This week on the Happy half Hour.
I can't leave the house without one of the neighbor's a friend at church saying.
What's going on with Burns?
You know.
So the idea that he's out there on the practice field yesterday, I think kind of puts to rest.
A lot of the concerns people had.
We'll see if it resolves itself in the next forty eight to seventy two hours.
SUT's own cow r.
Right, it's time for the Happy Half Hour with your friends Kristin Balboni, Augusta Stone and Darren Gannon. All Right, welcome back.
It's the Happy half Hour regular season edition. We're finally here, and I think since we're in a celebratory mood, it's probably worth pointing out that this episode of The Happy Half Hours brought to you by Prowling Vineyards, Napa Valley. It's the official wine brand and wine club of the Carolina Panthers. These premium selections celebrate the great people of the Carolinas and the panthers hunger to achieve that excellence
on and off the field. Each handcrafted wine mirrors the Panther's bold attitude and the iconic flavors on are the two states we're proud to call home. Experience the benefits and lifestyle while giving back to the community as a portion of the proceeds support the Carolina Panthers' charities. Learn more at Prowlingvineyards dot com. I will be learning more at Prowlingvineyards dot com. I want to find out more.
I'm always interested in in some wine, let me tell you. And I'm turning twenty five this weekend, so.
I was gonna say, are you old enough to drink?
I've been there for almost four years, so, which is not a very long time. Oh no, we're turning the corner in my twenties on game day, Game day, Game day.
There you go.
Congratulations, you'll be old enough to rent a car and go to this game. So yeah, life is good for the Carolina Panthers and Augusta Stone. And I'm Darren Kant and I'm assuming everybody knows who you are. So anyway, it's regular season time, and all of a sudden, after months and months of build up, in weeks and weeks of anxiety over cuts and rosters and all this kind of fun stuff, it's here.
There's a game.
There's actual football to talk about and we've been all over it all week.
So Augusta, Atlanta, are you ready?
I am ready. I'm excited.
I think it's really cool that the Panthers are starting out two games in the division, one on the road.
Starting on the road's pretty cool.
I think I read in game notes or wrote down or something that they haven't started on the road in the last four or five years, So that's kind of cool to start there. Not going too far down. I eighty five should be an interesting matchup. I think a lot of people, a lot of the things I'm hearing from my buddies and people talking about it is like they're expecting a really good one, So it's kind of a good litmus test for what's going on.
My parents will be there, they're excited about it.
So a lot of people I think are excited, not only just because I mean debut of Bryce Young, which I know you wrote about, pretty good story about that at Panthers dot com, and kind of the rooky debuts, but also you know, kind of see in how they measure up against the division, which I mean as always or as of late NFC souse always kind of for grabs, even if you're in a rebuild mode.
Yeah, And that's the thing about this game. I mean by opening with the Falcons, you know, if you're playing the Chiefs in week one, you know exactly what's coming. Oh my god, here comes Patrick Mahomes. But when you think about the Falcons, I don't I have a general sense that they are going to want to run it.
I mean, when you look at the personnel they already had, they were kind of built that way, and then you add Bjean Robinson to the mix, It's like, Okay, these guys want to play a two hour and twenty five minute football game. They want to keep the clock moving, keep the ball on the ground, reduce the number of times Desmond Ritter.
Has to put the ball in the air.
And that makes sense, except I don't really, I mean, we don't know for sure that's the way they're going, the same way Frank Reich has talked about, almost bragged about not showing what this offense is going to look like it in the opener. So I think the idea that we're still trying to figure out what the these two teams want to be. I mean, as we've covered, well, we know this division is always up for grabs, we know this division is always a little bit of a
mess in the best kind of way. It's like that fun relative you have that you know you never know quite what to expect from him, but it's generally a good time.
That's the NFC South.
So it's it's going to be curious to me to kind of see how this game develops, because I think both these teams are still when you think about the age of the quarterbacks and the relative inexperience, they're still
figuring it out. We're going to be in experimental mode for the first month of this season, so trying to figure out what's going to happen in Week one is your guess is as good as mine, because I feel like I've got a decent handle on what they want to do, but I don't know how it's going to come together because of some of the particulars of the week.
I like the comment that you made about how Frank Reich is almost proud of how little he showed in the preseason. I think going into game WEEKI feels pretty good to to not rest on that, but to be like, Okay, keptain vanilla. That was purposeful, and now they have the opportunity to kind of you know, you didn't show too much of your hand, didn't show too much of Bryce Young,
what can he do? Didn't show any Miles Sanders, which I think is a really exciting aspect of this that we maybe haven't talked about a ton, but I think he has the potential to be a real big game changer. But I agree with you with the Panther or not the Panthers, the Falcons, I mean, just committing to the run game.
I remember when they took Bijon. I was like, oh, okay, so that's what we're going to do here.
It was very, very loud, So I'd be surprised to see a ton of Desmond Ridder just because you have all of you your ground game. I mean, Tyler Algier looked good last year, I remember, and that was that was a name that I don't think a lot of people talked about, but I mean I think he rushed for over a thousand yards on the year. And I remember those Panthers games where I was like, okay, so yeah, and then they bring in Beijeon.
Who's everyone super excited?
I know fantasy people are super excited and they're all watching them. I've heard that I'm like, Okay, that's you know, we'll see, We'll see. But there's so many different I think new young guys too. When I wrote about the Falcons this week for I Know Your Faux Preview that we do every Tuesday at Panthers dot Com, some of my favorite things because it's not a huge lift, but it's also a ton of time to research and doing them in with the preseason kind of the only thing
to look at. You just look at all the moving parts they've put together, and similarly to how you look at the or the Panthers offense, and it's all just a bunch of new people. That's kind of what the Falcons defensive front looks like. I mean, they just kind of poach guys from all over the place, and I think that'll be cool to see how that kind of matches up with the offensive line here. I'm thinking of some names right now, but I wrote about them. But just a lot of new guys, a lot of new faces.
So it's going to be interesting to see how it all comes together because there's really not a ton you can do to prep for what that unit's gonna look like all together.
Right, and again, we've kind of talked about this offense as an abstract concept all off season. Now it's a concrete thing, and now there are very particular things that are going to impact it. One of it's going to be injuries, and realistically, the number of receivers the Carolina Panthers have on that injury report is going to add to the mystery about what this offense wants to look like when it grows up. Because Adam Theoa was added
to the list yesterday with an ankle. As we tape this podcast, it is ten am, which is why it's too early for prowling nyards. But we're open to experimenting later in the day for sure. But as we sit here Thursday morning, we don't know what Adam's going to do on the practice field today.
If anything.
DJ Chark didn't practice yesterday with that hamstring, you know. And then you've got Terris some question about Terras Marshall, he was a little limited. You've got leviscas Chanal. It's cleared from the concussion protocol. But Amir Smith Marsett tweaks an ankle. He's listed as full participant yesterday, so be curious to see what he does today and if you go into a game without any combination of one or two of those guys, I don't even know what to fairly expect from a.
Passing game, especially Adam feel and we saw Bryce target him a lot in the preseason first touchdown, I think that was his favorite target in the last preseason game against Detroit when he looked most comfortable. And I think that gives an opportunity just with all the injuries that receiver, I think it gives an opportunity for those tight ends that Frank Reich and the staff really seemed to believe in, especially hayden Hurst.
Didn't see a ton of him in the preseason, you.
Know, getting his targets because when the offense was constructed, I think a lot of focus was put on kind of reliable, veteran guys who have been around the league to kind of pair with Bryce. So you had the feelings the Charks, the hearsts with Chark and now feeling
you know, popping up on the injury report. I think there's there's there's good reason to assume that maybe hayden Hurst will get it, you know, more looks, and then maybe that was part of their their you know, Vanilla zing or making generic or whatever you want to say they were doing in the preseason, that they're going to
get more touches to the tight ends. You'll see maybe more Ian Thomas, Tommy Trimble, Zevan Sullivan's on ir But but they have a lot of guys there, so why not use them as potential targets.
And then also, like I said, I think I don't.
I think we'd be amiss to not expect to see quite a bit of Miles Sanders just because we haven't.
So seeing him at all is going to be like, oh, look look at that something new.
And again, the thing about the is and we don't know what he's going to do on the practice field today, if anything, So stay tuned later to Panthers dot Com for that injury report this afternoon. But Felan's always been a guy who will miss some practice time but is played in games. I mean, he was played in all seventeen last year, you know, and as you get older, you know, I think there's a natural concern about some of that sort of stuff.
But Adam's always.
Been a guy who's pretty available, So I would be maybe surprised based on what we know at the moment, if he was going to miss the game.
But we'll see.
I mean, a lot of it depends on how he responds the next couple of days and what he's actually able to do, so we'll see how it goes with feeling. But that just kind of adds to a little bit of the concern. And again, you mentioned Bryce in the story I wrote about him last night. The thing with Bryce is, as much as we've talked about him, as much build up as there's been about the number one overall pick, the reality is number one pick quarterbacks are not guaranteed to be immediately successful.
In fact, they're almost famously unsuccessful.
At first, I went back looked through the archives and of the last eleven over the last thirty years, eleven number one picked quarterbacks started their team's opener as rookies. One of them won that game, and that was Panther's legend, David Carr with the Houston Texans in two thousand and two. And you know, he won that game against the Cowboys, but he got sacked six times and that was kind of a omen for what was to come for poor David in Houston. And hopefully that's not the case for Bryce.
But even the best quarterbacks, and when you think about guys who are getting picked first overall, you know, your Peyton Mannings of the world have generally struggled in that opener. It's been tough for them because it's so much different. Even though Bryce played at a high level at Alabama, it's different at the NFL. And you know, I know a lot of times the number one pick belongs to teams that were abject awful the year before, and the
Panthers were not that last year. So Bryce is coming into a little better situation than a lot of those guys. But it's still one of the realities. And Frank talked about that yesterday, kind of balancing that need to think about developing Bryce for the long term versus getting him ready for Atlanta, and Frank I thought it was interesting.
He talked about, you know, we have to be cognizant he is still a rookie, so we can't give him everything you'd ordinarily give a guy because you've got to build these things gradually.
Exactly, and you kind of mentioned it, but I think having the prior history and you wrote about this yesterday in the Bryce story, but he is very much so the kind of guy that doesn't look beyond where his feet are planted, and I think that's kind of a healthy mindset to have going into especially two division games
at the very top and one on the road. I think one of the benefits to drafting Bryce Young and something that we talked about a lot when he first got here, and I've talked about it a lot, but just kind of the maturity level for guy who's only twenty two years old and a rookie and all those things.
I mean, he kind of doesn't doesn't behave as such, and I think that not being rattled will be good because if it doesn't necessarily turn out perfect, I think the last person to be panicking will be Bryce Young, which is which is definitely what you want, I think, without whatever happens. But one thing I was thinking about just now was how they're starting out and Mercedes Been Stadium.
Bryce Young has played there a lot, and he's played very well there As someone who grew up following the University of Georgia, I've watched him put up really good performances there in college, so I think it's gonna be kind of a flashback for me. I remember SEC Championship. I think it was twenty twenty one. I mean, he just like completely destroyed Georgia in there, so I remember
that quite well. So he's had success there in that physical stadium before I was thinking about it because I was like when I started in the NFL, all these new.
Places I got to go. He's pretty experienced there, so that's kind of cool that. I mean, you know that that kind of circle energy.
But there's no cheering in the press box, nor are there any fields in the press box. Don't don't hold what Bryce did against your beloved.
If anything, it gave me an added sense of like dang, like like I don't know, if anything, it just adds to the level of impressiveness. I wouldn't say impression, but yeah.
All right, we're ten minutes into this podcast. We're ten minutes into this happy half hour, and there's a giant elephant standing in the other corner of the room.
Everybody goodness again.
I feel like I need to timestamp my entire life because everything can change with one phone call. But as we sit here shortly after ten am on a Thursday, that Brian Burns thing is still a thing. You know, Brian's negotiating a contract with the team, and it's always tricky business.
When the money gets involved.
I think Matt, you should you should lead Jordan and Jake into talking about this, because when the business of the business becomes the business, it gets a little sticky. And everybody's been kind of walking around this week wondering what's going on. I can't leave the house without one of the neighbors friend at church saying.
What's going on with Burns? You know.
So the idea that he's out there on the practice field yesterday, I think kind of puts to rest a lot of the concerns people had when he, you know, skipped a couple of practices last week and early this week.
He didn't participate in the walk through on Monday.
But Burns was out there on the practice field yesterday and he was a participant. It's not like this was a you know, take one reup or anything like that. I mean, he was out there and Brian has said pretty reliably through this process that being a part of this thing and being out there on the field was
important to him. And you know, again, we'll see how the business reality comes in, but I think that's one of the things that this team benefits from by having a Frank Reich in charge, because Frank's been in locker rooms.
He knows what it's like to be teammates with guys and to be the guy who is involved in some degree of discussion with the front office about your money, because everybody's money is important to them and the team has certain goals, but all these individuals have their own families to feed, futures to think about, and that kind of thing. So it gets a little messy every now and then, and it makes people uncomfortable when it becomes
a thing. But we'll see if it resolves itself in the next forty eight to seventy two hours.
And Frank talked yesterday and his teammates have kind of Brian's teammates have reflected this that it hasn't been a distraction even though he wasn't on the practice field for those two days. He was there yesterday, which is you know what Shaq Thompson had alluded to when he was interviewed. He was there, he was practicing, he was a full participant, wasn't on the injury report.
Nothing to worry about there.
I think that's a testament to I think how he carried himself throughout the off season through training camp, like you mentioned, always being around, not being the kind of distraction. And then I like the point that you brought up as well, Darren, about Frank Reich and having the player experience coaching experience. I mean, it goes back to the story that you wrote during training camp about how the
coaching staff has a ton of playing experience. When the business side kind of collides here, they know how to look.
At it from those angles in a unique way.
A lot of those guys doing, especially Frank, and I think that's a lot of perspective that allows for maturity in these in these settings right that we've seen.
And I was just it was a side conversation yesterday walking out to the practice field alongside Josh McCown and Josh was the quarterback here at the time when Julius Peppers wanted to leave town, and Julius wanted to leave town for reasons that had every as we wrote in his Hall of Honor story back in the summer, Julius just kind of wanted to get out of Charlotte and get out of the fish bowl of being the Carolina kid who was the number one pick of the Panthers,
who was always local. He just wanted to get out and see the world and learn more about being Julius. And it had more to do with that than the Carolina Panthers or the defensive scheme or anything like that. But Josh was around here when Julius demanded a trade and Marty Hernie, the GM at the time, just kind of said, yeah, no, we're not doing that, and Julius.
Continued to play.
So the business is very in your face when it's right there happening. But over the course of a long season, you know, everybody knows. Everybody's got business to do. And Josh kind of laughed about that and thinking about the Julius thing back in nine and he said, you know what, the business always takes care of itself.
So we'll see how it resolves itself with Brian one way or another.
He's under contract, and you know, it's obviously a big part of this thing. So Frank's a Frank's got a unique little situation to navigate here. But I like that with Frank's maturity and his perspective as a former player, he's able to kind of remove himself from the business and make sure Brian knows. Hey, you're pretty important to this deal too. I've got your back over here while this is going on.
Anyway, Absolutely, absolutely so.
I think that elephant in the side of the room is taking care of for now.
We talk about other elephants. Who is your favorite fictional elephant?
Oh, my favorite fictional elephant? Oh, Dumbo, easy one, the cute little Disney one.
Right, dum Dumbo's okay, Dumbo's okay. I would probably go bi Bar early on. Oh no, you're not a bar fan. No, what's your beef with Babar? Why do you hate elephant?
Is that like you?
Is that European British that vibe? Those little British cartoons always made me nervous.
Wait, wait, wait, I need to dig down into this a little more. Are there other cartoons that make you nervous? Uh?
Oh that's a good one, okay.
Uh fantastic mister Fox, the Claymation stuff. I cannot watch that as a kid, but I did like Wallison grammet So even though it was like scarier, but like something about like stop motion right, stop motion kind of freaks me out a little bit.
Let's see, let's see you other.
Fantastic mister Fox underrated Wes Anderson movie.
Ye, I'm not a Wes Anderson fan. That's another thing that we can get into in another time. Even though I think I would have so aesthetically, I'm not. Let's see, yeah, Fantastics or Fox is like the top of the list. My sister like, so when we came out, my sister and I were pretty young. I remember both of us being like, oh, my goodness at the movie trailers whatever.
I felt like a betrayal. When we were in middle school and she watched it for the first time and liked it, I was like, where did our childhood go? It was like a bit that we were like scared of this movie. And then my sister was like, oh, it's actually really good. But I'm twenty five years old almost I still refuse to watch it. That's probably the number one one. This got really irreverent really fast.
See this started with elephants and now we're on cartoons.
We hate.
I gotta I gotta tell you. When my kids were small, I developed a seething hatred of Kayu.
I know that's where you're going with that.
That little bald I just don't like his energy at all. It's like Oh my gosh, I stepped in a puddle. Everything's gonna be fine. Let's sing a song. I hate you Kayu.
His little sister was so cute though.
I actually watched a ton of Kayu. His little sister, Rosy with the red hair.
She looked like, yeah, Rosie was fine. I wanted Kyu to wander out in traffic or something. I just hadn't you know? I had no use for Kyu.
Oh, I was a Barney kid.
I would I would offer my kids bribes to watch something other than Kyu. It's like, you want some candy, hand me the remote.
Have some coffee for your old And this is a podcast about how Darren hates Kayu instead of Carolina Panthers football, which is the thing we're supposed to be talking about.
So yeah, anyway.
I hope that elephant wasn't Bibar. I always thought it was Babar. I don't know if I ever watched that show.
There's a Bibar reference in Fletch, and that's almost certainly a movie you're not familiar with either. And at this point we should probably go back to talking about football, I guess. So anyway, what else you got coming this week? You just published right before we walked into the room. A deep dive into Von Bell and his family tell us about vonn Yes.
Von a very very interesting guy.
I think one of the things when he got here that we talked about I think we talked about on the podcast, but how he brought a different to the locker room. He definitely has a different kind of attitude. I think it comes with his maturity level, his age, and how long he's been in the league.
But he's the kind of guy that'll be chirping with Douce.
Day one minute, playing you know, games with his teammates in the locker room, and another I mean just automatically came in, sort of jelled and I got to speak with his mother, and he has been through a lot in the last three years, between his brother passing away in a car accident, his father very shortly afterward being diagnosed with cancer, and then his father passed away not too long after he signed here, actually signed.
Here in March.
His dad passed in early April, so a lot of changes happened. And the cool way that I was able to kind of tell the story from talking with him and his mother was he grew up you know, the younger brother to Valante, who was four years older than him. Both of his parents were older siblings. They were very
much so a type a sort of family. He said that, you know, they always knew chores done, then you can play, you know, then you can do all this, and he said it was it was one of those things that like he didn't he didn't resent it.
It was just kind of the way it always was. He was a.
Business mindset a kid and kind of growing up with all those people. Now two of them are unfortunately gone, so he is emulating kind of the behaviors that he show. He watched them and uh learned from them, and he's brought it here and uh, I think it was it was a really cool way to kind of dive into who he is as a person, let fans get to know him, you know, acquired from the Bengals, spent some
time with the Saints. He's also from my hometown, so I've been following him since he was in high school. So it was real cool to kind of be able to get the stories told. And I appreciated his vulnerability and his mother's about talking about just the just a rougher time, I mean, going through a lot of loss, losing two people pretty early, and they're strong and lean on their faith and you know, still smile when they were telling me stories and stuff, which was really cool.
So I really enjoyed it. I hope people enjoy reading it.
One of those guys that you know, doesn't really talk in front of press conference is a whole lot, so I thought he deserves some some shine and people getting to know him a little bit better.
Yeah, and if you watch Panthers Confidential, you know that Bond's not necessarily a quiet fellow. Him and Do Staley have been the entertaining subplot of the entire offseason, and if you watch Confidential, you got a little glimpse of that. But let me tell you that was a little glimpse of that. Those two are high comedy on a daily basis.
Exactly exactly.
And I think that helped him kind of kind of gel really quickly with the guys in there, that that whole like secondary group is kind of like that.
They're always kind of poking and prodded at each other.
It's fun group, and he fitted extremely well, you know, kind of I think that helped him sort of gel and become that kind of guy.
I mean, I have a quote in there from JC Horn calling.
Him professionals saying he kind of, you know, watches his behaviors and wants to be like him. And I mean, he's not a bad guy to model after. He you know, I remember watching the game where he sent helps send the Bengals to the super Bowl that season when they made it against the Rams and he caught that pick in overtime against Patrick Mahomes.
I mean things like that. It's just he's a playmaker. He's a real big guy.
I also remember Shaq Thompson telling us in the offseason that he was one of the more underrated pickups. So on and off the field, he's been a huge addition, and I don't think it's been talked about, but I think it deserves more talking about.
And we'll see it, you know, come to Fruition in the season.
But he's one of those guys i'd say, definitely, definitely keep your eyes out for him because he's a good Yeah.
The Panthers hired von Bel to add a little experience to that secondary. We hired you to tell stories like Von Bell, so good stuff. Everybody check it out this afternoon if you get a chance read that Von Bell story on Panthers dot com and stick with us all day because there's a lot of stuff happening all at once. It's drink from the fire hose season. It's week one.
It's football season. Everybody, welcome to it. The next time we talk to you, we'll have a result of a game to dissect, and we'll do that next week on the Happy half Hour.
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