisions, even in the past when you think there might be some made, he's actually looking you see in hindsight, like oh he was looking ahead, he had a plan here.

And so it takes time to build a program.

They're currently in year two.

Yesterday was an obstacle in that what do you learn from it?

That's going to be the most important thing going forward this.

Week, right, And as I thought about this game, you sleep on it, you watch one like that, you experience it, you fly home, and you think about it.

The big picture, if you want to look at a big picture of what happened yesterday, was the Carolina Panthers entered this season making a conscious decision to keep twelve rookies on the roster.

Out of there fifty three I mean nearly a quarter of the roster, over twenty percent of the roster, and guys who had never played in the NFL before.

When you are young, you're going to run into mistakes.

When you are young on purpose.

You acknowledge that those mistakes are going to come when you are young on purpose, and then get hurt.

You become even thinner than you were to begin with in a hurry.

And we saw that happen yesterday.

There is such a what's that chaos theory?

The butterfly in the effect, Yeah.

The butterfly on the coast of Africa causes a hurricane in the Atlantic.

No doubt that's kind of what happened, and the best example of it was first play of the game when David Moore gets hurt and is out for the rest of the game.

David Moore getting hurt doesn't necessarily have anything to do with special teams problems down the line, because he's when he's a frontline wide receiver.

When he's starting the way he was Sunday, he's not part of the special teams playing that much.

But when David Moore goes out on play one, Bryson Tremaine becomes a part of the starting offense.

When Bryson Tremaine becomes part of the starting I offense, Bryson Tremaine can't be part of the special teams on eighty percent of the special teams plays the way he has been all this season.

When Bryson Tremaine's not out there, there's a spot where somebody knew is covering punts and kicks.

Same with DJ Johnson on the other side.

Pat Jones and DJ wanam out last week with injuries, so Nick Gordon starts on one side, DJ Johnson starts on the other.

DJ Johnson was one of those core members of that kickoff coverage team, punt team that we had talked so much about leading into that game.

When those guys have to start on offense and defense, you're backfilling behind them.

They brought up Boogie Bash them off the practice squad to fill in, and Boogie ended up playing not just special team snaps, but defensive snaps yesterday and obviously not an ideal situation.

And you just saw that over and over through that game, where it's just like, okay, yeah, that was a bad outcome.

And if you trace it back, if you diagram that sentence.

You remember diagram and sentences.

Vaguely in school, Yes, we did.

I blocked it from my memory.

That's all right.

There are valuable lessons to be learned by getting granular on specific things.

But if you diagram those sentences and get down to the root of all those problems, I think you see some.

Of that for sure, and and it does affect even bigger things too, you know.

For example, I think Canal's talked today Monday about you know, sometimes day and more is the guy on what he calls those logo punts like punts coming from the logo and then ETN coming back.

Would David Moore have known to let that roll.

Maybe that's a good learning lesson for Trevor etn.

But you know, would that have happened if David Moore had been back there?

Maybe not.

And so there are a lot of little things that's not every week in the NFL has to necessarily be a referendum on a team.

We saw a complete different team last week versus Atlanta than we did in New England this week.

So I think it's still too early to make any big declarations right and y or the other.

And I almost apologize to our friends who were only listening to the Happy Half Hour on audio because they might miss this part their visual aids at work.

Here.

There's like this spectrum in the NFL that teams are on, and unless you're one of those very rare and fortunate teams that's able to get to a certain level of sustained quality play, you tend to go from week to week, and you're going to be here here.

The Atlanta Falcons come in here last week, get shut out thirty to nothing, immediately turn around and go dog walk to Washington Commanders.

You know, the Carolina Panthers shut out the Atlanta Falcons immediately go to New England where they had just got embarrassed and proceed to get embarrassed themselves.

I mean, that's just how it works so often with most of the teams in the NFL that are in that great middle.

I mean, everybody talks about and JC and Derek talked about it last week.

He's like, the next challenge for us is to become consistent with this kind of stuff.

They're still working on that, but that's one of those things that's easier to say than to do, because to do that, you've got to have a stable base of players.

You've got to have that thing they talk about culture, and you've got to really instill that from day one on.

And that's what Dave's trying to do when he goes when he comes into a press conference today and talks about getting back to the work and really zooming in on the fundamentals and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, that's all a football coach knows how to do.

Yes, I agree, I thought you were still going by Vade.

Cassidy's become conditioned.

She knows that there are times when you pull Darren's string and Darren can talk for fifteen.

Right, He's like one of those little childhood toys that just goes in circles around the room.

You talk, yeah, or like the monkey with the symbols.

Yea, but yes, completely, it's one.

Of those things too.

You get me talking about Bryce and Tremaine having to play offense and how that trickles down to spest teams.

It's like, welcome to my ted talk.

But no, I mean it is.

It's I know, it's a frustrating day.

Lord knows, I'm reading my mail that's coming.

In that mail bag.

Tomorrow should be special.

Tune into Panthers dot com for that.

Every now and then people just got a vent.

But the reality is, I mean you could kind of see some of these things coming based on the kind of the construction of the roster, but mostly just individual things that kept happening over.

The last week, right and now, So to quote JC and dB a little bit, what do you do from here?

You know, I always love that saying in baseball, like you're gonna win fifty, you're gonna lose fifty.

It's what you do with the other fifty that matters.

You ever heard that one?

Yeah, I know the math is a little off on that but it's the sentiment that matters.

City math hashtag okay, but.

The saying is fifty Google.

It is the sentiment that matters.

You win one week thirty to nothing, you lose the next week forty two to thirteen.

What do you do next week?

What do you do against the Miami Dolphins who will see tonight and see what they kind of look like in their Week four they're still looking for their first win?

Yeah, and so what do you do next week and the week after that?

You know, I think last season you also had a win in week three and then not another until week nine?

Is that correct?

Something like Germany?

Eight nine?

No, New Orleans and Germany, something like that, Germany?

And so what do you do next?

Do you show?

Do you show improvement by showing consistency and finding a way to not have that dearth of wins again and kind of showing that you're going upwards?

Right and again?

I have talked it feels like we've talked since March.

When you saw the free agency, you saw the pattern, you saw what they were trying to do.

I keep doing this when I'm talking about the Carolina Panthers.

They're trying to steadily climb and go that way.

I mean right now.

I understand it doesn't look like that at the moment, but it just feels like they're built on such a more stable base.

I think the stuff you're trying to figure out, the stuff you're looking for, the injuries you're trying to cover for right now are things that will improve once people get well, once people get back on the field again.

You put Pat Jones and DJ Wanta back on the field, and I guarantee you the Patriots aren't running all those jet sweeps to the edges of the offense early on in that game.

I mean, they saw Rooks and they saw DJ Johnson and they went straight at it yesterday.

So I think a lot of this stuff corrects itself with time, but they have laid in a more stable base of talent, especially on the defensive side of the ball, compared to last year.

So we'll see as guys start to get back in where things go.

And here's the moment, speaking of seeing where guys fit in, I would rather light a candle than curse your darkness.

Carolina Panthers fans.

Dave Canal has said something on Monday that think's gonna make a whole bunch of y'all happy this week with those injuries at wide receiver, it's Jimmy Horn time everybody.

I know some people that are going to be very excited.

Yeah, it seems like the greater Internet.

And they all live on Twitter.

We talk about the Internet like it's a person, and it's really not.

Most of them aren't even real.

But a lot of people are excited to see Jimmy Horn and what he can do to his offense.

And they've talked today about some of the stuff they're talking about.

Right.

You know, he's got the speed, he's got the shiftiness.

Now he gets a chance to go out there and do it and improve it in a game.

What does this mean long term?

I don't know, but you know they always say injury means opportunity, and so congratulations, Jimmy Horne.

Here's your opportunity.

Yep, let's see what you can make of it.

I don't know much about the Miami defense yet, so I don't know what that could look like with Jimmy, you know, to your point, can can he go sideline to sideline?

What's he gonna look like?

I'm interested, very interested to watch this game tonight between Miami and New York just to kind of get a better idea of what this team is coming in here next week.

And you're gonna curl up with a glass of deep Eddy and your biscuit pillow, aren't you?

No, Because I'm Baptist, Remember that's right.

Well, you'll be in the privacy of your own home.

You can safely have a drink of deep Eddy in your own home if you want to with your biscuit.

Pill here you go, just not in public.

Yeah, no doubt, but no, it is going to be interesting to see.

By the way, speaking of the way this thing's gone and things that pop up in my mail bag and the greater Internet community, somebody wrote into the mail bag last week.

Anybody asked, y'all with this remind you of thirteen yet?

Yeah?

And I'm like yes.

As a matter of fact, somebody.

Help me about to twenty thirteen season dar twenty.

Thirteen Carolina Panthers.

As you might remember, what were you doing in twenty thirteen casting?

To be honest, I was not watching the Carolina Panthers, were you?

I was out of college by then?

You were out of college.

I was.

That would have been my first full year covering the Florida Gators that season was interesting because they were coming off a year where they finished number three in the country.

They just missed the championship game.

Because this was back during the years of the BCS, this was no playoffs.

They just missed the championship game.

So they were a little bitter.

And then they come back that next year and it all falls apart.

At one point, they got beat by Georgia Southern at home.

Don't you besmirch the hated Eagles.

Georgia Southern a fine member of the Sun Bill back that.

Day, though, I'll always remember the day they lost to Georgia Southern for many reasons, but the biggest one was that that was the day Will Muschamp taught us all what a mid line is.

Do you know what the mid line is, Darren.

I'm afraid of where this story's going.

The mid line is most commonly used in a triple option offense.

Oh yeah.

It is the mesh point between the quarterback's hand off and the running back's stomach when the quarterback has to make the decision whether or not too hand it off or pull it.

There you go, Well, you talked about that.

Florida season being a disaster.

You know what was not a disaster.

The Panther season.

You're twenty thirteen Carolina Panthers.

They started that season zero to two.

Sound familiar, it does.

They rebounded nicely in week three with a shutout win, a shutout win, a shutout win over the hated New York Giants thirty eight to nothing.

Wow, that does sound vaguely familiar.

And then they turned around and went on the road and lost in relatively distressing fashion to go one in three.

What was the score twenty two to six?

Well?

Who did they lose to.

Against the hated Arizona Card.

If you told me the Patriots, I would have fallen on.

A chair, falling out of the tear.

And then the twenty thirteen Carolina Panthers, as you folks all remember, wheeled off eight wins in a row and eleven out of twelve to go to the playoffs.

Do am I telling you this version of the Carolina Panthers is about to go on an eight game win streak.

I am not, but I'm also not saying I'm not.

You know, I covered Aaron Rodgers in his last year at Green Bay, and I remember standing at his locker after they lost that London game, and he said, you know, we've done it before.

Who's to say we can't reel off the next six?

And they missed the playoffs that year, but just barely.

They won I think the next four out of five or something like that.

And again, expectations can mess with your head.

I think it's dangerous to get into that spot and all the feelings that everybody's feeling today is based on what they thought was going to happen in this game rather than you know, I think it's just kind of important to think about the overall trajectory of this Carolina Panthers team.

I mean, Dan Morgan's talked about it, Brent till has talked about it, Dave Canalis has talked about it all off season.

You're trying to build your train to gradually get better, and you know, Sunday was one of those cases.

Some days you just get got.

You guys laugh at me every now and then about the wit and wisdom of John Fox.

I have decided that after twenty years, he is wise beyond his years.

He used to say things that bored us all to death, like upon is not a bad play.

When he was coaching.

But one of the things he also said was you never as good as you look when you win.

You're never as bad as you look when you lose.

And I think you can look at the last two weeks of Carolina Panthers football and see the wisdom of John Fox.

So with that said, keep it locked on Panthers dot com and the YouTube channel for all the latest.

We got Panther Talk coming up later with Dave Canalis, all the good stuff you're used to seeing here on our channels.

We're here for you.

We know today was not a great one.

We know yesterday was not a great one.

But the next time we see it, we're gonna be on to Miami.

We're gonna be talking about Charlie Tuna or something like that, and we'll get off the mascot as far as you know, as far as you know Charlie Tuna is at the moment, I mean, these young people, I don't know what to do with them.

Sor right.

For all our friends here in the studio, for our friends at Deep Eddie Vodka podcast, map, behind the behind the board, for our duck friend, for my biscuit pillow, and and again for that Deep Eddie may come in handy tonight.

We'll see y'all Thursday on the Happy half Hour.