Happy Half Hour Episode 39: Coming Along Nicely

Darren gant Is is on the introduction. He is gracing us with his presence. He has agreed, Well, it took a lot of negotiations. I know it took it took some jangles we had to you know, we had to do a lot of trade negotiations here he sat out some days, you know, things got testy. But he has agreed to be come a permanent member of the Happy Half Hour Podcast. I'm just I'm like J. C. Horne. I'm just happy to be here and concentrateing on balls. Yeah, you left your agent to do all the tough talk

for you. I leave. I leave the business stuff to the business and the people upstairs. I just you know, I just want to concentrate on ball and be a good teammate. Did Semeer do the negotiations Sameir's tough. I don't want any part of that. Yeah, I mean that's why I have an agent to let people handle those things for me so my hands don't get dirty. But uh, yeah, it's good. It's good to be here. That's good. I mean we're talking ball. How bad is it really? It's

not at all. I know it's a good thing and this is cool. So I'm glad we get a chance to do this on a regular basis. You know, you're stuck with us now, right, stuck with no, that's the wrong way of putting it. I get to I have attained happy half hour. It's all rosie right now. Ye looks stay full time. But wait, wait until August. Man, Wait we do this in August, Well, then we get to October. It's just no, this is great. I mean, this is a good outlet. I mean it's good. It's

cool because I do think. I mean, in all seriousness, I think between Kristen and I, we we've got perspective and we're inside there, you know, having a chance to watch practice, talk to these guys in a setting, and being able to share some of that insight, some of that behind the ropes stuff is cool and I and I think that's a good platform for a lot of that that doesn't always come through on the video, on the written articles on the website, stuff like that, because

there's plenty of stories to be told. Well then let's start telling them. Yeah, let's go. Let's start with mini camps. So we are recording this on Wednesday morning. We have seen one practice of mini camp and there will be one later this afternoon. Um. But but Darren and I, as he said, have been fortunate enough to get to see quite a bit of O t A S. And it's not not all that different. Yeah, I mean, the

practice itself is not. It's the only real difference from what's going on at O t AS is everybody's here, and prior to this week, everybody but Robbie Anderson was here and Robbie shut up yesterday and and that gave him perfect attendance basically, so you know, everybody was happy, and it was you kind of got to look at what it was going to look like and you know, I, I know, not to make too big a deal of

one guy coming. But you could see a certain difference in the receiving core because it hasn't been complete out there because Taris Marshall has been dealing with some old injuries near trying to get him right for training camp. And DJ. It's basically been DJ and who are all these other guys? And so you could see when Robbie was out there yesterday. Matt Rule talked about it after practice.

Here's a certain energy to practice when he's out there a little bit, and you can sort of see a difference because well you should be able to see a different anytime you add Robbie Anderson back into the mix. You're absolutely right. And he yes, quite a few touchdowns um, and he is excited to be here at a chance to talk to him just a little bit yesterday and he couldn't be happier to be back. Yeah, he's in

such a good space. I mean, he was talking about Sam's ra and his energy and stuff and his brother ship with d J Maher. He was just he was in a good place yesterday. It was cool. It was cool seeing Robbie hearing hearing that voice again me and Sam, you know, I think when I walked in the building and just you know, viewing him, I see like a new energy out of him, like you know, like a glowing charisma that I didn't really see in New York. I can view, you know, a difference in him so far.

So I mean you could just you know, you know, when a person like you can see like Alan throw on him, you know, their energy to or you know, I can kind of view that when I walked in the building and you know, just being around them. What are some of the other things that have stuck out to you over these I mean, I know, just one

mini camp practices, not a lot. But as I said, we've we've seen o t a s. I'll tell you something that's stuck out to me is the pieces that have been added on Defense and this unit as a whole. The energy is just I mean, in addition to what the fans have been able to see. You know, we were putting out highlights on social media. There were some of those that were out yesterday. Um Defense had a

good day yesterday at OTS. But but just the way they're talking to each other, communicating the energy and then you look at a guy like um Hassan Reddick or Denzel Perriman. I'll tell you what. I met Denzel on his first day in the building. We both did or we all all three of us did. Um. And now he's walking around like I'll be doing an interview with someone else, and he's like the leader of the path.

You would have thought he had been here for five years the way he has bonded with you know, I was interviewing Christian the other day and he's walking with Shack and a bunch of other guys and he's yelling out, Christian, you're my guy. You know, all this kind of stuff, and you would not think he had only been here for a few months. And that really is I think

the whole. That's a great way to encompass the way this defense has seemingly bonded so quickly and and added some really important pieces I think on the field, and then also for the the Chemist three and um kind of the energy of that unit. Yeah, the enthusiasms absolutely real, and it was kind of fun yesterday watching them. You know, Brian Burns who's still in a red jersey still, you know, coming off some off season stuff and and they say he's gonna be ready for training camp, which is good

news obviously for the defense. But Burns is out there. Even though he wasn't going through the reps on the practice field, he would be in the huddle and he was jumping around and chest bumping with guys in high five and after plays and stuff like that. And there is a level of engagement and there's a level of enthusiasm amongst all those guys that that's tangible. I mean, it's real. They honestly believe they're on the verge of something big there defensively, So, uh, you did you brought

in a lot of old heads. I mean, Denzel Pairman has been around the league, a j boy has been around the league. Hassan Reddick has done some big things, and they think that when you add them to burn and his too Chin, to Derek Brown, all these young guys that were in place last year. You know, even Phil Snow said last week, Yeah, it looks pretty good now.

I mean, and everybody's trying to keep the brakes on a little bit in those conditions and well and still figure things out what what what they have as a unit. They're still experimenting, but it's absolutely real that they believe they're a lot better on that side of the ball. And yesterday in practice there were so many tip passes and interceptions and stuff like that. And you know, it's easy and I hate to be I've talked to Bill

about this. When you know people tweet out individual plays from practice, it's easy for that to get turned into, you know, out of context thing is really not. But there were a bunch of plays being made yesterday, and I mean it became thematic at a certain point that, Hey, these guys are flying around picking off a bunch of passes.

That's that's new, that's different, that's something right there. And I think some of the context of that is, you know, in these practic the settings, you don't have necessarily have the pass rush, but you don't necessarily have like, you know, the past blocking either. So you know, guys that are just jumping at the line tipping balls there, you know, maybe they're not necessarily in the quarterback space like they

would be. But from a secondary standpoint, if you're a corner on a wide receiver just one on one and you maybe don't have you know, the safety help over the top, or you don't have the pass rush, you know, rushing the quarterback and it's just you and this guy when you're guarding him. The way these guys are guarding

these guys, that's a little bit different. And that's something you can maybe see in these sort of drills, and you can see at this time of year, and those guys when they're on islands, they're looking pretty good, right, Yeah. And I think more than anything, I mean, they have raised the level of personnel in the secondary last year.

And I've had a couple of players over the course of the off season mentioned this to me and and we'll get to this later on on the website and kind of putting some of this stuff in the context. But last year was almost all right, bring somebody in all the street he's playing, he's starting. I mean, who is this guy? I have no idea, And all of a sudden you're trying to count on him and know what he's supposed to do when you've never even met him. Uh. This year, they brought in a a better grade of

player again, a J boy. It was kind of a bargain signing almost that guy has played at a high level and to bring him into to play alongside Dante and alongside J. C. Horne, who again, j C. Horne was drafted to be that guy. I mean, then they haven't had one of those around here in a long time. I mean, as good as he was, Josh Norman was a different kind of player. I mean he was mid round pick who had to work his way up and it was years before he was an all pro level player.

J C. Horn walks in the building pedigreed and and ready to sort of raise the level of the entire secondary. Absolutely, and he's looked good to my eye, it's very good when he is on those islands that you're talking about will and then also we forget so you look at the moves they made to that secondary and free agency and then, as you said, Jase Horne in the draft, So do you think Dante Jackson was not healthy for the majority of the season last year, constantly battling that

turf toe and he looks good. This is gonna it's just gonna look entirely different back there. They've got a I mean, they had the thing during the Super Bowl year, the Thieves Avenue, and you don't want to put anything on these guys at this point, but there's a lot of potential for guys to make a lot of plays in the secondary this year, and and again with Jeremy Chen probably playing more of a safety role this year.

That adds another guy who we've already seen can be an impact player and can make big plays in the course of a game. Puts another body back there that's capable of making a game change and play. So it's gonna be interesting to see how that all comes together once camp starts. What about a quarterback would have been your observations on on Sam Donald? You know, I think Sam is starting to figure out what it's like and what's expected. And I think in a sense, you know,

we've created such a low bar for Sam. I mean, after the New York experience went the way it worked went for Sam, it's like, come here and reset. And Sam looks like a guy who feels relieved to not have to deal with a lot of external stuff. I mean, he's just been here sleeping on the floor like a college student with his mattress on the floor and that kind of stuff. But um, he looks like a new guy. He looks relaxed. I think on the field, you know,

you can tell certain things. He does have that big arm, and I think in a theoretical since they ought to be able to push the ball down the field a little bit more this year than they have in the past. And uh, you know, we'll see. I mean, there's been some ups and downs, and again I think having this odd lot of receivers around him as part of it. I mean, there are times when you know he hadn't had the greatest of practices. Times he's had better ones,

and you know, what's see how it develops. But I think just in terms of Sam getting his feet underneath him here in Carolina, he is starting to figure it out, I think a little bit, and and starting to get a sense for where he is in the world. And you know, Robbie talked about it yesterday. He's like, he's got a new r he's gotta he's got a glow about him. And you know he Robbie knows him from New York when he was probably glowing for other reasons

because everybody was setting him on fire. But um, here, I mean, I mean here he can be relaxed, he can be laid back Sam. He can be California cool Sam, and and sort of fit in because there isn't the same level of expectation on him yesterday, Coach said that he doesn't want him to have great practices. He wants him to have good practices and with the context stuff, he wants him to always see how he can get better because he's having great practices, not in the work

on You know, what did you kind of take from that? Well, I think they want to keep pushing Sam again. I think this is sort of a period of acclamation and there will be a point in training, you know, once you transition into training camp in the preseason where they do turn the heat up on him a little bit and you do expect more of him again. Hi, Sam, meet Christian. You're gonna like him. You know he's going to help you. Okay, these are the new guys. That's

Taylor Moten. He's better than anybody you've ever played with. You know, that kind of period is over and now it's okay, what have you learned? And you see them go through some of the situational stuff in this camp of you know, working on two minute, working on blitz pick up stuff such that you can in this setting where nobody's wearing pads and it's not contact and that

kind of stuff. So, you know, I think they keep adding a little bit more to his plate every day, and that's obviously going to get cranked up a notch once we get to training camp. Yeah, I completely agree. You see them go through those those situational um instances and and work them out on the field, and then you'll see him and Joe Brady get together and talk

and that's all part of this process. You know, this is I mean, he was was with the Jets and and now he's here, so he's learning an entirely new schim scheme, new personnel, everything, and um, I think it's progressing as it should be. And at this point in um, the off season, I think so. And again a lot of its adaptation and a lot of it's learning new people. UM, and that's sort of thing. And again some peaks and valleys are to be expected. I mean, there's a lot

of new stuff coming his way. But I think, you know, so far, I guess I would say to sum it up, I mean Sam sort of been as advertised. I mean, you can tell he's got a big arm. And not to take away from anybody else who's been at that position, but Sam got a stronger arm than anybody we've seen here since I don't know that number one guy a couple of years ago, and it's and it's probably been a couple of years since you saw that. So it's visibly different from that standpoint. And now let's see how

he puts it together. Well, one thing darreny mentioned new and different, Uh, you know, not just for for Sam and the guys on the team, but really for us, Like we're in this new phase where we are allowed to safely be around the players. And one thing we always try to do on this podcast is talk about some of the behind the scenes stuff. Um, you know, I started with the Panthers not quite a year and

a half ago. I started working from home. And Darren, you've obviously been around the team in some capacity since its inception, but you also started last year during a time where we couldn't be around the players. So this is really because of the tier status in the NFL. UM, you know, making sure that that certain staff members can be around the players in a safe manner. And you know, we we are compliant with everything in in the NFL

rules and regulations. Um, we have been allowed to to be around the players and and do our jobs in a much more normal way than either you or I have experienced since joining the Panthers, It's been great. It's kind of like, hey, look there's an actual person. He's not on a screen. I've met you, You're You're an actual thing. Um. It's good. And that's great for building relationships and getting to know people and being able to share their stories. I mean, that's a lot of this

kind of stuff. You can hear guys say words on a zoom call, but a lot of times when you see how animated they are about certain things, you can tell what matters to them, you can tell what's important to them. Um, and it just helps in that regard. I mean, these are human beings and and honestly, there have been a load of players this offseason talked about how important that is from their standpoint of building a team. Is Hey, I actually get to sit in a room

with this guy. I actually get to you know, go to dinner with this guy. I actually get to meet him and know what makes him tip And Matt Rules said that was the biggest thing that he told me at the end of last season. We did almost like an exit interview the day after this season ended, and um, he said, you know it was we recorded it and

it was great. That was the first time I'd gotten to be in person with him, and he said the thing that he was looking forward to most, you know, no hesitation Barnon was this offseason period of being able to be in person with the players. And you think back he was introducing himself to players behind a mask in July for the first time. This is really new for this entire staff too, now that I'm thinking about it,

not just us. This is also their first time getting to be around all of the players in an off season capacity. And that that question, I think gets cliche if you've watched every press conference we've done the last three months, because two months, because the media keeps asking you,

how happy are you to be back? But it's but there's something real to it, and there's something in in comparison to thirty one other teams, not everyone in this league has as much in person contact, as many practices as many everyone there altogether sort of stuff, yes, as the Panthers have. And you know, I'm not saying that you can look and point at at May in June

and predict outcomes of fall games. That's exactly what you're saying that I think there's there's a lot of things that go into how successful you are in the fall, and I think it's easy to take for granted how important this stuff is. What we're doing, we're able to evaluate the players more importantly. Um players are gonna chance to spend time around each other and to spend the time in our scheme. And you know, as coaches, this is practice for us, like all the two minute situations,

reacting to them like, well, we clock it here. When we do this and we go back, we have a real serious debrief on how it went. So again, I don't know how we did it without it. Last year. We play honest, I mean a team like you know, the Buccaneers for instance. I mean Tom Brady was seeing veterans to not show up for O t A s this year. And now, granted they are those Super Bowl champions, it's Tom Brady. It's a veteran team. They've all been together.

Their O t as were in January when they were practicing for the players, and the Panthers didn't get that stuff. But you know, when you're older, when you're established, you can get away with some of that kind of stuff. Maybe, But as they build this thing and this is such a young team. You know, even the old guys have talked about how imperative it is to be here together. And you know, I think that's been huge for those

guys that Jack and Hassan and all those guys. Yeah, they've said that from and Check said that from from last season as as well, right at the end of the season that to him as a player, as a leader, a captain last season, that the biggest thing that that defense needed was was the time before the season started, and he was looking forward to that. And they're getting it. Like I said, going back to the Denzel Perimin thing I said at the beginning, see all those guys walking

around getting to know each other. I love to see the new guys and the guys that have been here for a couple of years, whether that's you know, the new guys through the draft or free agency. It makes my my heart grow a size bigger to see them all, you know, becoming friends, right and and to see who is hanging out with who, and who's walking up to practice or writing on the golf carts together. I just

love that. I think that's such a hallmark during especially as you said, for one of the youngest teams in the NFL. They need this time and they're getting it, ye and and they're getting it. And like I said that knowing each other off the field is such a component of that. I mean, because you know, these guys have to trust each other on Sundays and how do you trust someone you've never met or don't know. So it's helpful for those guys. And you can kind of

see it. I mean, there is you know, last year, when everybody's behind a mask, you would see people leaving one at a time, and it's almost like they were in a line on the way out in socially distance they had they had to be at certain points. It was still if you're not playing, you need to try to be as socially distance as possible. And now when you see guys walking in or walking out of Sillity, they're coming in two and three at a time. And I mean it sounds like a small thing, that sounds

like a simple thing, but it matters. It does. All Right, We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, Darren is going to tell us why we need to get off his lawn. Mr Jenkins told me. Mr Jenkins 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 to Morris Jenkins dot com. All right, welcome back to the Happy half Hour podcast. The Happy half Hour Podcast is presented by Morris Jenkins and Mr Jenkins told me that the Panthers make him proud and he is honored to support the team. When you're plumbing, your air conditioning is

acting up, call Morris Jenkins or visit Morris Jenkins dot com. Darren, you debuted Get Off My Lawn the Last the Last Pick past episode, and I know that I put in my you know, stipulations for Darren becoming full times like we need to hear more of these. You have happen every week. You're stuck with it now. Well it's a thing now, huh. But it's almost perfect because you have you have moved recently. You have a whole new lawn that everyone can now get off, a new lawn for

everybody to get off. And I will say, as I said before, and I got tweets about this, which I loved. You are just a lovely human. I think you try to pretend you know, but I have to say I'm not wrong in saying I have moved. Gosh, I've probably moved eight times, nine times since graduating college, all over the country. No one likes moving, So I thought, like, we got to get to get off my lawn moment for moving. You know what needs to get off my lawn. Boxes?

There's so many bodies that guy in the neighborhood. Where did they? Where did they come with all this stuff? I mean, I didn't realize I owned many of these items, and uh yeah, they are many, many cardboard boxes. And I was breaking down a bunch of them last night stick in the recycling and It's like, where did all this come from? I have no idea. I have never been so excited to have a box cutter like I lost my box cutter during my last move for i'd

say maybe a day or two, and it was devastating. Yeah, it's a nightmare, and you wonder, and I truly and now that I'm part of the team, one of the one of the rituals. From my standpoint, I mean, you guys have stipulations. One of the things I'm gonna do is we're gonna have a reverse housewarming party. You're at my place and you two guys are gonna come over.

And here's a deal. Unlike a regular housewarming party where you guys bring me gifts, when you guys come to my house for the reverse housewarming party, I get to give you items, items, and they're items of my choosing, and you cannot refuse. This the best idea. Yeah, so I've got like an extra built sander that I think sounds like, well, it looks like a will gift to me, right, And I've already been promised his notebooks from the two thousand eight seasons. Yeah, I got. I got free reign.

I got told that I could look through all of them. So I need to go. I need to go claim those because I think he wrote about me in the two thousand eight one. The the pr intern was only looking I'm see, I'm looking for for history for good nuggets. You're just looking for yourself pretty much. This kid seems

in over his head, not if he's a player or not. Um, there's a lot of stuff over there, And yeah, I did bring a couple of those boxes here to the stadium because some of these things need to go downstairs into the archive with David. There's some there were some things uncovered in my garage. But when I brought stuff from one place to the other, it's like, oh my god, where did that come from? Well, you moved recently. What's

the worst part of moving? Um? I had a nightmare of course with the internet set up, because like I guess, we were the the guy was over here, was just like digging through this box in the back, and then this box out in the corner, and then back upstairs and then back downstairs. And at one point he goes, yeah, and I'm not gonna work like this. Yeah, can you be more specific? You know, no internet plugging in and it it's supposed to work. He's like, I don't let

me go try upstairs again. And then he went to another room and did some things and he's like, I think it's gonna work. I'm like, what what what I mean? You had he for about twenty minutes. I was. I was on the verge of can we sell the house you know that we just bought because the Internet isn't gonna work? Like all the other things are great, but if the internet doesn't work, you know, I gotta move again. You never want to hear. Yeah, the Internet is just

not gonna work. I mean, I mean it was essentially like this just place just won't work. I'm like, what do you mean? What does that is that? So that was that was my twenty minute nightmare. That's a good one. Yeah, that's a good one. I mean that one for you, but it's worse than that for me. Well, so you'd want internet like I would take. You would take internet over plumbing. Yeah, because the stadiums right across the street. That's still what are you gonna be like? Showering in

the locker room in shower shoes. He's got a shower cap on and his patty. Hey, guys, what's up? At least if I can get on the internet at home though there's also internet here, Well, yeah, I don't have to shower every day though, all right, And you know what, you know what I'm I'm nervous to even move on because will you came up with the weird question of the week, and I just now after saying you don't have to shower every day, I'm nervous to find out

what'll go for it? Shower, shower this morning. I'm sure likely story so could be worse. You wait until training camp, my man, Just wait, that's a different kind of sweat. Yeah. Um, so this time of year, mini camp is over at the end of the week. Between now in training camp, there's a lot of vacations being taken. I think there was some point in the history of this podcast in which I, uh d, I made some very bad statements about the city of Paris in terms of its vacation spot. Yes,

you didn't make bad statements. You were just wrong in the sense that you thought you thought it was overrated. If I'm not mistaken, I was corrected offline, as they say, as the kids say, take this offline, um, and I want to I want to retract it. I want to retract that statement and give Darren a chance to weigh in on the most stereotypical vacation spot that is in fact quite bad, that is in fact quite bad that people still go to like, oh, I'm gonna go vacation there.

But in true, in true reality, it's not a place do you want to go? Myrtle Beach count on the dirty Myrtle is Uh, that's special for a lot of reasons. And you know, I think you know, and certainly I'll raise my hand. I have spent my share of time in Myrtle Beach and when you're in college on spring break, I think that's appropriate. But I think now that you hit another phase in life, you know, Myrtle is not

really the place to roll anymore. But I feel like for people outside of the Carolinas, it's still has this allure to it, rightly, right, Oh yeah, I mean, madam, I am I right. No, I've definitely known people who aren't from South Carolina or North Carolina and they talk very highly about going like their yearly trip. And yeah, I think that's a surprise to people that have been around these these parts for a while, that like people from Columbus, Ohio just worshiped Myrtle Beach. West Virginia is

big in a Myrtle Beach. Yeah. And not to tell him myself, but one time when I was in college, we met some young ladies from West Virginia and one of them had six toes. I swear to God that's true. Story. Um six total or six on one ft? Yeah, eleven total? It can I just ask I'm afraid to even ask a question about this, um, but I guess Matt can always cut it. Was that like, did she introduce herself and and tell you that? Did you go to even does she bring it up? Or did you just see it?

And you couldn't let it go? Even at an early age, I had this finely tuned reporter. And so the store, and you notice things and when something you know, when you look out on the practice field and Jeremy Chin's and Rid Jersey, you say, hey, he's not practicing today. If you see something that's out of place, you notice that. And so when you're walking around you meet new people and you look down for some reason, or pick something up off the floor, it's like, hey, there's an extra

one that's not supposed to be there about it? It may have come up in conversation. What a memorable first episode from Darren the first four time here, this was not We start with mini camp, We end with a woman from West Virginia with six toes. What more can you ask mar in Myrtle Beach? Of course, I mean I don't think a podcast could give you more. That's all I'm saying. With that, we'll leave it right there. We'll leave you with that image. Thank you so much

for listening to the Happy Half Hour podcast. We'll see you next time.