The Happy Half Hour.

Hello friends, and welcome to a very special edition of The Happy half Hour.

A very happy, happy, happy half hours today half hour.

Look at that, she's all ry, been in the Deep Eddy again and folks.

Oh, that's just the spirit overcoming me.

That's right, it's the spirit overcoming you.

All right.

This episode of The Happy Half Hour is brought to you by our friends at Deepetty Vodka.

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I just made that up.

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Abraham Lincoln used to say that.

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The ultimately like a good time.

Yeah, that's gonna be a good time.

I can't wait to hear about that.

What happens in there.

So it's gonna be a good time.

Thanks to our friends at Deep Betty for sponsoring that.

And everybody was in a good time.

Yeah, that's right.

Everybody was having it.

Everybody felt it yesterday.

What a win, what a performance.

A win is a win is a win, and so you'll take them anyway you can get them.

But that was a dominating performance with a thirty to nothing win over the Falcons.

I mean, you get your first you get a win at home and your home opener.

You get a win in your first divisional game of the year.

Yep, you get the first shutout that you've had since twenty twenty, first shutout in the NFL this season through forty seven games not counting, or forty eight will be after tonight.

And something tells me between the Ravens and the who are they playing the Lions, that somebody's gonna score.

Yeah, somebody's gonna score tonight and it's gonna be a streak.

So and I think the biggest margin of victory since twenty fifteen, right, and so a lot of history, a lot to look at.

But when you look when you go back just to the game, or to quote Dave Canalis or paraphrase Dave Canalis, when we go back to us and we come back to the tape and you go just to the game, still a very good performance.

Guys said today in the locker room, like Nick Gorton, he was like, there's still a lot we did wrong.

There's a lot we messed up on.

There was a lot to learn from the tape on this Tell the Truth Monday, because there were some plays where it's like, okay, you know, if Atlanta had hit that, then the game might look a little different.

But they didn't have very many opportunities to hit those plays because this defense was so stifling all day from opening kick to the final one.

Even the yeah, final play or final play of the game was a forced fumble from the guys that were getting in there a rookie second string guys that got in there still forced to fumble to finish with three yeah.

Three turnovers yesterday.

I mean, it truly was.

There was so much happening at once it was a little hard to encapsulate.

And my wife, I love her.

I get home last night and she said, how did that happen?

Yeah?

And communication, good tackling, And.

I was like, it was actually just kind of normal.

They didn't turn the ball over, they played really good defense and special teams and that's what happens when you do those three things.

And she kind of looked at me like, not really what happened?

And Oh, that was pretty much it.

I mean one of the things I kept going back to last night in processing that one as you're kind of going through it in real time.

After a game, Dave Canal said the word normal after the game.

He said, when we get back to our normal football, And I think because we haven't experienced that quote unquote normal in a minute, that you almost think, Okay, well that doesn't mean anything at all.

But normal football is a good thing.

Normal football where you take care of them all.

Normal football where you when you're a running team and you get enough run attempts because you're not in big deficits or anything like that.

When you can play the kind of football you normally want to play, when you play field position when you need to.

I mean, when Dave Canal has said something very close to John Fox is famous upon is not a bad play, I was like, whoa, we almost did it because that was People made fun of that at the time, but the Carolina Panthers also had a lot of success playing football that way for a long time.

So just hearing someone acknowledge that field position football, that taking care of the ball, that playing good defense and special teams, that that was in the box that we call normal.

I celebrate that.

Especially when you've got a special teams unit that can make a team pay for taking a punt.

You know, like if you're punting, this is a coverage unit that at least three games has shown itself very capable of with Sam Martin penning teams deep and coverage unit's keeping teams from having too good of a return.

And then you go, then you trust your defense, which the last six quarters, save one drive, they have honored that trust very much.

You know.

Will mus Champ used to say all the time, going back to just kind of playing normal football and the turnover margin.

Will Muschampion I used to cover him, said all the time, if you show me two stats, if you if you only show me two stats from a game, I can tell you who won that game, the turnover margin and the time of possession.

And Panthers won both of those margins.

Yesterday.

They were in the turnover margin three to one.

They had the they had the and they controlled the time of possession just slightly, but just enough.

I think it was thirty one minutes to twenty eight minute.

Here's the thing, if you, if you only looked at and I know, while most of the people who are enjoying the happy half hour presented to you by Deep Patty are familiar with what the Panthers did, many people around the country are not.

And a lot of those people are going to look at a stat sheet, They're gonna look at a box score online something like that, and they're gonna look at Bryce Young.

What was it sixteen to twenty four, Yeah, and they're gonna be like, he wasn't that good.

Bryshung did exactly what Bryce Young needed to do.

Bryce Young was efficient, He did not turn the ball over a couple of times like he did in Arizona to put him in a big hole.

And when all of those things are working together and you've got that complimentary football that coaches love to talk about, that was a perfect box score.

I used to always think, even back to the early days when Kerry Collins was the quarterback, when Carrie threw for three hundred, that was usually a bad day because that meant they were in positions where he had to throw it a lot.

And that team also was built in a way where they wanted to lean on the run game.

So I think not having big stats leaves holes for people to think there need to be filled in.

I mean, Dave talked about it last night.

He said, some of those deep balls to t Mac, you wish you to head back, You wish you to connect it on a few more of those would have made that statue look better.

Man.

That statue showed me a team that was playing effective football from start to finish.

I mean, three of Bryce's drives started on the Atlanta side of the field, so it's not like he had to throw a bunch of yards to kind of get downfield.

He was the field position was already flipped for them because of the defense, right, And.

We tell you all about the Falcons red zone stats, except they didn't have it and.

That one they didn't cross the thirty one yard line.

Yeah, that was incredible.

That was one of the amazing things.

I mean, and it truly when you try to put a game like that in perspective, you start looking back at the last time things happened, When last shutout was here in this building in twenty twenty against the Detroit Lions, I think week and a half four.

Matt Patricia got fired.

PJ Walker quarterback the team that day through a couple of interceptions.

Was a fairly ugly game.

If the Lions hadn't been so bad, they wouldn't have shut out anybody that day.

But the Lions certainly did their part in that.

This was just kind of beating a team down.

And I've had a number of people throughout the building, not just in the locker room, but you know, downstairs, executive all stuff like that.

People will be like, it's been a minute since we've seen one of those.

And that felt good for a lot of people, not just on the football team, but all around the offices.

Everybody's having a good time today, and it's something that everybody needed because you can talk about process but until you see that payoff every now and then, it starts to bring hollow at a certain point.

And we've seen that before when processes lasted too long without their ever being payoff.

But there were things that happened in that game yesterday to make you think this would be sustainable.

Yeah, And you know, a lot of guys, even I'll give credit, a lot of guys said last week we turned a corner in the second half of that Arizona game.

And it's easy to go, okay, sure, Bob, you know, like because it still was a loss, and it's very early in the season and we do need to, like, you know, just kind of take everything with a grain asalt because it is still week three.

But they felt confident coming out of Arizona that they found something in the second half of that game that could be to your point, to your word, sustainable, yep.

And at least through this game, they seem to have been proven right.

Right and that and that's what it's going to have to be.

I mean, things as small as and it's funny that I say as small as because I'm talking about the biggest guys on the team.

You replace a couple of starters on the offensive line and continue to protect and continue to run the ball.

You know, the Falcons had six sacks a week before against Minnesota one yesterday that was on a right and ran for one ten.

You know, the Panthers had that kind of volume running that is sustainable.

When you get that many carries, it almost doesn't matter how many ard you're rushing for, because if you've got thirty attempts, things are good.

Yeah, which I think they ended up with.

Let's see, Tuba had seventeen, Rico had ten, Brice had two, and so that's twenty nine.

There we go.

Technically Andy had one, which would bring it to thirty.

But the Andy's was the neil down.

Victor right, and we may need to consult with JJ Jansen and some of the judges of the Kangaroo Cord.

I think Andy might be a little sensitive about that because Andy now has negative fantasy points for the week.

So you know, I have seen somebody lose a fantasy game on the kneel down victory formation.

We got to I got to research Andy Dalton's career rushing numbers and just find out exactly how many of those are minus one heel downs.

But you know what, I get the feeling.

While Andy may be sensitive about his fantasy point yield this week, I think he'll take that.

Yeah.

I think you if you're Andy Dalton, you get in the game and your job is to take the last snap for a loss.

Yeah, I think last based on his reaction, I think Andy's okay with.

That last night for a win.

That's right.

Yeah, that was a test we called last night for a loss.

You know what I mean, These these things happen all kind of stuff, though.

I mean when I think about what happened yesterday, I mean it began with the defense and special teams for me for sure.

And when you see Ryan Fitzgerald rookie kicker, and I got that name right, that was the test.

When Ryan Fitzgerald hits a fifty seven yard bomb early in that game, which tied the second longest field goal in Panthers history with Zane Gonzalez trailing only the sixty three yarder by Graham Gano and the that was the game winner against the Giants in.

Eighteen and is now the kicker for the Giants.

That's right.

But you know Ryan has done a good job.

He's five or five on field goals so far, all you could ask for.

And the thing Dave Canal has kept talking about was the way he pinned them back on kickoffs.

Kickoffs were so impressive.

Right, here's a secret about NFL football.

I don't know if a lot of you people are familiar with footballs are pointy on each and that makes them bounce funny when they hit the ground.

And so if you make it harder on a team to collect the ball and then try to do something with it, you're already in an advantage.

And having Ryan Fitzgerald, who never had to do this in college, this was not part of his practice when he was at Florida State to learn this new skill and to be proficient at it in a way, they kicked off seven times.

The Falcons average drive start on those seven kickoffs was inside the twenty and with the way the rules are written, that's practically impossible, because you know, a touchback under normal circumstances get you out to the thirty five.

But they add a couple of those that bounced in the landing zone and then into the end zone that were getting placed at the twenty and they didn't even get that far a couple times.

So those guys did a great job.

I mean, fitzgerald a with the kick.

And then all those dudes on the coverage unit, your van Martin Scott's of the world you're calling and chairless is of the world, you're a Caleb evans Is of the world.

Who aren't part of the names that a lot of people associate with this thing on a on a regular basis.

We're doing a job yesterday, what are.

We gonna call this kick?

I think Raheem moore is called it a knuckleball.

I called it like a little dribbler yesterday.

What are we calling it?

I'm just I'm just saying it works.

Successful.

That's what we're calling it success.

Should we put up a poll on what people should name this little little dribbler of a kick?

Maybe?

So that's not partaking in our shenanigans.

He's staying safely back over there behind the monitor, and he's like, you guys, go ahead and sink if you want to, not me.

But it's working.

And and again that special team stuff is great on its own, but when it's working together with a defense, it's creating turnovers.

I mean from the Shaw Smith Wade pick six Mike Jackson had Mike gave up a pixel.

But he did Nick Gorton about this today, because Nick Gorton was his blocker on that play and had he blocked for him, And we were like, I was like, Nick, what did you think when you turned around and realized he wasn't there anymore?

And he was like, I think he said somebody kept saying that I missed a block, and I was like, I promise you you didn't miss the block.

That was all Mike, And Mike told us yesterday he was like, if I had scored, we'd have had to go right back out there, which that drive was already an eleven play drive when Mike picked it, and he's like, if I had scored, we'd had to go right back out there.

I figure, let the offense score.

We'll go get some gatorade.

That's right, because at that point the game was very much I mean that that stilled the game.

Being a team player in that situation.

And uh, but Nick said that he thought he hadn't blocked for him, and then he turns around and he sees Mike going in circles and He's like, I think he just wanted to do his dance because Mike did the Dirty Bird dance and celebration.

He's like, I think he just wanted to do his dance and he needed to stop right there to do it.

If you're too tired to dance at the end of that, what good is it?

Right?

Exactly?

What was the point of it all?

Oh man?

But yeah, good day for the Carolina Panthers.

You know what else was cool?

And a lot of people talked about this after the fact.

Players and coaches both talked about the crowd here Bank of America State.

I mean, when you go into a home opener, you never know quite what to expect, right, and especially when a team's O and two and two.

We've seen situations where you know, the locals are a little unsure about what they're going to see.

But people were here early.

The crowd was good throughout the day, and Dave talked about it.

I mean, some of those sequences in the third quarter when the Falcons are trying to do stuff and get back in the game, He's like, nah, man, our fans were good.

Would Bryce say what was the word he used?

Was it electric?

To describe the fans.

I mean something like that.

Yeah, it was a good crowd.

I don't know.

Maybe, hey, they forced some some delay of game a couple of times.

Maybe it was a deep tailgate pack.

Everybody was in the mood when they walked in the door.

No, I think people are ready to see and some of the enthusiasm about this year's team is organic because this team is empirically speaking, getting better at a lot of stuff right in front of our eyes.

But an zero and two start on the road kind of had some people feel in some sort of way.

But you know, team did their part, came out there and took care of business against the Falcons.

And I joke with our friends when I see West Durham, the Falcons play by play announcer, when I see our old friend Deo Orlando led Better from the AJAC come into town, I said, friends, we've seen some things in this series.

Falcons Panthers games can get weird.

I told Zochi in the pregame show, I said, I don't know what it's going to be today.

Fifty one, thirty eight nine seven, Who knows?

I did not have thirty nothing.

Panthers shut out on my Bengo card yesterday.

So that was another entry into the lore of this series.

And you know, the natural joke to make here is neither did they.

Yeah, but it was so interesting.

I went down to the field at the end of the game yesterday, Darren, I don't even know if you knew this.

I went down to the tunnel as they were coming off, and I was expecting guys to be like bouncing off the walls of the tunnel, like hyping guys up, hyping up fans and stuff like that.

And Taylor Moten did get a good little show for fans as he came off, but most of the guys walked off very go back to this word normal normal.

It was almost like stoic, a little bit like they were just like, okay, cool, another game.

It seemed almost the same way they walked off the field last week in Arizona and May.

And there was still an appropriate amount of celebration.

You know, there was We have a really good locker room speech video up on Panthers dot com that you can go watch.

Dave Canalis said, you know, today they were still celebrating as it was they finished out their twenty four hour rule, and you know, it makes watching tape a little bit easier when you're doing it after a win, but they came off the field very just yeah, another game.

This was the thing that was supposed to happen.

Yeah, and again I go back to a lot of defenders, especially said this past week that they felt very confident about whatever they had found in Arizona.

No doubt, so no doubt, and that stuff becomes real and it begins to feed itself at a certain point.

Because Canalis has talked about wanting this to be normal.

He's talked about wanting to play that complimentary football.

The other thing he's talked about is wanting it to be player driven.

So seeing guys treat it that way, seeing CHEWBA Hubbard tell people in the locker room after the fact, this is what it's supposed to be.

Yeah, when at your CHEWBA Hubbards, when at your jc's, when at your Derek's doing that kind of talking, that's when you know those things beginning to take rude.

So good start for them.

As Dave Canalis, I thought it was funny today when he said, oh, yeah, we're still celebrating it in there, and he immediately did one of these and looked at his watch because there is a point on Monday afternoon when the page flips and you're on to New England, as the guy in New England used to say, and they have to switch gears.

Dalton told me the other week, he was like, when we switch that tape, when we go from looking at last week's tape to next week's tape, he said, you'll see guy's body language change.

You'll see guys have a different bearing altogether because they know, Okay, it's time to put that one in a box, put it behind, keep it moving.

But I think the Panthers were well within their rights to enjoy that one because that was about as good as a home opener can go.

Yeah, and it wasn't even just to kind of put a final point on it.

It wasn't even like we said Atlanta had some missed opportunities, some a couple of drops here and there.

Aron Rivera do what Hashtagron Rivera was.

That was one of Ron's favorite cliches, missed opportunities, and they.

Did have a couple of them.

But there was also like this was a good game plan by the Panthers.

I mean, you talk about switching on the tape, like one of the things that Shaw's Wade mentioned yesterday was like they saw something very specific on tape with Michael Pennox that they knew they could take advantage of, and they did all day.

They said, he'll throw late to the flats, and if we're there, we can take advantage of it.

They got a tackle for loss, they got to pick six and I think six of the other eight times he threw late to the flats they got.

One of them was a Bijon Robinson explosive, but on the other ones they accumulated a grand total of six yards.

Yep.

And so like it was, it was something that they went in with a plan for this to happen, and then it did.

Yep.

Defense, I'll do it again.

Defense is definitely playing better.

Different tests coming up next week against the Patriots.

We'll get into all that later in the week and get on with that.

But listen, I think it's okay to feel all right about this one.

Again.

It's normal to feel okay.

It's normal to enjoy a win.

So the Carolina Panthers deserved that one.

It's it's been on a little bit coming, and so to have that recognition that this is what they wanted to look like and have it succeed in that way.

Was amazing.

When games end with backup quarterbacks, that's usually good for one side, bad for the other.

Kirk Cousins had to play for the Falcons.

Not great.

Andy Dalton got to take that negative fantasy point.

Okay for the Panthers.

Everybody will take that.

So all good things after the home opener here Bank of America Stadium.

We'll be back with you on Thursday.

In between now and then, stay tuned a Panthers dot com.

We got all kinds of stuff for you from that win and looking forward going on in the next week.

Thank you to our friends at Deep Petty.

Again, make sure you enter the Sweet SIPs sweepstakes.

That's what it says right back there.

I'm learning that.

I'm gonna say it without stumbling.

It's a little bit harder with Sweet SIPs Sweepstakes.

There you go.

Shall enter that for two tickets to the Deep Eddy Sweet for the November second game, a November ninth game against the New Orleans Saints.

That'll be a good time.

Thanks to our friends at Deep Petty.

Thanks for Cassy.

I'm Darren Gant.

We will see you Thursday.

On the Happy half hour,