This week on a Happy Half Hour.
Dave is a very workmanlike kind of coach. And I think because people only see that veneer, they only see that, you know, front facing part of Dave Canalis clapping and being positive and all that kind of stuff. It's like this dude's a grinder.
Touch the cow. 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 another very special edition of the Happy Half Hour.
We're all special.
They're all special. They're like our kids. We love them all, but this one may be more special than all the rest. I don't know where we get to talk about a wine, talk about hurricane that's rolling into town, Hurricane Helene. Hopefully we don't all die. If if we do, next week will be called the Sad Half Hour with somebody not Darren Ganton Cassidy Hill.
Who would you want to deliver your eulogy?
I don't even know, but Podcast Matt will make it sound great. I know that much. But so let's get on with it. To this episode of The Happy Half Hour, which is always is brought to us by our friends. It's Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers, celebrate the spirit of the Carolinas. With the hurricane rolling in, it might be time for a little Southern Star and eggnog or something. I don't know. It might be early for eggnog season, but I could make an exception for her.
I don't know. I don't really you know, I know I don't celebrate the pumpkin festivities, but I am not going to stand in the way of people who do enjoy it because I want everybody to be happy and this week everybody's happy.
Everybody's happy. Happen well, they won a game. That goes a long way towards making everybody happy.
It really does, and it is alarming. I mean, I try to be a balanced human being, be the same guy every day and that kind of stuff. But just when you move through the building, if you're in the ticket office, if you're in the marketing department, if you're anywhere in the building, the mood is just better. And that's just human nature. I think everybody's excited about the way last thing last week went. You know this just in people like touchdowns and points and stuff, and then
when you can win, it's better still. So it's all good things for the Carolina Panthers right now after a week that they talked about being heavy. Yeah, because again last week when we did this, we were talking about making a change at quarterback, and obviously it was something nobody ever wanted to do, nobody anticipated doing three weeks into the season. But the Andy Dalton era got off to quite a start.
And you know, it's funny we say everybody's happy. The one person who doesn't isn't necessarily balancing with happiness maybe Dave Canalis, Yeah, which is a little surprising considering how energetic he normally is. But like you said, he said after that game, after his first win as a head coach, you know, I'm happy on the inside, but it's been a heavy week. Yeah, And I thought that spoke volumes just about the fact that this wasn't an easy decision and it did carry a lot of weight.
And here's the other thing. I think, as people get wrapped up in the results of ballgames and their fantasy football team and stuff like that, we've commodified sports. This is a business full of human beings and Dave Canalis knows that because, as you know, much as they needed the result to change offensively and make the change, and Andy created what they were hoping to see, you know, there's still a dude on the other end of that
transaction who they value and want to protect. So I thought one of the biggest upshots of last week was seeing how engaged Bryce was through the week and on game day, I mean there was. It would have been the easy thing for Bryce Young to do, or the easy thing for Bryce Young to do, would have been to hide and to withdraw and let Andy have his moment and go ahead. But Bryce was in all the places.
I mean, I can tell you anybody who's gone through any kind of trauma, lose a job, getting divorced, any of that kind of stuff, what do you do. You withdraw, You don't call your friends, you don't go out that kind of stuff. You just kind of hide in your hole and wait for it to subside a little bit before you re enter society. But Bryce was out there
for the coin toss. I mean, he's standing right next to Shack Thompson, still a captain, still a captain, still doing his thing, had the headset in the entire game, you know, contributing and one of my favorite pictures of the aftermath there was a celebration shot from the locker room and like Jamie Robinson is dancing in the foreground, but if you look in the background to the picture, Andy's walking into the locker room and Bryce is the first one standing there hugging him.
Yeah.
So, I mean that kind of to me, spoke to what was going on last week that you know, yes, everybody's happy, but there was still this subtext that people were trying to take care of their own and.
There's something to be said for taking the weight of a franchise off a very young player shoulders and how that can maybe give him a chance to breathe.
Yeah, I've used the phrase get him in out of the rain, which would be helpful today, but it's it's true. I mean, and I think as you look across the league, it may be time for us to talk differently about quarterbacks. I mean, we might have to think differently about the entire profession based on what we've seen so far this year. The fact that Andy Dalton, that closing in on thirty seven years old, is the only quarterback in the entire NFL.
To throw for three hundred yards and three touchdowns in a game this year should tell you something that it is hard for these guys. You see Caleb Williams struggling a little bit with Chicago. You see poor old Trevor Lawrence right, bless his heart, Remember when all the way, remember when he was good.
At football once upon a time.
That was a thing one time, and they gave him a whole bunch of money because they believed he was going to continue to be and not. So watch right now, and you know Joe Burrow is still good at football, but his team's zero and three. So I mean the struggles of these number one picks, you know, from this year to the last several I think it's instructive because this thing is hard and this thing is complicated. And I go back to one of the things Canal has
kept talking about last week. You do this for the whole team. You're building a whole team all off season. Dave Canalis Dan Morgan got asked versions of the question about building this thing around Bryce, and it's like, we're trying to build a whole roster here, and it's not just about Bryce. It's about building the entire team the
way you want to build it. And I think, you know, if you take the face and the glorious mane of red hair off of the top line and think about just the other twenty one guys that were out there on the field on both sides of the ball, you realize the floor is definitely higher on this Carolina Panthers team than it was a year ago. They wanted to fix the offensive line when I spent a much money
fix the offensive line. They wanted to bring in a bunch of old heads on defense to David Clowney's over there, you know, with seven or eight pressures whatever it was during that Gameka. Yeah, So you can see the level being raised as this thing goes.
Yeah, And because of all of that, just to kind of build on the Dave Canalis happy skill, he's been very steady this week, and the guys were really steady after the win. You know, they were excited. But I'm trying to figure out the way to word this good thing. I don't work in words. The locker room after the win was excited as if it was a normal win. Does that make sense? Not then not only the third
win in twenty games, but just a normal win. And that was what Dave Canalis said afterwards after the game, and then he said it again earlier this week, was this is what we expect to do. I liked how focused the guys came in. You know, he kind of admitted he wasn't sure what he was gonna be walking into on Wednesday's meeting. Would guys be still so excited that they weren't focused? And that wasn't the case. As cliche as it sounds. You know, it's on every high
school football's workout shirts that expect to win. It kind of helps it. That is what has shaped the mindset of this team this week, like, Okay, we won, as Dave Canal says, that validated the process of everything they've done to get to this point. Now continue on and make that the standard.
Yeah. And here's the thing. And I've mentioned this before, probably on this podcast and another outlets, and I know I've written it. Here's the thing I'm starting to figure out about Dave Canalis. He's young, he's handsome, he's in great shape, he works out every day before practice.
Here's this going.
But he I mean, there is this slick veneer of what Dave Canalis appears to be. What Dave Canalis is is grinder. Yeah, when you listen to the words he says, when you watch what he does on a daily basis, I guarantee you he's gonna be out there in practice field today wearing the same long sleeve dry fit and the same pair of shorts he wears every other day.
Think hat on.
He might put a hat on. I've seen him in a hat, it exists. That is a thing that occurs from time to time. And maybe even a rain jacket because we're, you know, in the midst of a hurricane, rolling in and hope everybody's safe, et cetera, et cetera. But Dave is a very workman like kind of coach. And I think because people only see that veneer, they only see that, you know, front facing part of Dave Canalis, clapping and being positive and all that kind of stuff.
It's like, this dude's a grinder. He works. I mean, that's pack mule and show pony clothing. He's he is that guy. And I think, you know the other thing that I keep coming back to on him when he's talking in that postgame locker room. I mean, and you've heard the clip we had the video of the postgame celebration. I mean, just listen to this from Dave Canalis's Football Football. That's our football. Run the ball. When you want to stop the.
Run, throw it over their heads, keep it from doing it. We got some guys we got to talk about.
Mike Jack got a pick, We got you.
Got some sacks here, Okay, give me hey, here we go.
Peete got one, Cloudy got one. Andy Andy Don first quarterback this season in the NFL with three hundred plus yards.
And three touchdowns.
Career high for Deontae eight for one, twenty.
Oh mine, I love it.
Man.
The last time we had a hundred yard receiver and one hundred yard rusher was Week twelve of twenty twenty two.
Shuba got one hundred. Listen, it's the process. We had a great week. What'd you expect was gonna happen on Sunday? We had a great day. Okay, you guys battled the whole time.
I know they got some stuff there on us at the end, guys, but it's about appreciating each other, playing for each other, and trusting this process. What's our standard. Maintain the standard. We don't change. We don't change that at all.
I mean, that was coming out of forty something year old Dave Canalis's mouth. I would have expected that out of eighty four year old Dan Hennick.
Right.
That is an old school way to football.
Did you notice if you watch that clip, there are several points of that when whenever what he says, the players say it with him, which tells me they've heard that a hundred times before.
This stuff's getting ingrained. I was going to teasing Andy the other day, I said, you're starting to pick up on some of his mannerisms, and you're saying some of his things back. I mean, and it just kind of when those things fall into someone's vernacular, that's when you know they've heard it a lot and they're internalizing it and they're starting to live it a little bit.
And that's not to say, let's just you know, tempers some expectations here. That's not to say they're about to go on like a fifteen game winning streak.
Crew now fifteen and two the hard way.
Maybe we'll take it, but it you know, they could come out on Sunday and the Bengles get their first win, you know. But the point being laying the foundation of what it can become. And that's what weeks like this past week has done, and that's you know, finding the lesson even in the losses. I think that's what they're kind of preaching right now.
No doubt about it. And Andy Dalton as excited as he was, and I mean he was grinning last week from the time he got the call because it's a chance for him to play, and that's what these guys want to do. And Andy was obviously, you know, helpful to Bryce along the way, put an arm around Bryce. He was always very sensitive to his feelings while enjoying his own moment. But as soon as that game was over, Andy's like, listen, it ain't always going to be like this.
I think there was a recognition immediately that even though they had kind of plugged into the formula of what they want to be, that that's not promised. I mean I think that you know, as you look at football over the years, Cincinnati rolling in Hero and three, you know they're thinking about this the same way the Panthers were thinking about the Raiders last week. It's like a desperation,
here's our chance to get one kind of thing. And I think the Bengals will be looking at it the same way, but Andy's recognizing that, hey, it might not would always be like this. They knew that that was about as well as it could have gone.
Everything went perfect, they really did. I'm looking to see because I'm trying to remember last year, and I believe.
Okay, does it say stand back everybody cast he's doing math on the fly?
Oh my gosh, that is that is everyone.
It's fixing to get dangerous.
Hat.
Okay, it doesn't say it on this Wikipedia age, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I'm almost positive and correct me if I'm wrong, and someone tweet me if I'm wrong. I'm almost positive. Baker Mayfield was a nominee for Comeback Player of the Year last year.
Seems right.
He didn't win, but he was a nominee. I'm pretty sure Gino Smith did win it in spirit. In spirit, my point being, do you think Canalis could go three for three on getting a guy nominated for Comeback Player of the Year because Andy Dalton's odds did go up after that game.
Well, I mean the thing it speaks to is know that's coaching. That is, you know, taking a thing that was there and improving it. That is ultimately the job description of being a ball coach.
So I think Demore Hamlin won it last year.
Yeah, that makes sense. I don't know, but I don't recall. We'll look that up, but I just you know, it has been kind of a I hate using words like this because it sounds like I'm in a meeting, But there was kind of that paradigm shift last week where the Carolina Panthers could look at themselves differently because all the stuff they talked about doing and wanting to do all off season happened. They ran, they stopped the run,
and they ran it physically. I think my favorite part of the week was watching Rob Hunt, Nikki Ikwanhu throw guys through the air. Now, I am an I am an adherent to the ways of old man football. Run, stop the run, throw it over their heads when you throw it is kind of what I grew up on watching. So that is that appeals to me. Seeing big three hundred and thirty pound dudes fleeing smaller people through the air. I mean, that's kind of what I dig on seeing.
So those guys were all into it. We were talking to them yesterday and we've got sound from Robert Hunt talking about kind of being able to set the tone offensively.
That sounds good man. So he wanted to run the football. He wants to depend on the run game to try to get everything open. And I think he showed a little bit of that last game. I think he ran away. I don't know how many times, maybe thirty eighth any one times. So it's a good amount of time to throw about thirty seven. So it was a good split. I think the run game opens up everything and it was a it was a good little mix that he had going on that game, you know too.
On that note, Darren dave Canalis was asked yesterday about the run game in the NFL becoming more prominent, and he gave an answer about, you know, we want whatever other teams are doing, we want to run the ball. Da da da. I think this is just a theory of mine, but I think I'm right that the NFL football in general is very Oh do you hear my phone ringing? Are we gonna get in.
Trouble for the broadcast?
It's on silent too, But I guess it's apparently anyways, football is and I can never say this word right, don't laugh at me. It's cyclical, right, cyclical, That's almost what I said, and I changed my mind. Second, football is cyclical. You had a bunch of years where throwing it became the focus and getting seven on seven players, you know, and drafting guys like Justin Jefferson very high, which makes sense. I mean, Justin Jefferson is a game changer.
But you had every team trying to follow that formula because passing the ball was the the future, and then you had defenses adjust to counter that, and so it became all about getting fast dbs and and putting your focus there. Well guess what that does. That opens up the middle of the field. So now if a defense is set up to stop the past, what do you do?
You run?
And so I think that's why we're seeing more and more teams this season run.
When you say it like that, it's almost like football doesn't have to be that hard.
Right, you know, if they got it and do the opposite.
Yeah, if they got a bunch of little ins, let's get biggins. Yeah, you know, if they've got all biggins, let's get little on INDs and run past them. So it's it is definitely a way of doing business that they are getting a kick out of I mean when I went through the locker room yesterday talking to Icky, talking to Rob Hunting and guys on the offensive line about it, and you just see their eyes light up.
Who's like, yeah, this is what we enjoyed doing. Austin korb But you know, Korbes sounds like he's narrating NFL films when he starts talking about the run game. It's nasty, it's dirty, like you know, they they get a kick out of this, and I think people get a kick out of seeing it. But because one thing, you know, people respond in a very visceral way when their team
plays that kind of tough football. If you you know, you weren't around, you weren't even born in the mid nineties when Dom Capers was playing that kind of style. You were alive. You just weren't here yet in twenty two when they you know, hung five hundred and some yards on Detroit out here into degree weather by running for a million yards. So people like that, People respond to it, and people in the Carolinas have become conditioned to seeing it over the years.
I really really appreciate you thinking I wasn't alive in nineteen ninety five. That may be the best part of my day.
Yeah, well, I do it for the people.
So but yeah, I mean, you hear people say all the time the most disrespectful thing you can do on the football field is run the ball straight down their throat and do it over and over where they know what's coming, and you do it anyways. And so it's personality, and I think there's a not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but there's a chance to do that again on Sunday. This Bengals team, their defense is balanced in the fact that they're not letting one side of
the game get them more than the other. But there is definitely an opportunity there to brun We saw Washington do it the other night, and so I think that again that's gonna, of course be what the Panthers come out and do because Dave Canls wants that to be their identity. And I think there's a chance to set the tone early again.
Yep, no doubt, no doubt. And it's gonna be interesting. And it's so fun watching Andy kind of go through this moment in time because yes, since his first start in a minute, you know, he got the one start last year. But you know, it was it was a chance in a good situation last week, and he made the most of it. You know, he has been center stage. He's getting a lot of attention, a lot of callback for the haircut. He's he's probably working on on some
endorsement deals. He shared with us. It's American Crew fiber. It's a grooming pace to use it. Yeah, that's the pomode to you know, that's how he gets that glorious mane of hair looking the way it looks, and so he could probably he could probably sell that for a lot of money right now, he could. You know, I'm sure they're going to be fans spray painting their hair orange on their way into the game.
But gosh, we should give out wigs.
That would be That would be amazing.
Bracketing on the phone.
I just think if we all show up with Andy Dalton hair next week, how great would that be? But maybe it.
Works better to see you with Andy Dalton here.
Yeah, well we should photo shop that put Andy hare on my head.
That will be done by the end of the day.
Now, yeah, great, tremendous. What could possibly go wrong? So so anyway, Andy Cincinnati this week, he talked about it being fun. That seems to be the word of the week, didn't it fun and normal? Fun and normal? So Andy Yes, was in Cincinnati for nine years. He I asked him the important question skyline Chili, yes or no? He said, he said gold Star, which was because gold Star Chili, which is another Cincinnati chili franchise, was on his board
of his foundation up in Cincinnati. So good for him to shout out his sponsors Cincinnati Chili.
No for you, no, and listen. I like all of the things that are a part of it. I like the spaghetti, I like chili. I like all of those things. But for some reason, it just doesn't work when it's all together the way they do it.
Yeah, I don't mind it. I kind of like it. I'll go five Way beans, onions, cheese, chili. Yeah.
I will say there is a restaurant in Cincinnati that is some of the best food I've ever had. What's that called The Eagle.
The Eagle in Cincinnati. I don't know when next time we're there.
We'll have to skyline chili.
Go to the Eagle. You'll have to visit that. But he is a fan of Joey Vado, which makes him a good human being. My favorite baseball player of all time said he met Joey a time or two when he was up there, but he is all ours now. He belongs to the correct queen city at this moment.
The only true queen city that's correct.
We've got a better airport, we've got better.
Food, and then we're named after an actual queen.
That's right. So all all good things here, So all right. To wrap it up this week the Happy half Hour Jukebox, you actually finally gave me a Taylor Swift song that didn't make me want to drive into a bridge a buttonte That was that paper Ring song. That's a bop. That one is Bo's that's something you know what And again you may not have been alive to remember this, but that reminded me of a Blenda Carlisle and the
Go Gos kind of song. I mean, that is just a perfect pop hook right there, is what that is.
She's she's good at the bridges and when, especially when you give her a beat to put it to, you just walk around kind of singing it. That one is at the top of because when you asked for a happy song last week, I thought of that one, and then I was like, let me just see what Google says to so I googled it and that was the top of Google's list of Taylor Swift happy songs as well.
So you googled happy Taylor Swift songs as opposed to all.
The other all the other ones. That's also the top of my I call paper Rings a perfect wedding reception song.
I can see that people are dancing, Yeah, people are happy.
And it's talking about getting married. If Taylor Swift didn't exist, who would be your favorite artist? I think it would depend on where I'm at in life, the time of day, the weather today today with the rain and there today I drove in listening to the Lumineers. Oh yeah, but I'm also like this kind of weather this time of year, I could go for some Noah Khan Okay.
So I was just curious. Sorry, I thought you were going to say Metallica listen.
I listened to that song and at one point I texted Darren a screenshot the song, and I said, does this song ever end?
Like?
It just kept going that's.
The great thing about it. And I told you to listen to my favorite Metallica song, The Four Horsemen. It will be my walk up music when I become a Major League basedball relief pitcher.
I think the reason it felt so long to me, and I can appreciate that it was good music and it takes a lot of talent. It just may not be my style of listening. But I think the reason it felt so long is because it was mostly instrumental. There were very few like lyrics. And if I'm listening to a six minute like Taylor's best song is ten minutes long, but I'm listening to that whole thing because it's like the whole thing is lyrics.
I feel like I'm gonna get that one soon as payback for making you listen.
I seriously thought about it, but then I kill them all album. I can appreciate the musicality of it, and I did listen to it, and I listened to it more once for your request.
That song is biblical.
That song is apocalypse, and I like googled some of the words too to figure out what was going on afterwards. I'm not lying. This is I swear to God. This is exactly what I did. After I listened to it. I turned on Billy Joel River of Dreams, just as a palette cleanser.
And there you go. And this morning's big announcement Billy Billy Joeling Sting coming to Bank of America's.
State, that was a completely natural next.
May it totally works out. So uh we Yeah, we we both went to places we probably wouldn't ordinarily have gotten to. I probably enjoyed the Taylor Swift song more than you enjoyed the Metallica But that was also slightly
predictable because you don't strike me as Metallica people. I very much am and won't be cutting my hair even if I even if I was offered, even if you gave me the opportunity to have Andy Dalton hair the rest of my life, I don't think I would accept that offer until after Metallica here on May Thury.
Right, You've got to keep the hair for that for sure, for.
Sure, no doubt.
So you know, you go, you enjoy your life. I could be talking into that Billy Joe concert though.
There you go, there you go. Well, here's what you can do this week. I will I will lighten the mood a little bit. I'll let you have one of my favorite songs of all time. Yeah, and if you find This song actually has one of my favorite lyrics that has ever been written. And you'll know it when you hear it. Don't tell me what it is, let me find you will get there. It is a song called Spanish Pipe Dream by John Prime.
Oh. I love John Prime.
John Prime is the best, and he is. He is one of the great songwriters of the American cannon. Yea, he is funny in a way that smart people aren't always. But Spanish pipe Dream by John Prime.
I haven't heard that one this so I'm looking forward to it. Angel from Montgomery is another one of my palate cleanser songs.
Question in all its forms.
Bonnie Ray, Yeah, oh, I have a version on my phone. I'll let you listen to it, and it's it's John Prime, and I know it. I don't think it's Bonnie Ray, but it's somebody else with him.
He is a great collaborator. He loved working with all kinds of artists in all kinds of genres. He's got duets with Iris Dement, who's got a very distinctive voice. Song called In Spite of Ourselves. It's another one of my favorites. But you know, he's also collaborated with people, including Kurt Vile. It's amazing. So former War on Drugs guitarist who's now a solo act I've seen many times. But good stuff. What do you got for me?
Okay? I have a couple of different options.
Well pick one, choose wisely.
Have you heard the song? And I think I'm gonna go non Taylor.
What have you heard?
Because since I was listening to the Lumineers as came up in the discography, have you heard the Lumineer song with Zach Bryan called Spotless?
I have not.
Okay, that's the one.
I want you to listen Spotless Zach Brian and the Lumineers. We'll check that out. We will, uh, we will get it all over us. We're gonna go out in the rain and watch some ball practice here in a minute and see what they've got in store for the Bengals Sunday, and we'll check that out, see what happens. Maybe people will still be happy come next week. But when you arrive back here next Thursday, you know what you're gonna get happy. It's the happy half out. Appreciate y'all joining us