This week on a Happy Half Hour.
One of the things that kind of jumped out at me about this schedule is you got the Saints in week one, and then we think we know the Chargers are going to be a certain way based on Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert, but that's a whole new team. And then you get either Gardner Minshew and Aidan O'Connell and the Raiders in week three.
Touchdown cow whoa.
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's a very special Happy half Hour this week because we now have a sponsor, DA DA. That's right, the Happy Half Hour presented by a Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers, celebrate the spirit of
the Carolinas. And since it's after eight o'clock on schedule release night, I feel pretty good about opening a little Southern Star later on and enjoying the sponsors product while we savor our brand new, freshly minted twenty twenty four Carolina Panthers schedule D D D.
I can confirm that this sponsor is the highlight of Darren's year so far.
Yeah, it's it's a good thing. I think this is a true. One of the great truisms of the NFL is know your personnel. So if if the good folks at Southern Star are listening, know that I am on your side and I am a fan of your product already.
Yea, so it's really in that teacup.
Dar No, no question it is brown. At any rate, we got a schedule, gang, and as I am sure you've all seen by furiously Refreshingpanthers dot com, now that we're after eight pm on the East Coast here in the United States of America, where sixteen of the seventeen games will be played, you now know that Carolina Panthers are in fact playing the people they were already going to be playing in a specific order.
So right, we already knew who they were playing and where.
Yeah, now we.
Just know when.
Now we just know when. And it really does I make fun of it sometimes because I do think the marketing of it and the you know, over the topness of the whole thing is altogether Yeah, when we released the release release the other day, that was one of my favorite moments. But no, it provides a framework and it makes some of this stuff real. I mean, all of this stuff has been an abstract concept so far
this season. And now that you know that on September the eighth, Carolina Panthers are going to go to New Orleans and see their old friends, the Saints and get this thing started, that's when it becomes a little more real. That's when it becomes hey, Okay, here's here's where we're at. And again, if you haven't looked at this schedule, we're gonna be talking about it in thirty thousand foot kind
of views. Again, I encourage you visit, spend some time on Panthers dot com, enjoy the videos, enjoy the schedule itself, and buy tickets for the home games. That's the thing we're trying to get you to do here, folks.
That's really what we're here for, and you can.
See it all yourself, but we're going to just kind of talk about it in general terms. I think for me, one of the things that jumped off the page first is all of them games are on Sunday, which means no Thursday night football, no Monday night football, no short weeks. And that's the football takeaway from me. I mean, I know people feel some sort of way about primetime games and is it a sign of disrespect? Hey, the team
is doing fifteen last year. I think expecting a lot of primetime appearances was probably unrealistic if you thought that was going to be the case. But listen, from a strictly football standpoint, being able to stay on the same routine and to have regular rest before ever every game is huge for the football people. And that's the thing. I mean, we can look at this thing for us and what we think about it is one thing, But for the football people, that regular rest is a big, big, big deal.
Even there are games in the four o'clock hour, two of them are out West, so those will be like one o'clock local time. And then Darren remind our listeners and me, is it the first eight weeks or the last eight weeks that can be flexed.
For prime time?
Yeah, there's a stretch late in the year that can be flexed. I think it's from like week ten to ten to seventeen minus week. You know, the week of Christmas basically is the thing they're not gonna monkey around with, but there is some opportunity. If the season goes really well, they've become a lot more interesting than the network's anticipated them being at this point, then you know, hey, they're
gonna get their opportunities to be seen. But I think for right now, you know, as I look at this schedule, one of the things that I kind of like about it from their standpoint is all the heavies are in the back end. Dave Canalis gets a chance to get his feet wet as an NFL head coach with a brand new team against the favorable half of the schedule in the first two games in the first two months
of the year. And again, if you haven't refreshed Panthers dot Com already, we're talking about starting the season at New Orleans Chargers here for the September fifteenth home opener. Then you go to Las Vegas in week three. Week four brings Cincinnati, Joe Burrow comes into Bank of America
stadiums one everybody's gonna want to see. And then in week five you go to Chicago before Atlanta comes here, and then at Washington at Denver gets you through October, and as you look at those teams, you might say to yourself, hey, none of those teams went to the playoffs last year, and you would be correct. And again, when you're two and fifteen, all of this stuff is kind of relative because they're looking at you the same way. But on the whole, would you rather have all your
playoff teams? Would you rather be playing k C right out of the shoot? Would you rather be, you know, looking at the Cowboys and the Bucks and the Eagles in the early stages of a new project. No, you would not. You'd rather ease into this thing. And we don't know what any of these teams are gonna look like by this time either.
And this goes into the point of like it's once you know, when you're playing these teams, you can kind of start to figure out what the season might look like. I mean, I hesitate to put a number on anything because it can always come back to bite you. But you could feasibly go and be going into the by at five hundred.
Yeah, I mean, there's possibilities there. One of the things that kind of jumped out at me about the schedule is, you know, again, you got the Saints in Week one and you kind of know what you're getting when you're going to New Orleans. They bring in Chase Young this offseason, and that's gonna change the way they look defensively. But it's the Saint, so you kind of know what you're gonna expect. And then in terms of expectations, we think we know that Chargers are gonna be a certain way
based on Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert. But that's a whole new team. I mean, it's Chargers minus Keenan All and minus Mike Williams. So what are they gonna be? Like, we have no idea right now. And then you get either Gardner Minshew and Aiden O'Connell and the Raiders in Week three.
I mean, of those first ten teams, Darren, I would honestly say, the Bengals are the only ones you're facing before the bye that already have an established quarterback, wide receiver duo and an established defense. Other than that, I mean, you get you're gonna have to face Kleb Williams. That's the last two number ones facing off. Even though that's a one o'clock game, I think people are gonna have their eyes on that to see if you know it's
gonna be Bryce versus Caleb. That's exactly what it's gonna be. But you're getting them in week five. I mean, I think it usually takes and you can probably speak to this better than I can, it usually takes a quarterback, wide receiver, new offense, a rookie quarterback, a good first
half of the season. And that's that's pretty liberally, I would say conservatively, it takes a good three fourths of his first season to really get comfortable and so you catch them early, which which kind of bodes well when you do have a returning quarterback. Yes, it's albeit a two and fifteen team, but a returning quarterback he's going
to have Adam Thlan, who he's already comfortable with. You've got some consistency there that these other teams other than the Bengals won't really have already.
Yeah, And as I looked those last two games in October, I mean, you you've got, you know, at Jaden Daniels and the what the artist formerly known as the Washington football team, and then your guess is as good as mine at quarterback for the Broncos in Week eight, I mean, that's is that Bo Nicks, Is that Jared'stidham is it Zach Wilson.
Could be playing quarterback for the I have no idea.
It's you know, Sean Payton might try to find a way to get through to come back. You never know, but it is It's definitely reasonable when you look at that thing early on in the season. And I think that's a positive because, as we've discussed all off season, it's a whole new deal. You know, we can try to guess what we think this offense is going to look like, what Bryce is going to be like, what the passing game is going to be like, with a lot of new parts but a lot of it's going
to be let's learn together. And the way this this schedule sets up kind of gives you that opportunity. When you looked at this thing, what was the other stuff that kind of jumped off the bat at you.
Well, obviously you're going to be facing the defending Super Bowl champs. You do get them coming off a bye which you know could be favorable. But it's still Kansas City.
Right And again that's Week twelve. Kansas City here on November twenty fourth, the week after the bye week which they earned after the trip to Germany to face the Giants here did in that.
Bye week after Germany is huge. I know it seems like a given, but I covered a team who turned down the bye week after the international game and it bit them in the butt like nothing you've ever seen. And so having that bye week there is huge. The two games in the top half of the schedule that could be a little bit more difficult, the Chargers and the Bengals. You get them both at home in September,
both teams. That mean the Chargers are going to be coming from seventy two no humidity that I'm not saying that these are all like a surefire win, but there it's a favorable schedule before that bye week, and then only two sets of back to back road games at Washington and at Denver. Washington at least you're in the same time zone. You know, it's a short flight back, so that's not going to be difficult. Denver, you know, it's it's a little tough, but it's not a long
stretch of bad road games are or undoable. The other back to back road games are at Tampa and at Atlanta. Again, that's not a bad road trip, and so and I think you had already into this out no primetime games, no holiday games. It'll be nice not playing on Christmas for a while. I feel like it's spent three or four years in a row I've played on Christmas.
Right, and I feel you know. And again, we'll throw it back to last season, just briefly, because we don't want to think back on last season too too long. But Cassi g Hill's first game here with us at the Carolina Panthers happened to be.
On Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve. What kind of jerk hired her to start on Christmas Eve? Oh wait, that was me? But yeah, that's that's what I end up. I mean, selfishly, when I get a glimpse at this schedule, my very first thing is, where's this football team I cover around Thanksgiving?
Right?
Check? That would be at home. Where's this football team I cover on Christmas? Check? That would be at home. This is great for Darren? Do that? Yeah, I mean that's how I always And it's funny. Different guys on this on the team probably look at the same way. I mean, old dudes with kids like Jay Jansen are probably thinking about the holidays stuff just as well. You know, anybody with kids is going to be looking at it
that way. But that's just kind of how I've always My big three things always when I look at the schedule for Darren purposes are Thanksgiving, Christmas, how cold am I going to be in the second half of the year, and really, other than at Philadelphia in week fourteen on December eighth, not a lot of cold weather in our future other than that which we get here in Mayberry.
And I'm actually kind of excited about that because have you ever been to Philly around Christmas?
I have been, Yes, I've spent some time. Yes, it is really something.
One more selfish note was, since we're being selfish for a second.
And I think we're in titled, I'm.
Really excited that two of the preseason games are in the Northeast. Like, yeah, take me to that cooler weather in August for a little bit.
Yeah, it's it's kind of nice. Those preseason dates at New England and at Buffalo are going to be Let's just promise that nobody kicks anything in Buffalo. Okay, because preseason gets Buffalo, do it? We don't even want to talk about that.
I feel like there's a story there there.
Yeah, there is, Well, we'll do that off the air. We're just not gonna invoke that anymore than already have. But anyway, so there's a schedule, and now it's a little more real. We'll, uh, you know, we'll we'll, we'll get a chance to digest this all a little more deeply. This thing just came out tonight, as you folks know, so uh, that's why we had to record this emergency happy half hour to get it in your hands as quickly as we possible possibly could. But as always, there's
other stuff going on. Cassy, you are our eyes and ears at Rookie Minnie camp last weekend. I actually took a couple of days to you know, oh see my daughter graduate from college. No congratulations, baby girl. We're all very proud of her. We love her. She's the best.
Don't graduate as a trap, which.
Don't let her hear you say that, please. So anyway, yeah, somebody hire a baby girl. But you were here for Rookie Minnie camp and and it wasn't a rookie minting camps all these one of those things. It's it's a mile post but not you know, it's not terribly significant because they're not running around in pads, you can't really tell a whole lot, and it's such a limited cast. But from what you saw out there this weekend, what came what came across one.
Thing, and this is gonna sound cliche, but I promise you is true from having what stood out there for the two days of rookiemnting camp is Xavier Lagette is fluid, and that's something that you don't always use for a guy that's, you know, over six feet two twenty five ish. I think there's been a little bit of discrepancy about his height, but I'd say around six two ish.
He's a big He's big, is what we're trying to say.
Very clearly, a big guy. And he's so fluid. He's so smooth. He has a speed. We already knew that, but there were several times he was either going to the sideline or cutting across the middle where he could just kind of flip and either you know, catch it over his shoulder or turn around, and you know, if there was a defender there, which there wasn't, but if there had been a defender there, you would realize he
would have been blocking him out. He was just so so smooth, and that's the word that came out that I kept thinking of the most while watching him, right, because you expect somebody that's that big to be a little bit more of a bruiser with their style, but he's not. And so it was interesting that that was noticeable. And then he came to the podium after that first practice.
Oh, he did not come to a podium.
He came to electric thank you very much after that first.
Practice, and made a point to bring that up himself and said that that was something that he had been knocked for during the draft process because he felt, and you know, this is always up to his discretion, but he felt at South Carolina he wasn't asked to be
that type of receiver. He was asked to be a you know, somebody that just ran go routes, deep routes, get down there and win a fifty to fifty ball and win a contested catch, which he can do is a bigger guy, but he never felt like he was asked to kind of be that everything guy in the
middle of the field. He said, so I want, he said, that's something that was brought up to me a lot during the draft process, to the point that even coaches of NFL teams were saying something to him about it, so he worked with two different receiver schools during the draft process to really focus on that specifically that part of his game. And I think it stood out right away Darren Richard, right.
And I thought that was cool reading your stuff coming out of the weekend. I mean, when a guy walks in the door, you know, as a first round pick, there's obviously expectations that go with that, But when you walk in the door aware of what you need to work on, and you begin with here's what I'm trying to get better at, that's always a good place. I mean,
for all the other stuff that's going to happen. You want guys to come in with something to prove, not necessarily a chip on their shoulder type of thing, but here's what I've got to get better at. Here's what I want them to coach me up on and improve on. And if he can do that, then I think they've got an opportunity to make some strides on offense, because again, look at what they've done all off season. They go
get t Johnson, who what does he do? He gets open and makes place, So you go get a big go get it guy, and when he walks in the door working on you know, his ability to get open, his ability to get it out of breaks. You kind of like the possibilities that creates for Bryce showing in the offense.
Especially because when you looked at this receiving corps before the draft and you say, Okay, what do they need. They need a guy that can go deep, and that felt like that's what they got with Xavier rel Get. But now if he can do some of this other stuff as well, so to speak, that just allows Dave Canalis bride ends it to kind of interchange these receivers and you're never going to know what one specific guy
is going to do. And so if that's what Leaguett is focusing on this offseason, that's going to pay dividends in the season because now they can line all three of them up anywhere.
Yeah, no doubt. And in Jonathan Brook's second round pick, not doing a lot. Obviously, he's still coming back off that ACL He's gonna be doing a lot of watching and rehabit on the side for a little bit, but all signs are positive with him. The other one that I was going to ask you about is Jitavian Sam Sanders. Yes, JT walked in the door, sit in the bar high for himself.
Yes he did.
And I like that.
I know he's got a little he's got a little something something to him. He's got a little umph and it's just hard not to like the kid.
He's uh, tell people to stop trying to FaceTime me. The schedules already out.
People, you don't they're extrained to reach you about your extended car warned.
Yeah, something like that. Either that or I don't know how to turn the sound off on my computer.
Grandma baron over here. Yeah, we'll show you.
So the thing about j T is is he's so like sure of himself, but in a not in a cocky way, and you just can't help. But like a kid like that, he knows what he does, and he knows what he does well and how to make that
work on a football field. I thought the most interesting thing that kind of came out of his press conference, and we didn't write about it on Panther's dot comya because we want to talk to other rookies, is that he has started leading a study group for any and all that want to come, you know, sort of informal.
They look at the playbook, they look at film, but he's just kind of taking that extra step to pull guys together outside of their scheduled time together and kind of say, hey, let's look over this again so that we can all be on the same page when we're coming back in here, right, And you know, coaches probably going to love that.
Yeah, these rookies come in I mean in every year, a rookie class comes in behind, obviously because their veteran teammates have been here, you know, going through off season workouts and that kind of stuff for weeks and weeks. They're walking in behind immediately. But this year it's a little bit less because it is a brand new staff. So while the Adam Thielens of the world have been working through this offense with Bryce for weeks, it's still new.
You know, they're still you know, four weeks into this process, so it's not as much of a head start as it is, you know, in a normal situation where a coach is coming off of you know, an off season and building into the second and third year of a plan.
And then the thing you said about him setting a high bar for himself just gonna touch on that he did it's that high bar for himself. He said, I want to be the next Greg Olsen. I want to be the next face of this offense. And I did the age math and Olsen is someone that senders would have watched a lot growing up.
And he did say he did watch him.
You know, they always probably say that, but he did mention watching him a lot growing up, and he said he was kind of the first wave of this new tight end. And that's exactly what Sanders is as well. He's an incredible pass catcher. He called over six hundred balls at Texas the last two years apiece. It's over twelve hundred in his last two years total. And so I'm sorry, six hundred yards.
Yeah, if he caught six hundred passes at Texas, he would have probably been a first round pick.
Six hundred yards each year.
Yeah, And again, good production out of that position is something that they haven't necessarily had. I mean nothing against any of the existing guys. Tommy Tremble, I think is still kind of turning into something new in front of us every year. He's added a little something to his game every off season, and I think he's continued to grow into a player. But having that kind of thread
at that position is something they haven't had. So I'm looking forward to getting the training camp and kind of seeing what that looks like in real life, because there is so much new being thrown together, and there is so much that we're gonna kind of learn together as
we watch this thing. But definitely getting that first glimpse of them seeing some of those highlights, you know, seeing big o'xl you know, up there twisting and making catches and doing things in rookie mini camp, It's like, okay, that's a thing. And then even in some of the video from this week during a you know, off season workouts here now that the veterans and rookies are together, and you see Bryce throwing to him, you see Bryce working with some of these new targets like okay, all right,
I see what they were thinking. So anyway, that.
Is a one small qualifier before we finished just what in terms of the schedule, yep, you know, we keep looking at Okay, you know the first half of these games there there's a lot of winnable games in there. They're facing rookie quarterbacks. I think they face like four
rookie quarterbacks or something like that. Potentially depending on who's lining up for some of these teams, but this is still Yes, you have a coaching staff on defense that returned, a coaching staff on offense that have worked together, and a quarterback who's more familiar with his receivers this year, but this is still a new staff, a first time head coach, and the staff coming in and implementing a new offense. So there's gonna be some growing pains on
both sides. So just remember that when you're looking at the schedule.
Yeah, and again, as we mentioned, no playoff teams from last year in the first half of that schedule, you don't see a playoff team from twenty twenty three until post by.
And then you see nothing but penal and then.
You see five out of your next six opponents where teams who were involved in the playoffs last year. So it's obviously you never know when that stuff's going to carry over from year to year. We don't know you know how things are going to change between now and November December, but at least now we know the who's and the winds and the where So it's always a it's always a mile post during an off season. Now
it's real, and now you can start making plans. Now you can buy your plane tickets, figure out where you want to go on the road. We'll see in Las Vegas in September. We'll see in Germany in November. It's gonna be cool. It's a season. Now, it's a schedule. It's real, it's tangible, and we can put our hands on it and print it out and start thinking about what the next six months of our lives are going to be like. So as we give you guys a chance to digest it all, you can digest it all
with our friends at Southern Star. Because again I'll say it again going out, this is the Happy half Hour presented by a Southern Star, an official bourbon of the Carolina Panthers, celebrating the spirit of the Carolinas with us.
The happiest of happy happen.
Here we go