This week on a Happy half Hour.
There's a lot of bs in the world of professional football. There's a lot of negativity, in case you haven't noticed, surrounding professional football. But when you get to the Hall of Fame, it's only the good stuff that everybody likes and none of the bad stuff that everybody hates.
Touchdown, cow wha, 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 a jam packed edition of the Happy Half Hour, presented to you by Southern Star and official bourbon partner of the Carolinas. Celebrate the spirit of the Carolina Little Southern Star, and we've got plenty to celebrate. Man, what a week since we last left you. You've been to Clemson, I've been to Canton.
We have been all around this world, and by that we mean from anywhere Ohio to South Carolina.
Right, we're about to get on airplanes and go to suburban Providence, Rhode Island. Yeah, you know, Foxboro, Massachusetts is kind of a made up place. I mean Foxboro in and of itself, so a charming little village, but not a place you would go unless you were going to a football game necessarily. But yeah, a lot of stuff going on, and it's kind of hard. I know we talked about this in the last podcast, but we've reached that time of year when I have lost all concept
of time. I don't know what day of the week it is. I don't know what time of day.
Someone said to me today something about, oh, today is Tuesday, Yes, Tuesday, and I went, no, it's not. And then I sat there and thought about it for a second and I was like, wait, on Sunday, Monday, it is Tuesday.
I'll be how about that.
So is Foxboro on the Paul Revere Tour.
I don't know. I'm not sure that it's on. There's a dunkin Donuts.
There, of course there is. I would expect nothing less.
We're going to struggle to find Krispy Kreme, an official doughnut partner of the Carolina Panthers, while we were there. But there's a dunk. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a duncan in that town. So uh. Anyway, before we get to where we're going, we should probably cover where we've been.
Yeah, great life lesson.
I know, right, we should we should take a look back to inform the future. Uh, and let's start with Clemson. I mean you you were down there the other night for a fan fist practice, and you know, shoot the nostalgia straight into your veins. There's Dom Caper's, It's Clemson. It's nineteen ninety five all over again. We found out last week. You were alive in nineteen ninety five, but only barely so I was barely alive.
That would have been the year I started kindergarten, the fall of nineteen ninety five, and that.
Was a year I started covering the Carolina Panthers. This is the part of the where feels old.
The birth of the Panthers, the birth Cassidy's career in school. All good things happened in nineteen ninety five.
It's been an education since then. I'll tell you that it has. But what was the lag down there? I mean that was kind of They had had a padded practice before that, But after seeing that one, I mean, was there could you pick up a vibe off what was going on down there?
First of all, it was my first trip to Clemson.
Was a lot of fun, Yeah, how'd that go for you? Everything?
There was a blanket of humidity that settled over the entire stadium. That was fun. But I was trying to convince different people to touch the rock and run down the hill. Dave Canalis said that he thought about it and then he went and walked down the hill and he was like, Yeah, this is way too steep. I'm not running down this. You could just see somebody tearing their acl Yeah, let's not.
Get hurt running down the hill. Dave, that's a good call.
It was essentially a mock scrimmage. The plan was to hold a little bit of a practice and then go into a scrimmage. They really just kind of ended up doing warm ups and then jumped straight into the scrimmage. The story of the first half was Jadavian Clowney. He was everywhere at multiple sacks. He kind of just exerted his dominance and reminded every one of who he can be and also gave a little bit of breathing room to what this past rushing unit can be because there's
been some uncertainty. There is still the question of depth behind him. But if the bulk of this responsibility does land on Jadavian Clowney's shoulders. He reminded everyone that he is capable of handling it, and so that was nice to see, just to kind of see how much of a game wrecker he can be. It made it tough going for the offense though, something that Dave canalis I
timed it. It took him fourteen seconds into his press conference after that mock scrimmage to address the offensive woes from the first half and then into the second half, and a lot of that, again had to do with Clowney. There were also a lot of pre snap penalties, false stars, delay of games. I mean, granted, Darren, this was the first like game like structure that they had really been in. You would rather work these things out in a mock scrimmage on August first than you would and free at
the end of September. But they were still things that I think it put a big glaring issue up on the board for them to work on this week. And so we've seen a lot, a lot, a lot of times this week where there might have been a slight delay a game in practice, and normally in a practice you might just let it go to keep the play moving. Canalysis stopped it every time and made them rehuddle and start again. So I think that's been a huge emphasis.
In the second half, we saw both Bryce Young and Jack Plumber kind of get things moving a little bit easier. Some of that had to do with the fact that Jenevin Clowney was no longer on the field, but move things a little bit easier. Bryce to Deontae just seems to get a little bit stronger every day. Bryce to feeling Adam Thielen tried to do a gritty Actually he didn't try, he did it, but you know, it's always a little weird to see Adam thelen versus Justice Everson
doing that. Some good play from a couple of the tight ends that had to step up with injuries like Felipe Franks, and then you know, like the running back Mike Boone. We've seen some of these guys that are going to be fighting for these final roster spots and maybe these practice squad spots really kind of take advantage the past few days. Overall, good trip to Clipson, my first time being out there, good bit of fans that
ended up filtering in. You know, it was raining when we first got there, so it made it hard for people to get in, but as they got in, it was a lot of fun. The best part may have been JC Horn walking out in a South Carolina gamecock.
Shirt, which was petty, and I respected it.
You can respect the pettiness. And he said he specifically called the equipment manager out South Carolina as soon as this clips in practice was announced and said, I need some new stuff. And he made sure to walk out in that shirt so that every Clipson fan and Dabosweeney who was on and could.
See it, absolutely love that. Now there's one thing I was disappointed about, and I've got a bone to pick with you. We haven't really gotten into this. Oh God, but I sent you to Clemson with one direction and you failed me for the very first time in your career here at Panthers dot com. Listen, you were given explicit instructions. You have to take a picture of the peachoid as you go down eighty five on the bus and tweet it out. It's not training camp.
If you don't got into my head, I could not have told you when we passed that peach It's not like I saw it too late and didn't get my phone out. I never saw it one time.
You know, Ron Rivera would call that a missed opportunity, Cassie, I'm not gonna lie.
I'll just have to drive back down there, Matt.
Can we get a soundboard here where we've just got the voice of Ron Rivera saying missed opportunity, where if I wave and give you the high sign, we can just have that. I think that would be a lot.
Of fun or a bunch of people going boom.
We could do it with well, we could do it with many of the coaches in Panthers history. I'd like a Dom Caper's where he says sense of urgency. I would like a John Fox it is what it is, And for now, I'll take a Ron Rivera missed opportunity and we'll just leave it at that. And I think I think that could become a lot of fun and could become topical as we developed this podcast further. But yeah, you had one.
Job do the sound effects, even if they're at my expense, you.
Had one job. I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you. It's uh, it's my life the same. Yeah, the good news for you and your punishment probably would have been more severe, except I was in the happiest place on earth. Somebody, somebody asked, how how'd cast he end up in Clemson, and you got Can't Ohio, I said, I picked first, right. There is no people, this is a funny thing. I enjoy the Pro Football Hall of
Fame a great deal. I love the city of Can't, Ohio, and so many people when I spec ho else my love for my second home. I'm currently researching real estate investment possibilities in Canton, Ohio. But people keep looking at me.
Investment if you're just gonna use it for yourself.
Right, People keep looking at me like I'm kidding, Like is he being serious or is this snarky Darren right now? And I'm like, no, Canton is the happiest place on earth. The only good things happen in football. And I am sincere about this because when you are there for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, you know there's a lot of bs in the world of professional football. There's a lot of negativity in case you haven't noticed, surrounding professional football.
But when you get to the Hall of Fame, it's only the good stuff that everybody likes and none of the bad stuff that everybody hates. Nobody's charting practice snaps being dropped, nobody's talking about your GMS an idiot for passing on this guy in the fourth round. It's like, hey man, there's Julius Pepper's getting a hug from me and Joe Green, and that's pretty cool and that's kind of the week for me. I mean, obviously I enjoy this, and we enjoyed bringing you guys a lot, and there's
more to come on Panthers dot Com. We got some cool video elements and a whole lot of pictures. We were basically firing the entire time. We were there for four days, and that's part of the reason we've got Yeah, there's a lot to capture because there was constantly something going on. From him walking out on the field Thursday night during the Hall of Fame game, you know, hugging up on DJ Moore, his one time teammate who's now with the Bears, was a cool little moment. Friday, I
mean Friday, Julius goes to the team picture. We had him micd up for that. It's super cool. Orlando Pace comes rolling up late and people are like, yeah, come on and on, and you just hear Pip in the backgroundling, and you could tell he was just enjoying himself so much.
It's not just me who loves the Canton experience, but everything from that to the gold jack at dinner, seeing Julius chose min Joe Green to put the jacket on him, and it was kind of it was kind of a theme throughout the weekend that here is this utterly modern football player, this freakish athlete, who can do things other football players could never do in a way that they can't even consider, and the old dudes have a respect
for him. One of the cool moments for me was talking to Dave Robinson, who you've spent time in Green Bay. That name's probably itched in your memory. I mean, it's probably on walls in Green Bay. Dave Robinson, outside linebacker on the great Packers defenses of the sixties, you know, played in Super Bowl One, won three championships with the Packers, lined up to some cat named Raid Ninchke. So he kind of knows about the football and whether it was good.
And I was talking to Dave Robinson and he said, listen, man, not all of these young guys could play when I play. That one could, and he pointed to Julius. He said, Julius Peppers absolutely could. And to me, that's like almost the summation of the whole week was all the legends of football recognizing Julius was a different sort of cat and now one of them, and then again seeing him kind of come to the acceptance of, yes, this is the place I belong, Yes this is the place I
will now reside forever. And it was pretty cool to bring it all home seeing his speech. I mean, Julius gave one of the better Hall of Fame speeches I've seen personally, and I think a lot of people have seen in a long time. And as you know from Readingpanthers dot Com, Julius writes his own material, which made it that much more impressive to see him pull that off.
But about nineteen minutes, the very best part to me was about the last minute of that speech, after he thanked everybody, you know, all his old friends, all his old coaches, all that you know, all the people he talked about throughout the course of the speech. He kind of brought it home in a way that wasn't about football, And you know, it was pretty cool to hear it in Julius's own words.
Now I'm going to close with what being a Hall of Famer means to me. It's not about how many touchdowns you scored or how many Super Bowl rings you have, even though those things are nice. It really comes down to who you are, to your core and what's in your heart. Are you resilient, do you stand tall in the face of adversity when things get tough or do you quit? Do you acknowledge other people's contributions to your
success or do you make it all about you. Being a Hall of Famer is one of my crown and achievements, but it extends far beyond pro football. It extends to my family, and it extends to my daily life. Everyone can't play in the NFL, and everyone can't have a bus here and can but everyone can be a Hall of Famer in your own life. Be a Hall of Fame, d a hall of Fame student, teacher, spouse, coworker, friend, whatever it is, Whatever it is that you do, do
it with respect, integrity, passion, resilience, dedication, and gratitude. That alone will make you a Hall of Fame person, and you two can have a legacy that lives on forever. Thank you and God.
Bless and I mean when you hear that, you're just left with the thought, hey, this guy gets it. Be he might be better at riding than I am. But I mean there was a genuine appreciation of the moment, and I think Julius rose to it as he did so many other times through his career. But yeah, you can't get me to say enough good things about the city of Can't, Ohio. They even have a bow Jangles
now right off everhard Road. They're bow Berry Biscuits in Can't, Ohio, the birthplace of professional football, are in the shape of little delicious footballs.
That's like all of your favorite things together.
I got both j Angles, I got the Hall of Fame, I got Canton, Ohio, I got Panthers dot Com and our crew with me alongside. It was just you couldn't beat the smile off my face for about four days there. I mean, we put in a lot of time, but we do it for you are readers and listeners.
You said something, no, go ahead, you said something about getting there and realizing for the guys, realizing this is where they're gonna be, this is where they're gonna be enshrine forever now and justifiably so. When Julius was first announced that he would be in the Hall and y'all were in Vegas for that announcement, you talked about how he kind of was almost like wide eyed, like, am I really a part of this group? Did you feel like it had sunk in by the time he got to camp.
It's he was coming to that realization. Yeah, that was the cool moment in Vegas when he looked at me and he said, because the night before the announcement, he's checking into the hotel and Barry Sanders is in front of him in line, and Julia says, I'm sitting here looking at Barry Sanders like the same now, you know, And it just he was giddy about it, and and it was hard for him to wrap his mind around it.
But again, seeing the reaction of other people to Julius, seeing his reaction to it all, it was a super cool weekend. He had a party. We've got some shots of that coming on Panthers dot com. A lot of old coaches and teammates and friends were there for him. I mean, Julius got to see you know, former UNC basketball legend and assistant coach Phil Ford, and he was like, wasn't expecting to see Phil Ford walking into the door. We got to say, Michael Jordan, No, Michael shows up.
Michael was at the ceremony. He got a hug from Julius as you saw in her socials. But you know, you kind of look around that party and hey, over there's Luke Keigley hugging up on Julius. And Luke didn't want to stand next to Julius.
He told us that yesterday he said, I have to make sure to stand like six feet away like force perception, because I look like a child next to Julius.
Yeah, and that's Luke Keighley who's saying that ladies and gentlemen, not a small person. It sat like Steve Smith said that Steve used to always laugh because they were eighty nine and ninety. He said, when we'd be in team pictures, I'd be like up on my tippy toes trying to get even close to where he was. But it's like, you look at that party over there, as John Fox, what's Marty Hernie doing here? You know, there's Hannibal Navies
was at the party. And for David Langton, who's on the other side of the room, and some of the old heads. You'll remember that one. But it was a great blend. I mean, Kevin Dine only a lot of a lot of his old teammates and friends from across the eras were there. Stephen was here the other night for I don't I don't recall if Steve.
Was there someone in the crowd that I thought was him.
Yeah, there was a lot of people. Steve Wilkes was there, former Panthers interim coach and friend of the programme, Steve Wilkes. It was good to catch up with him. He saw the long hair and he said, nice hair there, and I said, I'm taking it back to my boon roots Steve, and Steve, being an Appalachian state man, appreciated that. He said, you're going out to put the birkenstocks back on too. We can make that happen too.
Here will come the Sam Elliott character from Parks and rec So.
So anyway, great weekend, and again we enjoyed bringing it all to you. Hopefully it wasn't too much for you. Hopefully you didn't get tired of Julius Peppers, because frankly, I think I could talk about him and write about him all day Long. He's just that big of a personality and big of a character in this franchise's history, so it was appropriate that he goes in as the first drafted as a Panther member of the Pro Football
Hall of Fame. So on to worldly matters. I walked back into practice Monday, and I was like, how are you going to send him back to the farm when they've seen the bright lights of Canton.
But here we are, Oh Jangles like just shines across campon.
I know, right, but we are back to work now and we're about to get on those airplanes and go see a preseason game. And what a preseason game it promises to be. Dave Canalis told us today that we will not see Bryce Young and likely you know, I think they're going to be smart about playing a lot
of the starters here in this first game. But with no Bryce Young and Andy Dalton kind of dinged up on the sidelines, that means Jack Palmer, ladies and gentlemen, Jack Plumber, the undrafted rookie from Louisville via Purdue in California, is going to be likely starting. I mean, Jake Lwton's here, but he just rolled up on Sunday or Monday. What day is it, can't remember. Yeah, he got here Monday. He'll play probably a little bit later in the game. But this is going to be a lot of work
for Jack Plumber. If you're a local fan here in the Charlotte market, you may have seen him in his last college game, which was the ACC championship game at Bank of America Stadium. That one didn't turn out too well for him, But Dave Canalis was actually pretty enthused about Jack Plumber and what he's seen from the rookie so far.
The guy's a hard worker. I've learned that he's very detailed in what he does. I feel like he's been really sharp, you know, with the the different changes that happen at the line. Really just like the mechanisms, the cadences and all that stuff. I think he's been sharp there. He's a great athlete, you know, he can. He's got a big arm and he's showcased that a couple of times, you know, and love his mobility, and he's got a really cool demeanor about him. So I really like the guy.
I'm excited for Jack for this opportunity. A lot of times you kind of get those those the late quarter work, you know, and he gets to kind of go out there and you know, really, you know, for Jack this is like, you know, you don't realize it, but the guys that if they don't make your team, it's like it's almost a year later till they get actual live game experience. And this is going to be so valuable for him for his career, you know.
In development, Dave Canalis thinks that Jack Plumber, despite a utter lack of experience at the NFL level, he's an undrafted rookie after all. He said, he thinks he knows enough about what's going on here, and he's shown enough in camp to give them a decent evaluation of the other ten guys on the field at the same time.
And that's important because you can have opinions one way or another or whether Bryce should be playing, and certainly there are plenty of opinions, but I think regardless, this is an evaluation tool and they're looking at you know, Jonathan Mingo and Terrace Marshall and David Moore and a whole bunch of other receivers, and so Jack Plummer's ability to get the ball to them is going to be paramount to being able to get a good read on those guys.
Would you rather have someone who knows the scheme like Plumber or someone who has a little more NFL experience like Jake Gluten when you're trying to evaluate the.
Other ten, well, I think when you're talking about two days, notice it's probably jack by default at that point. But you know, Luton's been around, and he was in Seattle with Canalis from in it also, so in addition to some of his cameos here, you may remember Jake Luton from his stint as Andy Dalton's backup in Seattle last year.
On Cassidy Fact. Yeah, I covered Jake Luten's first NFL start. He started for the Jacksonville Jaguars when Gardner Minshew broke his thumb. They lost the game. But Jake Luton had a heck of a game. That's right, it's COVID year. I think he scored like three touchdowns.
Oh boy, right, what tell me what else you remember about that game? Let's test your memory here.
He ran in a touchdown in the front left corner. I want to say he threw a touchdown maybe to DJ Chark, but I could be making up that part of.
It possible possible DJ Hark.
Yeah, they lost the game, but it was a pretty close game. It was enough that going into the next week, Gardner Minshew had to quote unquote win back the job. Now he won it back pretty easily, but it was it was not a bad performance for Jake Luten to get thrown in there on you know, a couple of days notice for his first NFL start. I'm trying to remember who they were playing. Maybe the Texans.
Could be, could be the one you have pulled up now. The one thing I know, and I was just looking to fact check myself, that was, in fact Jake Luton last year in Seattle as Andy Dalton's backup. I was scared for a moment that I had conflated him again with Jacob Eson, who made a cameo here two years ago against the Rams as as PJ Walker's backup. I believe that day. So it was, yeah, we've seen some things here, you and I, even though you've been here a very short amount of time.
But for as big as the NFL is, it's a very small world.
No doubt about that. So it's you know, it's preseason and we'll make the most of it, and we'll come out with winners and losers. I'm sure everybody makes snap decisions based on a quarter of the first preseason game when the starters may not necessarily be playing. But we'll have a chance to get to all that coming around the bend. We'll get back next week. Next week is another big one. After this preseason game, they'll come back here and work by themselves for a couple of days
and then the Jets roll into town. Joint practices are kind of the new wave of the NFL. People actually probably prefer them the preseason games.
I was about to say, you can get a little more out of it because you can control it a little bit better, and like you're going to learn more about Bryce against another defense and that joint practice than you will in the preseason.
Game, right, I mean, And it's it's as live of a rep as you can get while leaving a red jersey on your quarterback, right, And that's important because coaches want to see that full speed stuff without their quarterback
being in peril. So I think that'll be good defense. Yeah, it really is, and it'll be a good indication you know, last year, as you look at last year in the rearview mirror, and I try not to do that all that att but at that joint practice against the Jets, you realize, oh, the Jets are pretty good on defense. They got a lot of dudes up front, and and as the Panthers started getting dinged up on the offensive line, you realized, Okay, this could be an issue, and that
became a theme over the course of the year. But the Jets are the kind of defense that can rush anybody's quarterback. Even teams with good lines are going to struggle to match up all the pass rushers the Jets can throw at you. So I think it's gonna be
an interesting test for a reconfigured line. I mean, we've made a lot of that so far this year in terms of the run game, because I mean, obviously, when you look at Robert Hunt and you look at Damian Lewis, those guys are built to be run blockers and stay out on the front foot and lean on people rather than drop into a pass rush posture necessarily. But it's it's gonna be a good test. It's always interesting when
you get to see other people. But I think when Aaron Rodgers and the Jets roll in here, next week. Mostly we're going to be like are we in a time war? Pier Because a year ago, the same time they come to Spartan Bird for a day of practice, Rogers was about to lead the Jets to the players Super Bowl, kys Young was about to lead a resurgent Carolina Panthers team is the number one overall pick and neither one of them worked out that way. Aaron played about what was it snaps last year?
So like seventy eight seconds, we.
Wish nothing but good health to Aaron and the rest of the players on the field.
I see, and not to sound like yeh football officionado, I want to see this offensive line versus that defensive line because a lot of pieces have been put into this offensive line this offseason. Now let's see them all together against a very very very good Jets defensive line. You know who faces off against Quinn Williams. What does that one on one look like? How much time does Bryce have to throw the ball because they're gonna be They're gonna be Russian, and they're gonna be Russian. That's
a very good front seven. This may be the best tests that we see of this Panthers offensive line and Bryce's timing until week.
One, Yeah, because there's no guarantee, and that was one of the themes. I mean, Canalys has said, you like the idea of getting some live action. That's why, you know, in addition to the joint practice, they try to go ones versus ones when they're doing live move the ball now, I mean that's still a thud period. They're not tackling to the ground necessarily, but it's contact and it's and
it's a little bit physical. But they try to put Bryce in those competitive situations, whether it's a preseason game or not. And coaches are always going to like to control what they can control, and you know you can
do that by not playing guys in unpredictable situations. Preseason games make me nervous anyway, because you got anytime your starters are out there with guys who are competing to make the fifty second and fifty third spot on a roster, those guys can get a little reckless sometimes because they're trying to make a name for themselves. So I watched I understand the temptation and leave Bryce on the shelf.
I watched the Packers starting tight end tear his acl in a preseason game last year. Yeah, it changes a lot of plans.
It's a bad deal sometimes for a lot of people. But anyway, so we'll get to that next week. We will recap all the delights of suburban Providence, Rhode Island. Will there be clam rolls? I don't know it's Baltimore. No, that's crabcakes.
No, that's I thought it was something roll like a lobster roll.
A lobster roll. That's a New England. That's main. If we keep talking about New England delicacies of the sea, Kyle toot is magically gonna appear our former video guy and scold us on getting this stuff wrong.
But what I bet we can find out when we get to Providence.
Probably so I think we can. But until then, friends.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, before we wake this up. I did want to say because.
I looked it up, all right.
I just I like to have moments when I can prove that I am smart and know what I'm talking about.
We all deserve that affirmation.
Jake Luton's first start was in fact against the Houston Texans. It was in fact a close game. Jaguars lost twenty five to twenty. Jake Gluten did, in fact score three touchdowns. The first one was to DJ Shark, a seventy three yard pass to DJ Shark If I remember correctly, it was the opening play from scrimmage. Yeah, fourteen oh eight into the game.
So mind mind like a steel trap. I respect it.
And then he did run in a touchdown, a thirteen yard touchdown run. This bump to the front left corner of the end zone. Two point conversion failed, that would have tied the game.
This bump to Cassidy for nailing that one.
Hey, listen, when you're in big history making moments like Jake Gluten's first start, you don't just forget that.
No question, we've invoked in this Happy Half Hour, Dabo Swinny, Hannibal Navies, and Jacob Eason. So I think we've about covered that. That'll take care of us for this episode of The Happy Half Hour.