The Happy Half Hour.

Hello friends, and welcome to the Happy half Hour.

And I'm starting to give myself a complex and think we might need to change the name of the podcast or something because it's been less happy lately.

That's true, you know, Happiness is what you find in the world, Darren.

Happiness is what you make it.

The true treasure was the friends we made along the way or something so anyway, so in honor of that, in order to keep the vibes good, I will tell you we got a special Happy half Hour shout out this weekend.

I was standing in the lobby of our hotel in Phoenix the other day and a distinguished gentleman looks at me and says, Darren Gant, why are you looking at me?

And I was thought, oh God, I'm gonna have to fight or something here in the lobby of this hotel.

As it turns out, it was a certain mister Isaac Canalis, the father of Panther's head coach Dave Canalis, who is a big fan of The Happy Half Hour.

So, mister Canais, thank you for joining us, and thank all of our Happy half Hour family, because uh, that was tough one yesterday.

There's no getting around that it was Panthers fall twenty seven to twenty two at Arizona.

They are now oh and to the news.

Got even worse today because you put two starters in Rob Hunt and Austin Corbett on injured reserve and what do they say on TV?

Not great Bob, Not great Bob.

Yeah, And there are so many different parts of it though that you can look at when you look when you look at the game, when you look at the comeback, when you look at all three phases sort of stepping up in the second half that are encouraging.

But overall, you know, Dave Canalis preaches finish all the time.

Finish, finish, finish, and at the end of the day, they didn't finish on that last drive.

That's gonna be what they carry on into this next week.

That that thought, we can sit here and I'm sure we will and kind of look at the good, the bad and all of it and the encouraging that came out of it.

But to come into Monday knowing that you are oh and two going into your first home game, your first division game, and that you do lose those two massive guys on that offensive line and in the locker room has to be a little discouraging.

I'll let you give the breakdown of what happened.

With and again Checkpanthers dot com for all the latest on this and all the moves throughout the course of the week.

But Rob Hunt torn biceps tendon on the left side.

He's gonna have surgery.

That's gonna be a long term one.

Dave would not say they're done for the year.

He's always holding out hope, leaving the door open.

Austin Korbett's got MCL sprain.

It's a serious version of the mcl spray, not a short term thing by any stretch of the imagination.

But he's just not prepared to shut him down for the whole season because primarily you don't need to.

They've got those eight spots to return guys from IR over the course of the year if they want to.

Jalen Kocher sitting there now, that's an opportunity in a couple of weeks.

We'll see how that goes.

But you just don't have to do that right now.

But it's obviously a huge blow.

I mean, Rob was the premier free agent signing of last offseason.

After giving up sixty five sacks and Bryce having a really bad time of it his rookie year.

They went out and spent a pile of money to get a big old Robert Hunt in here, and he came in and played great football.

Not good football, but great football.

That's why he went to the Pro Bowl for the first time last year.

He's one of those elite guards.

And they love their depth.

I mean, they created this plan and this was all very intentional to build a team a certain way.

But when the quarterbacks got sacked a lot in twenty three, Dan Morgan comes in, spends a bunch of money for to find that offensive line, both the front line and the backups.

And now you've got this deep group for a reason.

And you've got a guy in Chandler Zavala who you like.

He's a former fourth round pick, big physical guy.

He's going to have an opportunity to settle in there and make that job his own.

I mean, I think they've got a number of options.

They could always plug Brady Christiansen in, They've got other guys who can play in different spots.

But Chance got his opportunity to jump in there and make that thing his own at the moment.

Yeah, and he's had the chance over the past year as well to study behind drop hunting, to kind of look at what he does and what he does well and how to translate that to his own game.

This is why they brought back that entire offensive line room.

That's right.

Obviously you don't wish it to come to this, and you especially don't wish it to come to this in week two.

But this is why you have that deep room.

This is why it was so important, so vital to bring back that entire unit so that you don't have a repeat of twenty twenty three or you have thirteen different guards in there at some point, is that right.

Eight different right guards, seven different left guards.

Taking of course of the season, some of them were the same guy who started up on one side or the other, but there was a lot of dudes.

Yeah, during twenty three, you're fortunate you didn't have to hang around and see all that much.

Right, and that would have been quite an adventure.

Sure imagine it sure was something.

But also with the mcl spraying, Austin Corbett's going on ir again.

This man has terrible luck.

There's really no other way to describe it.

When you think about some of the things it happened to him, the knee injuries, the biceps last year.

I mean, it's just you feel terrible because we were able to do some cool stuff at Panthers dot Com a couple of years ago.

When he tore his ACL.

Austin is a unique individual.

I mean, he's got some degree of medical background.

Told me he probably would have gone to med school if he hadn't realized to get it really good at football, and so Nevada turned him into a public health major.

And he told me when he tore his ACL the end of twenty two, he said, yeah, I knew something was up when I felt that valgus movement.

And I said, I beg your pardon, and he started using medical words with me, and I realized he knew what he was talking about.

So Austin volunteered basically to walk us through the ACL journey.

So he and I spent a lot of time together in twenty three talking through that rehab, all the steps along the way, what happened at every interval, you know, going inside the training room, doing all that kind of stuff.

And it was really neat content, but it was an insight into how much effort this guy put into getting back on the field, and all the support staff that surrounded him, from the athletic trainers, nutritionist, everybody in the building lays hands on these guys when they're coming back from injuries.

So it was quite a journey and I got to know Austin at a different level through that.

So seeing him go through this is hard because this is a guy who all he wants to do is play football for the Carolina Panthers.

I mean, he said it last night in the locker room, and you know, kids, if you're listening ear muffs, it's really not that bad.

But Austin was talking about the injury and he said, football sucks.

I love it.

And that's kind of where he is, because here's a guy who's in a lot of pain, knowing he's looking at another rehab now and trying to figure out how to get himself back on the field.

And the other part of that, too is now you have Robert Hunt going through the same thing.

Guy that came in, like you said, played great football last year.

He was not only such a stalwarth on that line, he was he was a pillar in that locker room.

He had endeared himself to the locker room, to the fan base, to the coaches, very very quickly, and was able to kind of help set the tone a lot of days at practice and games off days, so on and so forth, to the point that Dave can Alis told us today that he immediately He's like, you know, I immediately went to Robert and to Austin was like, I'm gonna need you guys around.

Yep, you know, this is gonna be hard.

This is gonna be tough.

It's gonna be a long run for Austin the mental part of it.

It's got to be tough to just go through it again.

But these are guys that can still affect the game in such a huge way just by being there.

Ye and I wouldn't be surprised if we see both of them stick around just at the bequest of their coach and at knowing that their teammates might need them.

Rob has a big, wonderful spirit.

I've gotten a kick out of seeing him, watching him do his job.

One of my favorite things I've ever seen Rob Hunt do, besides obliter rate guys on the defensive line, which is what he's really good at.

There was a scene this summer in OTAs where a couple guys boat up on each other acted like they wanted to fight, like Isaac Canal has walked up to him in the lobby of a hotel or something.

But when these two guys got salty, Rob jumped between them and just started dancing.

Please don't try to dance and thank goodness.

For this table that you can't see.

Well, my hips are doing below the table here, but they do not lie, by the way.

But Rob just has.

That ability to keep things light while knowing it's very serious stuff.

And he was like, listen, this is hard.

This job is hard.

It takes a lot, and he knows what it takes now or is going to find out what it takes to stay out there.

And he's like, you gotta have fun with it too.

So Rob has that buoyant spirit that enables them to, you know, kind of jump up and recover quickly from things.

I mean, he's got the right attitude for this kind of thing.

So, you know, Chandler's volas start at right guard for the next little bit, cade May's jumps in at center.

And that's something we're familiar with too.

I mean last year, second half of this season when Austin did have his injury, Caid jumped in after being away from a moment he was on the Giants practice squad after getting waived here initially in the cuts to fifty three.

He comes back for Germany and ends up starting second half of the year at center when they played really well.

So Austin's a very capable guy.

That's the benefit of that depth.

I mean, it's just what do I say, Did I say, Austin, Kate?

All those guys look allect now Cade jumped in and played really good football.

And again, all of this depth was on purpose.

So resigning a Caid Mays wasn't something a lot of people may have necessarily anticipated this offseason, but they knew it was important to have that kind of layered in so that if they find themselves in this spot, which they do, and we two, now you've got a good plan B and it's one.

Of the And this is not in any way at all to diminish Austin's contributions and how good he is.

But Kate is someone that we know Bryce is very comfortable with because that's really who Bryce played with last year.

You know, Bryce played the first two games with Austin, but those games were well, we know how those went last year, right was sat down, Andy played with Austin really until Austin was hurt right around the same time Bryce came back in, and so those two didn't have a ton of reps together.

Bryce and Cade have a lot of experience together at this point, and so you know, I don't think there's any drop off or anything.

It'll help Bryce a lot to have somebody that he already knows is very comfortable with kind of stepping back in there.

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

But there's a lot of other stuff to get to today, and I want to make sure to look back at that game.

Yeah, listen, the biggest thing in that game.

And Dave came in first thing in his press conference last night and he said, love the comeback, can't have the mistakes, and that was kind of it was a complicated response by all these guys last night, because you want to be down into dumps when you lose a game like that, to go to Owen too, that's the natural reaction.

But same time, the last twenty minutes of that football game had some encouraging stuff the Carolina Panthers, and if you've seen Dave Canalis talk about it.

In the last four to twenty four hours, you realize he's kind of torn.

I mean, he likes this a lot, but he hates this even more so.

The big thing is you can't turn the ball over twice in the first ten minutes of a game and getting a ten to nothing hole.

The kids call it holding space for two.

Truths, holding space for two truths.

We are holding space for two truths here.

The truth of hey, that was a really impressive fight and come back and to be down twenty seven to three midway through the third quarter, A lot of teams could have folded.

A lot of teams would have folded to have enough moxie to come back and be in a position to try to win the game at the end.

That's encouraging.

It's also very very true that you should have never been in that hole to start with because of the two early turnovers, and that if you want to be the team you say you want to be, you've got to finish and you've got to actually win on that final drive.

So holding space for true truce here, Yeah, on this Monday after night.

Those parking spaces are different that that one space is like when in compact spots.

Yeah, for the big SUV.

It's yeah, But I got my spot in it.

I got my We got back late last night.

There were very few parking spots left in my apartment.

I fit into a compact spot.

When you want to, you make it happen.

Nailed it.

I respect your resilience.

Yeah, there was a lot happening yesterday.

I mean truly, I think it's one of those things that'll get lost to the sands of time.

But the Carolina Panthers did come back score three unanswered touchdowns.

They were down twenty seven to three.

And I think defenses play with a different liberty.

Yeah sometimes when they got when they've got that kind of padding.

But there was some cool.

Football in there in the midst and I think one of the really kind of landmark moments for me out of that game was that on side kick.

Yes, I think the one of the more impressive things about it.

First of all, the rules changed for the on side kicks last year.

I think a total of three were recovered yeah last season, and I'm not sure about what we've gotten through two weeks so far this season.

I don't I don't think one was recovered in well.

I haven't checked the data around the league, but I went to JJ Janssen ball Noher Noher of Special Teams, and I went to him last night in the locker room and I said, hey, I don't know.

I know, you don't have your spreadsheets with all your data in front of you recovering on sidekick.

What's the percentage of that?

And he just looked at me without blinking, with six percent.

Over the last three years, it was a five point four percent play, and it's trended up a little bit.

I mean, it's a tough conversion anyway.

Once they made you declare, I mean, now the rules are last year you could only do it in the fourth quarter, and now you can do it anytime your trailing.

You still have to declare.

You still have to declare.

I mean, the situation was obvious when the Panthers were doing it that they were going to do it.

But you've still got to do a lot of stuff right in a little bit of time.

Yes, Sam Martin's got to hit that weird spinning bouncing ball.

It's got to hit somebody on the red team.

Yep, somebody on the blue team's got to jump upon it.

And if he secures it cool, but if it squirts out of him when the pile jumps on top of Claude and cherlist A Demani Richardson's got to be running the ball to get on top of it, so you.

Got to make sure it goes the right distance.

And sometimes onside kicks are a little bit about being lucky.

The one yesterday was executed perfectly.

That was not necessarily luck.

That was just really good execution.

And claud and Cherliss, if you don't know the name, you should.

Claude's an incredible human being.

We called an awful lot here at the Happy half Hour.

But he's also really good at playing special teams and he's kind of become one of those guys in that unit amidst a lot of turnover there.

And Claude said, to listen, we rep this every week, or we practice it every week.

We don't rep at a ton.

We don't get a lot of opportunities in practice to really dig into on sidekick execution.

So you have to know what you're supposed to do, and a lot of it is want to A lot of it is running to the ball and having eleven dudes going to the ball so that when Claude comes over the top, lands on it, it squirts out.

Demani's right there to get on top.

Demani did tell Lathan Ransom when they were getting ready to go out there, he said, I'm about to get this kick and Latha said he got it.

He was right rock on bro.

Yeah.

So, and Dave can Als mentioned this today again holding space for two truths.

The encouraging part of yesterday was that that comeback took all three phases of the team, and you know, it was the offense scoring three unanswered touchdowns, it was the defense getting the turnover forcing a three and out, and the special team's getting the on side kick.

And so that again, if you're finding encouraging things in silver linings, that's something you can take forward to be like, hey, when everybody does their job and everybody does their part, look at what we can do.

Yeah, no doubt.

There were a couple other things.

I mean, and again not to this is not about excusing or making excuses for that was a bad l But there were a couple other things that I think stood out to me that you kind of grab onto and want to see if it continues to develop.

Run defense has been a sore subject around here.

It have been seven straight games of two hundred yards or more and.

That's one of those.

I know it's gold in this studio, but yeah, that was one of those bad stats.

Eighty four yesterday eighty two.

You held James Connor and Kyler Murray in the cards, people who can run it and are pretty good at it.

You held them to eighty two yards on the ground.

That's good work.

I mean, that's where the Carolina Panthers need to get to on defense.

We talked all offseason about how you didn't have to go from bottom of the league to top of the league.

Get to the middle, get play good, solid football, Get to the middle, and you can make a lot of strides based on the assumption that the offense was going to continue to build on what they did last year.

So seeing those guys create a lad turnover, I mean, seeing DJ Wantam get that interception was a big thing.

But just the simple act of playing stable run defense.

Yeah, and that's what they need to do moving forward.

I mean, it's gonna be huge for them over the next couple of weeks.

You know, we'll see there's some cat named b Jean Robinson coming in here this week, and he's been going to put up a number two in his day.

So continuing to play that kind of good, solid football is what they gotta do.

And they limited the explosives on the ground.

Yep.

That was a thing that would hurt a lot.

You know, you give up two hundred to the Jags.

Eighty one of that is to Trevor Etn yep, and no Travis Travis Etn.

That's right Jacksonville on.

The Jacksonville et in.

So you know that's that's almost half right there.

There was an explosive yesterday versus the Cardinals.

It was a thirty yarder by Kyler Murray on a brake scramble, but they kind of negated that as well with some tackles for loss with a sack and so more than anything, I thought what was really impressive was holding James Connor to thirty four yards to three point one.

Yards per Carrie.

I mean he had eleven carries, He's still got the ball plenty, and limited him in the passing game as well, because that's something that the Cardinals will do.

If defenses are bowing up on Connor in the box, they'll flex him out and use them in the passing game, he had one catch for eighteen yards.

And so limiting the explosives was a good first step for this rush defense because not only to your point, they've given up two hundred or more and seven straight games.

They had given up triple digits in every game since Week three of last year.

And so this is the first time since Week three of last season that they have held a team to less than one hundred yards on the ground.

Yeah, that's a good step.

It's definitely something they need to continue to build on over the course of the week.

So a lot of stuff to come this week.

We will see you back here on Thursday for the Atlanta facing edition of The Happy Half Hour.

But stay tuned.

There's a lot to happen between then.

You're gonna have roster moves.

They're gonna backfill the fifty three man roster once Austin and Rob go on ir.

There's a lot of stuff to be done.

You're gonna be looking at new starters in new places.

You're gonna see how they bounce back.

We'll have it all for you on Panthers dot com on the YouTube channel.

Thank you to mister Canalis.

We appreciate you.

Sir, for your.

Support listening thanks to Jordan Jordan Gross, friend of the program, Jordan Gross.

Hats off to the Fruitland Grizzlies, the Undefeated grizz we got to see since they were on bye week.

We got to see Jordan this weekend and he told me he liked watching The Happy Half Hour for a lot of reasons, but to mostly to see when I would stop fiddling with all my items over.

He did good today.

He was like, your phone.

Yeah, well, I'm totally self conscious now.

So I brought my friend to duck here, to the here, to the table.

So I'm gonna keep my friend the duck here, just to give myself something to fiddle with.

I like the duck.

The duck is a friend of the program, so we will keep the duck here.

I've got my phone, I've got all my items.

We've got Panthers dot Com updates coming all throughout the next couple days.

Stay tuned.

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Let's see what happens rest of this week.

We'll see you on Thursday on the next Happy Half Hour.