Well, Chris, it happened. Brian Burns is no longer a Carolina Panther. He’s being traded to the New York Giants breaking news here, folks. No, no intro today. By the way, that’s Chris Lee Dennis Cox Panthers playbook. Like, subscribe, leave your thoughts in the comment section on Brian Burns being no longer a Carolina Panther. Chris, you tweeted this out. Dan Morgan was kind of in a lose, lose situation. Absolutely. And I know it’s gonna be very easy to be upset with Dan Morgan at this point. But honestly, look at what his predecessor did before he passed on two deals that would have given the Carolina Panthers first round picks, uh, for Brian Burns, right? So Dan Morgan basically is, is working with the hand that he was dealt, right. You’re either gonna have to pay Brian Burns and not have any room to do any of the other stuff that they plan on doing or signing, uh, Robert Hunt, who they signed, uh, who they’ve agreed to a deal to today or you’re gonna lose Brian Burns after the tag is over because you’re not gonna be able to tag him for the second time because you may have to use that on Derek next year. And so, uh there’s like a whole like avalanche of things that have happened and I know we’ll talk about it, but the Panthers are losing people that probably they needed to lose in order to move forward. Now, I have other thoughts about that, but just in general, just to wrap up what this trade was about, they got fleeced by the New York Giants for a 2nd and 1/5. That is nothing for Brian Burns, but you needed to get something out of this. If not Brian Burns was gonna walk after the season for nothing, or you needed to pay him and you would have had no room uh to pay anybody else and it’s not Dan Morgan’s fault. Scott Fitterer didn’t leave him any other room to operate outside of this. The Panthers were at a lose, lose situation right here going into this trading situation and so the Giants could come in swoop in and get a great player for little to nothing and they’re fine. The Panthers have been screwed and that was Scott Fit’s fault. Yeah. So Brian Burns agreed to a five year contract with the New York Giants. I think that was probably like the contingency of the, of the trade taking place. Five years max value 100 and $50 million. So you’re looking at $30 million a year, I don’t think the Panthers could have afforded that. Now, I think the deal is about $87.5 million guaranteed. So essentially the first three years of the contract guaranteed, Panthers weren’t gonna be able to afford that with all the holes that they had to fill. They already were in a pretty tough salary cap situation for not only just for this year but just going forward. Heck, we’ve seen them in the last couple of days announce that they’re gonna release Bradley Bozeman, which isn’t gonna give them much salary cap relief at all. They’re gonna release safety Vaughan Bell, which is only gonna give him about a million dollars worth of cap space as well. Well, he was, he was good. He was set to make over 10 million this year. He was, but still, but, but, but dead cap money though is still $9 million. Dead cap hit. So you’re only freeing up a million dollars in terms of cap space. Same thing with like Bradley Bosman, you’re not clearing up a whole bunch. Hayden Hearst, the release of him is only gonna save this season $52,000 on this salary cap. Now, I understand in 2025 you’re gonna save cap money and all that stuff. I totally understand that, but still the, the Panthers are actually getting rid of guys and they’re not getting a whole lot of value in terms of cap savings for getting rid of some veteran players. It seems like Dan Morgan and that whole new front office, whatever he his, his lead. Now, as a general manager, we’re getting our own guys. They no longer have Fitterer signings. No longer have any of that kind of stuff. It’s he, Dave Canalis. We’re getting our own guys and that’s what they’re doing moving forward. That’s at least that’s what that feels like. Ok, you got a second round pick from the New York Giants. I’m not sure if that’s gonna be pick number 39 or pick number 47 because the Giants have two second round picks and you got a second. I mean, you, sorry, you got a, you got 1/5 oo on top of that, but nonetheless, I don’t think they’re gonna be able to sign Brian Burch that deal like you said. And then still pay Derek Brown, especially when you see Christian Wilkins get a four year $110 million deal as an interior defense alignment. I’m sorry, Derek Brown is probably thinking dollar signs in his mind right now too. And this is a long term play. You brought up the dead money, uh for this year. But then we talk about 2025 the Panthers are gonna have, uh some room to operate either to help Bryce get more weapons to protect or whatever because if you think about it, we, and we’ve said this on the show a bunch of times, Dennis, they’re not gonna have a lot of room to, to one sign people. Um, and already you have some taken away because of the signing of Robert Hunt, which we’ll talk about that. Uh, but then also, like, they didn’t have a lot of draft captains. Now they get, you know, two more draft picks back, but you still don’t have a first, you have another second and you have another fifth. Um So at the end of the day, like, no, no, no matter what they did, you’re not going to be able to like have a complete turnaround this off-season. So you needed to make a few moves to give you some room and some play for next year’s off-season and for the year after that, and this is pretty much where they are and I didn’t necessarily expect to lose four starters uh from the defense. Um But essentially you knew that, that it was possible to really lose two and I kind of in my, in the back of my head thought that Brian Burns may not be playing for the Carolina Panthers, Frankie Luu may not be playing for the Carolina Panthers and we lost V Bell, we lose Dante Jackson. That’s another guy that we, we kind of sort somewhat expected to be gone. And so, um, you know, this is a real rebuild instead of what we were the good, the bill of goods that we were sold before in 2020 in 2023 we were told that. No, we’ve got enough on this roster. We can go win. Now, did we win? Now, do we, do we win? You won, you won the Chicago Bears the first overall pick. That’s what you want. We didn’t win. Ok. And in the process, Scott Fitterer traded away all of our picks for Sam D for, uh, for, uh Baker Mayfield for Matt Coral, for DJ Johnson. You know what I’m saying? Like so right now Dan Morgan is cleaning up. So for all the fans out there who may be mad at Dan Morgan, what else could he have possibly done? Yeah, by the way, the, the fifth round pick is actually a 2025 5th round pick. So you’re not gonna get that. It’s not next year, not this year, it’s next year. So I think it’s gonna be your stuff out as we, as we, uh go along. Exactly. So I think it’s gonna be the higher of the two picks. Uh, but nonetheless, you look at this defense no more, Brian Burns no more. Frankie Lou. They, they’re gonna release Dante Jackson, they’re releasing Vaughan and Bell. That’s four starters off your defense. That’s four guys. You got to replace, four guys gotta replace. It’s the rebuild. Uh It seems like the way things are gonna go at least this off season, it’s building around you at some. Say here, Chris. Yeah. Well, I, I will say this and I, if this ends up happening. I don’t feel too terribly bad about losing Brian Burns, but there was a report and I don’t know how much, how much legs it has to it right now that the Carolina Panthers are targeting Pat Patrick Queen. Now, he’s not as good as Brian Burns, right? But he’s somebody that different position, but he’s somebody who, who can rush the quarterback because that’s one of the things that we’re, we’re worried about, right? Because without Brian Burns, we literally have nobody that you, uh feel confident in that can rush the quarterback and also the, the next person who is the best. Uh, Marquis Haines, he’s a free agent so we could possibly lose him. Um And even if you resign him, you know it, what are you really getting for it? Right. So, uh I, if that happens, at least you’re getting like somebody from a legit defense, number one defense in the NFL to come in and help anchor that defense. And so, you know, there are possible, there’s a possibility you can get a few pieces here there to, to fit in and it could be a little bit cheaper than what you already had. By the way, Brian burns New York Giants are at the Panthers this coming year. Just want to point that out, just want to point that out. He’s gonna sack Bryce like three times. Oh my gosh, he’s gonna be icky a lot. I feel like now if he’s trying to rush maybe on the interior on a stunt. He’s gonna have to deal with the guy that the Carolina Panthers have agreed to a contract too. And Robert hunt offensive climbing. They picked up from the Miami Dolphins. According to our friend Joe, person, from the athletic Joe person actually gave some numbers and some stats on, on, on Robert hunt this past season. Robert hunt 66 £330 by the way, big dude, very athletic guys to age 27 years old Panthers agreed to a five year $100 million deal, uh, with $63 million guaranteed. Robert Hunt had the lowest pressure rate just 0.8% among all o linemen in 2023. You give up one sack and three pressures and 315 pass block snaps. That’s it. That’s it. I’m sorry, what, what, what was the talking point? A lot of this past season for the Carolina Panthers and when it comes to Bryce Young couldn’t protect his ass, could they? Well, guess what? Now you got someone that can help on the interior of that because everyone that played on the interior of the offensive line including Bradley Bozeman. Now, the Carolina Panthers are gonna be getting rid of were like turnstiles at metro stations. They were just like revolving doors just letting people through. That’s what they were. So, you know what, you sure up the one thing on the offense or at least part of it that you needed to fix when signing Robert Hunt props, do you want to get that job done? So, I, I tweeted this out earlier today too and I, I just kind of put out like his, uh, snapshot from pro football focus. He was the sixth best, uh, graded, uh, guard from the NFL last season. And each year since he was drafted in 2020 his grade has gotten higher and higher. He literally gets better every year. Uh went from a 66th grade up to a 67 to a 72 in 2022 to a 76 last year. So he’s, he’s legit. He went from 50 to 36 to 12 to 6 best. And so, uh, he’s getting better, right? Um He’s somebody who’s, again, you said 66 £335. But athletic as hell because he’s been used in passing schemes from the Miami Dolphins. He’s, he’s caught a pass from uh Tu Aago Vallo. And so like you can use him to, to pull, to do whatever you need him to do against somebody. And I’m, I’m initially thinking if Austin Corbett is uh healthy, um, Robert Hunt was on the right side of the line for the Miami Dolphins, but I’m assuming the Panthers are gonna keep what they have on the right side. If Corbett is healthy, have him, Moton. Uh those two together have worked well, when they get a chance to, uh, be healthy together and they’re playing together. So I’m thinking Robert Hunt is next to Icky. And once you find the center, once you find the center, um, you put this whole thing together and maybe you have a better unit than what you had last year. Let’s keep a few things in mind. You brought it up, the interior of the offensive line was mainly where the real issue was. Another big part of the issue was Bradley Bozeman. Clearly wasn’t very good at, uh, identifying what, um, I guess protection packages they need and to identify pressures so that Icky Awu can be aware of things because we’ve seen a few times where Icky was maybe guarding, gone inside the gun outside is just a free shot to, to Bryce Young and yes, Icky should be more situationally aware than that, but also that goes on the center who’s, uh, in charge of the entire group who should be calling that out to people when they see it, it’s, uh, quarterback, it’s called play caller, quarterback, it’s all that. So, uh, so you’re, you’re getting, you have a new coach, new play caller, the only thing that’s the same is the quarterback in that case and you, we can give him a pass because he had one year. So I like this move honestly and, you know, it hurts seeing what the Carolina Panthers have lost, but honestly, I’m not walking away from today feeling like, oh, this team is in the dumps. We’ve been in the dumps. You went two and 15 last season, we’ve been in the dumps. So like to, to, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and keep failing, that’s, that is what insanity is. So, you’ve got to do things that feel like it, it hurts in the moment. So we’re not gonna have Brian Burns, it hurts. I love Brian Burns. I would love to keep him there. But in order to move forward, some people are gonna have to get cut. It’s just how it is. And you’ve got to expect this because this, this is gonna be a completely new team under a completely new regime when you go two and 15, no one’s job safe. Simple as that. Even your best players when you’re two and 15 society, nobody, but that’s Panthers playbook for this week. As simple as that. Um You know what we said it, this is a rebuild year. This honestly feels like just a complete reset. Dave Canalis, Dan Morgan, the whole group restart this sucker. That’s what was needed. Restart this sucker. You know what it stinks you on a first round pick this season. Someone else is gonna have it for you. But you know what? You gotta start somewhere. I expect this by 2026. No, honestly take a couple of years to really rebuild this da uh Dave Canalis, build the culture up, really start to establish what you wanna do. Get the right guys that you want, not someone else’s signings, not someone else’s draft picks, the guys that you want, get them in the locker room and then move forward. Can I I just want to bring this up really quick? I was listening to Sheena Sheena Quick who was a huge uh she, she had this first I believe uh saying that this was a possibility. Um, but I went into her, her room the other day and they were kind of talking, uh, today, I don’t know. I said the other day today earlier today a few hours ago, uh they were talking about this potential trade and uh a lot of the Panthers fans were saying stuff like, uh it feels like everybody good that we have, we end up trading them away. And I guess that technically is the case um, since, uh Scott Fitterer right before we had the problem um with uh Marty Hearney where he overpay for guys and we keep them maybe for too long. Um I would say the Panthers fans this be patient with Dan Morgan. He’s cleaning up a huge mess right now and you know, this, I don’t think he can be 100% graded on what he does this off-season because a lot of this off-season is just literally getting back to square one. Can we get a, a nice foundation OK. Now, we need to build on that foundation 2025 and beyond. And so he’s just making sure there’s no cracks in the fo foundation right now. There are plenty of cracks that he needs to fill in. And that may mean to also move a few pillars that we were expecting to have. So I just want to put that out there. It’s gonna look different. This is gonna be another painful year. Me and Dennis are right here for the ride with you guys. We are. That’s why you gotta subscribe right here on 99 9 fans youtube page and that’s why you gotta smash that like button and leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You’re a hated therapist. We are, we’re here for you to that and you know what vent in the comment section if you hate it, say so if you like it, if you like it, say so let us know in the comments section below. But again, make sure you say subscribe here on the fans, youtube page. That way we can always keep you updated on all the stuff that’s happening until next time. Be good to yourselves and enjoy the beautiful sunshine that we actually do have here in the State of North Carolina. And if you ever see us ask for a hug because you might need it this year. Yeah. Well, my

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