This week on a Happy half hour.
Seeing some of those connections to Deontae, seeing Xavier get up and go get it. You know, stuff like that is encouraging, but you know that kind of leads into the thing that I have taken away from the first week. And Dave Canalis tells you he's going to run the ball. He is not b s and U touched down, cow h.
It's time for the Happy Half Hour, presented by Southern Star, an official bourbon of the Carolina Panthers. Here are your hosts, Darren Kant and Cassidy Hill.
Welcome friends to the Happy half Hour. And the Happy Half Hour is presented to you, of course by Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers. Celebrate the spirit of the Carolinas, and boy do we have plenty to celebrate. We are firmly in the middle of training camp. It is I have lost all track of time. I don't know what day of the week it is. I don't know if it's morning, noon or night. But I
know I'm inside this building. Football things are happening around the clock, and at some point we'll get on airplanes and buses and go places and see things, but that time is not now. This time belongs to you, our listeners.
We may not know what day it is, but luckily we know what time it is because podcast Matt has put three new clocks at every Eyeline site in this room, so I know exactly down to the second what time it is. Well everywhere.
I'll lose This one over here in front of my face, that's got a hard hat on top of it. Used to be on the wall until I knocked it off, So I'm familiar with that one. That one almost killed a man?
Is that?
Are you responsible for the big crack down the middle?
Yeah? I think that might be me.
You were hitting as hard as they were yesterday once they put pads on a practice.
It certainly seems like a theme, doesn't it. It's almost like I said that on purpose. But put on your helmet, let's go. I wish we had rights to lice music, or we would put Olivia Newton John's lick Lets get Physical underneath this. Yeah, something like that. I'm I don't know if I'm surprised, impressed, or in despair that you know that song. It is one of the worst songs ever of my youth.
But yeah, it's kind of did right after Greece too.
Yeah, straight off, it was a day yesterday, I mean, and there's always a little bit of build up and it's always a little bit funny to me to see because having done these, you know, for thirty years, you kind of realize that certain things happen at certain points in training camp and it's inevitable. And they put on pads for the first time, and it was probably the warmest practice they've been through during camp because it's been unseasonably cool here in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I missed and still not too hot.
Yeah.
Somebody joked that Dave Canal has had to deal with the weather guiys, And I'm beginning to believe it's true.
He's just convinced God that his football team does not deserve to suffer. So it's enjoy nice things. But yeah,
it's been delightful to be on the sidelines. But you could kind of see that when coming yesterday it got a little warm, they put on pads for the first time, and it's like we're gonna get the first air quotes fight of training dam I mean, It's just it happens every year, and I've seen big fights, and I've seen you know, I remember the time Jason Peter pulled Anthony Redman's helmet off and hit him with it, and yeah, I mean it's just these things happen all the time.
Actually it was Redmond pulled Peter's helmet off and swung it at him, and Redmond still ended up with a busted lip because Jason was just that kind of nuts sometimes on the field. So good stuff all the way around. But yesterday it was just you know, guys coming together, guys doing their thing. You know, Jadavian gives Chewba a little bit of shoulder on his way by, and you know people bow up. Picky's right there in the middle
of the fray. And you know, Dave Canal has talked after practice about wanting to be smart about it, wanting to preserve guys. But I don't think anybody terribly mine that kind of stuff happening, because there are little things like defense taking things personally, you know, Ikey stepping up for his guys. I mean secretly, that's the kind of stuff that nobody really minds, and you kind of encourage behind the scenes, and.
Dave Canalis has to, you know, be the head coach in that situation and say, you know, we've got to be careful, We've got to be smart about these things. I think he said it was a good teaching moment to teach guys. You know, if you're in the middle of the game and something like this happens, you know, don't lose us yards, don't lose us time, right, But in training camp, practice, you need a little bit of that just to get the juices flowing and to your point,
to kind of have guys create that chemistry. Now, Cuba knows that if something happens to him, Ikey's right there and got it, has his battle.
And so Ikey's jumping up to his guys defense. I think that's kind of stuff everybody kind of expects to see, wants to see. But we're a weekend to camp. We've seen him in pads for the first time, and this is kind of the time when trends start emerging. And you know, I always like to joke and call it, what have we learned? What have we learned? So after a week of training camp, Cassie, what have you taken away from this team? Big picture view?
This is gonna sound so cliche, you know, I almost sound. I feel bad saying at first, but I really really like their energy every day. You know, there are some days it starts a little slower, but then they get
things going. The one on ones have been The one on ones have been good competition, but the one on ones have also been a lot of fun to watch everyone else watch, if that makes sense, you know, watching j C. Horn when you know Troy Hill might go up against uh, you know, Miles Sanders or I don't thineling just kind of depending on how the one on one draws. That's been a lot of fun just to kind of see those guys hype each other up. And the one on ones have been pretty even. I've kept score.
I try to keep score every day, but I specifically kept score yesterday and it was pretty even right down the middle offense defense who won those. It's been interesting because I've never you know, I got here so late last year. It's been fun to watch Adam Thling up close.
You know, there's so many new receivers in this offense that are going to do great things, like Deontay Johnson and Xavier lo Get, but watching Faling up close, and especially the days that he doesn't wear his visor and watching him in those one on ones and realize how much he uses his eyes even in short distances to throw a dB off, and it's just like that's textbook. That's somebody that's been in the league for years and
knows what they're doing. He might not be as physical as Deontay Johnson or you know, as big as Xavier, but like he's he's textbook in his technique and that's been a lot of fun to see up close. And then of course you've got the guys that you see that that chemistry getting a little stronger every day between Bryce and Deontay Johnson, and you see them starting to
figure each other out. And that's something that Dave Canalys has talked about a lot, is Bryce needing to figure out how Deontay Johnson moves because he's such a what canal is caused a special mover, and figure out, you know, how his timing is because he's gonna get open ninety percent of the time, right, and so it's a matter of figuring out when he gets open, what his releases
look like. And then Xavier get he's just big and seeing it, especially in one on ones, and then daring some is seven and seven, but especially in like the team past eleven on eleven, he's he's gonna be a problem for some dbs in this league.
Yeah, I think that's one of the things. And it's and it's good for the Carolina Panthers offense. But it's also good for j. C. Horn because in Deonte, in Feeling and lege it, he got three completely different right kinds of cats. And you know, those are good reps for him because if you're constantly going up against a big, strong guy, or you're constantly going up a little quick guy, or you're constantly going up against the guy who is so precise and knows exactly where to be and how
to trick you. Though you can acclimate to any one of them if that's all you ever get, but when you get all three of them randomly in sequence, and then mix in a Mingo, mix in an Amir Smith Marsett, mix in a Devin Tompkins who is oh shifty, so quick and little, like five one fifty little, but doesn't look out of place and looks sharp and looks quick in these practices, these first couple since he joined the team, that's good work for JC exactly and he's you can
tell he's kind of rising to the occasion because he's trying to prove himself this offseason. Everybody knows that he wants to prove that he can maintain availability and be the guy everybody knows he already is, which is the kind of corner who can cover cats like that.
You know, usually early on in training camp two, during the defense like quote unquote clearly wins the day. Usually for the first half of training camp. I don't know if i'd say that's the case. I don't want to to clear a winner loser, but the offense has stood out enough for it to be, oh, okay, right, do you if you're a you're a fan, does that worry you or do you go back to what we were just saying and go, Okay, this is just, you know,
maybe vice versa of what it would usually be. And in the next couple of weeks we'll see Jase Horn, will see Daan Jackson, Jordan Fuller, Xavier. Would it start to kind of catch up to what it takes to cover guys like this.
I think, if I'm on the outside, I'm feeling okay about this because after last year, when nothing worked on offense. The idea that there's a couple of things that are working in different ways seems like a good problem to have. I mean, I just think that's obviously going to be the priority. I mean, the last two times we saw this football team play, they didn't score any points. So you know, getting in these situations and seeing some of those connections to Deontae, seeing Xavier get up and go
get it, you know, stuff like that is encouraging. But you know, that kind of leads into the thing that I have taken away from the first week. And it's weird to say this since they've been in practice exactly pads, in practice exactly one time. When Dave Canalis tells you he's going to run the ball, he is not BS and U. That is the intent. That is the theme of this camp so far. And I've seen again, you stand around and watch a lot of training camps and
they all sort of start to look alike. I've seen more intention on inside run drills, even in unpadded practices. I mean, you can just tell the emphasis they're putting on it, because when you're out there in pads working on inside run that's not intuitive. And just seeing the way they've worked when they weren't in pads the first couple of days, and you talk to these guys, it's like, oh, yeah,
they're serious about this. And we should have known that when you spend one hundred and fifty million dollars on six hundred and fifty pounds guard, we should have known that when you move probably your most reliable offensive line in Austin Corbett into the middle to be center because he's merely huge and not gigantic, we should have known that when Dave Canalis comes from I think people get lost in I've heard people say and I've seen comments
online about, well, the Bucks were one of the worst run games in the in the league last year. Did you watch Seattle Seahawks football for the last fifteen years? Are you familiar with what Pete Carroll's formula is. It's played defense, it's run the ball. Russell Wilson was fine, but Marshawn Lynch was the reason. You know, Russell developed and Russell created these partnerships with guys like DK Metcalf over time. But when they won a Super Bowl, that
was a big honkin offensive line. That was Marshawn Lynch, and that was let's play defense with a bunch of big personality freaks. And so I think because Dave Canalis came in with the quote unquote offensive background, people in their minds equate that to passing. Dave Canalis wants to run, and he has told us so over and over and over, and you might not get a clear picture of it in a preseason, but I think we should believe him when he says this over and over and over.
I think that the teams that play well into the season, especially towards the end, are the ones who can run the football and who can stop the run. I wish I had more models to go off of, but I have. Fortunately, I have the model in Seattle and then in Tampa. We made sure that we established our mentality, our core runs that are important to us, and then it gets really specific with who our blockers are, who our runners are, and the way that we can utilize different people in
the run game. But that commitment, to me is the formula that I've seen work to make us competitive. So and it challenges both sides of it. You know, when you can as a defense, when you can force the team to pass, you can create good opportunities as an offense when you can run the ball when you need to, especially you know, as a mixer for sure, because it opens up explosive plays, but finishing games running the ball, there's nothing better.
When you said they won a Super Bowl by running the ball, there was a part of me that also wanted to think they also lost to Super Bowl by not running the ball in one specific situation, right, But that was I want to say that was a Brian Shottenheim recall, not a Dave Canalis call, if I remember.
Webl but it's, uh yeah, I mean it was. It might have been a Russell Wilson, you never know, but it's it doesn't have to be that hard football, I mean, and I think that's the ultimate point of what Dave Canalis is trying to do. And it's fascinating to me, you know, having seen seven first year coaches walk into this place, Dave is He's not trying to be thematic, he's not trying to be inspirational or anything like that. What are he wants to do is work And it's
interesting to me. This is one of those little characters traits that you notice over time. Dave Canalis comes out to practice every day in the same outfit shorts and a T shirt. And if it's raining, he doesn't put on a raincoat, and if it's hotter, he doesn't necessarily change the look or anything like that. And these clothes come in about four colors, black, gray, white, blue, and you know, there might be mixing and matching every day
or whatever, but the outfit remains the same. And he said the other day, kind of the point is, if it's raining, we don't want to work differently if it's raining, that can you stay focused when the external factors are coming into play. And so it's a very simplified, it's a very stripped down but at every turn he keeps telling us we're trying to focus on the work here
and getting the stuff done. That's why when they were scrapping around and jawing at each other yesterday, his point was cool, but let's not lose fifteen yards, Let's not lose five minutes of practice time. Let's keep the focus back here where it needs to be and getting the ball right. And you know, Cas, you and I have heard him say that approximately three million times in the last six months at give her take a million. And again at a certain point when somebody keeps showing you
who they are, maybe start to believe them. And this is exactly what he's trying to get through the.
Same outfit thing. That's very Mark Zuckerberg of him, and so that could both.
But also, and it's not full Steve Jobs. He does mix up the color. You do see him in the blue tight shirt and the black tight shirt and the white tight shirt.
That's why I went with Zuckerberg instead of Jobs. He'll mix up the color of his hoodies, but it's the same hoodie every day. I didn't want to make one extra point though, on the Tampa Bay being the worst rushing team in the league last year, and I I know Dave Canallos has talked about this at some point, but pardon me, I can't remember exactly when he talked about it, but he said, you know, we started off the worst rushing team is an average of the whole season.
They started it all really, really, really bad running the ball. If you look at the latter half of games, though, they really started to get something going and you know, got a lather on that workhorse and got their running game going more towards the end of the season. And so yes, the first half of the season was so bad that the average still worked out for them to
be the worst in the league. But the second half of that season, they really started to find a groove running the ball because they stuck with it, yeah, and didn't freak out and give it up and decided to just chuck the ball all over the field of Mike Evans.
And it also helps that they had leads occasionally in the fourth quarter and you're able to find out games late and that's the that's kind of the goal. That's the place he's trying to get to here. And you know, I think one of the beneficiaries of it's going to be one of the guys who was in the middle of that little scrap yesterday, which is Chuba Hubbard.
I mean, he's broken off a few already.
Those of us who remember last year. As bad as it was, I still say for two bit a run for nine hundreds MyD yards last season is one of the most impressive things I've seen. He's a fourth round pick. You know, they kind of thought he had some home run speed coming in, but he has turned himself into this guy. And you know, yes, they drafted Jonathan Brooks in the second round, and that was a pick designed
for the future. And you know, I figure we're going to see him four or five, six weeks into the year before he's really out there on a regular basis, because this is gonna be Cuba's deal man, and Miles Sanders is gonna be mix in and Raheem black Shear's got a little pop to him, but this is going to be about Cuba. And I think that's okay because I keep coming back to some of those off season workouts when you would see guys together. Who was always at the front of the line. It was Derrick Brown
on his side. It was Cuba Hubbard on his side. That's instructive, folks. I mean, Cuba has the respect of everybody on that side of the ball. And when you invest in Robert Hunt and Damian Lewis and put Austin Corbett in the middle and your lead back as Cuba, Hu who ain't afraid to slam it up in there and take those dirty runs. That's a statement of personality type thing. And I think there's an opportunity here for Cuba to create a name for himself and create some
economic opportunities for himself. At the end of the year, and just.
Going back to our Tampa Bay point, Cuba got all those yards on a team that wasn't running it.
In the fourth quarter, right, Yeah, they had to lead for a second, and so.
That is impressive. And I like to your point again, the interior part of that line. I like seeing what they're doing up the middle and they're not having to always try to bounce it outside, because if you're bouncing it outside, you've got to have a lot of speed, and there are some running backs in this league that have that capability. But if you can run it up the middle, then you can really get your running game going.
On the point of the interior line, I think we're seeing this too with a trio of interior guys that it readily admit themselves they have still not reached what they feel is the chemistry level they need to before the season. Robert Hunt takes a lot of that on himself because he missed a lot of this offseason. That's excused. He had a he had a baby baby. He needs to be at home with the baby, and it's.
An adorable baby. I saw the wife and the baby on the sidelines the other day, so.
Cute, and he was telling me, I think it was Monday Sunday. I don't know that the days are all run together.
Right now, correct, because it's training camp. I have no idea of what day it is.
He was telling me. He was like, we're not where we need to be, and he said, and a lot of that's because of me, because I had to miss some of the off season with the baby coming. And he said, but we'll get there. It's just going to take more and more reps. So I'm excited to see how this Running the Ball continues to involve, continues to evolve as that trio of Robert Hunt, Damian Lewis, and Austin Corbett really kind of figure themselves out as well.
Yeah. Yeah, speaking of evolving, you and I are going our separate ways later today. You're you're gonna get on a bus tomorrow and go to Clemson. I'm gonna crawl on a airplane and go to campon Ohio.
Would you rather spend three hours on a bus or a plane?
I think plane. Listen, man, I'm not gonna lie. You know why You're going to Clemson and I'm going to Campton because you didn't want because I got to pick first. Uh, no, I love Clemson and and there's nothing but fond memories down there. Again. Still tend for you to get your tickets to go to FanFest Clickpanthers dot com for all that. It will be broadcast here in the Carolinas as well.
I think it's worth tuning in if for no other reason it reminds you of Dom Capers in nineteen ninety five and getting on the bus ride Ulson, Indiana real year and it's and it's inn squad scrimmage. They're gonna be in full pads. It's gonna look like actual football down there, which is good because in ninety five it was that same kind of hard hitting, let's play defense and run the ball kind of system. All of these things come back around with time.
What goes around comes around, and that was that was my point. It's going to be a little bit of an actual game fell to it. So if you're around Clemson or can get to Clemson tomorrow night, definitely come and join us. We'd love to have you. But Darren will not be there. I will try to I'll get like a bo jingle sweet tea, and I'll try to do my best Darren impression. If somebody wanted to meet him, but Darren'll be in Ohio, his other favorite places.
The happiest place on earth, Canton, Ohio.
It's not Disney than many people have said that, all three of you.
It's the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And I love it because when you go there, nobody's mad. We're celebrating only there's no you know, there's nothing sad about it. Nobody's angry. It's just a bunch of guys getting together and celebrating this thing we love, which is football. And this week it's Julius Peppers and we've had some pretty cool stories on Panthers dot Com. There's more to come, as people know Julius is a complicated man. He contains multitudes.
There's a lot of cool stuff I've learned about Julius over the course of the last six months, and we look forward to sharing the rest of it. I loved, I loved, loved, loved talking to the legends the other week when Julius was put on the field to try to catch passes, that meant somebody had to come off, and Steve Smith and Mussin Muhammad and Wesley Walls all
had thoughts about that. Wesley even had specific play calls he would have preferred in that situation, But at the end of the day, everybody's like, you know, but when you see Julius do that, it's kind of hard to argue with at that point. So, as with so many things in his career, a brilliant career. We look forward to a lot of coverage from Canton in the next
couple of days. Keep it locked on Panthers dot com for that, pay attention to Cassidy on the social media and the same platform for all your latest from FanFest, and we will see you next week when things become somewhat normal again and they start playing football games.
And then we get on a plane and go to North New
England exactly, and we'll cover it all next week here on the Happy Half Hour.