Happy Half Hour.

Hello friends, we are back.

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And now that I'm finished with this card, I'm going full Letterman.

Wow.

I didn't just wanted to do that.

I admired David Letterman so much for flinging the card.

If we could get podcasts mad to make that glass shattering sound in the back.

We would.

It needs to be a little heavier, it needs to be on a card.

Speaking of breaking the glass, Carolina Panthers did that when we had on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.

Now it's time to move on to the New England Patriots.

And you know it's interesting and talking to guys about it this week, it's been very business like.

It's been very.

I don't want to say casual.

I mean, because they've been very intent about everything.

But they're not running around acting like they did some great thing last week, even though it was pretty cool for a lot of people.

But they they have been very business like all week long.

You know, we talk about turning the page on Wednesday.

As soon as we hit Wednesday, that page was turned.

You know, cool one thirty to nothing against a divisional rival Grand Now we play the Patriot.

That's right.

Moving on to the next thing on and we'll be up in beautiful Foxborough.

That's what I hear they call it, especially this time of.

Year, something like that.

Whenever I'm going there, I never know quite which airport I'm going into, and I don't know which mob we are, and we're not publicizing it either.

Way, I never know what state we're in.

That's right, it's just Greater New England, I think.

But no, it's going to be interesting to see.

Obviously, Drake May local kid here, a lot of people and Charlotte are familiar with him.

I laughed quite.

Loudly when Drake May said, you know, most of the people I grew up watching are gone except for their long snapper.

So congratulations.

JJ Janssen coming up and enjoy some of our deep Eddie h after you're finished working today to Yeah, Drake May remembers you.

I would love to see Drake May and j J.

Janssen jersey swap after that would just a couple of Sharlotte.

You need to tell jjd well.

Yah.

Know, as you've talked to guys, especially guys on defense, I mean, the Patriots have turned it over a good bit this year.

The Panthers coincidentally are receiving.

I mean that getting a couple of picks on Sunday, forcing that late fumble didn't really mean a whole lot in the outcome of the game, but it was good stylistically and and just kind of to get those guys in the mode.

You've talked to those guys a lot about that this week.

Yeah, turnovers are contagious, and it sounds so cliche to even say that, but they really are, and so getting right side up on the turnover margin, getting three even to your point, getting that fumble at the end of the game might not have made a difference in the outcome of the game, but it's good to just get it under your belt to get a feel for what it feels like when the Ball's coming out how to do so.

Lathan Ransom was pretty was a ballhawk in college as well.

He was kind of known for punching that thing out and did it again on Sunday.

Mike Jack seems to love to play this team because he's got a knack for grabbing interceptions.

We know Jc's got one.

And then Shaw Smith Wade that was just such a perfect read.

He said he saw that on tape.

Knew that he could get that.

But once you start getting a few, then you're Because it took a while to get to a turnover last year, right, I think there was one in Week two versus the Chargers, but that was pretty much the long one for a while for a little bit, and so this this has got to feel better to kind of get on this side of it.

I'm trying to pull up what the actual turnover margin is here.

Look at you injecting facts into this podcast.

That's not what I know you Here the Happy half Hour, we're just.

Kind of winging in and saying whatever we feel like.

The differential, Okay, so I guess they had some the first week too, because they're still negative one in the differential, but they have had five takeaways so far.

So five takeaways through four games, not bad at all.

Yeah, they're in a good spot any.

Three and three games, right, I can.

See those guys becoming more confident and just starting to settle in.

I mean, we talked about this, I think last week after the Arizona game.

That defense is actually playing pretty well right now.

That zero in the scoring column skews some numbers and it will for a while, but seeing the Carolina Panthers eighth in scoring defense in the NFL, I think probably caught a lot of people by surprise.

The twenty one in total d in the yardage number, that's probably a reasonable approximation of where they're at as they build this thing out, you know, considering where they were last year and where this thing is st And listen, we talked to we talked to gero Vero today as well as all the other coordinators and you can read all about that on Panthers dot com and he he just kind of said it all starts with Derek, and having a healthy Derek Brown makes such a difference for this defense as a whole.

I mean, and I just love it.

I Mean, you know, with Derek, you're gonna get a pass batted down out of the sky because he's very active, gets hands up and he was throwing people.

On Sunday, Brian Beldinger had a great clip cut up on Twitter and he's like, this.

Is my Derek Brown Frisbee Toss of the Week.

Watch Chris Linstrom go.

And I mean you could just see Derek had him and he just chucks Chris Linstrom, you know, halfway down the field and gets on top of me John Robinson and it's like, Okay, Derek's back.

This is the Derek we're used to see.

And those are the sort of things too.

Let's this also is gonna be cliche.

How many cliche things can I say in this one podcast?

Let's count them?

dB does a lot of things that don't show up on the stat sheet.

Yeah, there it is like the there is pressure, there is he's gonna draw double teams, Like, there's things that aren't gonna show up.

So you look at it and you go, oh, he only has this many tackles that he does so so much that affects the entire game.

Yeah, and he's on one and Derek the other thing I kind of liked about him.

Dave Canalis said, it on Monday.

EJ talked about it a little bit today too.

Is Derek's one of those first guys who on Monday resets and he's like, Okay, what's next, you know, here's what we've got to get better at.

Here's what we got to work on.

So I think he even said that walking off the field in one of our rewind videos.

Yeah, no doubt.

And I mean Derek is such a professional anyway, which we've known.

I mean, Derek has become you know, along with the Cuba Hubbards, the j C Horns, I mean they're kind of the conscience of this place, along with kats like Taylor Moten.

You know, when those guys are the ones leading your team, you feel good about where it's going because they do their stuff the right way.

I mean, he's just he's just such a pro.

And again, to see him chucking people down the line of scraamage was a sight to behold.

I mean, I'm sorry, Chris Linstrum, you're very good at football, but Derek seemed to have something to on that play.

Yeah, And just one of the things I forgot to added a second ago when we were talking about turnovers, not only a turnovers contagious on defense.

Turnovers can be contagious on offense.

And so the Panthers got three on Sunday.

The fact the Patriots, sorry, wrong team.

The Patriots lost four No five five.

They had four fumbles in an interception, that's right, And so that's not to say that that's going to be the case again this Sunday.

Every game is insular, Every game is its own thing.

Sure, but there is something to be said, especially for a running back.

I think Stevenson lost too.

There's something to be said for it to get into a running back's head.

It even happened.

Look at Dereck Henry, it's happened to him in each of his first three games, and he talked about it in the locker room afterwards.

He's like, I've got to get over it mentally.

And so there's something there if you're the pants defense that you're gonna look at and try to take advantage of and punch at that ball early, just to get in his head and that may be help fumble at.

Yeah, no doubt, And there's a lot to go into this matchup.

One of the things I like about the way the Panthers have put things together and are beginning to play.

That lends itself to that long term stability that Dan Morgan's always talked about is the defense is getting better and the special teams is playing at a really high level.

I mean, we broke it down on Panthers dot Com earlier today.

I encourage you to check it out if you want to nerd out on special teams because you know, everybody's making a big deal.

Ryan Fitzgerald and the knuckleball kicks and look at it bounce and it's doing funny things once it's abound.

That's the interesting thing about football.

So I don't know if you know this.

They're pointy on it, which means they bounce funny.

I thought we're like Nate.

I think it was Nate Tice tweeted something the other day about Ryan Fitzgerald's knuckleball and he was like, foot longs or footballs are oblong shaped and made of leather.

They more people should do fun thing with them.

That's right, that's right.

The oblate spheroid is JJ.

Jansen likes to say so.

JJ is a known friend of the Happy half hour, and we'll always make room for that.

But no, those guys, I mean the stats on the stats on kickoffs, and the only real way to measure it is the other team's drive start, where they take the ball after the kickoff.

The Carolina Panthers lead the league in that category.

The opponent average is taking over at the twenty one point one.

That's pretty good when you consider a touchback, which everybody's trying to avoid.

Now it gives you the ball at the thirty five, that's great.

And the thing that stood out to me about that stat is not just that you're number one in the league.

It's how much golf there is between you and just about everybody else.

The Rams are second, but the distance from the Panthers to the third place team is over five yards.

Yeah, And I mean when you're talking about a three game sample size, a five yard swing and that kind of stat is gigantic.

And I mean the difference between you know, the Panthers in five is the same differences from five to thirty two.

So they are killing it on there there.

They've got a bunch of guys.

Thomas incomb is, you know, he is a special teams demon.

He is a guy who lives to rundown kicks and blow people up.

He's a little undersized for an outside linebacker.

He's perfectly sized to chase down kicks and punts, and he's very good at it.

But Incomb is surrounded by a bunch of dudes like Claudon Cheralists, who's not a household name but is an important part of this deal.

And those guys talk to.

Lathan Ransom is a big part of that thing too, Bam Martin Scott, a number of guys MoMA Jong Meta, who joined the team a week ago and already had a couple of special teams tackles.

But the guy who leads his team.

In special teams tackles right now, Bryce and Tremayne, of course, of the one offensive player on kick coverage, which is basically a defensive play, is one of the guys that those guys all get jacked up up when they see him make the big hit.

And you've seen it a couple times this year where Tremaine's just running down feel full speed and he's almost the same size as Princely and when you see him moving downfield, it's like that guy's moving pretty well.

Oh he's a receiver.

He's wearing eighty something, not seventy something or twenty something or thirty something.

You realize it's a receiver going down there and doing things with malicious intent, and those guys get kind of fired up about it.

That was a fun story.

You guys should read that for sure.

Something that I think to be said for both the Panthers and the Rams is their kickers are pretty young.

Because I think it was it was either Tracy Smith or maybe it was Dave Canalis somebody in the past week, because this has been a big topic of conversation, somebody in the past week made the point.

A lot of it is because, of course, the initial question is why doesn't every team do this?

If you're going to have to figure out way.

With the whole lane at a black box.

Right, And a lot of that depends on one of the coaches that it depends on your kicker.

What can they do that.

There's a lot of physics involved and just sort of time on task.

Time on task also means breaking some habits, and so if you've got an older kicker who has been kicking it off in the NFL for a certain way for seven years, those are a little bit harder to break.

Ryan Fitzgerald this was his He's had three games in the NFL.

And then the Rams kicker I believe has had just about the same.

Okay, so this is his second year, this is his second year in the NFL.

It's maybe a little bit easier to mold that clay and to kind of teach them.

I may be thinking too much into it, but or not enough, but I think it's interesting that they are both really really young kickers.

Yep, no doubt.

Hey.

And by the way, speaking of special teams in Bryce and Tremaine, Bryce and Tremaine is in the spotlight for other reasons this week, because all of a sudden, when the injury report comes out yesterday afternoon, you see both Tetero and McMillan and xavierly get on it still, and that means maybe you're looking at David Moore and Bryce and Tremain running around out there now.

Te Max said in the locker room yesterday he's hoping he's gonna be able to play.

We'll see what he does on the practice field this afternoon.

Again, Checkpanthers dot com later today for the injury report.

We'll have the latest for you there.

But they've got, you know, a little bit of uncertainty.

Offensively, I mean, they already had the big change on offensive line, and now with some doubt about who's going to be playing receiver, it kind of complicates things a little bit for Bryce.

Yeah, and luckily you do have a David Moore to kind of help through these times because you don't know what's gonna happen with t mac xl.

Of course, like you said, still hasn't practiced h Jaylen Coker still on ir right, So a lot of kind of question marks there.

We talked a lot here in training camp about this receiving group being deep, and I think this is where you see it pay off a little bit.

Hunter Renfro should be back today.

Imagine Yea and his wife girl.

Yeah, very exciting.

But this is where you're kind of seeing that depth payoff because you have a Bryson Tremaine who this is really his first time playing in the regular season, but he's not a rookie.

He's been around for a couple of years.

He was in Washington, I think he appeared in some games there.

And then you've got a David Moore who has played in this offense since he started playing football.

It feels like and and kind of can help facilitate things, and it's just he doesn't mess up.

You know.

We've said this over and over, and sometimes I think, am I just thinking this?

Then I was in the radio booth on Sunday ahead of the game with Jake and Luke and David Moore came up and they both said the same thing, like, he just doesn't he doesn't make mistakes.

He's always there.

And so I think, when you've got a receiver like that, and you've got a Bryson Tremaine who seems to have done nothing but called explosive plays so far this year, I was trying to figure out.

Sometimes they'll tell you how many twenty plush passes he's called, but I can't find it on here.

Now we'll go to our research for that.

He's got five receptions for sixty three yards.

Don't make me do the math on that, but I.

Know a couple of them are smoke rising.

I know a couple of those are for twenty plus.

That's like twelve fish.

Yeah that sounds right.

Yeah, Oh, we love it.

Anyways, he has shown him.

He's tall, he's broad, he's an ideal target body for Bryce to look for, and he has paid.

He's only had a you know, five receptions on seven targets, but he's made the most of them and gained some trust so far.

Yeah, no doubt.

And h you mentioned being in the radio booth and talking to Jake and Luke.

Speaking of Jake and Luke, their names were on Panthers dot com earlier this week too, as as thirteen of the Panthers legends who were preliminary nominees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Of course, Luke Keighley's a automatic finalist this year.

You know, Jacob, fans can nominate whoever they want to the Hall, and Jake keeps getting nominated.

Jake and I have laughed about this seriously, man, But Jake had a tremendous career.

He's Panthers Hall of Honor remember, and well deserved.

But a lot of those guys, thirteen Panthers legends on that list, Luke's an automatic finalists.

Steve Smith is coming off his first year as a finalists, so looking forward to getting him back to that level and continuing the conversation about him.

What else do we got to get to this week?

We've got Oh you went back and watched two thousand and Segating Week four.

What did we learn?

I'll go through these quick, because otherwise we could do an entire episode on just this game.

I took more notes for this game than I have any of the others I've watched so far.

You're best three.

Oh gosh.

First of all, I've the weather changed seven times while I watched that game.

It rained, it was sunny, sometimes it rained while it was sunny, which do you know what the Southern phrase for that is?

I do?

It was Josh Norman had another pick six.

I have no idea that before.

I have no idea how many he how many turnovers he ends the year with At this point, through four games, he had five, And so I'm not gonna look ahead.

I'm just putting in my guess now.

I would assume teams stop throwing towards him at some point, but he also seems to chase some and he got some fumble recoveries too.

My guess I'm gonna put in right now is that he ends the twenty fifteen season with twelve takeaways.

That's a lofty goal.

Let's see.

Let's see.

Uh, there was a practice squad player who got elevated right before this game.

That had like three sacks on Jameis Winston.

He was do you know who it is?

Yes, that's very impressive game.

I'm gonna ask.

I'm assuming this was Jared Allen's first game as a Panther.

It was, it was, Yes, it was.

He was only out there for a couple of a few series here and there.

But Delaire was was incredible.

And then.

There's so much more I could say, but I'm gonna I'm gonna skip to this one.

This game, maybe it's just recency biased from watching it last night.

This game had one of the craziest plays I've ever seen happen in a game of American football.

Do you know what play I'm talking about?

Rich One?

It was a handoff to Jonathan Stewart, who again I'm discovering was great at football, and goes he goes running up the middle.

He's getting tackled and as he gets tackled, the ball gets punched out.

But instead of it going to the ground again oblong ball with made of leather, it goes up and Ed Dixon catches it as it goes up and runs like forty yards for a touchdown.

Course he did, and.

It was just like what what just happened.

It was pretty incredible.

There was a lot of that.

That's why it's cool.

I enjoy the fact that you're committing to going back and watching it too.

There's so much fun.

There's a lot of fun to be had.

There's a lot of be fun to be had.

Later this week.

Oh you know what else this week is.

It's not just a big week.

It's fat Bear Week.

Oh that's right.

You starts this.

If you it started already.

The first two rounds were Monday or Tuesday and Wednesday.

If you have not experienced the joy of fat Bear Week.

It is a project of the cat My National Park in Alaska where they put a webcam and you can watch bears eat salmon in a river all year long and just get huge in time for hibernation.

And you can vote right, and you can vote.

On your favorite fattest bear.

There is a bear, my sleeper bear this year.

My sentimental favorite is a bear.

They they number them, some of them have names.

Most of them are numbers number six oh two.

They refer to He's got a strategy where after he catches a bunch of fish in the river, he just kind of like lies on his back they call him, they call him the flotato, and because of that, I'm voting for Bear six oh two.

You should to make sure to check out Fat Bear Week.

Keep it locked on Panthers dot com.

Go tell Darren Happy birthday.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

That's a lie.

It's not even this week.

Ah, you're just making things up.

I will well, we will see you guys back here on Monday.

For now, we're on to New England, as the man said, and we will see y'all next week.

Thanks to our friends from deep It