3, Chris, the number’s 3. OK, 3 weeks till the draft, and 3 pieces needed to be added to the Panthers’ offense. Can they find them all in the draft? Hm. They’re gonna have to. Mm, let’s get this started. There there there’s still a little bit of free agency happening man. Let’s get this sucker started. Get dialed in Panthers fans. Here comes an in-depth look at your team. Exclusive interviews locker room insight. Let’s huddle up for Panthers Playbook. Here are your hosts, Dennis Cox and Chris Lee. Welcome back to another episode of Panther’s Playbook. That’s Chris Lee, Dennis Cox here with you. Uh, Leave your thoughts in the comment section on the Panthers offense. We heard Dave Canalis earlier this week talking at the owners’ meetings down in Florida about, hey, Xavier Leget, they feel like he could be a number one guy. He was a first round draft pick. Last year. Russell, what other pieces need to be added to the offense, Chris? And I’m gonna start with one thing that needs to be added for sure, whether it’s, uh, at wide receiver, whether it’s at running back, something you find in the draft. Berard Smith out of SMU, maybe in the 4th round. Speed. This team needs some damn speed, especially on the offensive end. Um, I’m 100% with you, uh, with that, um, you know, I think we got a little bit, just a little bit with it with, uh, Rico Dowdo, but he’s more kind of a, of a power guy. He’s built like Cuba. He’s built like Chuba Hubbard and that and how he plays, but it feels like he’s maybe just a tad bit faster than than Cuba. So like there’s a, there’s some, uh, and now I’m not calling him Cuba slow, but he’s also not the fastest runner in the world, right? Uh, he’s more of a, you know, I’m gonna run you over type of guy, and then once I’m straight away it’s gonna be hard for you to catch me, um. You definitely need that speed uh on on the team, and I think especially in the wide receiver cores, um, that guy who can truly, truly take the top off, like the guy where you, you’re gonna have the, the, the corner and the safety like over communicating right before the snap because they know that like once this guy gets going a little bit, you know, it’s gonna be tough for just one guy to to keep up with him. We need that guy and we don’t have that guy so far. We, we don’t, I think you can add a couple of these in the draft. Yes. To the running back out of Virginia Tech who started in North Carolina A&T, uh, him, he’s burner, Berard Smith, I mentioned a burner, by the way, Brisard Smith, when he was at Miami was a wide receiver. When he got to SMU after he transferred, got moved to running back. So he brings positional versatility as well when he’s in there in the backfield. Those are two guys you can add at speed. I know the Panthers did host Jalen Noel or Jay Noel, the wide receiver from Iowa State. He and Jayden Higgins are teammates from Iowa State are projected to be roughly around 2nd round picks. You know, some were picked in like the 40s, 50s. Higgins being like the 6 ft 4, ran like a 447. He’s like the ex-receiver. No well, more of the smaller guy, but his 10 yard. Split is as fast as just pretty much as any of the wide receivers in this year’s draft, which is getting off the line is a big thing, but he’s smaller, he’s like 5’10 and like a quarter. So the question is which are you willing to go for? What is it that you want? But you can find some of these guys that have been in the draft. I know a lot of people want that number one wide receiver. I just don’t feel like this is the draft to do it. Even even Set McMillan might be the number one receiver drafted outside of Travis Hunter, cause he’s a unicorn, but I don’t know if he if he potentially becomes a number one wide receiver because you might just have that same thing like Dave Canales mentioned just a couple of days ago, they they feel like they might have that in Xavier League yet because He’s a big body guy that can run super fast. Yeah. And, and also just with the fact that like, um, you know, you, you had the chances at DK, you had the chances at other guys, right? They’re gonna cost you so much that the things that they were able to do on defense, you’re not able to do if you were to go after that guy. And I understand, I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of Panthers fans. Uh, already jump out the window when it comes down to this, like, I’ve seen a few guys say like, oh, our offense is gonna suck again and blah blah blah blah blah. No, like the offense, I believe, if, if especially if health, uh, you know, health is gonna have a lot to do with it. If folks can stay healthy, especially one Bryce Young. Um, I think Bryce Young plays a full year. I think he plays a full year looking like or better than the last 7 games he played, right? He’s gonna have pretty much the same offensive line come back along with, uh, you know, Austin Corbett. He’s gonna have a more experienced Jalen Coker, Xavier Liget, um, you know, and, and some of the other guys who’ve been around, uh, the entire time, and so they’re gonna know what to do. This, this isn’t gonna be their first time, uh, in the system or their first time in the NFL. You’re gonna have guys who are gonna be in year two of the NFL or in the system, and for some guys’ cases, uh, it’s gonna be year 3. Um, just, or, or more than that depending if they came with, uh, you know, uh, canals from other places, right? Um. I, I think the, the offense, you know, it didn’t need as many other pieces. There’s a few pieces that you can still, uh, you know, afford to get in the draft to help you out to for uh competition purposes and to Also add in the speed that we’re talking about, right? Because, no, this isn’t a perfect offense. There’s still a lot that could be done to make it better, but also, you needed to do all the things that you need to do on defense. You also still need to lean on defense in this draft because you cannot afford to have the worst defense in the NFL no longer, because the offense by itself to me, was good enough. To get the Panthers to possibly sneak in, uh, in, in the playoffs by almost maybe possibly winning, um, uh, the, the NFC South. There were a lot of winnable games there, but the reason why they didn’t win, ultimately came down to stopping the other team from from scoring, or just getting the other team off the field. Yeah, and I think that those kinds of things are also gonna add to the offense as well because um how many times this past season can we think of where The defense gotta stop, you know, at midfield, you know, like let’s say, hey, teams that the, the, you know, the Panthers 45 yard line, it’s 4th and 2, they’re gonna go for it and the defense gets a stop. So the offense is getting the ball right around midfield. You, you didn’t see that last year or really. Getting a lot of key turnovers at big times. We didn’t see that which gives extra possessions and better field positioning for your offense. The defense can improve and help the offense in that regard. They’ve been saying like to say they’ve been saying it for a long, long time. But here’s something to keep in mind as well is that the continuity from the offense from last year to this year. And how they finished last season. Again, you hope, hope’s never really a great strategy, but you’re hopefully not dealing with a banged up Xavier League, a banged up Jata and Sanders, a banged up Tommy Trimble. The offensive line, like you mentioned, is coming back, the only pieces of air quotes pieces that are gonna be gone from last year’s offense are Deonte Johnson that you got rid of voluntarily. That that’s fine. It’s funny how things got better, dising by subtraction. Ian Thomas. Indeed I say more and Miles Sanders, who really only had really one really good game and that just happened to be the Atlanta game at the end of the year last year. That’s it. And then you added Rico Dad to replace Miles Sanders in our opinion, at least mine, that’s an upgrade. So, so a huge again, so the, the continuity, continuity, all these guys back together under Canalysis. System everyone already knows what the standard is going into next year and you can pick up where you left off last year and continue to grow and the pieces that you add in, it’s a lot easier to add 3 or, you know, 3 or 4 pieces and have them join you as an offense as a whole as opposed to this is new for everybody and I think that’s the big advantage that the on the offensive side of things is a big time advantage for the Panthers this coming year. Yeah, for sure, uh, and, and you’re definitely gonna need that. It’s gonna be comfortable, uh, for Bryce Young. I mean, you know, think about it like. At Alabama his last year there for, he’s he’s, he probably had a lot of guys on offense that he threw to that he was used to being around for, for, you know, 2 years, maybe 3 years. Um, and that continuity he had with the offensive line and and coaches, and just, uh, you know, staff members and people around him, and, and he wasn’t given that, he wasn’t afforded that luxury last year at all because everything, uh, besides a few guys on the offense was different. From the switch over to Frank Reich, uh, to Dave Canal, which, you know, congratulations to Frank Reich, you know, interim coach over doing his thing, ACC football legend Frank Reich, uh, continuing to get that check. Listen, these former Panthers coaches, they’re gonna get that check, they know it. They’re gonna get that check, you know. So I like this um for Bryce Young, with all the continuity that’s there, just Anything to to help him with his comfort level. You’ve got the line now. Uh, you’ve got uh another uh potential home run hitter when it comes down to, um, you know, running the ball. You know, we do need a little bit more speed when it comes down to. I, I would like to see the Panthers add a receiver or two. Mhm. Oh, with the receiver or two. I’m with it. I like David Moore, but I want them to add enough to where they’ve got to make a real long, hard decision on David Moore, right? And that’s not a knock against David Moore, but I think when you talk about competition, now, they may not be number one receivers, this might be, you know, uh, a #3 or, you know, another guy to come off the bench or something like that that you see some potential in later on, um. You know, but for right now, you’re gonna have to roll with what you got, uh, because of just the way free agency went and because of the other needs that you still have on defense. And that doesn’t mean that the Panthers’ offense is gonna suck. It just means that maybe this isn’t the year to go out there and reach for number one guys. That’s it. Here’s something about having the continuity as well, like from one year to the next that you mentioned, Chris, like especially with Bryce Young having the familiarity with all the guys that he’s throwing to and playing around. That during practice or during a film session. Hey guys, remember last year against Atlanta when this situation happened or this last year against Dallas when this situation happened and everyone goes, yup. Everyone can recall that and then only one or two guys would be like, hey, let’s catch you up real quick on what happened last year with Dallas. Like those kinds of things that They always talk about, especially with like who are the best offensive lines in the NFL. It’s the ones that have the most starts together. Shout out to Philly. Exactly, continuity. A lot of guys that have a lot of starts together and that’s what these the Panthers offense as a whole is gonna have together, and we saw at different times last year, Lee get hurt, feeling hurt, Coker hurt, Sanders hurt, um. Uh, tremble got hurt a little bit, but again, you add depth and around these guys and think about when it all finally gels together. You’re anticipating through development. Panthers talked about being a developmental organization, Coker improving, Ligette improving, Sanders improving, Ikeaquanu improving. Four guys right there that are still gonna get better, you hope, you anticipate, and you still have the prime years of. Taylor Moten, Robert Hunt, Damian Lewisee obviously is on the back end of things, but even maybe an incremental step from Tommy Trimble as well. Again, I, they, I think they need to add a receiver, they need to add a tight end and a running back and guys that can actually burn. Those are the three things we tea at the beginning, Chris, 3 things need to be added receiver, tight end, running back. You still as that can burn. You still add another running back. No, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, you need to change the pace back again. I say Berard Smith SMU I think would be an awesome, awesome person to get for this offense because he can give you the versatility of being a wide receiver but also can catch out of the backfield and the dude can freaking fly. I think the worry for me is that, you know, how is Dave Canalis gonna use like, you know, I, I, I’m still somewhat worried about how he’s gonna use Rico Dodo and uh Chuba Hubbard because there’s times we’ve seen now maybe because Maybe the, the, the trust will be there a little bit more with somebody like Rico Dodo. So we’ll see. Maybe it’s just different and if, you know, Dave Canalis like proves me wrong and like he really does want to run a ball with different guys, it it’ll show how much he just did not trust uh Miles Sanders and how much he did not trust Raheem Blackshear, um, you know, even though Raheem Blackshear is back, uh, shout outs to him. Um, you know, it’ll, it’ll be very interesting to see, but that’s, that’s why, that’s the only thing that gives me pause, but I, I’m, I’m with you for sure on, you gotta, you know, add another tight end for sure, and you got, gotta add another receiver or two, there, because, you know, I think that core needs to get younger and faster. Um, you know, I love Adam Thielen for sure, great dude, um, after this year, this might be it. So you need to get somebody else in. Um, you know, who is, uh, who can probably fill in his shoes, who’s gonna be pretty much giving the keys to his role on the offense. And so if you can find that guy and that guy is already there, uh, this season. Um, that’ll help you out moving forward. I, I think to me that is the most pressing need. Who is the, the Adam Thielen of the future, right? Doesn’t have to be the exact same mold of a of a receiver, but the, the, the dependable route running, I’m always gonna get you, get open, preferably faster version of Adam Thielen, we need that guy on the roster this year to take over the reins. It might be Jay and Coker, by the way. It could be Coker really could be that dude catches everything, I feel like any contested catches intermediate routes that dude feels like he comes down with that. And he’s faster than what people say. Hey, you know what? Hey, there’s, there’s 40 speed and there’s game speed. There are two different things. 40 speed and game speed are two different edge rusher too, so. He’s he’s bigger than people think too. Uh, we’ve seen him in the locker room, he’s bigger than people think. Pause. Alright, Chris, 3 weeks until the draft. Hey man, this pollen is beating up my face. You see how swollen my face looks? Yo man, it’s beating us all, man. This pause. Whoa. But yeah, this this pile has got like boxing gloves, man. I feel like my face is all swollen, man, so anyway, y’all never mind my face. Yeah, you know what? I should be back. It’s what it is, but don’t worry, folks, again, 3 weeks of the draft, we’re gonna look to go live during the first round of the draft, so stay locked in here and make sure you subscribe again leave your thoughts in the comment section. I saw you trying to figure out what to do. What should I do with my hands? He got to Isaiah Evans.

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