This week on The Happy half Hour, one of the things they are going to have to figure out is how to get safeties backed off the line of scream at Jesse Bates was able to kind of break the rules, as Frank Reich said, and cheat up on some passes because in the absence of Djchart, the Carolina Panthers were not exactly a high flying open TuS dow R, I know it's time for the Happy half Hour with your friends Kristin Balboni, Augusta Stone, and Darren Gannon. Hello, welcome
to the Happy half Hour. I'm strongly considering doing this as an ASMR episode of The Happy Half Hour, just to keep everybody back in the place they need to be. Augusta, why are you shaking your head?
I am very fiercely anti ASMR.
We've never talked about it, but honestly, like like you saying the words gave me anxiety. A lot of people say that ASMR like calms them down. I don't know what it is, but that little tapping noise and the squishy noises and the small whispers, and I have never been able to get into it.
And you know what, I support people who do it.
I know it looks really fun and it's an easy way to make some money. I'm so scared of ASMR. Like, just hearing you say that, I was like, no, no, no, no.
No, you're saying I should not run my hands across this beaded curtain.
Oh my gosh, I might start screaming, like it's so it's such.
A weird trait.
I know, of all the things ASMR is like where I draw the line, I've.
Learned something about you here today. I'm not sure how I feel about it either, but uh, yeah, welcome to the happy half hour. You never know where this is gonna go. Uh because I don't think she anticipated this, and frankly I didn't either when I woke up this morning. But no, it just kind of feels like we needed to take a minute and let everybody breathe after last week.
One of the things, it is week two, all of a sudden, and now the Carolina Panthers are zero to one after a twenty fourteen loss at Atlanta last Sunday. Not the way I think a lot of people were hoping the season was going to end. But certainly not a sky is falling kind of loss to the Atlanta Falcons. I think after a lot of build up in the off season, number one pick, all the excitement, new coaches, all that stuff, it was kind of a letdown, for sure. But the one thing I know for sure is that
the season is not over. And I have tried to take the long view on a lot of this stuff throughout this kind of thing, and look back, I mean, rookie quarter number one pick quarterbacks haven't won an opener since two thousand and two. Frank Craig had never won an opener period, and still has not. In twenty eighteen, when he was Andrew Lux coach, they started one in
five and finished ten and six. That is not to say that losing to the Falcons means the Panthers are about to go ten and six this season, but it also does not mean that they're about to go oh in seventeen. So I would encourage everyone to take the long view on this one, as I am choosing to and try to figure out what it all means.
We have the home opener, too, Like I was thinking about it this morning, we haven't even gotten into an actual regular season game at Bank of America Stadium yet, and you know, happy half hour, happy thing, It's going to be on Monday night football, which is really cool and actually might be one of the last milestones for me in my young career that I haven't been able to cover yet. I think I've done every other start time.
We had a Thursday game last year, my first year, so this will be my first time covering a Monday night football game, which will be really fun for me personally.
But how cool is it that? You know?
And I love that Bryce Young is the quarterback here because he is quite literally kind of one of the last people to take the bait on asking questions about things like that.
Yesterday in his press conference, they were.
Like, oh, you're starting at home on Monday night football, and he said something about how he's like, well, you know, the game's still on a football field even if it's Monday night or something like that, and I was like, it's so it's just so like perspective at making it all, you know, seem as regular as it can, which is it's just very I went into yesterday like, oh, man,
that's that's a storyline of it, you know. The Bryce Young, he's the kind of guy who I think and he mentioned this too, he was like, I'll.
Reflect on it afterwards, But going into.
It, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna make the moment bigger than what it is. But as a thing listening to this and hopefully filling the stands, you can make a lot out of it because I think it's pretty dang cool, and I hope the atmosphere is really cool.
Yeah it should be. I mean, the weather's cool and off. The weather's good. It's not oppressively hot the way it was here in the preseason. They're all kind of cool. Rocks all over the place or are you allowed to talk about rock set? Yes, rocks. So yeah, Monday night, bright lights woo. But as the noted Eastern philosopher John Fox once said, it's not when you play, it's who you play. And I think that it's cut out to Bryce's point. I mean these Monday night and attention in
bright lights and all that stuff. It's cool for fans, it's cool for you know, Hey, it's a nice visual for all. This puts us on a national stage and all that fun stuff. But players and coaches want things to be as normal as often as possible. So I think if you gave a lot of coaches and players
their choice. Every game would be Sunday afternoon at one o'clock and they could keep the exact same schedule every week and sleep at the same time and eat at breakfast at the same time and all that fun stuff, which, from what I know about my co host here at Gusta Stone, would be just fine with her too.
I love me a little bit of routine.
Before we started recording, I was talking about how I do like things that I know.
I'm loyal to a fault.
We were talking about cell phone providers and how I had to make a switch when I was in college and for some reason I had a lot of issues but it ended up being fine. But like the small things, but no, I love me and I saw a routine. That was another thing Bryce talked about. He talked about getting into more of a routine, and I was like, how ironic is it that he's not even in a routine yet and he won't be until after the Monday
night game. Because he brought up a really good point that I was able to write about the notebook yesterday about how whenever he declared for the draft, you know it kind of before you even know what team you're going to you're thinking about week one, that first game, Oh my goodness, what's it going to be, Like, what's going to happen, how's it going to be? And then you get into the preseason training camp all that stuff,
and you're just still like oriented. I mean, we've been saying week one against Atlanta on September tenth since we had schedule release, and I know Bryce said it, he's been thinking about it even longer than that, just like what will the first one be? And now he's kind of he said he likes the routine of focusing on this week it's the Saints. Which is so funny that we've gotten into this for almost five ten minutes and
we're talking about who you play. We haven't even said New Orleans Saints yet, will be the New Orleans Saints here at Bank of America Stadium. But it's funny how he kind of was talking about getting into that week by week rhythm of not thinking about upon it for a month, not thinking about them for a week. But
it's still not a regular week for him yet. So I'm sure after this New Orleans thing and the quick turnaround when he's able to get into the Sunday to Sunday grind, which will happen between weeks three and four. I suppose like good for him because he's definitely itching for normalcy and he's getting more of it. But that is kind of funny of such a routine oriented guy that Bryce Young is that he's kind of with this week two Monday night situation kind of being jerked around a little bit.
It's not ideal. It's not ideal, but there's not a lot that gets to be ideal over the course of an NFL season, and certainly last week's start was not ideal. We should probably talk about that Falcons game a little bit. I think that, you know, and I've always told you NFL games can often be really complicated. Last week's was kind of simple. A team starting a rookie quarterback turned it over three times on the road the end, Yeah,
and that's kind of the thing. And between the Miles Sanders fumble and a couple of Bryce interceptions, you know, that was kind of the story of that game. And I think it creates a lot of the stuff we'll be talking to guys about over the next couple of days, for sure, because one of the things they're going to have to figure out is how to get safeties backed
off the line of scrimmage. Jesse Bates was able to kind of break the rules, as Frank Reich said, and cheat up on some passes because in the absence of DJ Hark, the Carolina Panthers were not exactly a high flying offense. Three point eight yards per pass attempt. That's not gonna win you a lot of games in this league. So I understand the temptation to keep Bryce safe and to keep him making easy throws, but at some point they're gonna have to cut a couple loose just to
create some lanes for the running game. I mean, they still ran pretty well, honestly, between Miles and Cuba Hubbard. They ran well last week. You know, Bryce completed a fair amount of passes. He threw a number of balls away just to stay out of trouble and keep things moving. But you know, until they hit a couple of deep shots to loosen things up, that's going to be what
they see. So he'd better be accurate, and he'd better be on target with all the short stuff because that's what everybody's going to be playing.
On exactly, and that's sort of the bread and butter
that we saw. I do think it's absolutely huge that Chart gets back as soon as he possibly can, because I was talking with a with a friend about it about you know, the preseason and everything, and I was like, I remember in training camp we had almost like you could have scheduled the tweet of like the big connection between Bryce and DJ and they had that really great chemistry down in Wofford and it came back up here in the in the I remember they had a big
one here at FanFest when we did that during training camp and all the fans got to see it here at the stadium, and it was one of those things. It was kind of a shame because he is that guy that's are to blow open just the offensive playbook for him. And I will say too, a couple of performances that you know, because it was a lost gets lost in the shuffle. But like you said, it was pretty simple. It was the turnovers that really kind of did him in I mean Atlanta Square, I think seventeen
off of the three turnovers. But Hayden Hurst and Cuba Hubbard both looked like really good. I was impressed by Cuba personally just because I mean, you see him last year. He was kind of a complimentary back to foreman when he was here, and then New pair him with Sanders. He's still got a decent bunch of carries, and he was the one that was going for those explosive runs, the ones that Frank Craik was talking about on Monday, the ones of ten plus yards. I think I counted
two of them. One of them went for like twenty twenty one. Like he was kind of a real big part of the offense that of course, when there's a loss, you talk about what happened, how that happened, but lost in the shuffle where some some good signs for the offense, and then hayden Hurst kind of being that reliable target.
The whole reason that they brought him here, something that we talked about a lot for him, you know, that veteran guy, and caught his first touchdown pass and promptly threw in the air and then promptly got it back, which we talked to him about in the locker room yesterday and he said they just immediately threw it back.
I mean, he was back in Atlanta, so I don't think the fans were thrilled that he threw that ball, but no, it was really I think that kind of worked how they had anticipated in what they were looking to see from her specifically. I mean, obviously Feeling didn't get a ton of play, but he was coming off that ankle. He looked fine. But I just think there's a lot of different pieces that still need to fall. But Chuck is a big one that they need.
No doubt about that. And you know that's the thing and talking about this, yes, running game, check the offensive line protected well. Check two sacks, but they were both in the fourth quarter when things were kind of going a certain direction and they were dropping back and passing on every down basically.
So.
There were things. And you know, Frank is an unfailingly positive guy, and he's gonna say, you know, hey, saw a lot of good and that kind of stuff. But there were a lot of good things, honestly. I mean, it just kind of gets lost when you turn it over three times. On the other side of the ball, we spent a lot of time last week talking about elephants, fictional and otherwise, and Brian Burns came out and played like an elephant in the first quarter. I mean, he
was all in the backfield. He was going one hundred miles an hour, probably more of a Tasmanian devil than a elephant, necessarily because Burns was getting after it, and he was obviously asked about it after the game and talked about with the recent contract negotiation stuff, and you know, Burns is trying to stay above board with all this and he is trying to keep it at arms distance, but he honestly seemed at peace with the business side
of it, which remains unresolved and probably you know, will until it isn't, honestly, so it's going to be part of the subtext all year long or until that deal gets signed. But he the thing we do know for sure is that he's continuing to show up. He's continuing to play, and he's continuing to look like the Brian
Burns we're accustomed to seeing. I mean again, second a half tackle for loss right there in the first quarter, and played well throughout the game and got to the point where the Falcons were kind of scheming away from him. It turned into a run game for them. It turned into don't let Desmond rid Or drop back and put
himself in harm's way. So there weren't that many opportunities in the second half, and when you can create that kind of pressure and cause your opponent to change their game plan, I mean, that's the impact Brian Burns can have exactly.
It feels like all the panic cussaw on Twitter and all over social media was pretty well pretty quickly too. As you mentioned, I mean, Burns really did kind of flash the very very beginning of that game, and he said, you know that it wasn't about making a statement, it was about kind of, you know, reaching the pinnacle of his game.
But he's he's getting up.
There really really quickly, and he really wasted absolutely no time. I mean, the first big plays that I was making notes of and tweeting about where all Brian Burns related, and I was.
Like, Okay, so yeah, he's just fine.
He's giving one hundred ten percent of for He definitely has been practicing this week obviously, and I think that was really reassuring. The bad news is when there's one thing that you're not paying about on the defense as a fan base, there's another one.
As j C.
Horn was injured again and it's looking like it may be a little bit longer. From some of the conversations or some of the words that Frank Reich used in the press conference, he's sticking out a second opinion on that hamstring, and he called it serious, used the word pop yesterday. There were just some some keywords that were kind of kind of rough and for for JC, I mean just a gut punch after going through most of last season that risk.
At the end and now this didn't even finish the game.
So I know that's something like you have one part of the defense where you're like, oh, man, is Burn's gonna play? What's going on? Burns looks good? And then something happens with JC. It's like these stars they can't really get a break.
Yeah, it's it's definitely unfortunate for JC, and his teammates are kind of angry and frustrated for him. We hadn't seen a lot of JC again. He's out solicting opinions on how to get this thing treated and what the nixt steps for him is going to be. But you know, Don Jackson talked about in the locker room after the game, he said, you hate it for him because you know what people are going to say, it's going to be.
This guy has always heard it's going to be. You know, can't stay on the field, and that's a frustrating part of it for them because they see what JC puts into this deal. I again kind of leaned back on the long view of things. I remember a guy who they drafted pretty high one year and had a lot of big plans for and they needed him to make impact plays early on. He made a few. He was a big physical freak, but he couldn't stay on the field. I mean, his first couple of years, he was not
what you would refer to as a reliable player. They're going to put him in the Hall of Honor here in October because Mussin Mohammad figured out a way to get past some of that physical stuff and really became one of the more reliable players in the latter stages of his career here. I mean, he was always available after he got through that. So the hope is that JC is able to push through the way Moose did and figure out what it takes to keep himself on
the field. I am not going to draw too many lines. I mean, you can't really connect a broken foot, a broken wrist, and a hamstring. Those are three different things. And it's not as if you can say aha, because he fill in the blank. He always breaks bones and pulls muscle. I mean, those things aren't connected. So it's not a satisfying explanation. But sometimes dumb luck is a big factor here in our little NFL, and a lot
of people are hesitant to acknowledge that. But I mean other than you know, other than that, yeah, and that's a kind of a hard one to say. Other than that about you know, not a bad day for a defense that had a lot of questions about it coming into the game. I mean, when you look at two hundred and twenty one yards allowed, two of ten on third down, they only face i think forty seven forty eight plays, fewer than fifty plays for sure, and it was a pretty solid performance for a lot of guys
that you didn't quite know what to expect from. And you know, the Falcons are going to be able to run it. They're an unconventional offense. They are going to put up numbers against a lot of people this year. The defense I think was pretty good all things considered, and obviously loosing JC is going to be tricky, but I don't think this is a situation where you say, oh god, they're doomed at one week end of this thing.
I completely agree, and I wanted to segue into something that you wrote yesterday that I really enjoyed reading personally, but about the guy or one of the guys that'll step up in JC Horn's absence. We've heard Troy Hill, obviously, they have Dante, but you got to write about CJ.
Henderson if you wanted to share.
Some of that, because I thought it was a very compelling story in a way where CJ's not the kind of guy that talks a ton to media and reporters, but you were able to really get some stuff out of helm that I think personalized him in a way that I found really interesting and I enjoyed it.
Yeah, CJ's quiet guy, and when you move around in a locker room where there's a Anti Jackson and O'Brian Burns and cats like that, quiet guys getting lost every now and then. I think it's funny that Jeremy Chin's over in that corner of the locker room now, because Ten's like the accountant in the middle of a frat party or something. But no, CJ's a quiet guy. But he did talk a little bit about kind of what
this season means to him, he's got a lot. You know, CJ had a lot of expectations on him coming into the league. I think when you think of a guy through the lens of being a top ten pick, as he was in Jacksonville, it would be easy to say
he hasn't delivered on that potential. At the same time, the Carolina Panthers acquired him for a third round pick basically, so if you think of him as a third round pick, who is your third cornerback who can step in and make some plays, I think it's easier to have a more generous opinion of CJ. He's had ups and downs. But I think Frank Reich actually surprised some people during the preseason when he referred to him as mister Consistency because CJ hadn't always been consistent. I mean, he had
some ups and downs last year. Obviously, the Tampa game is the thing people remember going into the offseason about him. But the talent has always been there. And I remember back in training camp, D'Angelo Hall, a longtime NFL corner new assistant coach here d Hall said, you know he's got that newborn now and CJ talked about his son Jays who was born in March. And when you've got that motivation at home, when you've got that perspective at home,
it's easy to draw the line between CJ. Henderson didn't have his fifth year option picked up. He's a free agent. Everything's on the line for him professionally at this point. CJ got another mouth to feed at home now and having that son. He talked about kind of how that grounds him, how that brings a lot of things in perspective. And you know, I know, if a guy's struggling on the field, fans may not necessarily want I always hear
about that kind of stuff. But the human being who is inside that uniform has a lot on the line this year and a lot to prove this exactly.
And like you mentioned watching him at training camp this year, I mean especially I remember back together Saturday back in Wafford, Like, he made a ton of plays there.
He is he has like it in him to make plays. I don't think some of the some of.
The the the fodder you hear around him isn't necessarily I think completely true.
I don't think it's the full story now.
I think we should trust the opinions like you mentioned of a guy like Frank Reich, whod calls a mister consistency, because I mean he really did show that in the off season, in the preseason and through training camp. So I think it's one of those things that you know when you when you kind of, like you said, take a big view and step.
Back, look at the body of work.
He's had some really, really really bad moments. At the same time, that's not the only thing he does, and he has opportunities now and we could be sitting here, you know, a week from now after New Orleans and maybe you know, he made Derek Carr's day absolutely abysmal,
or maybe you know he had another bad showing. Who knows, But I think it's it's too early to rule out, you know, especially in the state of the Pans are in right now, it's easy to say that Like between him and Troy Hill, I mean, they're decent options, and they're kind of what they have going into this week. So I don't think it's as abysmal as maybe some people would make it out.
Yeah, whether it's good option or a bad option, it's what they've got for the option a little bit here, So because again jac is going to be out for a minute. We're not sure exactly what the timeframe is on that one at this point. At this point he has not going on IR but I think that's probably a reasonable expectation at some point because I don't necessarily think it's a short term kind of situation. So we'll
see how CJ responds. But again, he definitely has a lot on the line this season personally and professionally, and if he makes plays over the next period of time when Jc's not on the field, and he's going to put himself in position for a nice payday, whether it's here or somewhere else in the off season. So anyway, here we are, twenty minutes into a happy half hour, and we've barely talked about the Saints.
Well we're here now, Saints are coming in. The Saints are marching in. Isn't that the song Saints are in the Saints go marching in? Yeah, that's our song. Well that's I wrote about it this week, did our little preview. Their game was very interesting against the Titans, very very close. Their defense looked very good up against Tennessee. But I think in looking at the Saints, it's how different the roster is from last year. Kind of similar to the Panthers.
We have a lot of new offensive weapons, a lot of new guys on defense. Obviously, they were the team that got Derek Carr. I do remember a time when we were at the combine before we knew everything that was going down with the first overall pick and quarterbacks and all that stuff, when I wrote a story about, you know, comments on Derek Carr here. But now he is in the division and he's in New Orleans and took aim minute to warm up. Their offensive line definitely
took him inte to warm up. I believe he took four sacks in the first half of that game and then went the rest of the game untouched in the second half, so that was probably a more positive development for the Saints. But yeah, I mean they have those receivers. I think when we talk so much about the absence of J C. CJ needing to step up, it's because of guys like Rashid Shahid, like Chris Olave who really impressed me last year.
But they also have one.
Of my favorite players just from a personality standpoint, in Jamal Williams, who gave some of the best postgame interviews last year when he was with the Lions and he's a Saint now, So it's an interesting crew. It's kind of like like we've talked about, but it's retooled and different and well, we'll see what happens when they come here.
But I think the biggest matchup that I'll be looking for is what happens with the secondary and the receivers, because you know, they were able to make big plays against Tennessee and that was kind of the way that they won because that game they won by one point, between the defense kind of picking off Tannehill making his day hard, and then you know, Derek Carr finally warming up in the second half. That was sort of the
way they won that one. It was it was a little bit less cut and dry and a little bit more tail of two has as they say in that game for them.
Yeah, And I think, and this will be a consistent theme throughout the course of this season, but I think the Saints are still trying to figure out who they want to be exactly. They're in the post Sean Payton, post Drew Brees era, and you've got to get used to what it's going to look like with their Carr. He was a guy that Panthers talked to prior to trading for the number one pick, prior to him going
to New Orleans. He is a good, solid NFL quarterback, and I thought going into the season that if you had to declare somebody in this division of misfits a favorite, it probably would have been the Saints simply because they've got the established quarterback of the bunch. So we will see how that all shakes out, but we will begin to see it on Monday night. We've got a new routine to get ready for seven to fifteen start on
Monday night, the early Monday night start. I kind of like that as an old person, you know, staying up till two am for my football product doesn't always appeal to me. But yeah, seven fifteen.
It's better today night one the late or the one that's not even that late. I was talking about it at practice yesterday. Apparently the other one that starts around I guess it would be halftime of our game. The other one starts on a different channel. So the doubleheader thing's interesting. I'm so kind of locked in on Panthers mode that I didn't realize it was a doubleheader. And you and I realized at the same time that it wasn't eight o'clock, it was a seven fifteen.
So and of course you can consume that game on ESPN if you please, but you could also tune in on the Carolina Panthers Radio Network for the very first pairing of the season of Jake Delongman Luke Keigley, Who doesn't love Luke?
That's a happy half hour conversation. That's gonna be awesome. See, I'm a little envious of the fans of get to listen to that. I would love to get to listen to that. Maybe I'll have an earbuddon.
I was just gonna say, we'll get you a transistor radio.
I do it.
Do you know what a transistor radio is? Maybe there's an app or transistor.
I mean, I know what a radio is, but when you add the word transistor, it makes it feel like it's something different. Is it like the little hang on? I'm gonna google it. I had a boombox when I as a kid, and I know about the the antenna's. I know antenna's or I don't know what this is. I just google transistor radio. Oh, it's just a little it's like a little box. I've definitely seen these before. I do love radio though, that's kind of one of my like fun facts. I've always been an FM, an
FM kind of kind of girl. So I podcasts are cool, but I like kind of the chaos of the radio.
I never know who's gonna be yelling about what.
We're gonna get your We're gonna get you hooked up on the list and live feature on the Panthers app, and so you too can enjoy Jake and Luke as as everyone will. So anyway, all right, so we will meet again a week from now, and we'll be able to talk about Jake Delohm and Luke Keigley, we'll be able to talk about the New Orleans Saints, and maybe we'll be able to talk about something different this week. So until then, my friends, it's the Happy half Hour Asmo
Edition, oh No or something