Happy Half Hour Episode 94: Full Circle

This week on the Happy Half Hour.

It is such a full circle kind of moment for the franchise, and it's really cool that Frank Reich, I mean, he made a point of it during OTA's in Mini caamp that he wanted to incorporate these guys bring him here.

I mean he's holding up his into the bargain.

They're showing up and it's absolutely awesome to see them interact with the current team talks.

To try It's time for the Happy Half Hour with your friends. Kristin Balboni, Augusta Stone, and Darren Gannon.

All Right, good morning everybody. I think it's morning. I think it's Thursday. Question Mark, I think it's the day after fan Fest. Yes, we are in Charlotte. It is post fan Fest, pre another week of training camp. I'm Darren, she's Augusta. This is the Happy Half Hour. Welcome to it.

Augusta, good morning, Good morning.

We talked about what day of the week it was before we started recording, because to be honest with you, every day it feels like every day of the week, and also none of them. Yeah, like I don't know where we are Thursday.

It's kind of like a Saturday now.

Because we're in the lull between the four day the four day weeks. Frank Craig talked about it last night and I was like, you know, you're right camp is being split up like that, but it doesn't. So it just kind of like, I guess herky jerks your way through the whole week.

So here we are.

Frank has rent the bonds of time by creating four day weeks instead of seven day weeks. There is nothing tradish about this schedule. He's also taken some liberties with

It was so good it was.

It was so good the way he delivered it that nobody in that act media room even noticed it. Like and then it ends and we all kind of look at each other and we're like, did he just draw like the newest like.

Slang term of twenty twenty three tradish? I love it.

I need to go talk to his daughters or something to see if this is a thing he says a lot, or if there are other conventions that he is using or you know, breaking conventions. I guess you could say, but who knew Frank r like linguistic pioneer. He is out there inventing words and saying stuff that I was not expecting a sixty one year old Frank Craig to say.

So the best part of it all was whenever you asked Jeremy Chin about his role, which I mean, it was so perfect that he's out here saying in a non tradish way. And then we bring in probably the one of the more non tradish role players on the defense, and then you found just a beautiful way to ask the question. Jeremy chen as earnest as ever.

Yeah, And I just asked Jeremy, I said, Jeremy, Frank was just in here and he uses this word tradish. Do you think of Frank as someone who uses words like that or does he do it a lot? And Jeremy just dead pan looks straight at me and he says, I don't even know what that means.

It's beautiful.

It makes you think that it was one of those you know, it was late after FanFest. We've been doing practices early, like kind of delirium, like BLUs Frank.

I'm sure he was like, oh my goodness, here I go.

You know, I truly am curious now. And this is my journalistic vow to you, our listeners at the Happy half Hour and our readers at Panthers dot com. We're gonna find out more about this if there are other things. Frank Reich says, I just, I mean, Frank Reich has big dad joke energy, and he and I are of an equivalent generation, or at least nearby each other generally generationally, so I feel like we can kind of communicate in dad joke and he you know, I think there's more there.

Was there anything last night that kind of jumped out at you.

Yeah. I think one of the main things was again we saw I think we talked about it a lot. It may become not a tired storyline, but just the locked in nature of Bryce Young and it was really cool to see kind of in the place where he's going to end up playing, you know, all of his games here. I think there were I was talking with one of my friends in the press box, but the way the crowd erupted every time they completed a pass, it was just a and you get to.

See the fanfare of it all.

I think my favorite thing about FanFest is that, especially this year, because it was a great crowd. It feel it felt, you know, football is back, everything is everything his gram but no, I mean Bryce, Bryce is comfortably obviously QB one, which we knew before we even got to training camp. And then Frank right just went ahead and squashed that bug first day and he was out there, he was in command. He was making past it or making throws. I think DJ Chark caught his you know.

A daily big catch.

Uh.

DJ Shark is just.

The star of camp in a way that all the fans, you know, light up the second he catches the ball, and he's always doing some sort of aerobics, whether it's been in his back or turning around or just he's he's really flashing. It was a lot of the and again a lot of the same. I know you talked about Kamu, but I mean his third pick. It's like, basically, we took what we've been seeing in Spartanburg brought it here very similar.

And that's that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think it's showing that consistency.

I mean, it looked like it had looked and now it's you know, on the field, on the turf, in front of all the all the fans.

I thought it was really cool.

Yeah, speaking of nomenclature, I'm not particularly comfortable with. I'm still a little bit at odds with QB one.

I'm still not on board with QB one.

I'm not sure, Uh, we really needed to shorten starting quarterback in that way.

But apparently that's a thing that's taken hold.

Is that generational, that's a young person thing gotta be.

I think it has a lot to do with texting too, because I think I've probably texted or typed out QB one more than I say it It's like sometimes if I'm if I say something funny or you say something funny, I'll say LOL to you.

It's the same thing.

It's like we started speaking like that, like l O l O MG QB one B y.

Nine Bryce young nine B why nine? That's I'm pinning it. No, I've never heard it, but I'm pinning it right now on the Happy half hour.

Oh okay, calling your shot.

You're nine.

You're like Frank Raich. You're just inventing new words as you go along.

This is not numb. There are rules of it at any rate.

At any rate, No, I always get a kick out of fan Best because fan Fest is probably along with training camp. If you're if you're not able to get to Spartanburg, and again I've said it before, I said it again. Everybody should make that trip at some point in their life. If you haven't been ninety minutes down the road, if you're in the greater Charlotte area, here easy to get to. Traffic's not that bad, the construction is not nearly as bad as it's been in past years,

Soh It's easy.

For people to get caught up in the new every offseason. I mean, whether it's Detroit, whether it's Miami, whether it's Houston with a brand new quarterback, every team is sitting there right now saying, hey, I really like where we're at. There's an enthusiasm here, there's an excitement, and it's natural for every team to feel that way, right now, but right now with the Carolina Panthers, that sense of optimism

And it's been a minute since we've been there.

And I think the combination of what Frank's brought, you know, so much excitement with Bryce Young, there's just a different feeling now. The other day at Back Together Saturday, just seeing the way fans responded to realizing Chris Gamble was in the house, the great old cornerback from the teams of the two thousands, who is moving back to the Charlotte area and is is going to kind of get entrenched here again.

Uh.

Seeing seeing Charles Johnson, seeing Mike Rucker and those guys milling around, even from them talking to them on the sidelines, you can sense that something's cooking here. You can sense that they want to be around it. They want to see it because there is a thing happening.

Well, you wrote down the roster of people who were here yesterday being on it before fan fas. Twenty four was the official count.

I think the four legends in twenty.

Four legends and I mean they just kept rolling out. The name's kept, you know.

I mean it was so cool to me, Like Kaywan Short was there, We had a who is Mike Rucker was there.

On and on train Captain.

Boston. He was over there, fist pumping fans. It's on an monocrass in the stands like it was. It was so cool.

I mean it's it's I mean, not to labor the Frank Reich, you know, full circle moment, but you have all this, you know, nostalgia coming in. You know, all the legends being honored. They're around all the time. Luke Keigley was at practice the other day. I mean he's all around all the time, but he was there in Spartanburg. You know, Steve Smith showing up and doing really awesome features with Jonathan Mingo, which you can see on Panthers dot com, Grilling the Rookie on the Grill.

Awesome awesome.

It is such a full circle kind of moment for the franchise, and it's really cool that Frank Reich, I mean, he made a point of it during OTAs in mini camp that he wanted to incorporate these guys bring him here.

I mean, he's he's holding up his into the bargain.

They're showing up and it's it's absolutely awesome to see them interact with the current team this, you know. I mean you look around the field and like you said, there's a lot of changes. I mean, the whole offense other than the offensive line, is brand new guys.

A lot of them are rookies and young guys, and it's so exciting.

I think it's the time where we're marrying the past with the president and they're all kind of getting in, like you said, on the excitement going on right now. And I thought the Legends thing was awesome. I just wanted to give a shout out for that because that was so cool.

Yeah, Jeremy Kelly and David Monroe, Heather Arlan, So those guys are doing a great job, you know, bringing those guys back around and then making them feel welcome once they're here. So I just think that it's it's cool having those guys around and you could see it.

I mean, it's one thing for young guys.

I mean a lot of these guys aren't going to know who Mike Rucker necessarily was, although Chris Tabor knows him because Chris Tabor's father was Mike Rutgers high school football coach back in Missouri. No way, fun fact. Oh my goodness, store that away. That'll there will be a test later. But I was talking to JC after the back together Saturday practice, and again, if you're a fan of recent vintage Chris Gamble was j C.

Horn Before j C. Horn.

I mean, he was a big, tall, fast, rangy corner, supremely athletic. Now, Chris wasn't as thick as JC, wasn't ascessarily as physical as JC, but Chris played at Chris played at a consistently high level as you can possibly play without ever making a Pro Bowl, which still kind of surprises me.

But Chris was just so consistently good for such a.

Long time, and Jac was like, hey, I remembered watching him play against my dad. I remember those games. I remember seeing them go back and forth, and you know, part of that is JC Horn watches a lot of football. But part of that is there's a respect among players and there is a very real sense of I can learn things from Chris Gamble in JC Horn and it was cool listening to him talk about, you know, catching up with him before practice and just talking about the

What also plays into the coaching staff a lot of them being former players themselves, some of them former Panthers, you know.

I mean one.

Image that I can't get out of my head that I just think it's so cool is Josh McCowan signing interviews or signing autographs after practice. I Mean, he's you know, just about as popular as some of the guys on the roster because I mean, he's a face in himself and he's over here on the staff stuff like that's just really really cool to me. And that's again just an extension of all the football knowledge. Is a lot of on field knowledge with this staff and with the

That, right, no doubt.

The other thing I wanted to touch base on in this podcast, and again, there's going to be a lot of Bryce Young content this training camp. This just in people are excited about the kid, want to know everything about him. And you had a chance it's last week to kind of catch up with the Young family. Mom and dadd Craig and Julie been there every day during

But in talking to Craig and Julie, I mean, we're there.

Things they shared with you that kind of point to that to you know, it takes him a minute to get warmed up, but this is kind of.

Who he is.

Yeah, well, I will say, And I couldn't find the perfect way to weave this into the story, So this is a perfect little podcast nugget. But his parents were also cracking some jokes with me, because this was my third or fourth.

Time interviewing them.

And at one point, you know, I talked about, you know, the closeness of the family and frame my question with that, and I can't remember if it was Julie or Craig. I think it may have been Julie, but she she quips back, Oh, this is just for the media, This is just for show, and we all start dying laughing, because I mean, when you say those people have been there every single day of practice, I saw him up. We actually captured a photo of it in the article.

I mean, they're there as much as we are. I think that's awesome to see.

But but no, I mean, I think one of the stories and I led with this in the article that I found very compelling, was you know, they're there a lot, and you can say a lot about the closeness of the family. At the same time, they'd done a really good job with kind of the boundary setting. And Bryce told them on his twenty second birthday, it was the day veterans report big meeting day.

He wanted to lock in on.

Being around his teammates, so he didn't have the birthday dinner with his family on his actual birthday.

He waited until after that practice.

I just thought that that was really loud of the type of person he is but also I think what he needs to do to feel comfortable, right, he wanted to make sure that he was with his teammates around even though you know, it was a pretty big day for him.

I mean it was the day that he reached the age of everyone else on the roster.

I'll say that he's the youngest guy, but when he got when he was there, you know, they said that they wanted to, you know, respect that. And then that was the press conference too, where we first noticed that he was cracking jokes and feeling comfortable. It's something about the Spartanburg atmosphere. I think it's being around your teammates twenty four to seven. I think it's eating meals with them, sleeping in the dorms, I mean sharing you know, bathrooms

It made me laugh when they said.

That, did we find out what he had for the birthday dinner? Because I know when when it was pro day it was the scallop.

Follows in the salad, which was which was an interesting that the twitter fodder on that.

Oh my goodness. No, no, they they they have been.

They've been coming from Charlotte, I know that, but they probably ate in Spartanburg. But they were asking Bryce about what was it his bow Jangles order, and he said he like the bow Berry biscuits. I'm thinking he prefers lighter fare, so maybe like a salmon or something like that.

I'd say, once once Lint rolls around next spring, I will teach Bryce Young about the bow Jangler and why you should order it on a biscuit instead of a bun.

But that's a different podcast for a different day.

What the other thing I wanted to kind of touch on during this because again, there has been so much attention on Bryce Shalling, and for good reason.

He was the number one overall pick in the draft.

YEP.

But we've been down there basically a week and a half or so, although again we've lost all concept of time.

It's still Thursday, right, I think so.

In the time we've spent in training camp, are there under the radar guys who've kind of caught your eye where it's like, Okay, that's interesting, or this guy's going to be a contributor that not everybody's talking about.

M Commy's the one that throws that throws in your face you think about immediately.

That's a great question.

On the offense, we've seen Chark made a lot of plays, Mingo has his flashing moments. Theeling looks is just as good as you'd expect. Okay, I got one Raheem Black, chear Zy peasy, And the reason why is because we saw a lot of them last year. He was kind of the returner, and I think it fell onto him because there were a lot of different I think pieces that kind of like let him have that opportunity. He did a good job with it, right, wrote.

About that in the off season.

But they've been using him more as a pass catcher than I saw last year. I think that's really interesting. He connected with Andy Dalton and one of Dalton's best stars at camp on it was it this week at some point. But he looks good. I mean, he was one of those guys they brought in sort of later last year.

I remember from.

The Bills undrafted fellaut. I think he has a lot of tools and interesting things that he can do. I don't think, you know, he's not a surprise. He played a lot last year, but I mean he's continuing on that path. So I'm on the I'm on the black Cher camp. I think he looked real good. So yeah, that's my person.

He's so smooth as a pass catcher.

Yeah, and that's the thing that's going to keep him on the field, just because you know, I think there is going to be It might not be like Miles Sanders catching fifty balls his rookie year when he was with Ducedalium Philly, but I think that running back, whoever it is, is going.

To be a big part of the passing game.

And because he's so smooth there, I think he's going to be I have kind of you know, I mean, you know, me when they put on full pads. I just looked at you the other day and I said, I'll be down here watching large people. I love watching one on ones with offensive lineman and defensive lineman.

And this is weird.

And I mentioned this in this morning's Training Camp Daily newsletter. And if you haven't signed up for the Training Camp newsletter, you can go to the Training Campage at Panthers dot com and get this stuff in your inbox every day. It's a full wrap up of everything we're doing down at training camp each day and all the great content that this team's putting together. But I mentioned this in

That's true.

It's been a long long time, and as a person who is old, I can tell you it's been years since they've had this kind of depth on the offensive line. Now, the entire line from last year's back less Austin Corbett, who's coming off the ACL. Although Austin is getting better and it was cleared to last week for change of direction, so he's taken another big step in his recovery. But they've got a lot of dudes over there.

Cade Mays has been working with the ones.

They're about to get fourth round pick Chandler's Vola back on the field, maybe in the next couple of days or early next week. He's expected to be cleared soon to get back on the field. But they've got to and this is way off the menu. But they've got a couple of undrafted rookie offensive linemen in Nash Jensen and JD Derenzo, who I think, as the kids say, have that dog in them, the dog is inside of them or something.

I don't know.

I'll ask Frank how he says it later, but those two guys appear to be mean, not necessarily fighting your guy Jordan Thomas, who seems to get in a scrap every day in practice, but these just they seem to have that kind of on the front foot, leaning into people edge that they've.

Been looking for more and more of.

I mean not to say anything bad about anybody was here in the past, but there wasn't a lot of jerks on this team.

There wasn't a lot of edge.

And I mean, I think like von Bell's got that right kind of edge and Nash in Derenzo or a couple of kids. I think once we get into preseason games and get a chance to see that second offensive line, you're gonna see these two dudes. Because Jensen has been out there, you know, subbody and getting some reps with the ones you know, rotating in at both the guard spots.

And he's a big old boy.

I mean, you're talking about three hundred and thirty two pounds of you know, corn fed midwestern North Dakota State bison out there, and he looks the part. I mean, he looks like what they're trying to cultivate. And when I think about that offensive line room, I mean, it was two years ago when the former coach said something about it was like eighty five.

It's under construction. Now all of a sudden, they're deep.

You've got vets like Michael Jordan, who is a ten game starter competing for a backup job. You've got Justin McCrae, who's an NFL VET. James Campen's had him basically everywhere he's ever been A drags him from place to place for a reason.

You know, mccray's back there.

Sam Tecklenberg even as a guy who's been around for a little bit and gotten some good experience. They're experienced in the middle, and then you start adding these young guys like Nash and Dorenzo who are going to be in the mix. I mean, when they start cutting this roster and trying to get down to nine or ten offensive lineman, I think it's going to be fascinating because there's some young kids there who are going to make a difference for this team in some fashion exactly.

And I think that's a testament to James Campen.

To be honest, I think he is such an impressive coach with what he's done to the group because you just named off all these people and to be able to develop the way he does, to be able to pick the way he has, I mean, you know, I think I think it's I think it's worked out. I mean that group is already solid, and then behind him, they just keep having guys. I think he runs a very very efficient practice. I love watching their individual drills.

Group and make them who they are.

And I mean they've brought in some guys and like you said, it's gonna be interesting to see how they how they actually whittle it down, because I completely agree and also shout out Jordan Thomas. He has been the one out there battling. And it's even funnier because I was thinking about it. He was the XFL one that came in, so he's just been on the field, so he's he's reving to go.

He's like, I'm out here like it's a game.

Well, and I remember, I remember when you talked to him back in June. You were like, he seems so nice. He was so pleasant when you talk to him. But man, when he gets on the field, and you see that every now and in camp, those young guys who've got something to prove are often going a little extra, yeah, and being a little extra, as me, Frank Reich and the kids would say.

You know, he is always out there in the middle of something.

It's even funnier because when you see him off the field, he's like always grinning. He's one of those that likes to he's a he's a pleasant dude.

I love it.

It's like a complete one eighty because every time you see him and you're like, oh, look it's forty eight again Jordan Thomas, I'm like, I would have never pinned it.

I love it.

That's such a such a switch because, yeah, when we talked, he was he was tired, but he was giving me great quotes and we commiserated both sec people. His last year Assissippi State was my first year at Georgia. He remembered how Georgia crushed him that game, and he talks about that. So we had a nice little, nice little back and forth and all this stuff. I'm like, dang, I don't wanna, don't want to meet you on the wrong side of that football field.

And he gets on the field and turns into a serial serial killer.

It's fun.

It's fun.

We love it.

At any rate.

Okay, so we've got another week of Spartanburg ahead of us, three days of practice, then a couple of days off and or then a day off and then.

One day of practice by themselves before the roll in.

In addition to all the circus that's going to be coming with the Jets, which is circusing up on its own and Aaron Rodgers, what are you kind of looking forward to over this last week of the Spartanburg portion of the training camp experience.

Seeing how everyone holds up.

I'm most excited to see Bryce Youngo against a different team, a different defense. I'm very excited whenever that that matchup. I'm really excited for Jets defense versus this new retool Panthers offense in joint practices because I'm ready to see them kind of against somebody different.

I'm ready to see the inevitable spice that comes with it.

I'm also very excited, like you said, the commotion that comes around Aaron Rodgers, also Zach Wilson being on that roster.

Still, there's just to me, it's always going to be interesting.

And then we have NFL films rolling in seeing everybody I think the most the thing I'm most excited about, and this isn't even really football related, but Aaron Rodgers, the person in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

I'm very excited to see what that looks like.

Right. That's something that my friends and I've quipped about a little bit. So I just the theatrics of all of that's going to push me through this weekend of three pretty tough practices Friday, Saturday, Sunday to get you through the excitement of midweek next week when the Jets roll in.

Yeah, and I really do think I'm curious to see what Rogers looks like against the Panthers first defense, because adding von Bel to that mix has made such a significant difference, Because putting him and Xavier Woods in the back allows Jeremy Chen to play play that nickel big nickel dime.

He's doing a lot of different stuff.

But the short version is he's closer than the line of scrimmage where he can impact plays a little more often. And Jeremy being a big guy, he can still run like a lot of corners, So he's doing a lot of different stuff. He creates a lot of matchups when you look at those three guys, plus oh, by the way, Dante Jackson and j C.

Horn, that's a really good secondary gang.

So I mean, the idea that Rogers is going to come in here and spray the ball all over the place, I don't know, is necessarily what you should expect. So I'm curious to see how they come out of that matchup because that is a really talented group. We've got some stuff coming up that I think fans are gonna enjoy reading about that secondary and Bell's impact on it. But I just think that group is going to kind

Forth at each other.

They keep the jews flowing in practice, and so when those lights and cameras come with the Jets, I don't think Vaughn's going to shy away from this thing.

That's what I love.

And I feel like I've gotten on this podcast before when we were talking about you know, free agency and stuff, and I was just so excited about von Bell for all the different connections, and.

I followed him when he was with the Bengals.

And I just I think he's such a playmaker and I love that he's coming here and just kind of showing all of that because I was thinking, I was like, you know, this is one you know, I've seen some talk about it, but I think it kind of flew under the radar nationally.

Not a lot of people were talking about it.

And it's like, uh, he played in a Super Bowl two years ago and if I recall correctly, he had the pick that sent the Bengals to the super Bowl.

Because I watch that game.

He's a playmaker, he performs, he rises to the moment, he's old, he's a vet, and like you said, he's that guy that they were not necessarily lacking but maybe looking.

For that spice, that extra umph. He has it. He is a great addition and I'm very excited to see.

He is from your hood, but he is not like you.

It just not brings sunshine to the proceedings, just not bring positive vibes the way you do each and every day.

We all got it in us. That's Northwest Georgia mentality. Don't get me mad. I'll say that.

Yes, I would prefer not to so anyway, Well, speaking of sunshine, Tonight, tomorrow we're heading back to Spartanburg. Practice will be back. I'm sure it'll be hot and humid. I keep an eye on the due point every single day because I'm an old and it's going to be interesting. I mean, another week of training camp. Come on down and join us. We'll catch you maybe from joint practices.

We appreciate you joining us this week on The Happy Half Hour.