This week on a Happy half Hour.
We know that Cuba works hard. The stories of him and the Jugs Machine have now become legend.
Now.
All the time he and Tommy Tremble spend after practice working to improve their game has now become part of his bio. Also, he is developing as a running back. He's learned how to set up runs Tots Doll.
Row.
It's time for the Happy Half Hour, presented by Southern Star, an official bourbon of the Carolina Panthers. Here are your hosts, Darren Gant and Cassidy Hill.
Hello, friends, and welcome to the Happy Half Hour. And it is happy right, It's fall.
You know what. It's always a happy day when I'm with you, Darren, And you are right. It was like fifty nine degrees when I was walking in today, a nice fallbreeze. I wore us. There you go go into a pumpkin patch on Saturday. I mean, this is this is a white girl's time to shine.
There you go, you know what, you know what's perfect for fall, for sweater weather in pumpkins football at Southern Star. Because Happy Half Hour is presented by a Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers celebrate the Spirit of the Carolina Panthers. What is the spirit of the Carolinas?
That's what we should Spirit.
Of the Carolinas. Did I screw up that?
Read?
Even after you handed me the card? Podcast Matt, I'm just the worst. I'm so glad at this. Who thought it was a good idea to give me a microphone in live airtime?
Thank goodness, we're not live.
This was terrible at any rate.
Speaking of the Spirit of the Carolinas, that's a good little plug real quick.
Yeah hit me.
There are going to be shirts for sealing the team store on Sunday, proceeds going to Hurricane relief that say keep pounding for the Carolinas. They are a beautiful shirt. Go grab you one on your way to the game.
Yeah, absolutely, Hurricane Relase and we're gonna have more about those available on Panthers dot com later today. You can see the pictures the guys were wearing it as they participated in some relief efforts earlier this week. And anytime something like that gets out there in the world, people
are like, how can I get one of those? And the answer is right now at the Carolina Panthers Team store starting today on Thursday, one hundred percent of the net proceeds of these shirts is going to hurricane relief. We've got so many of our neighbors here in the Carolinas in a bad spot right now, given the what happened with Hurricane Helene in the aftermath and the terrible flooding in the mountains and so many areas around. This is going to that and we're gonna stand up. We're
gonna help our neighbors because that's what neighbors do. And there's all kind of stuff between the shirts that are available so many people. I've just talked to so many people in the community in the last couple of days, and it's amazing that every church in town is doing something for real efforts. Every group you know is is doing something to help their neighbors. And you know all by the way, the weekend the Panthers are in Bronco
are in Denver to play the Broncos. Uh, there's gonna be a little concert here at Bank of America Stadium. Maybe you've heard something about that too, So you know, hats off the guys like Luke Colm's and Eric.
Church, Sheryl Crowe, James Taylor.
Yeah, those two in particular, I mean, because they are what I like to say, they are from and of they are us, and they are stepping up for their people, and that's what you love to see. So it's just this morning. I could just went on sale this morning and they're going fast and there are going to be a lot of them. From what I understand of the stage set up it's being it's being put together here in the building to maximize the crowd available. So a lot of details to come, stay tuned for that on
how you can see it live and maybe otherwise. Uh, details to come, so stay tuned for all that. But at some point in this podcast about football, I guess we got to talk about football, And as far as I'm concerned, the less time we spend talking about Chicago, the better. That was not a memorable trip for any good reason for a lot of people, So it got
away from them early and it didn't turn around. I think from a football standpoint, Dave Canalis is always talking about third down percentage, and when you go zero for six on third downs in the first half of a ballgame against the team that can move the ball a little bit, that's not going well for you, and it did not, and boom before you look up your down three scores at halftime, and then it's kind of everything's
out of phase. So all the things they want to be about or are kind of not on the menu anymore. You want to be stubborn, you want to run, You want to keep giving it to Chuba Hubbard because he's killing it lately. But it's kind of hard to justify that when you're down three scores. So it's one of those one problem feeds the next three. And it just got downhill on them the other day and they're moving on. So now we talk about Atlanta, right, Yeah.
I did want to add one thing. The Bears had a twenty point second quarter. That's gonna change a lot of games, so we can talk in and out about the defensive side of things. I will say that offense didn't necessarily hold up their end of the which is hard to do when you're down three scores. But I think you might have even said this in your mailbag, and if you didn't, I'm just quoting you in my
mind because it sounds like something you would say. This sounds weird to say only five games in and given what happened the first two weeks, but what we've seen of the offense the past few weeks, Sunday felt more like the anomaly, not the Raiders game.
Yeah, it really did. And you can tell based on what they're trying to do offensively. I mean, Andy Dalton's brought a sense of stability to this thing. You know what he's good at, you know the kind of quarterback he is, because you've got fourteen years of evidence to base it on. Cuba Hubbard is on a heater.
Right right, just an absolute tear.
Three yard short of three straight hundred yard games. He is catching the ball well, he is doing all those Tuba things that were used to CHEWBA Hubbard doing. I mean, one of the things that's interesting to me, and I wrote about him last night at Panthers dot com. Cuba has always been a guy with straight lenspeed. You know, the old Canadian high school track star thing was part of his bio early on, even when he went to
Oklahoma State. We know that Cuba works hard. The stories of him and the Jugs machine have now become legend now. All the time he and Tommy Tremble spend after practice working to improve their game has now become part of his bio. Also, the thing that's impressive to me about Chewba Hubbard right now is he is developing as a running back. He's learned how to set up runs, I think with any with any back, And Dave Canal has
talked about this a little bit yesterday. There is a temptation when you're a young back to if a hole is closed off, to stop and pop it the other direction. And when you do that, you're taking a chance at making a big play, but you're also throwing away the design of the play. Here's what Canal has had to say about that.
Some guys are naturally that way. Some guys naturally are looking for the home run. And based on their lifetime experience, a lot of these guys were talking about thousands of kerries dating back to when they're ten years old, you know, some of them even younger. And so they've found ways to find success, to find holes in the defense, you know, and sometimes it was cutting way back against the grain, you know. And unfortunately in this league that doesn't work
a lot because everybody's fast and everybody's big. And so while you become a professional running back, you learn the value of just that patience of knowing where to hit it, what's the front, how are the linebackers playing it, where's my leverage at, you know, and then making sure that you can set run up as the game goes on. And that certainly is a skill that's developed over time, and that's something that Cuba has shown a knack for.
It's really about discipline, it's really about patience. Because I had a coach explain it to me the other day. What Cuba is doing right now is kind of staying on the path that the play was called on. So rather than making that big adjustment if he runs into trouble, it's a subtle one. It's one step rather than popping it the other way and back the way the play
was designed to go. And you saw on that thirty eight yard touchdown run, I mean, Austin Corbett and Robert Hunt get out there and there is a hole I could have runty eight yards through and I am not particularly fast. So I just think that by developing that discipline, developing that patience is a running back, you're starting to see all those other cool things that Cuba's been doing, like being fast and working hard, show more and more the patience.
It's letting the play set up the way it was supposed to. And then it also is a little bit of that speed. I think you and I could have run maybe twelve yards through that whole.
I was taken that one to the house.
But then from there Tuba did hit the fastest speed of his career on the back end of that run.
I've never gone twenty miles an hour outside of a car in my life. Well that's not true.
You prius go twenty miles an hour.
Yeah, Will, It's got all the speed I need. That's not true. I have done over twenty miles an hour on my bicycle going downhill, so and always wear a helmet.
I did that one time too, which is why I have half an eyebrow missing from the stitches.
That's quite a story that might be its own podcast. So surgery Stories with Cassidy Hill. What do you think, Matt is Is there a future for that? Can we get that sponsored by Adrian? Maybe?
Eh?
Yeah, you see what I'm doing there, energy all our friends in the medical profession. We don't do this on purpose or without professional guidance. So anyway back to Cuba and the offense, I mean, I mentioned Austin Corbett and Rob Hunt created that giant hole. Obviously, things are going to be different this week with Austin Corbett out for the season. It's one of those injuries torn biceps and speaking of advice from medical professionals, biceps are both singular and.
Plural, a lesson I learned this week.
Always put an S on the end of that one. Kids, it's both singular and plural. They is our singular and they is our plural biceps.
So that's not confusing at all.
That's English one oh one. We do it for the people here at the Happy half Hour, kids. But seriously, Austin's loss is going to be a huge one, not just because he had settled into that position and made it its own. We spent a lot of time this offseason talking about could Austin Corbett police Center. The answer was a resounding yes. He was part of what had
become a really good offensive line. And it's tough not just to replace a guy, but to replace a guy who was part of that personality that they had built. I mean, Damian Lewis talked about mean, tough and nasty, and him and Rob and Austin had been that through five games. I mean they were leaning on people, creating a lot of holes for Chewba Hubbard and protecting well. And that's what you want an offensive line to do.
I guess now we need to figure out which one is Brady Christensen. Does he mean tough for nasty.
Or maybe he's something else here?
Let him be his own person. I guess you know, they have a chance this week to set up this offensive line they wait they wanted to for the rest of the season, or to get some good reps under their belt, because you look at that Thursday night game between the Falcons and the Bucks last week. The first half, the Falcons didn't have a single pressure on Baker Mayfield that entire first half. Now they got after and more
in the second half just as things wore on. But if you can hold up like that in the first half against the line that I mean, you've got Matthew Judin back there. But you know, if you can do what the Bucks did, the Bucks proved it's possible and it's very capable to protect your quarterback against this Falcons defensive front. If you can do that in the first half and build up a little bit of a lead, and get a couple of stops on defense. That's getting
into the whole game plan. But from the offensive line of it all, this is this is not a horrible matchup to kind of get your new offensive line set well, and.
It's a familiar challenge. Much like the Carolina Panthers, the Falcons are not overburdened with multiple pass rush weapons. I mean, they went out and got an old head like Matthew Judon for a reason, much the same way the Panthers did with Davian Clowney. And other than that, they're still very much looking for answers. But here's what we know absolutely about the Falcons defense. Jesse Bates a problem.
Yeah.
Jesse Bates is a guy you've got.
To you can play center field almost better than anything.
Yeah, you've got to know where he is on every play. And Andy talked about that the other day as a guy that you know, he knows from his years in Cincinnati. So they do have to be careful about that.
I think for them it's the players that they have. They're aggressive, they're smart, they understand the game really well. I was with Jesse Bates for a couple of years and since he so I know the type of player that he is. Their fronts of very veteran group, guys that have played a ton of ball, And so you go it into just what that style of defense that they're bringing. I mean, they're aggressive, they're smart, they they're running to the ball. I mean they've played really well this year.
But I think more than anything, I mean going back to I'm going to do, like Dave Canalis, let's make this about us. I want to talk about what the Panthers are. This is us, which I'm still not convinced as a television show is something I'm ever going to partake.
Whatever you think it is. It's not though everything you've said about this show has been wrong.
Well maybe so, but I don't watch a lot of TV to begin with, so I don't know that I'm That's one I'm going to add. But back to the Panthers and what they want to do. You mentioned Christian in a second ago. I think Brady kind of profiles a lot like Austin. When you're an offensive lineman, whether it's in high school, middle school, college, if you're the best offensive lineman on your team, you're a left tackle,
whether you're a left tackle or not. I mean, Austin Corbett's college coach at Nevada told him, Son, you're playing left tackle right now, but you're a center, whether you know it or not. It just took him eight years to get there. Brady has a lot of those same traits. I mean, Brady Christiansen is athletic, Brady Christiansen is smart, and Brady Christiansen is aware and those are kind of the things that you need your center to be in the modern NFL. And I think he has those traits
to be able to pull that off. Now, he's got to like Austin. You know, at least Austin had the benefit of always being the emergency center. This is still kind of a new job for Brady's. He's learning as he goes and things have smoothed out, but he got a lot of reps at it through OTAs, through training camp, through the preseason, and you know, he is a guy that they know. You know. I think somebody said the other day, what I know Brady is is a good
offensive lineman. Yeah, And I think having him in between Robin Damian Lewis kind of gives him an opportunity to settle in same way it did with Austin.
And you know something else that I honestly didn't think about until this exact moment. This is just off the top of the dome.
Mm hmm.
Brady Christensen was the backup center, that's correct, which means he spent a lot of the off season with Andy Dalton.
Hey. That is right. That kind of works out, doesn't it.
Right? Look how look at how it all came together.
All comes together full circle here and our old friend Kid Mays is back in the building. Cade's another guy who's got experience playing both guard spots and center in his career. So that was a nice little piece of depth to get back in after Caid had spent a couple of weeks on the Giant's practice squad in his time away from us here and Charlotte. But they're gonna have to get back to that personality. I mean, that's just it. Whether they're playing the Falcons, whether it's Denver
in a couple of weeks, whether it's Washington. The plan's not really gonna change because I mean they want to do very basic things and do them well and then build on this thing. Dave Canalis's whole plan for this offense is lay in the foundation right now and continue to add, continue to adapt. I mean, he talks about his dream scenario is being able to run plays out of five different personnel groups. And it's gonna take some time for the Carolina Panthers to get to that point.
But what we know they can do right now is run, let Andy do smart Andy Dalton things, and get some play action off of that and move the ball down the field from time to time. It's very simple. It's not easy, but it is simple, and that's what they're trying to do at the moment.
I kind of love that this week gives us an Andy Dalton versus Kirk Cousins matchup. I don't know, I just feel like it's so almost ironic considering how young the NFL went over the past few years, to now see these guys that have been able to stick around and stick it out and really develop the mental side of their game kind of step back in and prove what can be how you can last as a quarterback in this league for a really long time.
Dad Ball is real, gang, it is. Let these old guys cook, is the answer.
Of course, what did you call this yesterday? One for the aged?
Yeah, one for the aged it's and listen, man, these guys are in their mid thirties, then old, come on. But these two are, you know, examples of and I say this all the time about young quarterbacks. Playing quarterback in the NFL is really hard gage and it takes some time for some people to learn how to do it. And fortunately Kirk and Andy have had that time and the experience. And you know, I think everybody's always looking
to that next thing and the younger thing. And in an ideal world, if you drafted one and he was ready to go right out of the chute, cool, But it's hard to pull that off. So guys like Andy and Kirk are gonna hang around for a long long time because they're smart, and they're accurate, and they're good at the footballs, so they're gonna keep on getting chances.
Yeah, and that's on the defensive side of things. Like you said, kirkis kirkus so accurate, He's so smart, And I think he currently is tied for a league lead eight comebacks or something like that he has. I looked it up. At one point. I think he has like twenty something odd fourth quarter comebacks and a few more
than that game winning drives. So this is a guy that if you get into a battle with, you've got to get a couple of scores on because otherwise he can push you right there at the end of the game. So it's gonna be a lot about making stops. It's gonna be tough with the pass rush where it is currently, so you've got to depend on that back end, you know what, can Exavier Woods and Nick Scott and Mike Jackson and j C. Horn Like, It's gonna be a lot on them this week, especially with guys like Drake
London out there. And then oh, by the way, you've also got Bjon Robinson, one of the best running backs in the league, who can also flex out and catch some passes on will routes out of the backfield, even like little intermediate screens.
The Falcons are an intriguing team to try to gain plan against because they're capable of doing so much different stuff, right, I mean, Kyle Pitts has been billed as this multi purpose threat for a long long time, and everybody wondered how they were going to match up on Kyle. And as a guy who may or may not have Kyle Pitts on my fantasy football team, which does not include money as a prize. It's only for funsie so it's completely legal for me.
Good disclaimer, you know.
I mean the production hasn't always matched the potential, but the potential is there. Yeah, I mean, you know, to look at him, you know, from the time he was going up against Stefon Gilmour a few years ago, it's like, this guy can do a lot of different things. And you can say that about a lot of guys on that Falcons offense. So if you needed any more information, that game they played Thursday a week ago should tell you everything you need to know about what they're capable of.
They can score points and they can scom in a hurry.
Let me ask you this. Falcons and now Kirk have the whole swag surf thing. What should the Panthers and Andy do? Like, what should their dance be?
I don't know what swagsurfing is. Can you help me with that?
It goes and I swag and swag. You've seen people do it, you just didn't know that's what it was.
Mat Are we violating copyright music laws? Here? Are we walking right up to.
The I can guarantee you I did not sing it the way it actually sounds.
Okay, it sounds good, but uh yeah, I don't know. We'll have to work on that. I think Andy is a man of many talents, but I don't necessarily see him as a dancer, do you.
I didn't see Kirk Cousins as a dancer either.
That's fair.
He started to do.
It, that is fair. I didn't necessarily see Kirk Cousins with his shirt off and a gold chain around his neck either. He continues to defy expectations. So at any rate we're moving, it should be interesting to see. And you know what, Panthers are wearing black helmets this week, in case you didn't notice yesterday during practice when they were playing a CDC's back in black. Yeah, that's how that goes. In fact, and so the Atlanta Falcons are
coming here to Bank of America Stadium. They're wearing the black helmets. You know what that means. I know the record, good things happened for the good guys, so and and and even I've looked at there there's no rain in the forecast. I don't know how I'm gonna act with the Falcons in here in black helmets and adults. So yeah, well, you know what could possibly go wrong? Nothing, It's just
football at any rate. So we've talked about the football, We've talked about the relief efforts coming up here in the area, with the T shirts, with the concerts, all that cool stuff. We got to go to the jukebox. H to close this episode out, you had me listening to Noah Khan Uh. Noah con is one of those dudes. I think that in twenty years, I'm curious to know whether his music is still known because it feels so specific to a time and a place.
I think. I mentioned that last week he puts time stamps on his songs, and I don't love that.
I mean, twenty years from now is a pandemic song about loneliness and somebody leaving him gonna hold up. I don't know. The context is so central to what that song is all about that I wonder about. But it's a catchy song, and it's you know, like a lot of the songs that you and I end up picking. It is well written, it is tight, it is catchy, and everybody enjoys it. I do kind of wonder though, And as I was scanning the lyrics, a lot of times.
I'm a super nerd. Sometimes I've sat and watched movies with a copy of the script open beside me, so I can read dialogue long yep, super nerd. But scanning those lyrics, why you listen to that song you realize, you know, it is artistically performed. I will give him that.
Wait, what is artistically performed?
I mean he's just got a there is a it is bouncy in a way that it's hard to make scripted words feel that way. Yes, but he's got a certain syncopation about the way he sings. I enjoy it. It is catchy. Here's a fun fact about Noah Khan. Okay, Noah Khan was the nephew of a former doctor who is a medical fellow here with the Carolina Panthers. Used to be down in the training room with our friend Kevin King and Katie and Karen and all our friends down there, and Kevin said, yeah, he was talking to
us the other week. He's like, yeah, my nephew sings. Really, it's your nephew. It's got no coln. Maybe you've heard of him. And then a couple of years down the line, it's like, oh, you mean that guy. He was huge.
Kevin is an avid listener of the Happy half Hour podcast, and he stopped me in the hallway last a few days ago and said, that song you made Darren listen to, and he's like, guess who his relative is?
So yeah, it is something else. So I sentenced you to another, another one of my upbeat numbers. Did I make you listen to so often? Didn't? I?
You did? And I will say this is probably my favorite one you've given me yet. I really really enjoyed it. It's so funny too, considering how much Highwayman I listened to growing up just because of my dad, that Chris Christopherson as a musician is sort of a blind spot for me. I know him more as Jennifer Aniston's dad from the movie. He's just not that into you. But I did look him up on Wikipedia. I just wanted to.
I was curious about a couple of things, and I realized how many songs he wrote that he didn't sing that are so popular me and Bobby McGhee Sunday Morning coming Down. I thinks I know there's a couple of others, But that being said, really really enjoyed this one from the first notes, I could tell I was gonna love it before he even He didn't even start by singing. He started with spoken word like. From the first notes of the song, I could tell, Oh, this is my jam.
And I've gone back and listened to it quite a few times. I'm definitely going to add Chris Christopherson to my need to listen to now. I was talking to my dad about it too, because he's gotten very interested in what songs were assigning each other each week. And I said, yeah, this week, I'm listening to a Chris Christofferson song. And he went on a full diatribe about Chris Christopherson. It was it boiled down to the man
as a genius. He was a Rhodes scholar. Didn't know that and according to my dad, one of the best songwriters of the American generation.
No question about it. The day he died, I sent you this and I was sitting around the house listening and one of the lines, it's kind of the chorus of the Pilgrim Chapter thirty three. He's a poet, he's a picker, he's a prophet, he's a pusher. He's a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he stoned. He's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, taking every wrong direction on his lonely walk back. Yeah, if I ever write a paragraph that good in my entire life,
I quit. I'm done. That's just gonna be Mike Drop. It's been good, but I never will because things I am not Rhodes scholar, former Army helicopter pilot. Legend of the game. That's now.
Let me ask you real quick, did you figure out which line from Stick Season that I said is one of I just think it's such a good, well written line. No tell me, it's so simple. It's like such a small line, so simple you almost miss it. But there's a line in the second verse that says you once called me forever and now you still can't call me back.
Yeah. I just think it's HiT's hard.
Yeah, when it's a little dichotomy.
And when I saw no Kan at the festival here back in the spring, he h he kind of dark. He his his music comes from a dark place. So that's why going into this week, I'm gonna cheer it up a little bit. I have held I have held off thus far. On the Happy Half Hour Jukebox uh, probably for too long. My favorite live act that I've ever seen, and I've probably only seen him about nine or ten times now, is Frank Turner. You've heard me talk about him, You've heard our friend Rob Demofsky talk
about him a lot. Frank Turner is one of the best live acts. You are never going to get cheated out of your money when you go to a Frank show. You're going to sing, You're going to dance and have a big old time you Cassiy Hill. This week, listen to Frank Turner's I Still believe. It is an anthem about the power of music and what it can do for people in communities. So go listen to that and be happy.
I'm all about being happy. So funny that that's the direction you went, because I went with a happier song this week too, So Tocado. We're actually going to go back to my girl Tay. We've gone away from her for a few weeks here. I think you'll appreciate this one because it is She has an album called Folklore that's a lot less autobiography autobiographical, and it's more storytelling a song that is actually a true story. You can
go look up the people involved. Anyways, it's called the last Great American Dynasty.
I asked, Great American dynasty, and that's not about Appalachian State football.
Well, I guess it could be applied in many ways, but yeah, it's it's a like I said, it's based on a true story, based on real people, relevance. Everything in the song was based on real evans. And she uses a little an old country songwriting tactic. She kind of pulled it out for this song that gives it a nice little fun twist.
So it is biographical.
It's biographical, but not autobiographical. But actually this one kind of is too, but I don't want to give it away.
I guess they're all biographical about somebody. That's true unless you just made up.
Well, and now that I say that too, I guess this one is also kind of autobiographical. But again, I don't go listen to it. I'm not saying too much.
We'll listen to the songs. We'll be happy, We'll help our neighbors out because that's what you do. And we will see you next week on the Happy half Hour