TNF Week 8 Recap Panthers-Falcons

not before making everybody sweat it out. They get it done, though, seventeen over the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte. Atlanta has now won two of their last three games, and the Panthers now after that great start on a three game losing streak, And I almost feel like I'm here, Of course, was

Dan Hansis with Greg Rosenthal. I only us feel like this should be a place for you and Mark Sessler to commiserate about beautiful Panthers and all that has suddenly gone wrong with them and have a little like a psych session together. But instead we'll just do a more even handed breakdown of what happened on Thursday night. Your thoughts, Well, you can just be poking and prodding me about it, and then I can be defensive and come back and that might be better podcasting. I don't. I really don't

feel that. I don't feel that way about the Panthers as a whole, or Matt Rule or the team, because they're kind of where they should be where I expected. I do feel that way about Teddy Bridgewater there, like I feel like I was the parent watching, like my kid move up to like the travel team or something like he gets to play. Everyone's watching him. It's like the everyone's watching Teddy Bridgewater tonight, and I just wanted him to play a representative game and he ended up

having a few things go poorly for me. He didn't, you know, throw the ball great. I don't think he was seeing things too clearly. They cooked him up on a ton of blitzes and that that really was the game to me. And he also suffered like a massive injury, uh what looked like a massive injury when he took a dirty shot to the head and you thought he was out for the game. Then he came back in and I was getting like Alex Smith coming in for Washington vibes. I was just like, don't nobody hit Teddy

for the rest of this game? And he ends the game on an ugly pick, so that I I am, I am weirdly emotionally invested. I don't know. What we didn't see is a trainer for the Panthers, like shove a giant Torri Dell needle into his uh neck muscle to fix it so he could get back on the field because he was absolutely blasted there and I've slept wrong, you know, overnight and woken up with the neck injury. Where I like it. It gave me issues for weeks at a time to see the angle at which he

was hit. I mean, it speaks to his toughness and also that's football. I mean, these guys are all kind of badasses to be able to play through what they play through. Uh. But you know, very strange on the Falcon side of things, Greg, because I was actually trying to document it in real time on Twitter today. Yeah, like deconstructing a Falcon's meltdown before it actually happens, And it really looked like I was going to have a

document that people could come back to forever. I just want to set it up because it was all in real time. I think it started right off the gate when Raheem, not feeling so younger anymore, kicked the short field goal on fourth and inches UH in the on the first drive of the game. That was kind of indicative of some of the red zone failures that allowed

Carolina to hang around in that game. Then you had the Todd Gurley touchdown in the second half and then Coup missing the extra point Falcons s to keep it in an eight point game. You're like, all right, that's gonna come back to get him. Then you have Arthur Blank and his red velvet coat and the shot of him looking sternly on the field. When has that ever

gone wrong for the Falcons during a telecast? Then you had Todd Gurley, the guy that couldn't stay out of the end zone uh last week, costing the Falcons a game against the Lions, hopping and hopping and skipping to get out of bounds on third down and stopping the clock with three minutes to play, and giving Teddy and

the Panthers every opportunity in the world. And Greg, you and I were texting about that, it looked to me like he he chose I don't want to get hit here, so I'm gonna put that ahead of uh not of stopping the clock. So look looks like a business decision. Or it could be the other thing, Greg, which is this guy just doesn't think right on the field. Either way, it's a bad look. It happens too much. There. There's a player too. It's not just that play at the

goal line last week. There's a player too with Gurly. I've seen some some thoughts on Twitter. It's like rejuvenation season for girls leading league in Toucho Like, no, Watson, he's never getting that six million dollar contract again. No, it's nothing personal. Let's just not it's not gonna happen. And then finally the third and seventeen after the Panthers get the ball back, d J. Moores somehow gets open for a thirty or forty yard game and think it's

done deal. But to their credit the Falcons, they get the sack to back up Teddy put them in a tough situation, and then they get the interception. So while all of it seems like it was heading towards a very familiar Falcons ending, uh, let's give them some love. And what's been a very tough year for closing this game out. Well, it's funny why every Falcons game now,

I don't I don't know why. I'm I'm sort of fascinated by this team, but every Falcons game the announcer does with Troy Aikman did all night, which is just like, well, if they had just won those three incredibly painful games,

this season would be different. But but it is true like they've been in there, not like the worst team, Like even if they had just won two of those three insane losses, there four and four right now, And a lot of it is if you look at the difference between this game and the first Panthers game, which I remember well because I had to cover it for our podcast, is their whole secondary was hurt in that game.

They're back, and so their health and now Rahee Morris feels a little more comfortable cooking up those blitzes and getting crazy. And Teddy never came up with an answer. They never came up with an answer that. Oh, and Julio Jones is back, I mean Julio Jones, Like that makes a pretty big difference. Here's what Julio has done the last three weeks seven for one thirty seven tonight, even though Calvin Ridley got hurt uh in the second quarter eight for ninety seven last week, eight for one

thirty seven the week before. I mean, yeah, it helps when you're like, first ballot Hall of Famer is out there with Matt Ryan and they know exactly what they're doing. Yeah, he's he's still that elite dude. And that's why when you talk speculation about are the Falcons ready to blow it up if Julio Jones was ever made available. Um, I would think a team that was looking for that final piece on offense would give up a first round pick, even at his advanced age, at his position or something

close to it. Yeah, Ridley went out with that ankle and jury, which is a bummer. He was off to another fast start and he's been a guy that's been an automatic you know, seven for one, ten and a touchdown every week. It feels like, so, uh, it's an ankle injury. You hope it's not something that that stays with him. Brian Burns, I don't know what happened there.

He's been a really big part of the Panthers front seven, and he got a sack that got wiped out by penalty late in the game and he was reaching out his back. It's kind of hard to tell what that was all about. That's a injury. He's a beast and he's That's why I'm not worried. You know, I think Panthers fans have to be happy with this season. Um, the progress. I mean, they're not gonna be a sneaky playoff team. This game was kind of fun for a game now that we know the result, that had like

zero playoff implication. I mean, the Panthers are not going to be contending, but they like Burns looks like a top ten defensive end in the league. That's how well he's playing. Jeremy Chin, Daniel Jeremiah's boy. We'll give him some love after we buried him in our previous show. Uh, he was so high on Jeremy Chin, who just won Offensive Rookie or Defensive Rookie of the Month for the Panthers. So you know, they've like found some things. They gotta

feel good about their coaching stuff. Um, you mentioned Blank though, what did you think about Arthur Blanks? Look the jack the velvet jacket. It was a lot and I like, listen, he's an eccentric billionaire, he owns home depot and the rain. I'm with it, you know, I like it because of the rain. I like that going just going down onto the field and essentially ruining the jacket is a flex in its own way. It's like, you know what, I can do this because it's nothing to me, because I

have a whole closet of these. So because he's got no one to tell him not to wear it. By the way, what's wrong with it? I don't understand what's wrong with Look, look kind of just crazy. See if Cam Newton wears it, Greg, you're saying, he looks cool and some people can pull it. Some people can pull

it off. I don't know. Like and by the way, Falcons fans like last week I made you know and Arthur Blank on the sideline joke that that it's the worst, you know, the scariest six words in sports, and You're like, well, he does that every game, And I'm like, well, yeah, that's the point. We get it, dude, Yeah, that's the point you guys. You do it every game. Um, any other takeaways from this ball game. I do want to point out that the Carolina Panthers defense, which, like as

I mentioned, has a couple of players. Derek Brown looks good too. Last forced a punt um late in the fourth quarter against the Chicago Bears in Week five. That was the last time. The Panthers defense too famously sort of got rid of every productive player that they had from a year ago in Luke Kickley retired and drafted all defense. And it's just like, as you would say in the second, a bunch of ham and eggers, and it's like it is coming home to roost a little bit.

It's hard to go two and a half weeks without forcing a punt. I don't know if I've ever heard that is an insane Statuh, just cleaning things up. It looks like Brian Burns did return to the game. I missed that, so that's good news for the Panthers. And uh, well, you know what I just gotta say, Greg, I gotta say you and Cessler were having a little fun at my expense, acting like the Panthers were this this all world, the big team. So it's not true. They were fun

and they were fun. Uh, And I was saying. My response was I'm not rooting against the Panthers. I don't have any issues of Matt Rule. I like Matt Rule. He's a New York, New Jersey guy. But the idea that they were going to be this twelve and four team just felt a little bit caught up in the moment because now they're three and five and they go to Kansas City next week and then they host the Bucks. So look out. Now they're done. I mean watching them,

they've overachieved. I really, I truly never believed they would be. I thought they could maybe be a market eight and eight fun team. And my my belief though in in Rule and even their defensive coaching staff, who I think has done a pretty good job with you know, is there like I think they got a good foundation. I think you're just salty because because Matt Rule and Robbie Anderson could have been the could have been the convoy with the Jets. I really it's not it's not that

at all. I the Robbie thing annoys me, but I don't I want to see him do well. I liked Robbie Underson as a player, uh and Rule. I like Matt Rule. I wish he was a Jets coach. But it's not like it's like we lost that on Bill Belichick. I guess was my point because I've done that too and that's not fun. Um. All right, good stuff, good talk. Next time you hear from us, it will be Sunday Night where we recap every Thursday game. And like Greg said,

make sure you check out the Thursday preview show. Uh Greg and Daniel Jeremiah uh in a sneak attack for the ages really went back and forth and then uh DJ, who felt you know, we talked about cornered animal games on the show, like a corner and animal. We just started hitting out on everyone on the show, so you know, character was exposed there. Um, but thank you for coming on the show, d J. All right, that's it. Killed Sunday