And welcome to what is now an officially off season edition of The Happy Half Hour. And it's off season now because they just played that last football game of the year the other day, So we are now officially in that point of the year where we're everything's pointed to twenty twenty.
Four New year.
Everybody zero zero.
Everybody zero zero, and you know what is in Are any of us really surprised at how that game worked out the other day?
You know, we had to do preseason picks, and that was my preseason super Bowl. I think I did say the forty nine Ers are going to win, but as the season went on, we talked about this before you left for Vegas. I've seen that forty nine Ers team lose to that Chiefs team before. Yeah, and that's exactly how we thought it would.
And that Chiefs team's just going to beat people. I mean, it's just they've reached that point. As I mentioned, I got tired of being the guy who was wrong about Tom Brady. I'm now officially tired of being the guy who ever thinks Patrick Mahomes is going to lose again.
So it'll never just fund him in late in the season.
Or it will happen eventually.
I mean, they'll go through a run, somebody will get hurt, they'll lose their mojo, they'll be coaching changes, something will come up that'll you know, it'll be a slight hiccup. But as long as that guy's play and you know, they are going to have a chance. And I don't know, I want to ask you about this to see you're you're young and analytically minded. Right, where did you come down on coin Flipgate?
I think what stood out to me most about it was the fact that the forty nine Ers players admitted that they didn't know the overtime rules. That's and then you compare that to the Chiefs who said they spent two weeks on it all the way back in training camp and then spend time on it each week in preparation during the playoffs. That comes down to coaching.
Yeah, and listen.
One of the things I kind of wonder about some of that sort of stuff. I think there is something to be said for compartmentalizing your information.
Four in your backup.
Guard doesn't really need to be well versed on the nuances of overtime rules changes. I mean, certain people, it's like point to the field, go do your job now. I mean, obviously the head coach needs no quarterback. Those kind of guys who are involved in the very granular game management part of it need to know. But I just I am still I know everybody's beaten up on Kyle for taking the taking the ball after winning the coin toss. I think you're we're beating him up for
the wrong thing. I mean, I think there's still something to be said for the notion of if you keep that game tied, having the chance to be in sudden death position, have that third possession now where Kyle screwed up is fourth and fourth and nine, Yeah, and kicking there rather than going for it there, because you either keep the ball, score a touchdown, take the lead, make Patrick Mahomes score the touchdown he eventually scored, or you lead them in such an unenviable field position that that
punting is an option for them on the next possession. I just think that, you know, we're beating him up for the wrong stuff. I think there is a lane. You know, we've now got a set of data that includes one outcome on these rules, and everybody's going to kill Kyle for taking the ball first I don't even know that that's the wrong play, but he certainly got too conservative too early in that situation.
I think he won. He would have been better if he would have just stuck to the reasoning that a lot of people thought he originally took the ball, which was to give his defense a break. If he had just stuck with that reasoning and nobody would have questioned him about it. Two, I can understand the thinking of wanting that third possession if that second possession went to anyone besides Patrick Mahomes. Sure, and if you're facing a different quarterback, who you can I saw an insane staff
this week, Darren. There have been I can't remember the exact number, but it was, you know, some odd number of drives in the fourth quarter or overtime of a Super Bowl that were considered game winning drives. And you know what quarterbacks stats were in that drives, you know whether they won or lost. Patrick Mahomes and those drives in super Bowls, it's like seven or playoffs or something
is like seven of seven. Yeah, you never not put together a game winning drive when he had to in a situation like that for a champion.
All of the things that's what Patrick Mahomes does. He just does all the things all the time. His team's gonna always win every game from here on out the rest of his.
Career, and those little nuances. I totally get your point. You're right about, like you know your backup left guard doesn't need to know it. But those are also the things that I think can come down to you just want everyone on the same page. And I remember a few years ago there was this like obscure rule that came up in a game and even the officials had to stop and ask for clarification from New York and
what the rule meant. And there were all these Patriots players that got on Twitter during that time and explained it because they all said that there is a day in training camp where Bill Belichick goes over all of
the obscure rules that no one else knows sure. And so I just think there's something to be said too for everybody being on the same page, because if you're not on the same page about what the overtime rules are in the playoffs, you're probably not on the same page about other things that are going to come up in a game.
You can definitely give Kyle a pass for the strategic if you choose to the operational. He clearly fell short, and I think he did in a number of ways. I think just in watching that game as a civilian, I was sitting there yelling at the TV. In the second half, it's like, your two best players are number twenty three and number seventy one. Tell the little one to follow the big one around. That was the path forward. And if you're trying to keep the ball out of Patrick Mahomes' hands.
That's the way you do it.
You tell Christian McCaffrey get behind Trent Williams and go where he goes because he's knocking somebody down and that creates an opening for you to do your thing. And you know, Christian had the early fumble and they very young character. Yeah, uncharacteristic for him, but he was the guy that they didn't use nearly enough in the second half. And stop me, if you've heard this one before, Kyle
Shanahan stopped running when he should have kept running. So not everybody wants to believe it, but every now and then that's the sound football strategy.
But it was. It was quite a game. Quite a game thoughts on halftime.
I liked it from the perspective of a millennial. At first, I kind of knocked it for being too slow At times. I think if he had started with the song oh my God, if he had come out with that song, it would have instantly upped the energy of the whole show. That being said, there were still the vignettes within it
that I really really enjoyed. And you know, as soon as he starts singing like love in this Club and Yeah, I could write a thesis Darren on how the song yeah is the one song in the world that will never ever ever get old. You turn it on and people instantly perk up and start singing an attempt to start dancing. And I also think that like the ludicrous part of it was every you know, millennial girls first foray and to wrap it, many of us get we can get at the drop of a hat.
Well, John and Luda come out and it's like, why was this not in Atlanta the other year?
Why did we not do this then?
And then the whole end of it, like also it was an entirely Atlanta based crew that put on the halftime show. That was one of US's request and so yeah, it definitely should have been Atlanta. I have to ask, and I'm probably gonna make podcast Matt antsy about whether or not he has to cut this out. But you said that Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams are the first the second best player on that team. Where do you put.
Rockberty others receiving votes?
I mean, listen, I don't want to go full Cam Newton here, and I'm not wearing a hat today, but use your imagination.
Maybe I am.
Got a feather in it.
Yeah, it's I mean, Brock Perdy, is Jimmy Garoppolo is you know, fill in the blank. I mean any number of guys who've been in that system who aren't that guy, who aren't him as the kids say, And you know, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. I mean, you know, Carolina Panthers went to a Super Bowl, and I tease Jake Delom all the time. I said, when we talk about you as a player, you know, yeah, you're in
the Hall of Honor, all that kind of stuff. But everything seems like a slight when you start talking about Jake as if you know, he's just some mid quarterback. I mean, Jake, I always argued when he was playing in the two thousands, Jake kind of lived in that band between like the eighth and the fourteenth best quarterback in the NFL. So if you wanted to be pedanic and say top ten, could he beat maybe, but you know, kind of right there in that window, and Jake's fine
with that. Jake understands that's kind of his place. You can still do a lot of damage as a team if you've got a quarterback who lives in that neighborhood. So you know Brock's line, you know, take him for what it's worth.
But that's an offense that Nick Mullins wants ran to success.
I mean, this is the Kyle Shanahan circle of life. You overachieve with a quarterback nobody thinks is any good. Then people start thinking he's really good, and then people slam him for not being as good as everybody thinks he is, and then you go look for another one. So I mean, I figure the shelf life of brock perty is another about year and a half before people get itchy again and start wanting to know when are they going to trade three picks for the next tray lance.
Oh wait, that didn't work the last time, So I just think that they're in a funny spot. There's still a talented team. You know, there's going to be some change this offseason, a lot of guys coming and going. But I just think that their position to continue to be in that realm for the next little bit because they are so solid, they can run with anybody. They do have the kind of personnel on defense, even though they've made a change on defense and you know, offered
up our old friend Steve Wilkes fairly or unfairly. That's one of those things Kyle Shanahan's good at is making sure everybody knows that's somebody else's fault.
But that was a defense that held Patrick Mahomes out of the end zone for a lot of that game until a special team.
Patrick Mahomes scored nineteen points in sixty minutes against that defense, and one of those touchdowns came on a short field after the aforementioned fumble. So I just you know Steve's treatment aside. I think they are always going to be positioned because it rosters so deep, so twent and so good. You know, they're also out there doing it without Dre Greenlaw, who kind of popped in Achilles waiting to run onto
the field, so so weird. It was bizarre, It was unusual, and it was one for the books.
It was.
It was very Las Vegas. It was quite a show.
All the way around, so it was it was definitely something to see. Speaking of something to see, the reason I was in Las Vegas was to see our old friend Julius Peppers get inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And I hope, I hope, if anything we sent back from Las Vegas last week, I hope the thing that came through clearly was just how giddy Julius Peppers truly was at being named to the Hall of Fame.
He knew going to Las Vegas. He had found out, you know, when Bruce Smith knocked on his door a couple of weeks before, and he held that secret and he thought about it, and I just loved the fact when I'm talking to him Thursday night after the honor show, he said, I see Barry Sanders in the hotel, and I can't tell him yet because nobody knows and it's still a secret. And I'm just sitting there thinking, I'm in the Hall of Fame with Barry Sanders.
What is this, guys, and.
Just seeing the look on Julius's face, we're not accustomed to it because Julius is in every way, shape and form, larger than life. A he's larger, but b because he's always been up here on this level with the gods of football, we think he's impervious to human emotion or feeling any kind of way about his place in the game. Gang Julius Peppers was forward when he was walking around the Merlin Oil some luncheon the next day and Warren
Sap comes over and hugs him. Julius was just like, dang, that's Warren Sap, And you know, Warren's kind of joking with him, saying, you know, telling Julius's kids, your dad was a lot better at this than me. And just the grin on Julius Pepper's face, to see that kind of not childish but child like enthusiasm in his eyes was really neat to see, for lack of a better word.
And probably surprising for those of us on the outside looking in, because you know, for so many of us, we look at his game tape, we look at his resume, and of course, how could he not be a Hall of Famer and for that matter of first ballot Hall of Famer, So that just really kind of speaks to his humbleness and his personality as well. And that did definitely come through and everything that came back from Baster.
And we're gonna have a lot of cool stuff coming for you over the next six months. I mean, some of the stuff we were gathering while we were down there, you may not see for several months, maybe even beyond the entriment, because we've got some special stuff planned with Julia's coming up later this year. But it was just so neat having that window into his personality and his spirit of being able to just enjoy that moment and walking around that luncheon on Friday talking to other Hall
of Famers. It takes all of.
Them a year. To Leroy Butler, who I love, by the way, love LaRoy Lroy.
Is amazing, and he was talking about with him. It was Drew Pearson and he told this fantastic story, he said, and Laroy's just great at telling stories, which you know from your time in Green Bay. But Larroy talked about Drew Pearson and he said, when I was a kid, Drew Pearson was my guy. I had a Drew Pearson shirt. It wasn't a jersey. My sister just drew an eighty eight on a T shirt because we were in poverty.
That sounds like Leroy, I hear you, Leroy.
But they all have that guy for them and different guys. John Randall talked about Alan Page. They all have that touchstone for their own lives in football that they consider here's the guy I emulate, here's the guy I consider up there at the top of the mountain, and then to consider that you're suddenly appear takes a second for all of them, and I think it was cool watching Julia's process that in real time.
For sure, this.
Quick, very quick little side story. You know, you talk about them having guys. We all have those kind of moments too, working in this business where we think, Wow, I'm here, I'm standing here a part of this, and I get to be the person to document this. LaRoy is probably my moment because it was after he had been inducted into the Hall of Fame last year and he came back to do to get it Atlanta. If you're in the Hall of Fame, you get your name on the stadium, and so they come back to Lambeau
for that ceremony this past year, and it's done at halftime. Leroy, for those that don't know, is also who invented the Lambeau leap. I mean, it's now iconic. Other teams even do it at their stadiums, but it's it's the Lambo leap, and it started with Leroy. And so after he had his little ceremony there at halftime, they had him go over to the wall to do a Lambo leap. Now that wall is actually pretty high, it's over six feet high, so he had to get up on a stool with
this point to do it. But as he's walking over, he sees me and he did a lot of stuff with the paper that I worked for. So he comes over and he gives me a hug and he's like, thank you for being down here, and then I kind of follow him to film it just for our social He gets up on he gets up on the stool, but he does a Lambeau leap in his gold jacket and I'm standing there right below it, and I'm like,
this is this is so cool. I'm standing here with the guy who invented the Lambeau leap doing it again in his Hall of Fame jacket, and I'm standing here getting to like document this for everybody to remember. That was one of my coolest moments.
That that is cool.
I mean, there are moments in this business where you're like, that's a thing that just happened right there, and that had to.
Be one of them. It It is super cool, and I'm looking forward to it.
And and you know what, honestly, we're going to be back in Canton probably sooner.
Rather than later.
Not just this year, but uh yeah, we're going to be back in Canton later this late, later this month, next month, what month is it, I don't even know, but we'll we'll be back at some point and then we'll be back in August obviously. But we're going to be back in Canton the next couple of years. I truly believe that. In this year's class. One of the big takeaways for me, uh was how close this year's class puts a couple of former Panthers to being in
consideration for those same kind of honors. I mean, Patrick Willis going in this year basically provides the framework for Luke Keigley's candidacy when he becomes eligible next year, and They're the same guy. If you think Patrick Willis as a Hall of Famer, you think Luke is one too, because eight years, seven Pro Bowl, six All Pros, Defensive Rookie of the Year, boom boom boom, all the same,
the exact same guy. The resumes are identical. The only real difference is Luke's got a Defensive Player of the Year award that Patrick never won. They were both all decade players. Patrick probably played on better defenses on the hole during his career in San Francisco, but basically identical players cut short by injury at just eight years, and we all sort of felt like we were robbed of
extra football when we didn't see those guys anymore. So I know Luke his personality is not going to be one. I would be very surprised if he's out there campaigning or anything like that. But I think his time will be sooner rather than later. And I think Andre Johnson going in kind of clears the way for us to consider Steve Smith Canadacy in a different way too, because we talked a lot going into that meeting about the three wide receivers that were stuck in a nod between
Andre Tory, Old and Reggie Wayne. We finally broke that tie and got Andre through.
Well, guess what.
Andre Johnson's the one most like Steve Smith in that he didn't have the benefit of playing with a Hall of Fame quarterback. He didn't have the benefit of being surrounded by stars on offense around him. I mean, no offense to the Mussin Mohammed's and Stephen Davis's and Deshaun Foster's of the world. But that's different than Edrin James and Reggie Wayne and all those guys in Indianapolis who got to play with Peyton Manning. And it's different than
Marshall Falk and Isaac Bruce and Kurt Warner. So it's going to be interesting to see. I feel like I've committed those stats to memories. Steve's eighth on the all time receiving yards Liz ahead of all three of those guys league.
Yeah, eighth all time in the league. The only guy ahead of.
Him who's not in the Hall yet is Larry Fitzgerald, who's not eligible. So I got a feeling that now that we've got one of those receivers pushed through that pipe, there's an opening for Steve. Hopefully, Hopefully we can get to a point where we're discussing Steve in that room as a finalist, because I think his resume stacks up extremely favorably, you know, especially when you consider what he did as a returner early in his career, because he was one of the most dynamic players you know, really
that I've ever seen. And going back to the first time he touched the ball he returned to kickoff for a touchdown in his very first game, that kind of set the stage for what Steve Smith was going.
To be like. So Devin Hester got in this year.
And Devin Hester got in so with his thirty two touchdowns, which is about fifty fewer than Steve Smith. So anyway, it was I think it was a good week all things considered for the Carolina Panthers based on those Hall of Fame discussions.
And then it was Vegas.
You've been to Vegas, to Vegas and the way you came back and described it was so perfect. I remember the first time I was in Vegas and I had gotten there before my family got in and my brother walked into the hotel a few hours later and he was like what is He immediately goes, what is that smell, and I said, cigarette smoke and broken dreams.
That is, Yeah, it is.
I went downstairs at six fifteen local time Friday morning to do some radio hits talk about Julius and stuff, and there was a young entrepreneur of about sixty years old with a cors light and a Marlboro Red in his hand, sitting it a slot machine. And I was like, I don't know if this man's polishing one off for the night or just starting on the next day's version of it, but that's a thing that's happening right there. It was. Yeah, I think I caught you off guard,
I said. In Las Vegas, as a first timer in that fine city, I said, it reminded me of if New Orleans and Myrtle Beach had a baby and then got that baby implants. It was just it was just a mess. It didn't seem quite real. At any point in my visit did it seem like this was a normal place.
That's the one you said that stood out the most of me, Like, this doesn't seem like it could be a real place. It's a movie set.
It's a movie set.
I'm going to walk up here to the Bloggio and push on a wall and it's just gonna fall over like a set piece.
Did you take my advice, though, and go to the Greenhouse and the Bloggio lobby?
We did.
We checked out the Bologgio is lovely. We saw a couple of great shows. Saw the certain Disillert show there at the Blagio one night.
It was just it was quite something. So saw my guy.
I was in Vegas for the first time, so I felt compelled to see mister Las Vegas. That's right, Wayne Newton. Where's my microphone? Oh, I'm sitting in front of it.
Give us a lot shame? Was it everything you dreamed of?
And more?
I mean, I hope Vegas gives you more.
I hope that when I'm eighty two years old, I can still tell all the same old stories I've been telling for the last fifty two years. I hope that I can do it with a bounce in my step like he does.
You know.
I mean, listen, what do you want out of a Wayne Newton show? You want to hear don Ka Shane. You want to hear Red Roses for a Blue Lady. You want to hear him tell Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis stories, you know, Elva's stories, all that great stuff, and he did it, and it's like, this is everything I expected. I mean it was a small room, a little cabaret type theater, but it was it was amazing.
I will I would say, I'll be back, but I'm gonna need a really specific reason to go back to Las Vegas because the other thing I learned while I was out there is a little Las Vegas goes a little right way.
Both times I've been has been for a reason, a wedding and a football game. And I don't know if I could be one of those people who were just like, let's have it, we have a free weekend, let's go to Vegas. Yeah, man, you know, no offense to those people. You go have fun, But there's about a hundred other ways I think I'd rather spend my weekend. Vegas is a good time, but I don't need to go on my own.
It's it's a lot, I mean it truly is. It is just a lot.
You know, the most annoying part about Vegas is that everything, all of the buildings are so big that you think, oh, okay, we're right here at the Bellagio, there's the Mirage. Let's just walk over there, and then you get because the buildings are so big, it throws everything out of proportion. And then you start walking and you realize, oh, I'm miles away from that building. Yeah.
I did that one day.
I walked from Andela Bay back to the Mirage and I was like, Okay, that was two miles in my life.
But we will you know, we will be.
Back in Vegas right lay there this year.
That's correct, yea, because I've heard.
I have, I have it on good authority that a lot of the Canalist family and friends are going to make the short car ride from southern California to Las Vegas for their game.
There you go, there you go.
It's it's going to be on and we'll see it's uh, it won't be as super Bowl setting. But that's the other thing I learned there. It's that way every week. Yeah, because if it ain't.
The NFL, it's like the smallest thing on their ratio.
Right. If it ain't the NFL, it's a Final four, or it's an Amway Convention or whatever.
It happens to Hanley Cup final, it's.
Just gigantic and the entire town shows out. They know how to entertain there. I will give them that.
So, speaking of entertainment, we're about to dive full force into the next thing on the docket, which is gonna be the combine coming up in a couple of weeks. And we'll get to that. We'll have time to discuss the combine later. But it's on. I mean, it's now that the draft is here, now that football season's on, We're gonna be talking franchise tag moves, We're gonna be talking free agency, We're gonna be talking combine. It's almost like this business never stops.
It purposely has something on the calendar. I'm gonna ask the question that I know every fan listening is asking. Sam. I'm gonna be the voice for the people here. Now, all that the coaching staff is more or less put together, you know, and I thos finishing touches, At what point on the timeline do you think something gets done for either dB or Brian Burns?
Probably not yet.
I mean, I think, honestly, most of the contract stuff happens combine and beyond, because the combine is really that place where, in addition to scouting college players, all the agents are working the hallway at Starbucks. Yeah, I mean you're meeting, they're meeting with teams and boardrooms in the back and stuff like that. So I think the reasonable expectation is combine. Plus there's usually about that week between the combine and the beginning of free agency where we'll get to all that.
March sixteenth this year, or somewhere.
Middle of March.
It's always right around the IDEs of March.
Yeah, so it is.
It is all coming, and we're gonna have it all for you here at Panthers dot com. So stay tuned for the latest on all that, because, as we said, it never truly stops, So keep it here. We'll catch up with you soon. We may even have a happy half hour for you next week between now and the combine to get you ready for every for all things Indianapolis. Until then, we will see you bye.