This week on a Happy Half Hour.
They've gotten good volume out of that draft class already. When you look at what league gets done. Jonathan Brooks is going to be a big topic of conversation for the weeks to come. He's still in that window where he's practicing. You know. JT. Sanders has produced, Trevn Wallace has been a contributor.
Touchdown 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 happy Halloween, and welcome to a very spooky edition of the Happy Half Hour.
Have you seen the video of the Charlotte Hornets scaring Lamar Ball?
No? I have not.
It is hilarious, Like at one point ball is it? Wait? Is it?
Lamar Lamellomelo Lara is the father who was a former Panthers practice squad.
Okay, Lamello. It was from this morning. At one point he is laying on the stairs going I can feel my heart all right, it's so funny.
So there you go. That's what we're off to. And I got to tell you while we're on the Halloween tip. And by the way, this edition, this very spooky edition of the Happy Half Hours brought to you by our friends at Southern Star, an official bourbon partner of the Carolina Panthers, celebrate the spirit of the Carolinas.
Do you think they have a pumpkin spice flavor?
I don't know, but I think you can make it that way, huh. I think you can add your own, maybe a little eggnog or something. We're pushing up on nog season. But in the spirit of Halloween, I do just need to share. We'll play some audio clips every now and and you guys have to hear Brad. Perhaps no one is as into Halloween as offensive coordinator Brad Izac is. And just listening to him talk about his Halloween costumes of his youth was the highlight of Thursday so far. Check this out.
Okay, here's an underrated one, snow Caps. If you're ever in the movie theater, snow Caps. I was always a Skittles guy growing up, and then kit Kats, So the combination of the chocolate with a little bit of you know, crunch inside, I think those are my top three.
Yeah, while we're on the conversation, with Brad Iazac, Yeah, and him just bringing a smile to our face today. This morning, I come in, I'm standing there fixing my coffee, and Brad walks up to me and he goes, you got any good questions for today? Are you brewing some up? And Adam Thielan and I both just kind of whipped around and looked at him with like a straight face, and I finally went, that was a really bad joke, and Brad goes, well, that's my thing. That's what they
called me when I was in high school. They called me BJB brad joke bad, bad joke, bad joke, Brad.
That's outstanding.
As we're as he's telling me this, Jalen Coker walks up and I said to Jaylen, I said, did you know Brad Tell's bad jokes? And he kind of laught. He said, yes, that's all he does.
That's amazing, that's great and bad joke, Brad. I'm here for bad joke, Brad, but I'm more here for Brad Idzac's tryhard grandpa who made that Halloween costume with squirrels in it. You know. I saw Brad in the hall and I said, I gotta see pictures of that when you when you find those, you have to produce. I mean, the man built a table to put his head on a plate through and the man turned him into his
grandson into a tree complete with paper machet squirrels. That's amazing and that is probably as fun as anything else we could talk about today.
Exactly, are you a big Halloween person, cash Listen. I grew up Southern Baptist, so I went to the Hallelujah House and the Trunk Retreat my costume, yes, and the Trunker Treat was always a Bible story. But one year my mom did a trunk at the Trunker Treat that was shadrag meshack and a bandigo and we got dry ice man. Then people in Woodstock, Alabama ain't ever seen anything like that.
Okay, I this will get to football. I swear to God at some point in this episode. But I have to know what's a Hallelujah house in relation to Halloween and the Alabama Southern Baptist context.
So a Hallelujah house is instead of going to a haunted house, which is scary and full of scary scary things, a Hallelujah house is what you go to instead, and there's like bounce houses and cakewalks. It's like a festival, like a fall festival, but it takes place on Halloween night and you can dress up, but also your church so you can't dress up as anything scary. So I went as a sock coop girl for a lot of years.
Okay, but yeah, you know.
It's cakewalks, it's face painting, it's the trunk of treat in the parking lot. At the same time, it's uh, you know, full festival things.
So where's the line on scary costume? What would classify it? Like if I walked in in a gorilla suit, would that be okay?
You can't be like a demon. You can be like a Casper, the friendly ghost, but you can't be like Devil Horns or you know, like a monster.
What about like the classic scream mask.
I think that one was okay because it was just part of pop culture and you could be like Frankenstein. But you couldn't be like.
You know, anything devil.
You couldn't be like the Grim Reaper.
There is so so much to unpack here. I almost want to do the entire episode about this.
I truly you never went to a hallelliyah. How's growing up?
No, that wasn't. I mean, I grew up Lutheran. We believed in everything in moderation, including moderation. But I just yeah, I mean, Halloween's not really my deal. But I am now suddenly fascinated by this. I don't and I'll be honest, complete transparency. There's a non zero chance when I leave here tonight, it'll be dark and I'm going to go straight into the back of my house and leave all the lights off.
I'm gonna come ring the doorbell at your house.
I'm not at home.
Don't get no, There's nothing I love more than little kids dressed up in adorable costumes and enjoining the Halloween. I feel like the cutoff for Halloween is like ten. Once you're on the other side of ten years old, then you're just harvesting candy and that's not okay.
Well, I can't weigh in because I never went your or treating. I was always at the Halloweja house.
Because you were afraid you were going to go to Hellated here's what's funny, and this is just a great point of like how parents change when they become grandparents.
My nieces and nephew my parents. My parents take their grandkids trick or treating because they think it's cute and fun.
Well, my parents had to take me trick or treating also because there was no neighborhood to walk around. You're near when your nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away.
I say that my parents drive them to my cousin's neighborhood and park there. But it's like they're like, this is so fun, We're gonna take them trick or treating. And I'm like, you never took chance of me trick or treating.
But whatever, new rules grandparents grandparent mode for Halloween. I'm so looking forward to that. I'm gonna I'm.
Just that seems right up your outlet.
Yeah, being Halloween Grandpa is right, I'll turn it. You know what I'll do, I'll turn into brad Idex Grandpa. Exactly what's gonna happen? I can see my own future. I finally found the crystal ball. It was in Ben mcadoo's other pants.
You're going to explain that joke to me one.
Day, one of these days. I will. Until then, I'm just gonna keep telling it all right. I think we're contractually bound to talk about some football because uh, much like putting a Alabama Baptist child in a non secular Halloween outfit, this Carolina Panthers team looks different all of a sudden than it did a week ago. With the big news of this week, obviously, it's been the trade of Deontay Johnson and how that changes things for a lot of people. I mean, I don't think it was
any secret necessarily. I mean, Deontay was a rental when he was acquired in March. He had one year on his contract, and guys like that are looking to, you know, get some sales paid and see what's out there in the world. Deontay. I don't think it's really anything against Deontay, but I never got the sense he was looking at real estate here in Charlotte, so you.
Know, it wasn't anything wrong. It was just kind of square peg, roundhole.
Well, and when it's a young wide receiver group on a one in seventeen, I think at that point you start looking to, you know, what you can get in the future, and Deyontay Johnson, if he was not going to be part of the future here, they upgraded some draft picks. I mean We've got the full chart on Panthers dot Com. You can check it out. But they've right now got nine total picks in the two five draft, including seven in the first five rounds, which you.
Do some stuff with that.
You know what, what they got for Deonte the other day was not a lot, but it's also not nothing. And you know, seven picks in the first five rounds is kind of where they need to be thinking at this point, you know, in the construction of this team in the Dave Canalis Dan Morgan regime.
And let's be honest, when you're at this point of the season and the record is what it is, you're starting to look towards the future. And I think they're really excited with what they have out of Xavier Leaguet and now Jalen Cocher. I mean, what an ironic duo. Here's your first rounder and you're undrafted free agent. Yeah, and uh, you know, Xavier is I think tied for
third in the league and rookie touchdowns. Cocher is one of PFF's highest graded rookie receivers weekend and week out that he plays, and so there's a lot that you can build around in your passing game with those two, and this will inevitably get them more stabs, more production targets, not that they had really even been lacking for the past couple of weeks with Deontay not on the field in Denver and not getting as many in the weeks before. Deonta provided a lot in the passing game. Let's not
try to cross over that at all. But I think what they have still there in the receiver room they're excited about, and they're looking towards the future of what they can do with those guys.
No question, and it is interesting. And we got to this in the mailbag a good bit the other day too. I mean, knowing where they're at, a lot of the focus is going to be on the draft class, and amazingly, I mean, I shouldn't say amazingly enough, they've gotten good volume out of that draft class already when you look at what league gets done. Jonathan Brooks is going to be a big topic of conversation for the weeks to come. He's still in that window where he's practicing, preparing to
come back from last year's ACL. But JT said, you know, j T Sanders has produced Trevn Wallace has been a contributor. He's interesting to me because trev is a guy. He was calling defensive signals while Josie Jewel was out after Shack Thompson's injury. He took that green dot off the other day and when Josie was back in the lineup. And I don't know if these two things are connected or whether it's just increasing comfort in the defense, but
Trevin looked more comfortable. He was playing faster, you know, he comes up, he makes a play, creates a turnover late in the game. But I think when you see league it Brooks, Sanders, Wallace Shaw, you know, and the contributions you're getting, you know, from Jalen Coker, it's like, okay the money. Yeah. And Demani Richardson started last week
and played really well. So it's it's promising to be getting that much contribution from a rookie Glass and that's kind of what you're going to look at this time of year.
Yeah, that'll only help them moving forward. Of course, you know that the counter argument to that is do you do the same with Bryce? And I think we're going to see again this week what kind of steps forward Bryce can take. Having two weeks in a row after having that time off.
Yeah, no question. And again, if you've been under a rock and not staying tuned to Panthers dot Com for all the latest, Yeah, really, what's wrong with you? What are you at the Hallelujah House dying Halloween's existence?
To deny its existence? You just don't celebrate it.
Yeah, this is going to demand some high level debriefing. There's in possibly some therapy because there's a lot going on there that I need to know more about. Yeah, I mean, with Andy Dalton a week removed from the car accident, I mean, Dave Canalis said it yesterday. He wanted to give Andy a chance, and I thought it was kind of interesting the way he phrased it when he talked about the decision to let Bryce play this week.
It really was me taking the decision out of Andy's hands. If you were to, you know, ask Andy like are you can you go? He would tell you yes. And for me, it's like he's a week removed, you know, from a thumb injury, and I just wanted to make sure that we're putting him back out there in the
right state, in the right framework. And I'm excited for Bryce, you know, to have another opportunity to build on the things that we've talked about to you know, continue to just grow and get that experience that we talked about is invaluable to be on the field, to be calling the plays and doing it.
What you didn't hear Dave Canalis say is that this is any kind of mandate or this is going to last for a long time. I mean, he was very careful to say, this is a decision for this week. We'll make next week's decision next week, and we'll kind of do that over the course of the season.
To paraphrase Scarlett, let tomorrow, worry about tomorrow. That's that's tomorrow's problem. Yeah, And I think two, you have to wig if you do have a bunch of rookie receivers and a bunch of rookie pass catchers, and you're about to have a rookie running back possibly in there, having Andy in there divides a little bit of a stability and a balance to that, and that's why it could be crucial to have him back in there for the
rest of the season. You have someone that has fourteen years of experience, that knows what these defenses are doing, that can put exaviorly get in the right place, that can get Jayleen Cocher in the right place, that can call the right protection and or play for Jonathan Brooks. That that's an interesting balance that could pay just as many dividends as anything else down the road.
Yeah, no question, And this week's going to be interesting too, I mean, and again as we continue to talk about football. Oh, by the way, the Saints are rolling in here.
This week, it was should have said marching.
In, don't out this if you edit out this policy, this one hang there for a second.
There has closed his eyes and its clutching his temple, just in incomplete regret.
I don't at any rate the same Saints are coming and it's a very different Saints team. And frankly, I think that's a relief to everybody. Nobody wants to really re live Week one with the way that thing went down. But they, you know, looked like one of the greatest teams in the NFL the first two weeks of the season. The sixth since then, not so much.
Yeah, and they do look a lot different, But the more things change, the more they stay the same. The past few weeks for the Saints have been Spencer rattler for the Panthers have been Andy Dalton and now we've got Derek car Versus Verty Young again just like we did in week one. It is a flat circle. But I think you saw the pass rush take a decent step forward last week. So Ashan Robinson kind of get in there more as well. Jadavian Clowney spend a lot
of time in the backfield. So what does that look like with Derek Carr coming back for the first time in a few weeks and off of an injury, and you know, if if he's not out there, you have another rookie quarterback. And so to your point, these are two completely different teams. Al Bryce kind of find a groove a little bit more with those rookie receivers towards
it in the second half last week at Denver. And so this is an interesting game because I think you have to throw out a lot of what you saw in week one. Even a Giro Everet was talking today about the Saints' play caller.
Kubiak, Clint Kubiak clue.
I wanted to throw an l in there for some reason.
That's Clint club Nick, Arcade club Nick, that's a college I think.
I wanted to say, I wanted to say Kubiak. Yeah, but Kubiak, Clint Kubiak. He was talking today, or he was telling us today about how in Week one it had been a couple of years since Kubiak had been a play caller, so they weren't really sure what to expect. It's a lot of leaning on yourself and just kind of reacting. Whereas now they have eight weeks worth of tape of what he's like as a play caller, both with Carr and with Radler, and so it makes preparation
a little bit different. We'll see if it makes it better on Sunday.
Yeah. And I think more than anything, when I think about the defense in last week's game against Denver, you know, there was some sense of stabilization. I mean, obviously they lost, gave up twenty eight points. You know, Bonnicks looked really,
really good in the first half of that game. It felt more stable, I mean, and Canalis has mentioned several times over the course of the last week that the run defense was a little more solid than it had been, and I think that's a direct correlation to getting A'shawn Robinson. Josie Jewel Todaviian Clowney back on the field first forced fumble, Right, You're not going to get back to that place personnel wise where you can bring a Derek Brown, a Shaq
Thompson back into the mix. But they are getting closer to that. I think another part of that's dj Wanham. I mean, he talked a good bit last week about, you know, his medical struggle to get back on the field. He's another week into that window. I don't know that he's going to play this week, but he's certainly getting more and more acclimated to the point where back half of the year will have an opportunity to see what
he's able to do. And he was, you know, obviously a key part of the offseason plan because before Jadavi and Clowney got here, it was about two weeks prior to that, when Wanham was signed. He was one of those first signings in free agencies. Guy with eight sacks last year, scored a touchdown here that a lot of Panthers fans remember. But you know, we'll see how that comes together. But as it pertains to this week, there is still an open question of which Saints team are
we going to get? Even if Derek Carr comes back, Are you getting that team that struggled the last couple of weeks? You know, and you know the Carolina Panthers aren't going to apologize to anybody, but they've had a lot of guys hurt and a lot of mixed bag of personnel themselves.
Yeah. When you see DJ around the building the past couple of weeks, he practically bounces. He's you can tell he's so excited, he's so ready to kind of get back out there. And know, a couple of people on the vikings be and they cannot speak highly enough of him, both off the field and on the field. So what does that past rush look like when you get him out there with Clowney? That's that's gonna be exciting. But like you said, probably not this week.
Yeah, and even if it's not this week for Germany, uh, it's getting close. But anyway, what else we got this week?
What else do we have this week? I mean, you don't want to overlook the Saints, but there is a lot of attention already turned to Germany and that trip and and what that's going to be like in that game. Of course, you know, facing some former Panthers so that'll be interesting as well. But jac Horn was was very tight lipped yesterday about any conversation seem Brian Burns have had leading up to that game. Yeah, they like that's private to the group chat.
Yeah, that group chat is their own business. Yeah, you know j C. You know, jc's not going to divulge a lot of Brian Burns stuff going into that game. But you know, having seen Jeremy Chen and Frankie Luvu the other week up in Washington, Sean Burns in a couple of weeks, it's a little bit of a reunion. But those these guys are you know, those guys are always going to be close. That's the thing about football. Players change teams all the time, but that fraternity is kind of what's neat.
So speaking of JC, he had a good answer yesterday. He's having a career year and he's on pace to granted three of those years of his career have been marred by different injuries, but he's on pace to kind of blow his total tackles out of the water. He's averaging I think I want to say four point three per game right now, and he's already surpassed his pastest
defended number. He's having a good year individually, and he was asked about it yesterday and he basically said, who cares, you know, like, if we're not winning, none of that matters. And that's just it was. It was the right answer, but it was a good answer to and the kind of answer of the locker room needs to hear from one of their leaders.
Yeah, and he is absolutely one of those leaders. I mean it helps in the case of guys like Derek Brown, Guys like JC and your young players are also the cats in that room that other guys listen to. I mean, they see what JC has put into this deal. Obviously, you know, any story about JC is going to circle back to the injury history and his poor luck. But the guy has been on the field and he's been
making plays all season. So it's good to see j C Horn out there and it'll be you know, obviously he gets to see one of his father's old teams this week and hopefully he is able to continue building on that.
Well, what song did I have you listened to this week?
You had me listen to and this will give us a chance to circle back to you. You pointed me in Luke Colmbs's direct. That's right, and listen. One of the things I mean, I am very fortunate to be able to do what I do for a living. The one bad side of that job is I was not able to be here last week for the concert at Carolina's. All the reports I've heard from coworkers who were here and friends out in the neighborhood, you know, friends, Church, that kind of stuff was. It was an amazing night.
And what an incredible job Lup Combs Eric Church did putting that bill together and getting a lot of people in that building. Raised over twenty four million dollars.
That's incredible, just a mind blowing number.
And it is amazing to see what a bunch of people can do in a hurry. The people in our building who work in ops and you know, event preparation, that kind of stuff, I mean, they've just been standing on their heads for the last couple of weeks. Anyway, they to be able to pull this thing off in a short amount of time was nothing short of amazing.
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. This is the kind of concert that it usually takes a year to pull off. They did it in like three weeks.
Yeah, and I think that's cool because from the time, you know, Luke Combs. I love the fact that it was like a little rascals thing, Hey, let's do a show. Yeah, and it kind of came together.
God, they did a show.
They did a show, and they did it upright.
So really cool too to see how many places in western North Carolina set up community events to stream it, you know, in these communities that are still kind of decimated and just finding their footing so that they can rebuild. And this was a night for them to actually kind of take a load off and look ahead and have a little bit of a reprieve. And we saw so many of them come together in their community, set up you know, a bed sheet to stream it and did that together. That's what it was all about.
Yeah, cool, cool stuff all the way around. But you had me listening to Luke calms where the wild things are, and that was not a wild rumpus. You could see what was coming there the whole time. Yeah, as soon as he started singing about his brother living the big life out on the West coast, as they go on the motorcycle, sure enough, spoiler alert, it went to a dark place. So but I could imagine.
It was it was still wild. He was still wild.
Yeah, the wild things are going to be wild till the day they, you know, die apparently, so spoiler alert.
Yeah, whoops, that's a I like singing that one. I would love to see Luke Calms and concert to sing it with a bunch of other people.
Yeah, no doubt. And I mean, you know that story's got a personal hook for you and your family.
Yeah, reminded us a lot of my uncle.
Yeah.
I listened to Be Good.
Johnny, which is the opposite which.
I realized ten seconds into it was not Johnny Be Good, which I legitimately thought it was going to be until I turned the song on and I was like, oh, this is not what I thought it was.
No, it was not.
One of the more interesting ones you've had me listen to, just because it's a little different than some of the others you've had me listen to.
I was I was in some kind of mood because Men at Work was playing here in Charlotte last week and I was not. I ultimately did not go to that concert, so I wanted to put that particular Australian ear worm on you and let you enjoy it.
I can definitely see how that would be one that you'd be like sitting in a restaurant and you hear it over the sound system and you just find yourself singing along without realizing.
It's like, hey, I remember hearing this for the first time thirty years ago. Yeah, So anyway, all right.
Lay my next one on me.
Yeah. I think you mentioned we're getting ready for Germany, and we are going to Germany in a week, so I think you know, having exposed you to Metallica's early work earlier this year when that concert was announced for next May, I think in honor of our trip to Germany, you should be listening to more Scorpions music and in preparation for this.
I mean, everybody, I didn't know what that means, and I'm scared.
Everybody's heard rock you like a Hurricane. That's a stadium rock staple. You've heard that one. But I think Blackout is a great, great example of their German work and definitely something you should do to get you in the mood for our trip to Munich.
Okay looking forward to that. We'll report back. I don't know how we'll do the podcast next week since we'll be on a plane, but we'll figure it out.
We'll figure that part out.
Okay, here's mine. This is going to require a little bit of homework before you listen to the song. All right, fair enough, go take a trot through the Wikipedia page for Adena Sackville Lady, Adena Sackville. Okay, and then after learning a little bit about her life, you're gonna go listen to We're going back to Taylor this week, Sure we are. You're gonna go listen to the Bolter. The Bolter, Yes, it is from Taylor's fift's latest album, The Torture Post Apartment.
Make sure you listen to the grown up version and not the clean version. It's a different song.
See. That's the kind of stuff that'll get you thrown out of the Hallelujah House right there.
I just can't take that particular. I bought to church.
See now now I'm thinking back to the Hallelujah House.
This is a clearly affected you, more than ever effected.
This was for young Cassidy g Hill. So anyway, we'll get to bottom of all that. Hope you guys have a happy Halloween. Go see the Izicks. I think they've got a bowl out on the front porch. He doesn't know what's in it, uh, because he's a ball coach. But the rest of you enjoy your house Halloween and we will see you next week on the Happy half Hour.