Happy Half Hour Episode 148: America's Long Snapper

spirit of the Carolinas. You can celebrate it double this week because this week's very special co host is none other than America's long snapper, The longest tenured Carolina Panther, or the man who holds the record for games played, which he breaks every single week.

but especially now. I mean it's off season. You know, we'll get to free agency and all that other stuff at some point, but right now it's kind of that one weird time of the year where football people are sitting around not knowing what to do.

just knew I was gonna be bored eventually. I needed something to do. I'd need a routine to look forward to. So I just basically said, you know, whatever that was, you know, January third or whatever, you know, January seventh, every the season, at whatever that date was, I just said, I'm immediately now bored, and I need to find some stuff to sink my teeth into. I'm not gonna wait two or three, two or three weeks to then decide that, you know, I'm you know, I'm actually bored. So this

is fun for me. Normally, on a you know, normally on a Tuesday or I guess we're recording this on a Wednesday. Normally, on a Wednesday, at noon, we're out on the practice field, mm hmm. You know what, now that it's wintertime, I don't mind being out here because there was a few col practices down the stretch in the regular season.

season activities have been primarily constructed into two things. It's been buying minor league hockey teams m with with some partners that we've been working with now for coming up on two years, and also taking a plethora of baseball swings off of our We have this little uh it's called like a personal pitcher or something along those lines, shoots golf balls out of a standing machine on a tripod at you know, forty five to fifty miles an hour from twenty to twenty five feet and I work

on my swing. And I figured, if Andy Dalton can go play tennis and feeling can go play golf, I'll go hit a bunch of baseballs in my garage and that'll keep my hand eye coordination up for the offseason. At least while it's too cold to get outside and play golf or something like that.

And I think there's a value in coaches and teachers doing the material while they're teaching it, because you start running into the problems that your athletes are are dealing with. You know, we often, you know, I've got a sixth grader or fourth grader or second grader, kindergartener right they're doing math homework. Well, that is so rudimentary to me. I can't feel why that's challenging to them. So you know, you end up looking at them like, why can't you

figure this out? So I figured as often as I can, let me go humble myself take some swings off of a machine, try to get go and take some ground balls, you know, you know, throw to targets, and remind myself that any athletic venture is pretty challenging, especially if you don't do it often, especially if you haven't been, you know, like me trained in long snapping for twenty years. You realize kids are just picking it up or still young

and growing in their bodies. There's a lot of challenge and skill, and so there's a humility and in taking a live at bat versus a twelve year old and maybe swinging missing a few times, you realize these games are pretty challenging, even at my age.

doing the football thing. We we do a lot of our life kind of in the same orbits, and so our kids have sort of learned over the years that they're just kind of part of the family in various ways. And Greg brings kids home from sporting events and you know, Luke Luke might show up and cook pizzas on the nie as it's happened a few times. So everyone's kind of got their own little skills and orbits. And you know, to my kids, that's coach Greg and we call him

Big Luke because my oldest son's named Luke. We call Luke Keigley Big Luke. And my daughter, who's in second grag calls him the man in the Jacket because the first time she really met him, he showed up at our house. It was a really rainy day and he had he had a big old jacket on, and my daughter called him the man in the jacket, and until this day he is still known as the man in the jacket in our house. So doubt they're just part of the family.

perfect at whatever he does. When he started doing radio, he was like, I don't really know if I'm man good it is, and people who heard the first couple of games were like, oh, you're actually great at it, which kind of figures, which leads me to this question. You and Greg coach baseball together. Does Luke Keikley have a decent baseball swing?

and leave, leave after a couple hours. And he just part just in the group with everybody else. So I've never seen Luke swing a bat. I can only imagine he'd be fantastic at it, because to your point, I think he's just he's one of these incredibly gifted athletes. But I know he played a lot of lacrosse. I don't know if he played a lot of baseball growing up. So I'll have to I'll have to dig deep on that.

bad at a whole lot of other stuff. A word I heard not too long ago, let's call it six months ago that I really enjoyed was the word earnest. And Luke is an earnest person. He is kind, he is intentional. Anything that he does he set his mind too to be the very best at, and even if it's not super important to him, he takes it seriously because it's important to the people he's doing it with.

You know, I would venture to guess the first time he ever walked into to do a radio game for the Panthers, he might not have known do I love it, But he knew that the people working with him and around him took it very seriously, so he wasn't going to be casual about it, and and you know so that I think that obviously suits him really well. It

was fantastic for football. But it's again, there are people that believe how you do one thing is how you do everything, and I think he would certainly be a fitting example of that when it comes to taking things seriously.

lot better at it. But you've always helped Greg with this. You guys were just bored the other weekend and through it, weren't you.

kind of going back and forth. And this has kind of gone on for again, going all the way back to when we were both playing here in seventeen and eighteen nineteen. Why do we do this? He'd come up to me, Why do we do that? Why did the specialty? We have always exchanged information. And I don't know if you've heard, but Greg was a long snapper for so yeah,

he knows just enough to be dangerous. I know nothing to be dangerous, but I played often of line in high school, so I have a little bit of understanding.

So we kind of started from there and we just kind of keep growing and and so one of the things that that I've done is his broadcast career has continue to grow, is just kind of help continue to kind of grow with him in terms of preparation, research, thinking of new ways to explain concepts that you know, every year in the NFL there's tons of new concepts, ideas that might be strategy, it might be analytics, it might be a use of timeouts. There's it's constantly evolving.

There's more and more information. And one of the things that I think is really kind of special is that he's willing to just keep growing and growing and growing. His parents were both teachers. I have a heart of a teacher. I really believe in his heart. And he's a coach and a teacher. So he goes on a national broadcast and he wants to teach football, and I

love teaching football and I love learning football. So there's been a natural connection for the two of us, and that obviously there's still great games going on right now, and there's a lot of people. I think the people that really love Gregan on broadcasts are the ones that say, I'm going to tune in and I'm going to get a great broadcast, but I'm gonna walk away learning two or three things about football. And it might be a situation, it might be an arc release, you know, from the

tight end. It might be did why did this play work? Versus man's own? And I just learn a little bit more? And I watched his broadcasts and did I learn a little bit more? And so yeah, certainly playoff games everyone's watching, and there were some great situations and and uh, and he went to work on trying to begin to at least explain one or two. So the fan walks away a little bit more knowledgeable.

was chasing two point conversions. And again I commit this from a anecdotal historical perspective, because I was sitting in a press box at Super Bowl thirty eight when John Fox, who wasn't necessarily an analytical type, started chasing them early and got stuck in that pattern with how did how did you guys get to the point or let me ask you like this, when did you realize that that was the wrong way to go about this immediately?

analysts is or work. Maybe not pushback, but where he differentiates from a lot of analystss A lot of analysts are still trained in sort of this old quote unquote old school football mentality, and so he's viewed as aggressive. And where he and I have always tried to discuss these things is optimal does not mean aggressive. It's trying to make the right decision at the right time. And one of the things that coaches tend to do is

they don't like certain numbers. They don't like being down too that feels after a touchdown, So the score goes from fourteen six to fourteen twelve, in their mind, they think to themselves, oh, I go for two here, because that's what we always do. What made that situation different was we were in the second quarter. And the way we describe early game situations is you're in a point accumulation phase of the game. The goal is how many points can I score? And what's the best way to

score points? Is it a field goal, is it a touchdown, is it a two is it a one. I actually like going for two and going for two more often than most people. I think it's actually tends to be the right decision. But in that particular case, I believe and Greg made the same point. Dan Quinn only went for two because he was down two to make it a tie game, not because he thought this is the

best time for me to go for two. That begins to pivot as you get later in the game where you're running out of possessions and you're hoping to turn that kicking a pat in the fourth quarter to go down one. Well, now you're still losing, and if the game ends and nobody, nobody else scores, you lost, whether you're down to or one. That's why teams go so and the I think I retweeted it was like an old account is called the analytics straw Man, and I tweeted,

always go for two. You know, you know the quote is from analytics, always go for two. And the answer is no, it isn't. It's not always the right answer.

set up, there wasn't really a big advantage. So everybody put the ball at the one this year and everybody went for two. But I think what you would have seen it, let's say the score had been fifteen twelve, is let's put the ball on the one and go for two. Whether they got it or not, that was

the right decision in the point accumulation phase. But if the game is in the fourth quarter and it's fifteen twelve, the question is whether I get this game to two or one, I still need a field goal to win, and I don't get any benefits so which thing, which option is most likely to get me under three, and which case the pat would be most likely to get me under three, because I think this year the number was like ninety six percent. So as my wife often says,

you've said too many numbers. You need to move on. But the idea is there is different phases of the game that require different things analytically, and the answer in analytics is not always go for it, and it's not always go for too, and it's not always throw. But teams tend to have historically aired on the quote conservative side when that hasn't maybe been optimal and the or in the case of Dan Quinn in Washington, maybe we saw the flip, which was it was aggressive but not necessarily optimal.

market inefficiencies. So it's always changing, you know. I fell in love like a lot, like a lot of math nerds in college, I fell in love with the book Moneyball. Everyone goes, I've seen the movie now. I was like, you got to read the book, as people often say, and I fell in love with that. But if you remember from Moneyball, the goal was you're trying to find people to walk, right. That was the market inefficiency. It wasn't that walking was some sort of uniquely special thing.

It was nobody paid for someone to walk, but that was causing winning at a higher rate than the market sort of anticipated. So we see this now all the time. In football. You got to pay the quarterbacks. The running backs shouldn't get paid any money, like you see all this, But eventually there's going to be a market inefficiency. And when that market inefficiency hits, you got to go to the other side of the equation. Right. We've seen this a little bit with running backs as that position has

been devalued over the years relative to other positions. Well, now, market inefficiencies allow really good teams to sign Saquon Barkley for twelve million dollars a year, pair them with an excellent offensive line, and now all of a sudden, they've got a really good advantage on the rest of the

because nobody's going to overpay. So if you're Saquon Barkley, go I'm gonna go to the best offensive line football Like there are these markets, sometimes market inefficiencies actually help the better teams that already exist, because if you're Saquon, I could make twelve million from the Eagles, I could make twelve million from Baltimore. I could make twelve million dollars in nil money. If I go back to Texas, I'm gonna go pick the exact location where I can thrive.

And so Philly this year has kind of been able to capitalize on the fact that no one was really going to pay Saquon more than twelve million, so he gets to kind of pick where he wants to go. And that's a huge advantage for team that was well suited for a running back.

round with thirty eight d ns. Because that's the that's we know that position is valuable and at some point it gets so devalued that eventually it's a very good value. It's it's like a stock, it's like a business. Eventually things get pushed too far. So the beauty of analytics is at some point they flip, and are you willing to flip? You know, it's the old zig when the other zag, and that happens all the time during football.

We saw it last week on the playoff. On the playoff games, the Tush Push only went six for twelve this week, right like that? Would you know? A year ago it felt virtually undefeated. But as more people are doing it, some people aren't quite as good at it right, and everyone's getting a lot more practice because I may only play Jalen Hurts one time, but if I play seven other teams that do it, I begin to learn how to stop it. And even Jalen HURTSI was stopped twice this week.

do it. I don't know that every team necessarily, you know, the difference between him and Allen doing it is six inches and weight. And you know, the Bills weren't pushing him in the same way that I mean, Philly's like, you know, four hands on the button. Let I mean we are pushing with everything we got. It's a little bit different. So but again, every team gets to practice it because every team's now gotten the playbook, and it makes it a little less valuable.

that was designed for the outside fourth and one. It may be it may be a toss, it might be a power, it might be counter but he Cam was under center, but It was more of a B gap, C gap, D gap run and if they left those gaps open, they would actually yell out. I think one year, I think the code word was Jackie after old you know Jackie Miles are old equipment manager, and Cam would get up to the line of scrimage yelled Jackie, Jackie, Jackie,

and that was I'm gonna sneak it. Now there wasn't a push, but it was sort of a two play thing. If if they take away the inside, we're gonna run our play. And if they don't take away the inside, I'm just gonna do it on my own. Now we're seeing with the toush push, that's like the call to play. And so how many variations I'm sure my guess is in the Super Bowl Philly will have some sort of alternate off of it. We've seen them do it a

couple times. Obviously, kan't see doesn't do it at all because the one time Patrick Mahomes snuck, I think his kneecap popped out. Yeah, so not everyone does it, but and would certainly be good. But you know the evanager having six foot five Cam Newton was you could run Q power, you could you could audible to a sneak. You can do a lot of different things.

starter and played really well opposite you know, JC. And that was very valuable because you think about what is a starting corner in the NFL worth It's probably worth ten, twelve, fifteen million, depending on your quality, you know, a variety

of factors. So to be able to have someone that played to that level of you know, I'm probably not helping our front office in any sort of contract negotiations, but like to have someone to play at that level of a high quality starting corner for a million dollars was really really valuable to the team. I think lesser value. There's a value to that sixth offensive line. Now, a bunch of different guys played it this year, is mostly

you know, Brady and Chandler, but there is value. And if you look around the league, power run teams, and I don't know, I don't know if we'd call her Sells a power run team or not, but certainly Tuba's running style seems more conducive to more of a power style. Having that sixth offensive lineman, maybe he's the tight end, maybe he's the full back, looks a lot like Baltimore and the Chargers, you know, the hardballs, Like they've got that three hundred pound defensive tackle who puts his hand

on the ground and plays full back. Right guys three twenty he's wearing like forty four. Like it always looks kind of funny to me. I think those positions are valuable because that's probably worth three four five million dollars. And those guys are on rookie contracts and they tend to get overlooked, but that matters in the run game. It feels always a little strange same because he's he's

fantastic and has been for a long time. But I always think Adam is Adam Thielen is kind of every year sort of over overlooked and undervalued for what he does. I mean the ability for him, both for Andy and Bryce this year, just throw a ball up to Adam, He's gonna go get that, Like there's a huge there's a huge blessing for a quarterback when you can throw the ball away from a defender and protect the team from a turnover and then your wide receiver goes and

just catches that ball. That's a huge, valuable, very valuable thing. So those are just a couple of them. I know I'm missing out on guys.

money and flame out. That's hurting the veterans in the league. And of course at that point, once you're in the league, everyone's a veteran. So it's basically forget the rookies who don't exist yet.

two million. Then you had the fifth year option that so you had all this, So the difference in guarantee was sixty to twenty two. It was the only time in the NFL history where the money went down right and obviously went down from a guarantee standpoint by like

by like sixty five seventy percent. The institution of the rookie wage scale is the number one reason why the draft matters, because you are going to find starters in the NFL draft, and when you do, you have three to four maybe five years of low paying highly competens are highly talented players. So let's say the nickel is worth six million dollars a starting nickel in the NFL on the open market, everyone's a free agents worth six

million dollars. You're playing Shaw Smith, Wade seven hundred and fifty grand, and you do that for the next three years, you're getting eighteen million dollars worth of playing value and paying them two million bucks. And that's huge for the team. And that's why the draft matters so much. Obviously, being being really good at finding those players matter, but it's also why you see stuff like right now, I don't know that I heard anybody back in October, November, December saying, Oh,

there's just a ton of quarterbacks in this draft. I guarantee you there's going to be two or three likely draft in the first ten picks, because if you're right, you're getting a fifty million dollar value for five, six, seven, eight million dollars and that's a huge advantage. And that same value lasts all the way through the draft. Obviously, it gets harder as you go down finding those guys, and that's where you need a great scouting department to

You call them diamonds in the rough. But they're overlooked for some reason, right, But what is that reason? And in Shaw's particular case, the big reports kind of coming out of Mobile was maybe he's under size, but man, he's a dog, he's tough, he's competitive, and I think that plays in the NFL, if you can, if you can fight through some of those physical limitations, this is a really competitive league and you need really competitive people to be successful.

get in the league. So there's always a little bit of that, but you have every front office has to be mindful of if you just start giving away positions well drafted. You know Sean the fifth round, he's the starter. The rest of the locker room goes, are you are you trying to win or are you just trying to play the rookies? And so young guys have to earn it. The good part is once they earn it, they have the respect of the locker room, which is really what

matters is did you earn this spot? Are you helping us win? That's all the locker room really cares about, is are you helping cause winning for this team? And Sean did a really good job this year, and he was one of a lot of draft picks that contributed a lot throughout the whole season, no doubt.

they're willing to move that board around. So while they're sitting there at eighth overall and you know, nine total picks, eight in the first five rounds, I don't necessarily anticipate that's going to be what they finish with, just because that's what they've shown us in their one set of data points.

Howie Roseman kind of works the board, but on draft night, Howie Roseman's going to trade up because he's going to go find his guy. He might be right, he's gonna he's going to identify. So everyone's got their style, right. I think one draft is too soon to just say this is the Panther style. But what I what I would imagine is going on is you've got highly competent

scouting skill. You know, Dan obviously scout for probably about a decade, obviously played a really really long time, which you know Olsen says all the time, like, don't discredit playing career as like on the job training. It may not be like he's you play seven years in the NFL. You're watching a lot of tape and you're evaluating other players. So you're going so, so Dan may have been a scout for ten, twelve years, whatever is, you might as well just go ahead and call it twenty, right, So

there's a lot of scouting experience. You also have lots of people in the front office that are comfortable working other sides of being in the front office, considering trades, negotiations, and the more of those people that you trust in the building, you can do and be more dynamic during the draft. If your GM is picking the players and trading up and trading down and negotiation and he's the

only one doing it, it becomes too much. If you have lots of people that have jobs and roles and you're working well together and you've planned stuff out, you can be a little bit more fluid in the draft. And I think that was a value I think the

biggest going back to last year. Obviously who you draft matters, but beyond who we drafted, the ability to sit at thirty nine, collect a future second round pick, and move back and then use some of that to go back was one of the bigger moments of the draft for the Panthers because you're sort of creating something out of nothing, which now we get to reap the benefits of. I think that's always the tough part. When you're a fan.

You're like, oh, thirty or thirty nine, like we're gonna got a good player here, and then oh, the Panthers traded somebody you know, you know, they traded the pick, and it's like, oh, I wanted a player there. But all of a sudden, now we're sitting here, you know, two months before the draft, going huh, I'm glad we got that extra second round er. So there is a little value in being patient, and that's where you have

to trust does the front office. You know, you might be sitting there at thirty nine and they don't have any players they like for that value, but they got a trade and that's a benefit to the team.

lot of things like a math problem. But one of the interesting things to me watching them go through that draft process last year was the chemistry between the two of them because they think differently what they're aligned and that sounds easy to pull off, but it's really not. And things as simple as knowing each other's inside jokes and being able to finish the sentences for different guys.

I mean, for a couple of dudes who met each other on a zoom call in January last year, they worked together pretty well, to the extent that Brant knew it would be funny and Dan wouldn't notice if he turned around and was wearing a fifty five jersey in the draft room.

other's expertise, but there's a melding together. It's not you or me, it's not dogs or analytics, it's how do we put this together for the betterment of the team. And I've one of the cool things that I've that I have seen is I've never really heard anyone describe them separate. It's always Dan and Brandt, Dan and Brant. So while probably on an ORG chart, one is over the other, I'd imagine I don't know what our ORG

chart is. I imagine as general manager and president football Operations, Dan's in charge, but I've never seen Dan go out of his way to make Brandt sound like he's beneath him, right, And I've never and I've never heard Brandt sort of say, well, this is what I did and not and what coach Canalis has said about those guys, what Dave Temper has said about those guys. It helps when everyone feels like, hey, I'm value whether the one, whether you're one and I'm

two or I'm one and year two. If we're working together and people feel valued, that stuff really matters. And one of the one of the things that I got asked a ton right after the season was stability, right that was a common theme kind of especially in the locker room right after the game or yeah, after the game, on exit interviews after Atlanta, and and the number one thing that I think benefits the Panthers in the long haul is going into twenty twenty five, we have a coach,

a quarterback, a GM all on the same timeline. There's success. No one's in a rush or not wanting success right away, and that probably hasn't existed all if we're really being honest, all the way back to about twenty sixteen, because we had Cam injuries we had ownership change, we had coaches. You know, Cam got hurt again, we had a coach fired, a GM fire. There was a lot of stuff going on.

Quarterbacks didn't work out. There was a lot of stuff going on where there was different people on different timelines and quarterback needs to win this year, but the team isn't ready to win yet, so then the quarterback. We could go any one of these and the timeline is off. There is such tremendous value in everybody being on the same page, the same timeline and growing together. So my guess is, instead of me fighting you, it's how do

we take the next step together? How do we take the next step together, versus Hey, I got to win this year and the guy you're working with is like, let's build for the future. Like that's I mean, that's really tough. And that's where I think you see a lot of issues around the league and no one's immune from it. We look at Kansas City and Philly and go, oh, they've got it all put together. Well, seven years ago

Philly looked in disarray. Yeah, you know, Kansas City ten years ago looked We're seeing the result of some of these sort of intentional steps and that's what everyone's trying to recreate in their own building with their own style.

have other things to do today, believe it or not, And I just a little peak behind the curtain. JJ and I do this weekly around the coffee machine. Yes, this is a normal type of thing. And the conversation starts when when he came into our dojo, I was like, I've got one question I want to ask JJ, and then we're going to see where it goes. So we did that and this is the place we ended up. But wanted to ask you a couple of things, not necessarily rapid fire, but just wanted to get your thoughts

on him. You mentioned earlier in the show, you are a part owner of a couple of hockey teams, now two hockey teams.

We will be affiliated. We don't yet know who that affiliation will be. With affiliation in hockey matters for a variety of reasons, but obviously players coaches. It's minor league hockey, much like baseball. We're a little bit different in the football world. Our minor league guy, so to speak, are

practice squad. They're here with US. But in the hockey world, much like the baseball world, so much of that sport is geared around playing that those guys are moving up and down to stay ready for the big club.

We often the kids always ask can we go sit on the glass? So I try to pull some I pull some strings. You know a guy, I know, I know a guy. But everyone's very kind there. There's really I'd encourage anyone that's listening. Certainly I'll put in my plug for the Checkers to go to a game, go to a bunch of games, because there's not a bad seat in the house for any for anyone that's been there, been there recently. My kids have a blast. It's really

a great environment. And I just think hockey in person is probably the best thing to watch it. It feels fast paced, but there, I mean, the game's out over quickly like it's it's fast pace, and you get you get twenty minutes to catch your breath, and the players need a break, and so do the fans because you're you have to be locked in otherwise you might miss them.

his sister wanted to hang around. She was digging it and she was like, well, he just shut up, and I finally told him, I said, listen, at the end of the third quarter, we can go okay, And that satisfied him because he was getting out early.

the from the Northeast Canada. They came to a game and I picked their brain for a while, like all right, help me understand Like what Sometimes they will drill drill a guy in the back with a cross stick and no one calls anything, and sometimes it's like a minor and sometimes it's a major, and sometimes it leads to a brawl and it's like, I don't know what is happening. And one of the guys said, think of it like football, Like sometimes they miss calls, like that thing that you

saw someone didn't see. It's like, okay, well that makes a little bit more sense, but you're still there's still a lot of of the smaller details that I'm learning along the way. But it's a great game.

logos we did. We sold a bunch of merchandise. I liked the Ghost Peppers. I thought the colors were cool as a it's a bright red, it's this like neon green black. I thought this will really look sharp, and but ultimately we left it up to a fan vote, so the people of Gastonia, the fans. All these names were submitted, people bought gear the whole bit, and the Ghost Peppers was the one that was selected, and I was,

certainly I was. It's like whenever you're when your candidate wins and you're you're particularly excited in part because like who I voted for.

any other baseball football, there's rules on minimum payments. Right, So if you've been in the big leagues for a little bit in and you're back in Double A, you still have a minimum salary that may be well in excess of what their standard Double A budget might be. So some of those guys end up in independent ball, which is what the Atlantic League is. I believe we have ten teams, and when you're in independent ball, there's still scouts. I mean, we had a Dodger scout as scouts.

Many of the games I went to. Our general manager was at the same scouting events that all those teams send guys to. And we had two or three guys this year that were signed off of our roster to an affiliated team and ultimately made the big leagues. So

this is really good baseball. It's just they're in they're not maybe an eighteen year old, or their minimum salaries have gone so high that teams are less likely to take a shot until you prove, like, oh, that guy is throwing ninety seven and he is getting everyone out, all right, We're willing to pay him because we've now we've seen it with our own two eyes, So it's good ball, okay.

I said, you've missed it like that. That is the Carolina Reaper. I think it's a great nickname. Look, we've where we have where we have been as an organization. You were two and fifteen last year, right, so when as we were going through the season and we beat teams, coaches got fired. I mean that was going on, that was a real thing. But what makes what makes the nickname, in my opinion, awesome. Obviously you've it's it's spicy. I mean,

it's it'll kill you, right, which is fantastic. But Bryce has this personality, this this smirk when he's really feeling himself. In the second half the season, you could see the confidence right right after I've taken a little bit of credit for this, after kart Talk, all of a sudden, the visor from college came back. So we're helping, we're helping build some good vibes around here. And there's something really good about something so small and unsuspecting killing you.

I think it is a perfect nickname for Bryce, and he obviously played great in the second half of the season, but there's just this Bryce shouldn't come as a surprise. He's a Heisman Trophy winners, number one overall pick. But because we struggled last year and he took a lot of he took a lot of the criticism for it, and we didn't get off to a great start either.

And now all of a sudden, we went four or five games there we played well and one defensive coordinators were getting fire, quarterbacks were getting benched, like and that that's a fun spot to be in. It's all part of the process to getting you to winning the division and getting the playoffs. And and look, if you're if you're winning a bunch of games down the stretch to the point where teams are firing their coach like in some kind of weird, ominous way, that's a good thing. Like,

that's that's kind of what you're gunning for. You're trying to get rid of people.

come from? And it's I mean to me, it's really really funny. And again I saw this with Cam Cam's first year with the team, like he wasn't he wasn't himself. He would but you didn't know. You're just like he feels uncomfortable. It takes a couple of years for your personality to really come out. Because again, all of a sudden, you hand bryce the keys to the car. He's twenty one years old. We don't play well early, and then

you're expecting. I'm sure in his mind it's like, what am I supposed to say to the thirty seven year old long snapper? What am I supposed to say to the thirty two year old wide receiver? Whatever you were back then, which was you know, fourteen months ago whatever. It was, like, how am I supposed to lead then? And you need a little success and you need to be able to build relationships, and that happened. That takes time. Like no people can say, oh, OTA's you know that's

gonna help us. The nine weeks are good, not so much for the football, but just like beginning to get to know people, what makes people tick, and you gotta build relationships and usually you got to go through hard times in order for those relationships to really kind of dig deep. So we've done a little bit of that. We've come back out the other side.