TNF Recap: Panthers at Texans

Secret Comedy Club. We're gonna put it on all our socials. It should be fun. Yeah, make sure you check us out on social media. We'll we'll be posting it and um, you know, London fans, We're sorry, but there is a limited amount, so you better jump on that quick. And trust me, Greg has been talking all day about how excited he is to hang out with every single one of you after the show and grab a pint. That is true. I mean, we we don't have anything else to do. Why not. Um, it ends around nine pm.

But it should be really fun. We've done this a couple of times. And if you're saying, like, why are you putting us on the Texans UH Panthers t NF recap. You know what, if you listen to this podcast, you are our kind of fan and we want to see you live because you know this isn't maybe the NFL's best game in the world again seven thirty pm octobern that's this year in London's Top Secret comedy Club. We look forward to seeing you there and now onto the show.

Darnald's gonna keep and get it into the end zone for the touchdown. All eyes to McCaffrey and Sam. Donald takes it in his second rushing touchdown of the year. Donald's throw cast call touchdown Miller Christian dol handoff here for the touchdown to tell me troumble. Darnald takes it is in to the touchdown. Oh yeah. The snow patrol hits Houston, a blizzard's coming. Nine quarterback sacks on Davis Mills as the Panthers win. I'm Greg ros down with

Danny Kelly. I'm just trying to add a little uh fun and excitement to u a Thursday night football game that we thought would go a certain type of way. Danny. Of course, you can catch Danny over at The Ringer The Ringers Fantasy Football Show. Uh, and it went that way, it didn't go there. For about a half we thought, maybe Davis Mills will make this a little frisk gier than we thought. But you can, you can put a dome over your head, you can go to Houston, but

you can't. You can't escape the Snow Patrol. Phil Snow's Panthers defense is coming for you. And ultimately they keep the Texans and single digits and it probably wasn't even as close as the score indicates. Yeah, I mean, it is really fun to watch that pass rush though, I mean I know that I recognize that it's a rookie quarterback again, his first star, third round rookie um, and

so you should definitely temper your expectations. But man, this the Panther's pass rush was definitely, you know, as advertised, and it was good to see them do it again because aren't they the number one defense? I mean yeah, I mean how could they not be if you look at their first two weeks. You know, they give up

fourteen points to the Jets. Uh, they have the most dominant defensive performance possible against the Saints, one of the most like single game performance, best single game performances against uh, you know, New Orleans, and then they get Davis Mills in this third game. So I'm excited to have the Panthers at three and oh and part of this NFL

season in a fun, meaningful way. I don't think you can say just because of the way that the matchups have shaken out, and and that Saints team was missing so much, it was a weird week for them that like we know everything about them, but that's okay, Like, let's let's start with the positive because we will get to the injuries, which are are very concerning with Carolina.

But let's let's talk Sam Donald through three games and then especially you know, looking at tonight, what what is your feeling about the Sam Donald and Carolina experienced, Danny, I think overall you have to be encouraged. I mean, I mean, you just you just a question like how it's going. So that's concerning for him, No, I mean

I think I've been moderately impressed. Obviously, it matters who they've played so far, and the fact that he's only he has literally not played a snap yet, playing from behind, like they've had a lead or it's been tied every time he's taken snap this year, so like the game

scripts have been beneficial for him. They haven't been having to like get him out and throw a bunch and really sort of come back and come back mode or anything like that, So that that definitely matters, because you know, in the highly schemed, sort of conservative offense, I think that that Joe Brady has put together for him, it's

like well defined. Everything seems pretty open and pretty clear, like they've in the first half dj More it was just wide open everywhere, like it seemed like every snap and so, um, you know, he's hitting the throws they need to make. I think he's still a little bit skittish when pressure gets around him and a little bit unaware. It's got kind of like the Danny Dimes thing where isn't quite aware where pressure is coming from. But um,

you know, not every quarterback. Very few quarterbacks are just like really really good in the pocket, like when in a muddy pocket. So I don't know if I was expecting a miracle or anything like that. So it's still a little bit of donald. But at the end of the day, honestly, I've been pretty impressed and he's definitely going in the right direction, So maybe there is something to this out of the case. Definitely is something to like the gaze um, you know, glow up when you

when you leave him. It's just sort of like what level Kim Donald get to. I think tonight I saw a couple of things that I wanted to see more of, and I still want to see more of. But those were plays that he made on his own. There wasn't a ton but when pressure did come that he escaped the pocket, um that he or he navigated the pocket, and he he made a play under pressure. More importantly, there was a couple where he went to his second

and third read. I think through three weeks where it's pretty clear like if Donald is protected in this offense and he's going to his first read, he's pretty money. He can do that. I think they need to start. They're gonna need to add more elements to this offense as they go. But that's not a criticism. He's he's just starting out there three and oh while doing it. But it's a lot of just d J. Moore is awesome and wide open and guys are are wide open

for him in general. But that was true for Teddy last year, and Teddy moved the ball and Sam Donald had a pretty good, you know, track record through three games. Finishing these games, they're not scoring a ton of points. That's the thing. They haven't had to. He's fumbled four times, which leads the NFL. So that is a little bit of a concern, like whether he's gonna just lock on his guy and Freese up a little. But I did

see a couple plays tonight. I just think you're gonna need to get Robby Anderson and Terence Marshall involved at some point, and they really have not been this year. I mean, Robby Anderson sitting on about a hundred yards for the season and Terrace Marshall's under that, and so you're gonna keep having to add elements. They play the Bucks twice and the Bills in their last four games.

That's three of their last four. But the schedules pretty reasonable until then you get the Cowboys Eagles next week and stuff. So they they're going to add elements. It's just gonna be harder without Christian McCaffrey. So we'll we'll mention the injuries here. McCaffrey leaves with a hamstring injury. Early in this game, and so Darnald kind of did

have to carry them a little more. They ran less I think than they than they probably would have with Chubba Hubbard back there, and then J. C. Horne, their first round cornerback break breaks his foot. According to our guy Ian Rappaport, it's expected to be a broken foot. Maybe not season ending, but very disappointing injuries, and especially without McCaffrey. You're the fantasy guy, Like, what what do

you think about Hubbard? What do you think about the Panthers, you know, and their offense moving forward without McCaffrey, Because it's a little bit different game planning for Donald if he's not there, right, I mean, man, we and we could see it so in the early part of the game, Like McCaffrey is just so good in the way that he changes what they can do on offense, the way he can take just a simple little dump off fast and create explosive plays like they're not gonna be able

to recreate that. They're not gonna be able to get that from Cuba Hubard. But I think Hubbard, you know, he does Cuba. It's not Cuba. Yeah, it's Cuba. Um, you know, he he's good. He had like a two thousand yards season to see two seasons ago, so it's not like he's just some Joe Schmo. But at the same time, he's definitely not McCaffrey and he doesn't give them what what McCaffrey breaks, like tackle breaking all that stuff. He's he's an explosive play creator. If he has space.

Um I bet they'll get Royce Freeman involved a little bit, you know, but at the end of the day, it's just not gonna be as good. So they're gonna figure out, you know, I think you're right. They're gonna figure out ways to get Marshall more evolved. They're gonna have to figure out ways to get Robbert. You honestly had two targets in this game, which is just bizarre because he

had like a thousand yards last year. So, UM, I do like the fact that they've sort of swapped the roles that they had last year, because last year was like d J. Moore running these clear out routes for the love of the game, and then Robbie Anderson was getting everything underneath, and um now more is the guy. He is a one, He's a true one. He gets

open every every snap. And I think if you watch the Panthers last December and this, you know, obviously still with Teddy More start kind of started digging over and I wonder if Rule kind of realized at that point, like, oh, Robbie's great, We're going to give him his contract, and we need him and they need him to do more than this. But More is the guy there. I love me some DJ More. Yeah, he's so good. He's really

really good. And I think Marshall has a chance to be really good to I mean, he probably would have been a first rounder if he hadn't. There's a there's a lot, there's a lot to like. I mean there there's a lot of The defense can survive the absence of J. C. Horne, although it's a pretty big loss because you you don't love the depth in the secondary. They're gonna get a J. Boyer back next week supposedly, but he hasn't been great. Uh Like Dante Jackson, who's

their corner, is a much better too. He is he is perfect for this defense. Phil snow that's the name of the defensive coordinator. He looks like a like a character in The Sopranos or something. He very He has a very everything about him is very surprising, and he runs kind of a college defense which relies on like a lot of energy, a lot of blitzes, and it's working.

I don't know if it's gonna keep working. Are you annoyed at all about how they used McCaffrey in the first two weeks because he had fifty nine touches and like some Panthers, Twitter is coming at me being like, how come you didn't tweet up before the game. It's like, hey, bro, I wrote it down in my notebook. Maybe I don't tweet everything, but I did write it down in my notebook.

Fifty nine touches in two weeks coming off a major injury, and these teams like get so worked up about, oh, you can't use them anyone in the preseason, but then this season starts and use them fifty nine times in two weeks, and they were giving him carry after carry up three scores against the Saints. That's where it bothers me more. When you know you have a Thursday night game, why are you giving them tons of inside carries up to seven against the Saints. Bad job, Matt rule, right,

I think that contractually as a fantasy guy. I have to say, I love coaches who give their not if it gets them hurt four days later. No, I'm just kidding, I know, I know. Um it is weird though it it's a kind of bizarre because like nobody else really

does that anymore. I mean, Henry's coming off. There have been like stats, you know, Jason listed this, um that the whole like curse of three seventy carries maybe isn't so much a thing, but that the plus thirty or around thirty in one game is a thing in terms of causing injuries in the in the week or two after and then you recover. But that's exactly what they did with McCaffrey. And it does bother me this whole. Like everyone's in bubble rapping the preseason. I even get

annoyed by people on Twitter. They're like, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you know, you put them out there for five snaps in the preseason or if someone gets hurt in the preseason, it's a tragedy. Meanwhile, half of the NFL is on i R right now from the last two weeks, and it's like, oh, that's fine, that's just football. There's some sort of like cognizant cognitive dissonance there. I'm just ranting. This is how these shows go. Danny, do you want to talk about Dan Davis? What do

you what do you want to talk about David S? Mills? When did you first see the next picture? And do you think it was photoshopped? Oh? My gosh, I don't think it was photoshop because, you know, checking the tape, there's a bunch of other pictures of him. You just watching it all night tonight, and it was it was

pretty long. It's an advantage though, kind of like I told my son just started baseball, and I told them, like being short, you know, there's like less of a strike zone so that if you crouch a little like that's actually kind of an advantage in some ways. It's like the Alto v advantage. Now, Davis Mills's neck is like a disc is an advantage too, because you can get a lot of penalties to the head and neck area, you know what I mean. It's a bigger sweet spot

for them to hit so you can get more. That's wow. I didn't even think of that. That's really brilliant they did. It didn't matter in this game because they just teed off on him, and because he's a rookie, I guess because no one knows he is right, they should have called one or two of those. One of them they did hit him in the neck seriously, and they should have called it. But yeah, Um, overall, though, like I was somewhat not impressed is not the right word. It

wasn't gross. It wasn't a terrible, terrible job by him. I think that the the Texans game plan was just so so conservative, insanely conservative. Is like run run, you know, dump off, run, run screen, and it wasn't even like run run past where you were actually going past the six. Is just like doing everything they could to make him a complete non factor. He looked pretty good in the

two minute drill before the half. Um, you know, he looked good at times in the second half when they were having to pass, and I think, you know, if you're a Texans fan, you'd have to come away somewhat I guess encouraged that he's just not a complete train wreck.

He's he's not like a Nathan Peterman type performance here where you're just like you want to gouge your eyeballs out so um, I wouldn't say it was super impressive, but for a third round rookie, you know, obviously there's so much background we have to We're also obliged to mention that he was like the top overall high school. So you can't say his name without I am. I am a little bit like the Jimmy Graham played. React to the reactions, but you know there was a lot

of that on Twitter and by Troy Aikman. It's like he served himself well. It's like, yeah, I mean, you're right. The game plan kind of kept him down and they were maybe too conservative early. Ultimately, though, the Texans gained a hundred and ninety three yards. Yeah, and and the score was twenty four to nine, And like, you're going be the worst offense in the league. If that continues, You're you're gonna need the running game to be better.

Like Lindsay and Ingram have been pretty good this season, so I think we thought they would get more out of them. But it was exactly the game I expected. There was barely any drives. And I've watched a lot of Davis Mills this year. Let me tell you, I watched every I think I watched all of his preseason snaps. I watched last week, I watched this week, and like every every game is the same, which is, if he is protected, he he will spin it and it looks

it looks good. You're right, I mean it looks good, but like that's just not how the NFL works, and he's really not good when he's not protected. And that hopefully gets better. But I've been burned so many times by this exact type of quarterback, Mike Glennon Zach Mettenberger. Um, even even I think something like that, I don't know, because his arm is he's got great arm. I guess Shop Shop could throw it a little bit back in

the day, but Mill Mills can spin it. And I don't know, like if if you he can't move too well, and I don't think he reacts to pressure well right now, that's fine, he's a rookie. But I'm just annoyed because we I thought that this Panthers Texans game could have been a lot of fun on TNF with Tyrod. Tyrod was playing so well, it would have been like a it would have been like a fun weird Hey, they give the NFL network um like the teams that only get into prime time once for the year, get it

on the NFL Network early Thursday Slate. But this would have been a fun version of that with Tyrod the way he was playing. And I think the Texans might very well have won that game. You know, if you put Tyrod in this game, I think they win. But we didn't get that game. We got the Davis Mills game. And I'm sorry that that had to be your first you know, around the NFL experience. That's all right, that's right.

I agree with you though, because the Panthers, as impressive as they as they have been so far, they let the Jets hang around for a while, they let the Texans hang around. Clearly, they just demolished the Saints. So that was definitely a really good game. But um, it seems like they're sort of playing with fire a little bit and you know, kind of letting these games you know,

lasts a little bit too long, I think. And so yeah, they're definitely gonna have to play better if they want to continue to be a legitimate contender and for people to consider them like real, you know, because three and I was great, but um, we need to see them playing from behind. We need to see them like what Sam Donald looks like when you know there's some uh, you know, trouble and he's actually like they did only wives. It's pretty sweet. He's just got to play a little faster.

Every everything needs that. That's kind of the story of Donald's career. It's still to me the story, but he's obviously when he gets the ball out on time, it's nice. He just gives me a stress level because like they take the clock down to zero almost every time. You see zero every time, and that's just like everything, everything is just a little bit slow. It will get better, and it's it's nice when you know you can get better at three and not. I I don't think you

can get any better. Danny Um the Fantas the Football Show multiple times a week over at the Ringer Podcast Network. That's right, right, what night, what days? It was just dropping now we are recording, so the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. I remember a regrettable name. I think you guys did the right thing and change it now I'm kidding. The the s EO turns out when you type in dantasy it just shows up as fantasy Football, which you're not

gonna find a lot of stuff that way. Um. Yeah, So it's on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then we also yeah for a week, and then we also do a green room on Sunday's a couple of green rooms on Sunday. So that's like, people should check that out. Danny's great. Check out his writing fantasy or not. He u he does it all. Draft season, He's great. He does it all. He's a renaissance man. He he joined us. He talked Panthers Texans. Um, the Texans Fun, whole idea

of the Texans Fun season is over. They play the Bells next, and then the Patriots, and I just I don't think it's gonna go out with Davids Mills, but that that's fine. They don't deserve it. Karma y sorry Texans fan. Um, that's just that's how it goes. If you made it to the end of this podcast, that we love you because you're a true die hard. Thank you, Danny and Erica of course behind the glass until Sunday. I guess I'll say it this time to eat the col