I will never be that way to you. Panthers have that new edition, Chris. Panthers have that new edition. I wanna rock with you too. Cool it now. Cool it now. Hey, it’s my prerogative, OK? Alright? 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 Panthers Playbook. That’s Chris Lee, Dennis Cox here with you. Go and leave your thoughts in the comment section. Day one of free agency, the legal tampering period of free agency, where you can negotiate, can’t officially put pen to paper, but nonetheless, people are agreeing to deals. And Chris, we’ve seen the theme today, defense, defense, defense. It all started with JC Horn resigning or. Signing an extension, we should say record contract extension 4 years, $100 million. We’ve seen 3 defensive linemen get signed safety. Mike Jack, Mike Jackson’s coming back as well. It’s been a theme today, defense, defense, defense, and I’m OK with that. Here’s my thing, Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown on the same defense, that is defensive music right there. I mean. It’s gonna look so good. Let’s, let’s go one player at a time though. Um, but, OK, before I do that, I just want to say overall, I like the moves. I’m with what they’re doing. There’s clearly a plan. You see kind of the way that they operated last year, there’s clearly a plan. You wanted to get that offensive line better this year, you could tell they’re focusing on the defense and the defensive line specifically for that. Absolutely love it. That would not keep me from still going first two rounds defensive line because, you know, I, I think that For the more for the bigger guys, like we, some people I saw was like, hey, we should go get um Man, I’m having a blank right now. What’s my man in front the Browns that decided to stay with the Browns? Oh, Miles Garrett, Miles Garrett, people should, we should go get Miles Garrett. Miles Garrett is gonna really cost you, and it really costed um the Browns. Or maybe we should trade for, uh, oh my God, I’m forgetting everybody’s names right now from the Cowboys, um, #11. Micah Parsons, Micah Parsons. I’ve seen people say that. I don’t know why I’m forgetting everybody’s name, but I do have basketball in the brain right now, and that’s probably why. Um. And so I, I think that people are thinking in the right direction, right? We, we need that splash guy, but I would rather, like I said last week, get it from the draft, uh, just mainly because you want to get that guy that you can grow with. You can kind of get him cheap for right now, and maybe he can be a big time splash, and then we can make decisions later on who we need to pay. Right now, the Carolina Panthers need to get cap under control, especially for a team that’s not as not very good right now. Uh, you should not have that those cap problems. Uh, but do you want to go one by one with the players that they signed? Sure, we can do that. And like you said, I think the, the position need is that premier edge rusher because you’re not gonna find it in free agency. You’re not like the big names like a Josh Sweat signed with the Arizona Cardinals. You try to go after Milton Williams, the big defensive tackle from the Philadelphia Eagles, former teammate of Josh Sweat. You thought you almost had to deal with them. Patriots come swooping in. Here’s $104 million over four years. And when you have, when you have the option to go to the Patriots or the Panthers, what are you gonna pick? And I’m a Panthers fan. I mean, but I also think as well, I think the Panthers just got simply outbid. I think that’s really what it came down to, when it just came down to it’s $26 million a year for an interior defensive lineman, but that doesn’t mean that held them back today from still addressing the defensive front, signing two defensive linemen along with an edge rusher, Patrick Jones from, from the Minnesota Vikings on a two-year deal. But let’s, you mentioned Bobby Brown, right? The new addition, what did this defense really need? Obviously, Derrick Brown’s coming back, but they need someone that can. Really stop the run as a nose tackle. That’s what Bobby Brown is. He’s a run stuffing 3-4 nose tackle, 64, 328, clogs the middle of the field. That’s what he’s brought in to do on rundowns to let everyone else take care of business. It’s gonna be very Brown in the middle of that Panthers defensive line, right? Derek Brown, Bobby Brown, uh, it’s gonna be just, just Brown. They’re gonna put people down in the ground with the Brown, um. I’m down with the brown. Um, that’s gonna be pretty cool. I hope somebody brings those signs out, uh, at Bank of America Stadium, all 42,000 of us show up, but, um, Uh, I absolutely love that signing. Um, it’s, uh, you know, of course you need some help in the middle, uh, then, you know, Bobby Brown’s gonna be there, Tresha Wharton, he’s also a defensive, uh, tackle uh with uh the Chiefs. So, um, we talked about this one word before, depth, right? Um, we also found out the Panthers are gonna bring back LeBrian Ray, he was one of the the cool pieces uh that are young and all that type of stuff, right? But you don’t need to. I don’t want you to depend on LeBrian Ray as your next backup to to Derek Brown, right? You know, if, if he develops into that, if he develops into somebody who can start next to him, that’s fine, but We’ve seen last year what will happen on that offensive line, like if you put some competition in some of these position groups, you’re gonna bring out the best in some of these folks and you you can end up having a deep group. Right now, Panther’s offensive line is kind of deep, you know, it’s pretty deep, um, and so now we’re doing that for the defensive line, and I assume we’re gonna keep Um, Ahaan Robinson as well, to be in that mix, and again, I would still draft somebody else, but Bobby Brown and Tashaun Wharton, uh, being there, uh, is big for me, and the two things that stick out with that is, they both come from winning cultures. It’s not just that you’re picking up guys who are um good at their position. They’re coming from teams where they’re used to winning. They know what it’s like to win big games in the big moments, and how to bring your best, how to be. How to handle the pressure of when you do start winning, now how do you carry yourself, knowing knowing that you’re gonna get everybody’s best shot, especially to Shaun Wharton coming from uh the Chiefs playing in the Super Bowl the last 3 years. So, um, I’m excited to see what they, excuse me, bring on that defense. Defensive line and how they help out guys like Derrick Brown because Derek Brown hasn’t had the pleasure of playing meaningful games in the postseason or meaningful games at the end of the year that could possibly get you into the playoffs. He hasn’t had that opportunity really. Um, so, uh, I’m glad that he’s gonna, uh, be surrounded by some of those guys that can, that can bring even his play level up. So they’re beefing up the interior of the line with those two signs, Bobby Brown, and, uh, Trishaw Wharton, like you said, Patrick Jones the 2nd, who had 7 sacks this past year for the Minnesota Vikings, 2 years, $20 million contract. Again, I think a situational edge rusher. I think there’s still a need of a premium edge rusher to go with it. But again, A depth piece because once you get past Jadeveon Clowney and DJ Waanum, there ain’t a whole lot there. We saw it last year when when Wanham was out for a big chunk of the year. There was a revolving door of DJ Johnson and Echo Liotta and a bunch of other guys just, just a bunch of other guys. They’d actually need someone like, all right. A situational edge rusher that we can rely to play 25 snaps or whatever it might be a game depending on what it is. Now, again, that’s a good complimentary piece to still get that premium guys and edge rusher, which I think they should probably do at the number 8 in the draft. But again, they’re fortifying the interior of that defensive line, which I think is a great thing. I think another signing that, um, people might not. Get sexy one. Go for it. I just want to say something really quick, and you brought it up with um Patrick Jones, just in general, you mentioned the revolving door uh for rushing to passer, a lot of that was just like one guys weren’t very good, but two injuries. The last the last two seasons, the Panthers defense has been riddled with injuries. So now that you have a guy like this who is clearly going to be like a backup, right? Coming in in certain situations, you don’t have to go reach out and get Marquis Haynes again from uh retirement and bring him back in, or, you know, uh, you know, rely on Thomas Eco or whatever down the stretch, you know what I’m saying? And nothing against those guys, but now you’re beefing up the defense with, with better players. So when injuries do happen, because they will happen, you have Legit guys that you can count on. Sorry, I’ll let you go ahead and cook. No, it’s totally fine because also one thing that Ijo Ero wants to do with this defensive front, he rotates guys constantly, constantly in rotation. You have to be able to rely on that second unit to still be able to, for lack of a better term, at least keep the team afloat, you know, at worst, keep the team afloat, but still be effective in some way. I actually really like the the safety signing Trevan. Mooring, I know that was a guy that was kind of targeted by the Carolina Panthers going into free agency. A lot of people had him linked, um, Travon Moring, the safety coming over from the Las Vegas Raiders. And I, one of the reasons why I like the signing is because, I mean, outside of they struggling on everything on defense, but we mentioned in last week’s episode, Chris, the Panthers rushed defense gave up 3,0057 yards rushing. You know who actually ranked in the top 5 among safeties in the NFL and run stops with 22, ranked 5th, corner pro from Marcus, Travon Boring. His, his run defense grade 87.5, 6 amongst all safeties in the entire NFL last year. If you can get guys the beef that we mentioned up front that can Plug gaps and then you have your safeties that can fly up to the line of scrimmage and make tackles. That’s something that you can help in the run game as well. I like the signing that they brought, uh, with bringing him in as well. There’s still probably a need for another safety to go alongside him. We’ll see how the rest of this first day goes and even if it’s tomorrow, but I like the signing a lot. Hey, I mean, Javon Holland, man, I ain’t gonna hate it. I don’t know, I don’t know how the money situation’s gonna look like with all the guys that they brought in, like, what can they afford, but as of right now. The defensive signings, again, there are good, really good signings. They still need a couple premium players to go with them. That’s the thing. They still need a couple of premium players. Uh hopefully they can get that premium guy with that 8th overall pick on the defense. I was gonna also add in, um, you know, 22 run stops, 5th in the NFL, and, and, um, our guy, uh, man, I’m forgetting everybody’s name today. What’s everybody? What’s what’s that guy John, um, who, uh, is from. South Carolina does the Panthers show and he tweets out all of John Ellis, he tweets out all of the film. He put out some film of uh Tashaw, uh, I’m sorry, Trevon Mori, there’s a lot of new names we got to get used to. Um, and, um, you know, the film looks good, man, and the thing I like about this too, all these guys are somewhat still pretty young, but they’re veterans in NFL terms, but they’ve been in the NFL for 3. 4 or 5 years at this point. And so you’re getting them where right now they are in their NFL prime. They’ve they’ve moved, they’ve gotten past what the average lifespan of an NFL player is. So now you know that they’re solid players, and if they can continue to stay healthy, all these guys probably have at least 4 to 5 more years in them. So these are guys you can, you know, start building around. And if you start looking at the pieces outside of JC Horn, outside of um um Josie Jewel, outside of Mike Jackson, um, really there’s gonna be a lot of wholesale changes for the defense, and of course, you know, Derek Brown is almost gonna be like having a new player because he only played one game anyway. Um, last year, and so this could be a completely new looking defense next next year, and I don’t hate it because I don’t hate it. If you’re gonna be that bad, like, literally, think about this. If they, if even if those guys aren’t like the big splashy guys and whatever they do in a draft and, you know, we still have more free agency to come up, let’s say the Panthers defense ends up getting up to 20th. That’s still 12 spots better. Yeah. As far as like yards giving up. That’s still 12 spots better. That’s a massive improvement right there just by itself. And so, uh, I, I think that these guys can help do that for the Carolina Panthers. I mean, if you think about this, if they last year they gave up 31, just over 31 points a game as a team last year, the Panthers did. If you improve by a touchdown, that’s still 24 points allowed. That still puts you around like 22nd or so in the league, somewhere in that range, 2021, 22. That’s still a massive improvement. If you could take a touchdown off the board, a game, that like that’s the goal. Take a touchdown off the board. Hopefully your offense improves based off and build off what they did last year, especially with the continuity that they have. Cause you gotta think, yes, switch, let’s switch focus back down to, to the offensive side of things for the Panthers. They bring back Tommy Trimble. They’re bringing back Austin Kubrick. They’re bringing back Cade Mays. Love it. So your entire starting offensive line is back, including the depth pieces that you have behind those guys. Still waiting to see what Brady Christensen. My assumption is that he’s gonna sign elsewhere. Um, unless I missed that he did sign somewhere else, I may have missed that, and I apologies if I did. But you have, we have a supercomputer in our pocket, so like I can look it up right now. That’s fine. So if you look that up, I’ll keep talking. So you bring back your offensive line, you have your top 3 receivers are coming back. Your top two tight ends are coming back. Your #1 running back is coming back. That’s a lot of continuity. Now, there’s still a need for a #1 wide receiver. The wide receiver market is super thin. DK Metcalf gets traded. I know Cooper Cup, there’s the reports that if a trade doesn’t happen by the new league year, that he’s gonna become a free agent, that the Rams are just gonna simply release him and let him go. I don’t know if that’s your answer for a number one wide receiver. I think that’s more a short-term thing than an actual long-term thing. But nonetheless, the wide receiver market is super thin right now, but I do love the fact that there’s a lot of continuity for the offense coming back for us. I love the fact talking about a number one wide receiver that the Carolina Panthers aren’t reaching the guys, right? Like there’s a lot of folks that I saw who wants DK Metcalf. I would have taken DK Metcalf, right? It would have been a great addition, um, and, and a great reunion with Dave Canalis for him, and, you know, I, I think it would have worked for the Carolina Panthers for sure. However, I wouldn’t have paid what the Pittsburgh Steelers, your team would have paid for them and what they what they gave up for him as well. That was that was kind of steep and $30 million a year. I’m asking price. I’m old enough to remember when the Jacksonville Jaguars overpaid for Christian Kirk, where did they get them? You know he just got released. Well, he’s he’s with, who did he go to today? He went to somebody. I, um, but so many moves, it’s been so many. Um, but it’s, it’s one of those things like I’m so glad that they’re not, they’re not reaching, and I think that, uh, the number one receiver thing is not something that you need to reach for this year. I may be in the minority. Yes, the Carolina Panthers need a number one receiver. I don’t think that they absolutely have to get one this year. I might be in the minority on that one, right? Because there’s other, we have other things that we need a lot more than paying for a number one receiver. Of course, maybe that’s where, maybe they do take somebody like Ted McMillan or somebody else uh with the #8 overall pick. We’ll see what happens. I still think you should use that for an edge rusher because you need that a lot more, but you can get by with the same offense that you had this year with a couple of tweaks and upgrades and have that continuity and go out there and still have a lot better year than what you did last year, right? And really improve your defense, and all of a sudden, maybe we’re looking at a 9 and 8 or 8 and 9 year. That may not sound amazing to other people. That sounds amazing to me for a team that really hasn’t won a lot since 2018. And, and so, and so now you are, you are kind of changing the tide and um changing the way it looks. So now you don’t have to overpay for somebody like DK Metcalf, like the Steelers did, and they lose their their left tackle at the same time. Yeah, because again, you already had a bad line and now you’re gonna have another great receiver, but are you gonna have time to throw it to that receiver? I’m sorry, get everything else together first before we get that. There are two ways to close the the scoring gap. Obviously, you can score more, but you can also give up less. Panthers gave up the most of any team in the NFL last year scoring wise, defensively. Close the gap by improving your defense. Hopefully your offense continues to take steps, because again, there’s a lot of young pieces. You hope Xavier Leguet is. Healthy and improves. Jalen Coker, Young, 2nd year as well improves. Jatian Sanders, same thing. Continu with the offensive line. Bryce Young with the same offensive coordinator and head coach. Hopefully, again, that elevates building off what they did the last few games of the year. If a number one, even though you have a need for a number one receiver, if it’s just, if the, if there’s no person that fits that for you, again, don’t reach for it. Don’t reach for it. Don’t reach for it. It’s also gonna be difficult even if you do draft the wide receiver at #8. They come in and be our number one guy from day one. That’s a tough, tough ask for a rookie to do. And I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Like, I, I’m not as big into, you know, grading people in the draft and all that as other folks. That’s why we had Jordan Reid on, but, um, Last I checked, there’s not a lot of Justin Jefferson’s or Dremar chases in this draft, right? So there’s not the league neighbors, even last year, even if we do grab somebody with the #8 overall pick, which I’m highly against, by the way, if we’re talking about wide receivers, um. Like what you just said, I don’t expect them to come in and immediately have an impact. You just, you really never know, and sometimes it may take some guys some time to adjust to the NFL, Xavierly get. And also we found out he was dealing with an injury too this year, actually multiple injuries. We knew about the wrist, we didn’t know about the foot, so now we know about all of that, and we’re wondering how he’s gonna be able to step up for year 2, how Jalen Coker is gonna be able to step up for year 2. Um, you know, we could see massive improvement from those guys. We could see massive improvement from Tommy Trimble. I feel like, um, if he didn’t knock himself out in that one game, he probably has his best pass catching year in NFL this year. Because he was looking really good at one point, making some splash plays. So you just, you just never know what we already have, and I think that what we already have has a possibility of taking us a little bit further, and we don’t need to reach uh for that number one receiver when there are some bigger, bigger holes to fill elsewhere. So, you know, we’ll see what happens with the #8 overall pick. I hope it’s not on offense. We’ll see what happens. There’s a lot of time between now and then. We got, I think we’re about 7 weeks now, actually under 7 weeks now until the NFL draft, but we’ll see what day 2 lies ahead. Chris, you and I are gonna have another episode coming out tomorrow after day 2. Are we? Yeah, I think so, right? Did we talk about this? I think we did. I think we did. There’s a lot happening right now because March Madness is, is really on my mind and, uh, I’ve barely had a day off. I’ve been covering all kinds of basketball and driving back and forth to Greensboro a lot. And I got to go to Charlotte this week for the ACC tournament, so sorry, sorry for uh forgetting some names. I’ve had to say a lot of basketball names for a lot of teams lately. I’ll get in my football mode and we’ll be back for day two. Hey, maybe we should go to Bank of America and do do some content there since we’re gonna be in Charlotte this week. It’s possible you’re spending the night down there? Yeah. OK, um, I guess we hadn’t talked about our deal. We, we’ll talk about our plans. We’ll talk about our plans. Everyone else is in on our plans. I hope you plan on subscribing and leaving comments down below. We’ll see you guys in the next episode. Make sure you are subscribed that way you don’t miss any of the content. Don’t be cruel.

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