The Group Chat Episode 5: Overreaction

the running backs in general. I field did have two touchdowns UM, but their yard per carry average and this their ability to get into the second level wasn't quite there the way I think round Overa wants to see it. All of this and so much more on the group chat. You've been added to the group chat with your friends Caroline, can Max Sensen, and Will Brian. We are back home. We're not in Spartanburg anymore. People, We're back in Charlotte. How does it feel, guys? The thing that was such

a pause? Do you have to think about how good it is to be home? This? My just sense is that we're all pretty tired. I think we're all just still kind of like dragging a bit, so there might be some pauses just because it's our reaction time. Isn't that quick? Oh? Completely? I walking in this morning and I was like, oh, welcome back, It's so great to have you back. And I'm just like, yeah, I had to scoot her into work, so I don't really have,

um the energy for that. There's so many cars in our parking lot here that I came on time for work ready to get a parking spot, head on in there, took a couple of laps, went to another parking lot, went on a lap, and then went right back home and got on a scooter and came to work four dollars and thirty cents later for me to get to work. I'm not bitter about it. That's a fun little right It actually kind of was. I thought to myself, I'm

not mad about this. This is just not you know, my commute this morning ended up being about thirty five minutes and I live a mile and a half away. And that was just the funny part to me was I would have been on time. Um, but yeah, that's where we are. We are a little bit tired, but we're home and we're excited about that. I always love training camp. It's fun. It's a I don't like name another job where you get to go to sleepaway camp and just watch football for like three weeks and do

nothing else. There is no other responsibility that you have while you were there other than watch football. Yes, it's true, and I think it's a good It's it's like team bonding for the players. It's also for like our staff. You're all down there together. Everyone's like tired and sweaty and dealing with the same stuff. No one likes being in the dorms, but you're like, it's there's a camaraderie that comes through, like all going through that together, which

I've always liked. Missery loves company. And so if you don't like the dorms, there's about a hundred other people that don't enjoy dorms as well, unless you're the lucky list of people that get to stay in the Marriott in Spartanburg. I'm trying to get on that list next year. Yeah, I don't know. I kind of like I like the dorm life there, you know, it's it brings you back. Although I think that my dorms and my college were better than those, well, I have. I actually cannot complain

at all the women of the Panthers. Here we get like these Southern style homes that have four bedroom apartments in them, so I don't like, I cannot except for what they're extremely empty with no furniture in them except where like a table and four chairs, So everything echoes, like in the morning if you're trying to get up and be quiet, like I will get up earlier and have to do my hair and make up and get ready to be on camera, and I'm like tiptoeing around

still making so much noise. So there's so many stories from Spartan that we will probably share over the course of these next few weeks. But out of Spartanburg comes over reactions. We've already named Brian Burns going to the Hall of Fame for sure. His bust is being made in Canton as we speak. I think Curtis Samuel he'll be the league MVP. If if our fans have anything, if we have anything to say about your kidding, like where it wasn't it just you were talking about it

was gonna be a top five receiver. I'm pretty sure. I'm on it. I'm on it. Let's go no, But we do love Spartinberg for many reasons, and one is the over reaction. So welcome to the group chat. That's what we're talking about today. We're gonna talk about some overreactions that always come out of camp, and then we're just going to turn the table to what are some other things that we like to overreact about? And if you as always want to join this conversation, hit us

up on Twitter. We always love to hear what you guys have to say. So let's go first with you guys, whoever wants to go first. What was an overreact shin that came out of Spartanburg. I'll go back to the beginning of camp, and I felt like one of the big overreactions was everybody's thoughts on Greg Little. Early on. You know, here was this rookie second round pick thrown into the fire. Uh and in the one on one drills,

things didn't always go great. And of course we're out there with our phones sharing the video five second video on Twitter and everyone's making all these judgments. You said, Brian Burns getting his bust me in the Hall of Fame. Everybody was saying Greg Little was a bust period, and it just wasn't the case. Um as you as we saw by the end of training camp, I thought he made some real strides. Uh, particularly in these joint practices with Buffalo, going up against Jerry Hughes, who's a really

good veteran edge rusher. I thought he held his own. Uh So, yeah, everybody just kind of had to cool it a little bit on Greg Little, give him some time. But for all these young guys, they're not all going to come out the gate making plays left and right. Sometimes it takes some little bit of adjustment, adjustment period. And I thought Greg definitely by the time we got to the end of camp, it was like, Okay, he's

he's coming along. I think you look at most of this rookie clows us all kind of put into places where um, they've they've really had a lot to learn in systems, you know. For for Christian Miller, you know, there's a lot to learn in the position that he's playing. Greg Little, i mean left tackle. You don't just slide into left tackle and being All Star dealing with and

Brian Burns like, okay, yeah, different. So I I think I think that certainly shows both, uh how hard it is to learn that, but also give credit to to Greg that he's the type of guy that he didn't let it get him down in this day and age when it doesn't take much to go on Twitter and see what people are saying about yourself. Um, and he worked hard. You know, he's got a great attitude about all this, and he spent all the time, you know, learning and trying to get better and listening to Coach

Masco and the veterans ahead of him. Well, Ron Rivera had an interesting point about I asked him about the offensive lines in our production meetings and he I just feel like offensive lines I always have this attitude about them, and when they walk in it's like you either know they're like a nasty the offensive line that are just using with confidence and there's normally like one old school guy that kind of like leads them around. And so losing a key piece of that old school I was like,

what is this offensive line now like? And so we kind of broke it down of the first string. They're still trying to figure out their identity, which I thought was interesting, Okay, you're going through this is one And he even brought it up on the last day of camp of you know, we still need these guys to play and figure out how to work with each other. Um, I think Trey Turner said, dance with one another is

what they're learning. So then he did bring up this second string though, and that's where Greg was getting a lot of snaps at the beginning of camp, and he said that, you know, the way that mattsco coaches is very technical, so it's like first step here, second step here, and then that kind of puts you into position, and that the second group was so technical and so worried about first step, second step, making sure they're in the right as they're trying to figure out their dance with

one another. And I think when you look back at Greg little coming out of college, you kind of get in this routine of you know how to play with the guy next to you. You're very familiar with everything, you're a senior, and then you get thrown into everything is brand new. Oh, and I need you to pay attention to the details of your first step, in your second step and probably your third step, and why didn't you do this? And then if you don't do it, you're gonna get yelled at for not doing it. And

Twitter is going to talk about it. So I was very impressed in Chicago. I think it was nice to see him just react and you could see, you know, I don't know what that first and second step exactly is, but you could just see him kind of settle back in Because even Rivera said, you see these guys revert back to their old ways of if they're in college, they revert back to high school. You know, in the pros,

they revert back to college. So I thought it was really nice to see him kind of like relax a little bit out there in a game and play and then come into that next week a lot more confident at training camp. So that's a really good one because that was one where everyone was saying, oh gosh, like Greg Little is not gonna do it, but then he goes out in Chicago and I thought he did a great job of picking up the most intimate threat to the quarterback. Um So I thought that was really good.

Let's go with you over there, McFadden. Um Mine, is the heat like I felt like ever? I mean I was talking like the hundred and fifteen degree heat index that day. It was hot. That one was rough, but you were inside for that day I was I came out there, out there, standing out there for two and a half hours versus minutes is different. Okay, whatever is different. Whatever. I'm sorry that he walked out. I was like, I don't think this feels like the hottest day. I'm like, dude,

you've been here for ten minutes. He's still got goose bumps from the air conditioning blasting in the students. Pretty much pretty much, you know what go on now? I have nothing to say overall. I think your point is, yes, you do have a point. He has to acknowledge the one fifteen heat indextendes that that day was hot, because um, and it's all about so like, I'm curious to y'all's perspective. Do you like the short sleeves not a lot of clothing, And we were talking about like it's more of a

sear feeling. You feel like the sun is searing your skin could be first versus like the sauna of having long sleeves. You don't feel the searing sensation. It just kind of feels like an overall kind of sauna I have under the under your long sleeves. I have to go like the searing because I can't I I cannot sweat like a mi Asanna and then be asked to go on camera in two hours afterwards, so I have to do that. I did on the day after the one fifteen. It was very humid, and I wore leggings

and was in a sauna. And I mean I the last two days of camp. Those weren't even the hottest days, but the last two days. I don't know if it was my attitude that I was ready to go home or if it was the humidity. I will say that I believe the humidity the last two days that we were there the highest camp. I can't even talk about how sweaty I was disgusting. But I feel I feel like every time after practice the players are, you know, they're asked about how hot it wasn't like you know

what I mean, it's the summer. And then all the people that are talking about it are all you know, the people standing around under a tent that are tweeting about how hot they are. I don't know, I feel like it's an overreaction. I think you're maybe I shouldn't have stayed. I'm just kidding. I think, I mean, you have a point, But the I think this was a very mild training camp for the heat. The last three days.

I think the last three days it was over. It was very comfortable almost, which is weird, and then it sort of cranked up a little bit. But yeah, anyone seen the video. I don't know what team it was, and I wish I knew, but there's a a receiver lining up and a DBS across from him, and the receiver throws up and then runs the route like continues, and then it was going around on Twitter because it was like, this is training camp, guys, that actually happens.

I saw Jerald mcgoy on the sideline getting sick and then just put his helmet back on and run back out there. Like it's hot. These guys are having to just certain all this energy and if they don't, they're getting called out for it. But then they can come and they can sit under the medical tap and get the fans going and the mrs. But I I mean, when I saw that from Gerald, I thought, this is peak training camp, Like we're here, it's so hot. It

was one the day before. They're trying to recover from that while having another team in town, and and poor he wasn't the only one. He was just the one that I happened to be. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned McCoy too, because I asked him after the one fifteen day. It was like, so, I know you said back in the spring, like down in Tampa, it's so hot, like you can literally see your soul leave your body as

you're practicing. So I was like, this is this is pretty much just like that, and he was like, not even close. He still says Tampa was much more thick and humid, So I guess he's he's used to it. If you, If you guys happened to watch cart Talk with Bill both and Trey Boston. Trey was talking about being in Arizona and how it was it was actually a hundred and twenty and the actual temperature, not just the heat index. And the one's like, oh, well, you know,

it's trade. It's a dry heat. It's totally better. He's like, no, it's not. It's it's still really hot. Yeah, that's that is true. Everybody says that, what does that even mean? It's still heat, it's just really hot. I'm gonna go My overreaction is a little bit pre training camp here, but I think what training camp did. I'm going to go a little bit on the max side of things. I mean, the number one thing I heard when I

was hired here was can you play safety? Hey? And I think everyone's been freaking out about what is the secondary going to look like? I like them, I like the secondary. I think it's it's something that has maybe calmed down a little bit. But if there's ever a chance for anyone to say something about the secondary, they jump on it and oh, you know, they didn't do this, But we saw so many past breakups. I think getting Tray Boston back kind of helps even out that secondary

a little bit. But I like what we saw out of the secondary. I think they're starting to come together. I think coach Fuel is an excited human being when he when he's watching these guys. And something I learned it training camp was for every interception that they have during training camp, he puts twenty dollars into a pot. And for every I don't know if it's like a missed opportunity exactly what it is, they have to put twenty dollars into it. And they're all going to go

to dinner when we're in New England. They're gonna they're gonna have a nice meal. Yeah, they they're going to have I don't know who's put more money in UM in that group, but they're gonna have a really nice meal. And I just think that's one that maybe people aren't over reacting about now, but I think in the off season it was definitely something that was like we have

to get someone in. Can you play safety? I will say coach Field that like kind of plays into it, because he did come over to me a couple of times during training camp and asked, why are you not practicing today? Or you know, where are your reps? I mean he hears it too. They get it. It's it's something, but I like the secondary. I think getting the help up front on the defensive line is going to help them a lot. But I think that was one of

the over reactions. I think you're I mean, you're so right. The off season was full of everybody complaining that they hadn't brought into safety and it it's it's and don't know how many times you can have to say it, but like the Broster process is ongoing, and it's like everybody wanted Trey Boston and it was like sure enough, you wait a little while. Trey Boston shows up to training camp. He's a Carolina Panthers like, So it all worked out in the end to piggyback off the secondary thing.

I will say one of my like potential overreactions is the fact that they made a bunch of players in the ball but didn't pick off a lot of passes. And it got to a point where Eric Freed was like, guys, what's going on here. It's like we gotta hit the jugs machine or something, because we can't be dropping these opportunities come game time. They nothing in football is more important than the turnover battle. If you're getting takeaways, you're

gonna win games. If you're not getting takeaways, you're gonna have a hard time winning games. So I hope that they can kind of get over the drops the they get on the jugs machine and they figure out a way to make sure they're not dropping those opportunities, because that that would concern me a little bit. If it's one thing to be there and make plays in them all, but if you're not able to get those interceptions when

they come to you, that can be problematic. So looking for that to turn around as the preseason continued, and that's one of those things that it can go in in cycles really quickly. You know, they a couple of years ago, the interceptions were way down and the guys just said when they come, they're gonna come. And it

really it can go both ways. When when one person drops, another person drops, and all of a sudden everyone you kind of have that like drop off this, you know, like everything's getting dropped, and hopefully it can kind of turn the other way of you know, someone gets a pick and then next person becomes an everything gets contagious and starts rolling the right direction. Well, let's go a little bit off script, off football for a minute. I

want other overreactions. What are we overreacting about? Just in general? Starting to saw all right, So every city I've ever lived in, there's been this narrative that they think they have the worst drivers in the world. Like people people in Charlotte love to talk about how bad drivers are in Charlotte. I'm like, what ever, I mean, Like everyone's on their phone, texting, in instagramming, so everyone's mostly bad anyway. But no, there's nothing about Charlotte. Where are the good drivers?

That's where the drivers are in Minnesota. Like cruise down the road and not have any Everyone in New York said New York had the worst drivers. L A has the worst drivers. Oh, Charlotte now has the worst drivers. Are you kidding me? Come on, stop that's a good one. Stop it. I really like that one. Mine is just Twitter in general. On Twitter period. That's it. That's the tweet. Twitter. Just anything that you put out there, someone will overreact.

I hope positively, but probably not. It's not a positive place generally. And when it is, like, when it is a positive place, that's nice. Man. When it becomes a negative place, I get yikes. But that's a Twitter. That's it. We don't really have talked about it anymore. Everyone out there, you agree with me everywhere on Twitter? Mine um is after I'm from New Jersey. I went to school in Wisconsin,

living in Charlotte for the last eight years. Anytime the weather forecast even has like a hint of snow coming, the overreaction is just comical. I mean to the point where you try to go into the grocery store and the shelves are empty because everyone is preparing for the fact that they might not be able to leave their homes for a few months, like, it's it's why why are they only getting bread and bread and milk? I don't know why. It's just like, why bread and milk

because milk is not good. I mean, I don't know, milk's gonna spoil. It's a great point. I don't know. I'm not sure. It's just the thing people do. Yeah, but I don't get how did that get started? I mean, what you're just gonna have, like I guess get it now because you won't be able to and like it will spoil. It is your last chance to get it. How often do you guys just get milk from a grocery store? Right, Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's not so.

I grew up in the Carolinas. As many people know, I went lived in Indianapolis, and I've moved, yes, I learned. I was there for three years. But my first winter in Indianapolis, I lived downtown Indianapolis the UH my office was on the west side of town, about fifteen minutes away. So the first time that snow was in the forecast, I'm downtown at my apartment, living by myself, feeling really good about life, and all of a sudden, I see

that there's snow coming, and I'm like, okay, cool. Well, being from the Carolinas, I'm expecting, like, you know, a delay or they might even cancel work because it's gonna snow and I can't get in there. So I make the southern mistake of texting my co workers and I'm just like, hey, um, when you know, how do we keep up with the office tomorrow? They're like, what do you mean? And I was like, well, like, with its snowing,

you know, how do we do? Are a delay? They're going to cancel, you know, close the office, work from home, and I mean every single one of my co workers from Indianapolis, and they were like, see, what's gonna happen is you're gonna get up in the morning at your normal time. You're gonna get in your car and you're gonna drive to work. And I was like, but it might snow. You like, Caroline, your your mind is about to be blown in the morning when you just get

up and I did. It was hard. There's a little bit of ice coming out of my parking garage. It was beautiful on the way to work. They I mean, I will say this, I believe at one time in the state of South Carolina. There were two snow plows for the entire state, and when it snowed, they all went to Columbia because that's the government buildings, like they had someone out there. Please correct me on that, because

I've used that stat to save me many times. So if if I'm wrong, if I'm wrong, if I'm wrong, please d n me. We're not gonna make that public knowledge. If I'm right. Just tweeted me and say, you're completely right. There were only two. I freaked out, so I'm with you. After that. I did cry my first winter as well up there because it was so cold. I was buying a Christmas tree at Target. It was fake, but still have it. It's great, and I was trying to put

that in my car. It was eight degrees outside, it was starting to snow and it was windy, and I couldn't get the Christmas tree in the car. First Christmas, not with my family as well, So that played into it a little bit, and I have tears coming out of my eyes, thinking this place, why is it so cold? But then you know, second second winter, we had like negative teen days in a row. I was like, fine, yeah, you kind of get used to it is Indie colder

than Wisconsin. No, no, Wisconsin any time with the frozen tuns are up there. But he gets cold. Yeah yeah, oh yeah. But you make a good point. The like the Indianapolis, Wisconsin, Minnesota, whatever, like they're prepared for snow, so like it'll snow like a foot and the next day, like the roads are good, everyone's going to word by the By down south, it snows an interesting week and there's no one's prepared, so like a week, it's a

bit of a mess. However, I will say my one of the first problems I had an indian I slept on the interstate because they did not predict this ice storm was coming. And I get on the interstate coming back from playing like some intermural game at eleven thirty at night, and I noticed that there's some traffic on the interstate. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try and go back roads. Problem number one, never go back roads. Okay. So I go across this bridge and I'm sliding across

the bridge. I was like, okay, here's problem number two. I then decided to turn around and go back across the same bridge. I know, so I go across the same bridge to get onto the Interstate. By the time I get on the Interstate, there was a wreck that I could see, but the tow truck could not get there. The two tow trucks slid off the road trying to get to them. I drive like a two door Honda Accord. It's not off roading anything. So I get stuck here

and sleep on the Interstate until five thirty. To the point that you like, who am I going to tell? You know, like I can't tell anyone. They can't come get me. My parents are still in the Carolina as I can't call them, you know, so I probably still call my mom in the situation, I didn't because what is she going to do? The whole night, I didn't. I didn't want them to stay. I was gonna be fine. That the police officers had gotten there, so they were

sitting up there like I was safe. Is cold? No that I had full tank of gas, so I was able to keep my car running the whole night. I was warm. I did sleep for a little bit. It was fine. That's a story, though. You came away with some stories. My first winter in Indie was see so you know what people out there keep overreacting about your snow because I now know. But my first winter other I was not prepared because no one down here prepares you for a real winter. Yeah, yeah, so I was.

I was in New York time, New York. I was in New York and so like my story was the first real snow that we were getting. It was like, you know, four inches or something overnight was what the Maybe maybe it was swelve inches, maybe it was too I don't know. They all seem the same. And the um I was living in uh kind of a house and the landlord lived above me in the house, and he kind of like wrapped in the door. He's like, hey, you're good for tomorrow. I'm like yeah, I mean I

got like an ice scraper and stuff. He's no, no, no no, no, are you good for tomorrow? And I'm like, yeah, I got an ice scraper. I'll just you know, push it off and stuff. He's like nope. Comes back five minutes later, he had he had like four shovels, and he's like you just you just take this one. He's like, you're I'm gonna I'm gonna shovel the walk to the street and then you're on your own. For your car. I would suggest you do it twice because it's gonna be

coming down hard. And I'm like, what do you talk? I mean hour an hour at least the next morning of shoveling, and the worst is when the street ones come by and then they pile it up more on your car from the streets and then you have to get that snow off. Man, we really got off off topic here in the group chat. Well, how did he go from like it was really hot and spartanburg to man all that? Because the good news is we don't

have to work about this for months. Okay, So it's still speaking of it's going to be beautiful this fall. I've got to I've got to do a Panthers stat guy thing right before we go on to our next stuff. So I saw this from Brad Panovitch that apparently since they've been tracking Almanacs, it has never not snowed in Charlotte at least once every year. It's snowed at least once in Charlotte. For a place that doesn't get snow, it's snowed at least once every year. That's a great streak. Google.

It's called from your favorite place the Twitter. You just follow him, Yeah, you should follow him. He's kind of a big deal. He's kind of a big deal in Charlotte. Dang, I'm sorry I don't follow him yet. All right, I'll follow him. Here's another people out there listening. Go, we just gave a little plug there. We did follow him. All right. Well, let's go back to football. Since you know this is a Panthers podcast. Let's go Panthers versus Bills.

What do we want to see that we didn't see maybe in Chicago, or we've seen him practice that we haven't seen in a game. What are you looking for? Well, miss out things off? Well, I mean you you you kind of already took a little bit. What I was looking at was just turnovers, Yeah, because there there are no turnovers in Chicago. You had the peanut punch from Golden but great play about Panthers didn't recover it. Peanut

punch Peanut Tilman who tweeted about it. I thought, Rashwan, you know, there was there was that play and then that blitz no yeah, which looked like potentially that they called it a forward passed but very close to us a sack fumble. But yeah, I mean Rashawn was around the ball two times, nearly forcing takeaways. That justin turn out that way. But yeah, I see your point on that. I'll say, UM, run game, run blocking the running backs

in general. I know last the holy Field did have two touchdowns UM, but their yard per carry average and this their ability to get into the second level wasn't quite there the way I think Round Rivera wants to see it. UM. Hopefully we had to see Jordan Scarlett out there. We can get to see him in the preseason opener. Be nice to see what the rookie from Florida can do. So I'll be looking at the running

game in particular. I want to see more starters. There were twenty two players that did not play against Chicago. I just want to see some of them. I think it was a great opportunity for the depth and those guys fighting for roster spots to get that debut and kind of get that out of their system per se. But I am excited to see at home, UM some starters out there and playing it. I think it may

be a series or two. I don't think we've seen anything crazy from them, because they are taking this like overly cautious approach to the preseason, which I'm all for, but I mean, I just want to see what can they really look like because we've seen it so many days in training camp of man, that looks really good, or that you know, that's a really good flash. I thought Ron Rivera made a good point to have. In practice, even with the Bills, they're sharing scripts. Hey, here's what

we're gonna do. Alright, cool. The Bills are like, great, this is what we're gonna do. But the game there is none of that. So we we saw them in practice. It it was great joint practices, but from like the oh my gosh factor, there wasn't anything that I think made me just like jump up and down. So I want to see that in the game when it's the starters out there, what do they really look like? More on defense, I'm excited to see that. I want to see Cam Newton and Curtis Samue will do what they

do in practice like in a game. Then we can start over reacting even more. Um. But I want to see on defense, those defensive starters because I think that's where a lot of the question marks lie. We've seen great things from training camp, but what do they look like when it actually and can that pressure continue? You know, five sacks in the first game, well, even rovers said that there were some sacks left out there that when they went back and watched, they're like, man, we missed

you already. You know, get the numbers in stat line that you did, but you're saying you left some out how many? Like how many did you leave out there? So then there's still a tons to see. This is only preseason game number two against the Buffalo Bills, but it'll be certainly exciting to watch it. And if you have any overreactions out there, please let us know. We always enjoy interact with you guys on the place of

over reactions Twitter. Thank you so much for joining us and we will see you again next week on the group chat