Happy Half Hour Episode 38: Get Off My Lawn (ft. Darin Gantt)

dot com. Kristen, Will and Matt here in the podcast studio, joined once again by the legendary Darren Gant of Panthers dot Com. Darren, we didn't scare you off last time, and now you've agreed to be here for the whole episode. Sure, why not? This is where the cool kids? Well, did you just do sound effects of the crowd going wild? Yeah? I was waiting for Matt to put it in himself, but then I just did it with that usually happens after I don't know how these things now to someone

listening in headphones. It's just here and now he can he can just take it out and then he can put a better one in were talking about. But welcome Darren and that's outstanding. You're a man who's used to get an applause. I know it's the last couple of weeks have gone to my head. Let's let's be real about that here. You're a whole thing now. That's why it's cool to be here. Are we talking about your incredible turn as an actor in the schedule release video?

So there's I'm working on some h some B level video with me and super like about town like this new the new dynamics to have. Yeah, buddy comedy of the centuries it is, you know, like per and stat guys take over Charlotte. I love it. I would watch I'll watch that. I would absolutely watch that. You guys were the best. It was so much fun. Ye. Also,

I gotta say, like the acting chops on Will. I hope everyone who's listening has seen the schedule release video, Well you were really just thought your I thought, you're wait, how do we go big? Like? I thought that line

was really good? Really really more compliments keep going. But I mean the front part of the video was, you know, it was very frontloaded with a lot of Christian and then it became a lot more Will at the end, And I mean, can we say, why, So we filmed a lot because you know, like a lot of other people, we don't know the order that the schedule will be released in, and so we filmed a lot of stuff

kind of as Evergreen, and we didn't know exactly on Wednesday. Yes, we didn't know exactly when this game would happen, and so the order of things was just you know, dictated by the schedule, which we didn't know at the time. So so much fun though, um okay, but more recently so schedule released was last week and straight into Ricky Minicamp. Over the weekend, Panthers just wrapped that up. We were there, We got to see the eleven draft picks and the

other hopefuls in action. So I thought we would, you know, go around the podcast studio if we will, with our are takeaways, um from what stood out to us and Darren, I mean, of course we gotta start with you. Well, yeah, thanks, it's um it was weird. After the minicamp was over, I was talking to Bill both and I said, Bill, it occurs to me that I spent a lot of this weekend writing and talking to offensive lineman. And that's

probably not an accident. I think it was such an off season emphasis that to get in there and and see David Moore and to see Brady Christiansen in action and talk to Deante Brown, I mean, and those guys are are so integral to what they were trying to do.

I mean, they wanted to get younger on offense in general and that position in particular, And after filling in a bunch of blanks in the off season and free agency, to see those three guys out there on the field, you know, among others, but to see those three in particular, it was like, Okay, that's what it looks like. That's that's what a plan in action, that's how it manifests itself.

And and those guys. Christiansen is a different guy because he's so athletic and so explosive, and they don't know exactly where he's gonna put him. But but Brown and David Moore just so massive. I mean, I'm you know, Will knows for sure. I'm a proponent of old man football. So having these two gigantic, humongous, wide body dudes out there in the middle of the field just appeals to me. It's like, that's how you do work, That's how you

run goal line offense by having just gigantic people. Absolutely. I mean, over the years, everyone wants to try to take what they can away from these things, which means it's six second videos of guys running routes and trying to I don't just say it's a little behind the scenes. Well, you suggested doing this idea, so people want to take things away. I'm gonna take all things. Meanwhile, we'll suggested we should do our takeaways from you make He's like, look,

things people want to take things away. Okay, well you know so, But but I think what you can take away is size. You can there there's no denying what you're looking at out there, and you're looking at some big guys, not only just along the line. I mean J. C. Horne is a big cornerback. Like so, I think that that just jumps out is just how big these guys are, how physical they are. And yeah, you know, of course you're not gonna see you're not gonna see eleven on eleven.

You're not going to see them run through plays and really, but you can see the size and you can see the energy and that just after this year that we've had, it just feels really nice to just be back out there and have everyone really you know, you know that moment when like the league memo went out and everyone took their mass off because they were vaccinated. There's just there's just such an energy. I think about that and about these guys all kind of hey, it's back to football,

you know, in a real way. Fit walked over me in the middle of practice and said, Hey, just came out. You guys can take them off. And I think you probably saw like ten coaches take the mask off all at once, like, you know, because I want you to be able to see my face, you know, I wanted to see your face. I want to you know, interact. And so every one of our coaches, I believe, said for maybe one one young guy that's you know that

that's going through the process, that we're all vaccinated. And we did it because for family reasons, but also because we want to make sure that we keep our players safe. And just to clarify for anyone who we assume that anyone listening to this knows exactly what that memo said, but just to clarify, it is for staff members, coaching staff, and then staff members who are vaccinated. No longer have

to wear their masks inside or outside. That doesn't necessarily apply to the players, um and it and it only applies to vaccinated people. But it did happen during Rocky Minicamp while we were out on the field, and like there were some mass like being flung. It was kind of like a graduation cap situation. UM and some people, you know, we worked together for a year and a half and I have never seen their chins. So it

was a whole new a whole new world. But but my take, aweight actually guys touched on on most of what I was going to say. With Brady Christiansen, his athleticism and his versatility. I mean, he just really such an athletic big guy, and talking to him right after the draft, you know about like he wakeboards, he plays

all sorts of different sports. It does so much. And then I got to walk around with him while he was in the building and help him get from one place to the next, and he's just you can just see it, like the I mean he I think that that's how he describes himself, if I'm not mistaken, is like an athlete first and then alignment. And I'm excited to see just from the small bit. Like Will said,

you know, you can only take away so much. But from what I saw, I'm excited to see him once the veterans get in the building too, and then you know, extrapolate that out further to the season to see what he can do. Sure. I mean, it's going to be completely different when you get to training camp and all of a sudden he's doing a one on one drill against Brian Burns. That's a whole different animal. I mean, But to see him out there, I mean, you can

tell he's a large man who can move. I mean, he's extremely agile, and that's why I think they're they're so willing to experiment and see what he could do. I mean, I think a lot of people after the drafts all, okay, left tackle, here's the left tackle from b y U. That's where he's obviously going to be. I think it's a lot more complicated than that. And Matt talked about that during the weekend, is like, you know,

we're just experiment now. I mean, he's probably he's not a center, he's not going to snap, but any of the other four positions he could end up at, just because he is so athletic, where would you plan I know you've seen him for like two hours and a rookie mit he camp doing trails. I think there's still so much time to try to figure out what the rist of the line looks like. I mean, it's going to be a work in progress. And I asked Matt

about that. I said, at what point do you kind of start zooming in on Okay, this guy's a left guard, this guy's right tackle, et cetera. And he said, basically, you know, training camp, going into the season, you try to identify the spots people are best at and work from there. But he talked about, you know, with backups, they all have to be able to play more than

one position. I think this is a time now you can through O t A s where you can move guys around, experiment with their best you know, to find out not only what's their best position, but how they can get on the field of the quickest and how they can provide the most depth for us. And then as we get you know, in training camp, you know we really had to zero in on some of those things.

But you know, especially the seventeen game season, we know there's going to be some nutrition at times there will be some shuffling. Dick, I think it's still experimental now, Um, he could end up at left tackle simply because I don't think there's anybody on the roster who necessarily you point to and say, oh, yeah, it's obviously and so I mean it could be gam Irving, it could be trans God, it could be Brady. I mean, we don't know.

And and that's one of those time will tail things, and it's gonna take get into training camp seeing him in pads, seeing what he looks like against a speed rusher, you know, can he get out and keep hands on a Brian Burns in practice? I mean that's that's where we'll find out, and we'll have a pretty good idea

I think during camp. All right. So you know, as we said, eleven draft picks and several other guys who mentioned it, David Moore for instance, other guys who are are hoping to make an impact, a lot of new faces, So why don't we I think we take Brady Christiansen out of this one, right, But aside from Brady Christiansen, what is one name that Panthers fans ought to know from all the new faces who are here? You know who.

I think people are gonna be really excited when they see him during the preseason, see him during other than him, I bet you're about to take person right now. I was gonna say, Shy Smith. I mean, he's such a different kind. I mean, they've got if you look at the Panthers receiving room, they've got a bunch of big dudes, and they've got a bunch of guys who play a completely different game. And he's a little guy, and he's doing stuff across the middle and going up and making

catches and and we saw him down in Mobile. It's Senior Bowl. They really dig on the way he plays and and it's a completely different vibe than a terrorist martial. It's completely different than DJ or Robbie. And I think

that difference is going to make him stand out. And you know they'll be that day during training camp and hopefully fans are able to watch it where you know, you know, somebody will make a big one handed catch over the middle and everybody goes yeah, yeah, And I think he could be that guy who does that thing and catches that kind of attention. Do you think knock on Wood? Hopefully different outcome, but is he similar to

a Demere Birden out of South Carolina? Could be. I I don't know that he's a straight line speed guy the quite the way Demir is. But uh again, he's it's not like he's a little little guy. He's got a little meat on him. He's he can withstand playing across the middle. You'd think based on what he did at South Carolina, But I just think all the different things he's able to do, they're going to eventually figure out, Okay, well let's try this, and but they've got a lot

of dudes to work through. And again, that traffic is gonna make it hard for him to you know, I don't people think I'm saying he's going to the Pro Bowl or anything like that, but you heard it here first. Yeah, I mean, this offense will have to run through Christian McCaffrey and then d J. Moore and then b Anderson and then all these tight ends who were new too before you ever get down to oh and there's a play for Shy Smith. But you know, I think he's

a guy. During the preseason, people are gonna be like, when we know Joe Brady likes to tinker and get creative, so I I definitely agree that's something we could see. Will was shy going to be your answer. I got really lucky. I thought Darren was gonna go with this guy, defensive tackle, dave On Nixon from Iowa. Um. Really I didn't get to see the amount of practice you guys did, but just from his media availability, I mean just so

much energy. Really just an incredible personality and and everyone's time with the offensive line. They came into this saying they need to get better on both sides of the line, and so from the perspective of that interior defensive tackle kind of area, like you kind of were looking like, all right, what are they doing here? Um? And I think he's going to be someone that I know he was a later round pick, but I think he's going to have an impact early on as well. And he's

just he's got a lot of energy. He's a big guy as well. He looks strong. He had some good things at Iowa. Um, you know, like some big ten awards defensive defensive defensive line in the year. I think, yeah, I mean, you know, he's he's won some some accolades that you're like, oh, where was this guy in the second and third round value value value. So I I mean, I I think you know a little bit about H two.

You spoke to him as well. Yeah, and and there will be a probably a rookie diary coming up, maybe with Davian Nixon on Panthers dot Com coming up, uh at some point down the road. But he he is an interesting guy, and you're right, he does have an energy about him. But he's also another one of those It's like when they went through the draft, it was like everybody needed to be some degree of physical freak, you know, somebody who could jump out of the barn

like Brady Christians. And this guy's got thirty five and a half inch arms, I mean, and that sounds like, you know, you're just talking about a guy with long arms. Where that shows up is on the field goal block team. It's three ft yeah, big wingspan up there in the middle of the line. It will help. And we've seen, uh here in this building how it can matter to get a hand on an extra point or something like that. So um, yeah, I mean, he's definitely a big physical guy.

So we'll see how he kind of falls into that rotation for my name to know. I mean, he's a bigger name than the guys you mentioned was drafted higher, but Tommy Tremble, I am, I'm excited to see how he develops. He was not known as a pass catcher at Notre Dame, but seeing him in practice a little bit, he does have those skills and I think, you know, he's a he's a little bit of an unknown and X factor. He's versatile as well. Um, So I'm excited

to see what he does. And I thought he had some some hands on him at at Rocky Minicamp, which I was happy to see. So I think him and Dan Arnold, who um, you know, I'm just excited to see the two of them because it felt like that's what the Panthers were missing last year. One of the things that the Panthers were missing last year were, um, were those pass catching tight ends, especially in the red zone. So I'm looking forward to seeing some combination of of

of those guys of course, and Thomas as well. Like you know, just I'm I'm I'm excited to like a nice, good pass catching tight end and I'm I'm looking forward to see, um, if Tommy Trumbull can be that guy and how he develops or how they're gonna, you know, how they're going to use them. Plus, he's got such a cool name. Great, I mean, it's great football name. I feel I feel like you should say it in the Monster Truck Rally ad voice Tommy gonna be at

the stadium Sundays Sunday, you know. I mean that's you know, he's got a it's like a wrestler name or something. It's great and I think people are going to be into him. I think you're right, Kristen, And you can just see those little flashes where it's like, oh, that's a thing. And again, you can't read too much into routes against air or seven on seven drills. They only had thirty four guys all weekend, so they can't be out there doing team stuff. But there were a couple

of moments where it's like, oh, that's neat. I'll make up. I'll make a bold prediction here. I think Tommy Tremble scores multiple touchdowns on special teams next year. I think he's a guy that is going to just go down the field and wreck some things. Like he has a physicality to him when he steps in the field that if he's on punk coverage, if he's on kickoff coverage, if he's on some sort of you know play where there's a ball to be had, he's gonna go get it,

or he's gonna he's gonna force a fumble. He's gonna do something that's gonna, like really make special teams special. Not that he's not going to be a big part of the offense, not that he's not gonna be in the backfield, blocking, catching, doing all these things, you know, creating mismatches for Dan Arnold to get open, all that other stuff. But I think he's going to be someone that's gonna say, oh, I'm on special teams. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna embrace this and then go get the ball.

You know, he's that guy. I love that you said make special teams special. It was a nice, like coach like coach speak phrase. I've been around Chase Blackburton. Yeah, all right, we're going to take a quick break and we come back. We got will Sta out of the week and Darren is telling us to get off his lawn. Mr Jenkins told me. Mr Jenkis told me. Mr Jenkis told me to always make it easy for the customer. That's you alive person will always be here to answer

the phone. We're here till midnight, seven days a week, so you never have to take off work and it's the same price as in the daytime. We're the ones you want to call. We're the ones you want to call. We're the ones you want to call. You're gonna love these people. I guarantee see got a Morris Jenkins dot com. All right back here on the Happy half Hour podcast, Will it's time for the stat of the week. The time of the week. So J C. Horn number eight.

Obviously we've had the kind of all the stories about him honoring Kobe, the reason he picked it. I'm gonna go for more of the Okay, So what does that mean in Panthers history. Obviously the first non special teamer, non quarterback to be number eight because of the rule changes. So he's kind of like the first one to really be able to publicly embrace these rule changes for us, which I think is really cool. Um, some of my favorite number eights because I was actually number eight in

high school. Got you you got Kobe J. Horn? You know the eighth overall pick. You know. I I graduated college in two thousand eight. I I embraced the eight, and so my favorite number eight. My favorite number eight Darren is from my intern year in two thousand and eight. One of the best. Only kick off He was a kickoff specialist. He didn't actually kick field goals. He just kicked the ball into the end zone every time he came to kick off. The one and only. Reese Lloyd

Lloyd one of one of my favorite. There's this Twitter account now called like Random College Athletes that just tweets pictures of just random. He would be my favorite random Carolina Panther is Reese Lloyd Lloyd lots live up to J. C. Horn. Such a good dude. Wasn't David Carr number eight? Also? Yep? I wasn't going to mention him. Why, I mean, you can mention him. David Carr was a great guy. If you want the full list, it's Reese Lloyd, Brad Nortman,

Jeff Lewis, Andy Lee, David Carr, and Brad Kaya. Briefly, what do you remember most about the Brad Kaya? I just remember photo shopping his head out of the Detroit Lions uniform. That's all I remember. It wasn't much of an era, was all right? Darren, uh you. I love that you've embraced this like get off my lawn mentality. I'm like the old guy, you know what. Here's the thing, though, can I say this, I think Darren has cultivated that, you know, like you said you love the old man football, like,

oh I'm gonna beat kermade. I find Daring to be the loveliest person. I just and Will's nodding. We worked with I mean, we work with you every day, and I know that that's probably you know, taking your street cred down a notch. But I just, I mean, I know that your articles have that reputation for for no holds barred and holding everyone accountable and saying what you mean. But I gotta say in person, lovely guy, just a great, a good friend. You ask you know, so that you

care about your co workers. This is why it's cool to work here. Look at all this young energy in this room and all these people who care about each other. It's cool. It's cool, but you know, and it's funny though when you when you mentioned something about this. I was watching the Hurricanes last night. Yeah, Stanley Cup playoffs starting and our beloved Hurricanes right up the road. Um. I don't know anything about hockey, but I enjoy watching it this time of year because it's a thing that's

moving fast, and you know with bill Hornets. The Hornets are gonna play tonight in the playing game. And and one of the things that kind of bugs me is there are people who are like, oh, gods, playing game, does this really count? Wouldn't they be better off in the lottery. I hate that guy. I hate that person most of all because as a basically a lifelong Charlotte tean,

uh growing up in the area. You know, when I was growing up in suburban Hickory, my brother was part of a group that had season tickets and I remember going out to Taivola and feeling the energy when things were new and the team was terrible and you win anyway, and there were twenty three thousand people in that old barn, and it's just so cool to have some kind of

energy about the local professional basketball team. Now that you know, I can't imagine the people who would be bummed out that, oh, yeah, well they're the nine seed or tinseed or whatever, they'd be better off in the lottery. I hate those people. I am just looking forward to seeing the game, uh, too, hopefully brighter days ahead for the basketball team here in town, because there is a certain energy about those guys too that when you're able to see them, you can you

can pick it up. I mean, there's something being built over there. And as a guy who lives in Charlotte, that's pretty cool. We haven't enjoyed that in a long long time. So horn't it's negativity? Guy, get off my long. I love it. So would it be fair to say then that you would also not be in favor of let's say, just a fan hypothetically that would say, hey, you shouldn't lose a game late in the season to give you a better draft, because Washington was going to

make it more hypothetical. But yes, I just think, you know, the winning is always important, and no, you don't want to be the place where you expect to lose, because that's how you end up picking in the top three routinely and taking quarterbacks who you recycle and doing things like that. I mean, bad for Betises getting those ruts, but I you know, I think you try to do everything you can every day to win that day. You try to, you know, make as many positive steps as

you can. You you want to teach, and Matt Rule talks about you want to teach guys how to win. And even though it was something that might have cost you five picks of draft status or something like that, I mean, there's still lessons that can be gained. Not everybody on the roster, you know who was around for that games on this one now and and people are going to continue to change. But the wanting to win is a lot more important than temporary. You know, everybody's

always looking to the future. And I'm telling you that's why I enjoy watching the playoff hockey and I look forward to watching the playoff basketball because it's the moment. This is why you do the thing, so you can get to this point. So let's see what happens and let's just embrace the moment. I love that well said this is why you do the thing? Is it is exactly the right answer to that. It's exactly the right explanation. This is why we do the thing. That's why the

players do the thing, why the fans like watching the thing. Yeah, I mean Mike, Mike Davis. Yeah, he wasn't going to go out there and be like, oh, maybe I shouldn't score this touchdown so that the team can get a top three. Can you play to win the game? I don't know where up here? All right, this is the Happy Half Hour Podcast presented by Morris Jenkins, and Mr Jenkins told me that the Panthers make him proud and

he has honored to support the team. When you're plumbing your air conditioning is acting up, called Morris Jenkins or visit Morris Jenkins dot com. All Right, we usually end on a weird question of the week. This one's not so much weird as just fun and will hats off to you for for bringing this up. So as we talked about at the beginning, as we were, you know, congratulating ourselves on a job well done with the Schedule

Release video. It came out last week and if if anyone listening to this hasn't seen it, I hope that you get a chance to watch it because we're really proud of it. UM. And we should say our producer cars and Smucker, who's like the genius behind Schedule Release, led the way on this one and several of the past ones that everyone has loved. Daniel Goldfarb did the graphics. UM a lot of just incredibly incredibly talented people, and Will and I were lucky enough to be involved with it,

and Darren's voice was in it. But we had many, many ideas. Each week was a different idea. UM, so seventeen different ideas kind of in this um dream sequence. But with Carson, you know, when we started talking about this, he was like, let's just come up with a ton of different ideas. Nothing is too crazy. And so Will you had a great question, which is like, what are some of the ones that didn't make it for whatever

reason that we wish had made it? And since you came up with with the idea, I gotta ask you first, like which one is on your mind right now? I mean obviously someone jumping out of a plane, Yeah, that's it. And then for you know, for liability reasons because also

obviously there's some reasons why that didn't happen. But yeah, that would have been really cool were you but you weren't kind of chomping at I wasn't going to, but I have since I've been thinking, like I randomly because your phones listened to you when you're thinking and talking, Like I saw all these friends that posted go pro videos of them jumping out of a plane in Arizona over the weekend, and I'm like, they didn't invite you. No,

I hadn't seen him in years. But I also hadn't seen anything on their Facebook in years, So that's why I thought it was odd that like, oh, now you're like seeing this person's content and it's all of them jumping out of a plane, and it looked pretty cool. You're gonna jump out of a plane? You ever? Would you ever jump out of a plane? Down? Yeah, I'm not. No, I'm if I've got a perfectly good airplane, I'm staying in that true does not do much for me, you know,

I didn't. I went back and looked at the list of ideas. I mean, we had some some pretty crazy ones. I don't have one that I wish made it in because my craziest idea that I thought would never happen made it, and that was the Surper jumping through a table sprayings to I mean, that was my first idea. I was like, I got this one in the chamber, like here we got like this is what I want to do, and it happened, and you know, you're good friends.

Surper was just incredible, did all the things in the video, which is you know, they jumped through a table. I wanted to see more of the ranch like we saw it in some of the You know that that's a sensitive subject for me. Yeah, I know. I had a I was covered in ranch, trying to help out do some utility, to make sure the cameras didn't get messed up. Just ranch and whole milk. And it was a hot day, hot day. Um. Lost a pair of shoes to it, Um, but so worth it. That's why I wanted to And

that's what Kristin Balboni does here. She takes one for the team. I mean, she's she's the ultimate team player. She's willing to just allow herself to be covered. Yeah, because that's the thing. It's like I wouldn't just and like I wasn't in it at all. I was just

trying to protect the camera protector, camera guy. And you know, look the sacrifices that we make, Darren, were there any in there that you were hoping would make I was trying to There's so many bright and talented people in that process that I was you know, I felt like I've got nothing to contribute. These people are so brilliant. The one thing I did offer. I said, well, what about for the Bucks game? We could do pirate jokes?

And it was like, what do you mean? And I said, well, could you imagine if that was a primetime game, you know, Panthers versus Tom Brady. You know, they had to play this one in prime time because it's rated. All Now, did you look that up? Like, did you google pirate jokes or did you just have that one? That one was kind of in the That's good. It's a weird place up here. There's some stuff rattling around inside this head that nobody needs to know about. But yeah, I

love pirate jokes. I think there's no better way to end it, right. All right, that's gonna do it for this edition of The Happy Half Hour Podcast. Thank you so much to both of you. Darren, thank you for sticking with us for the last thirty minutes. Also, Matt will and everyone who's listening. We'll see you next time.