One second. Chris see one more second, one more second and a and a few calls here and there, but we’ll talk about that later. Yeah. Calls, calls aside, just needed one more second. All right, let’s get this sucker started. The state of North Carolina covers 53,000 square miles. It is the habitat of the Carolina. Get dialed in Panthers fans for an in depth. Look at your team exclusive interviews. Lock a 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, Christmas Eve edition of Panthers Playbook. And unfortunately, we cannot deliver you all a win, maybe lumps of coals for the officials on this one today. Chris final score on this one. And that’s Chris Lee. Dennis Cox here with you final score on this one. Panthers lose this 133 to 30 and this was a thrilling game. I thought early Green Bay was gonna run away with this one because the defense did not stand up. Well, I thought Green Bay was gonna run away, run away with it, but man gotta give Carolina credit for fighting back in this one and, and, and putting themselves in a position to potentially tie the game and win it in the end. Yeah, no doubt. This was, um, the best loss I went on Twitter and said this was the best loss for the Panthers this season. I wish the defense would have helped him out a little bit more. We’ll talk about the defense later, but that is the one loss that you had this season where you come away, feeling like you took a step and so many different directions and that you also competed within the loss. This was, this was the type of loss that Matt rule would have had. Now, the problem was, it felt like every loss was like this. And so at what point do you get over that hump, which is why people were out on Matt rule. Uh But for the Carolina Panthers coming into this game, uh last week, we talked about a lot. We said this is a great opportunity for them to build two consecutive weeks of good complementary football and I felt like maybe 75% of the time they did that. Yeah, th this is, this is the best two weeks that the Carolina Panthers have put on tape this entire season. And as you’re looking toward a future, as you’re assessing what you have on the roster, you’re assessing who can do what and who can step up. Um There are some good games for a lot of different people, man. Uh DJ Shark, that was the DJ shark that I expected when they signed him. And people, people have been calling me crazy for what I said in the preseason and all that. And yes, I was 100% wrong, but that’s what I expected because those are plays that I saw him make with the Lions last year and DJ Shark absolutely was snagging everything. Tommy Trimble had an amazing game and that’s the type of game that I thought we were gonna get from Hayden Hurst. I’m not gonna pile on him because of his injury and what he’s been going through this, uh, so far to end the season, but like we haven’t seen that from Hayden Hurst this year. Uh, and Bryce Young for the most part was, was kept up right. I mean, he was able to kind of get out of trouble in some ways and, and throw the ball away and get it to the right guys, dump it off or find open receiver receivers in the scramble drill. Felt like the receivers worked better with him in the scramble drill today. 100% like you, you can, you see what is possible if the pieces around Bryce Young act like they wanna win some football and that’s what the Carolina Panthers did today and hats off to them, this loss feels like a win. Uh, I, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll push back on that one because it’s still an L stopping what we’ve seen this season. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, it’s a darn good one. I was like, let’s be real, at least offensive. There’s no playoffs, there’s nothing to look forward to. You’re looking just for improvement. That’s what we said last week. And what did they do? They got, they backed it up. This feels like a win, I would say offensively, this is obviously their best output this season, but this is by, this is by and far. Bryce Young’s best game by and far Bryce Young’s best game because when you’re trailing, trailing 2310 going into halftime and obviously you’re not moving the ball super well, you’re gonna have to rely on your quarterback’s arm to get you back into this one. And in the second half, it was Bryce song, like you mentioned those scramble drills moving around to the right. There’s a lot of good stuff out there I saw from Bryce Chris. I just, I didn’t want to interrupt you, but we didn’t say his stats 23. I was gonna get there 312 yards, two touchdowns just to put it out there. Go ahead, go, go with what you were cooking up. I was, I was gonna get into that. Uh, so they knew that I was gonna throw obviously, like second play of the game, takes a sack. Uh Nash Jensen just got straight cooked on that one, he got a sack. Uh, there’s another sack in the second half, but for the most part, he was upright early on. He did miss a couple of throws. But overall, like you mentioned on the scramble drills was putting it into the right spot. The to the second touchdown that he threw to, uh, to DJ Chark scramble out to the right, put it in the right spot where Shar can get 2 ft in and make the catch. It was an absolutely great throw on the run. But here’s something that impressed me. We talk about the stats. I know you mentioned the 312 yards passing first time. He’s been over 250 let alone 300 but the yards per attempt, 8.7 1st time in his career, he’s been over eight yards per attempt and then the two wins this season, he was at seven and 7.6 in the game, the win against Houston 7.6 and the win against, uh Atlanta last week. He was at seven yards per attempt. These are the only three games he’s been over that in his career, but when they needed him to make plays late, the guy made the throws when he needed to. And this was by far Bryce Young’s best game. So people are looking that were saying, hey, we need to see something from Bryce for hope. Was this your game? Because here’s the thing I’ve, I’ve been critical of Bryce at times this season. But you know what? You got to give credit word, dude, the dude showed out today and just for the fact, like, I mean, what we’ve said before, like, you know, it’s, it’s hard to evaluate a rookie quarterback when everything around that guy is bad, right? Like, you know, it, it’s different if this is a veteran quarterback, but even with a veteran quarterback, you got to give some of them grace if your coaching staff, you know, it doesn’t work too together. If you don’t have an offensive line that blocks, if your receivers don’t get the separation, you don’t have a running game, so on and so on and so on and so forth. And we were asking a rookie quarterback to come in here and look like the savior for a team who felt like they were just one piece away when really they are multiple pieces away. And so, yeah, that was basically like, what we saw today is kind of what like I think Dennis, you and I were kind of saying to Panthers fans this this entire season, let’s give it time, right? Because one Bryce Young is still learning how to become an NFL quarterback and we saw where he was picking and choosing his spots. He didn’t miss a few, uh, throws earlier in the game. But there are also times where pressure was right there in his face and he went back to the old Bryce where he didn’t go back and really hit that hitch on his drop and, and plant his feet. His feet weren’t together and he was a, he was a little jumpy second half. He got his feet together and he was able to, like, really step into throws and have, uh, a sure arm and shout outs to the offensive line for playing better today. Still, there’s a lot of work to do. There are a lot of work to do but, uh, it was, it was better. Um, and, and so Bryce with receivers when they catch the ball because remember that’s also been a problem this year when receivers are dropping balls that are coming right to them, receivers caught the balls that came to them. Uh, receivers got open and shout outs to Thomas Brown for getting them into good play calls to where, uh, Bryce Young could throw the ball further down the field, uh, today and for two people stepping up and Tommy Tribble and, and, and DJ shark, no quarterback is doing it on their own. They need people to step up and those two stepped up today, something that impressed me a lot about the Panthers offense this season. I know I talked about, uh, on our, on our Wednesday or sorry Thursday episode about red zones and the, and the red zone percentages. So, for example, coming into the game, the Green Bay Packers defensively were ninth in the NFL in red zone touchdown percentage. So they only are given up when a team enters the red zone. 51% of the time the opponent scores a touchdown. That’s ninth best in the NFL. Carolina was 29th in the NFL and red zone offensive touchdown percentage. They were at 45%. So they were near the bottom of the NFL in terms of red zones and getting inside the touch, uh, getting touchdowns inside the red zone. Carolina was three for three today. Three for three in red zone today. That to me was one of the more impressive things because we wanted to see them offensively. All right, last week you put up nine points, terrible rainstorm, all that kind of stuff. But we wanted to see this offense progress and make those plays inside the red zone. They did that today, at least on the offensive side of our defense. Three of four was green bay and red zone, uh, red zone opportunities today in terms of getting a touchdown, that’s 75% which is actually where the Panthers have been all season long. It’s actually one of the worst in the NFL. We’ll get the defense in a sec. But those are the, some of the things that I wanted to see from, from the offense. It’s more about how did you follow up a win and offensively they backed it up. Now, now the question is going forward. All right, you had the big game, Bryce, you had the big offensive output in this one. Yes, and a loss. How do you follow it up next week? Because any team and any person is capable of having a great moment or a great game, you have to back it up again next week. And I, I know that some of this happened on that final drive, but shout outs to them on this right where the Panthers once again had the overall better offensive output. If you just look at the team stats, they had a higher, um, you know, possession of the ball 31 minutes, uh, and 21 seconds to 2839. Um, they had more first downs 26 to 25. Um, they had more passing first downs 14 to 12, right? Uh, 394 yards to 369. Um, you know, the, the running attack wasn’t as good today, uh, but shout outs to Amir Mars, uh, Amir Smith Marcet, excuse me, um, for, uh, his touchdown and also helping out when it comes down to that part of the ball. Uh, that part of the game, I should say. Um, this is the closest thing to a complete game that I felt like the Panthers played in a loss this season. Um, and, and so, um, I, I’m just really just happy, uh, just for the output and let, let’s, let’s read the stats of the receivers too. Because we gave them the shout outs earlier so we can at least let him know what, what, what happened six catches for, uh, 98 yards for DJ Shark and two touchdowns and Tommy Trimble four catches for 59 yards. Adam Thiele six catches 94 yards. Like that’s, and, and even Stephen Sullivan, he had AAA decent game with three catches for 21 yards outside of that. Everybody else was pretty much quiet when it came down to receiving a lot of, a lot of ones out there. But, uh, those, the guys absolutely stepped up and this is 100% something to build on for the. It’s funny because the defense, if we said this multiple times this season, if there was decent offensive output, maybe looking at a few more wins. But it’s ironic this game, the offense did their job and it was the defense really that let things down. They gave up 30 plus and honestly, tons of missed tackles. You pointed it out multiple times during the game, whether it was, you know, on, on X or you texting me missed tackles galore. And this is the first time all season I saw Steve Reed from the associated press, uh, mention this first time all season that the Green Bay Packers have had either receiver or running back, have 100 plus yards in the game first time all season. And of course, it was against the Panthers defense was actually the one that let them down today. A absolutely. And I think, um, going back to the, I have to look this up really quick. This was their highest scoring game. Yeah, since week one, the Bears. So it’s, it’s like, you know, it, it’s, it’s frustrating, um, because, you know, with, with Bryce and the offense clicking so much, uh, today you, you just would have hoped that just two of those drives at the defense, uh, would have been able to just stop early and a lot of it just happened to be tackles. Now, a lot of fans are gonna bring up officiating and one thing that kind of kept the chain moving for, um, um, the Packers which came to, ended up being a touchdown for the Packers is, uh, the roughing, uh, on, um, he to gross Matos and, and, and that was, that was one of the worst roughing calls I’ve seen all season then, you know, that keeps the chains moving touchdown for, for the Packers. Um, I, I don’t want to heap too much on, on, you know, the, uh, the referees because ultimately the, the players still have to play the game and, and make stops and, and tackles and things like that. And, and then also I wanna know what you think was that a catch at the end? Oh, yeah, you’re talking about the, the Dobbs catch down the left sideline. They called it, they called it a catch and I was looking back through it. I was like, it’s so borderline because I’m like, all right, what do you consider the process of the catch? What do you consider going down to the ground? Because when he caught the ball, he was on his back sliding. I was like, ok, well, he was in bounds, then he was on his back. Then it’s when he rolls over. I’m like, I don’t know, it’s so borderline. I was like, if it’s borderline in terms of replay and you call it a catch on the field, then you gotta call it a catch, you gotta stand with the call. I thought that was the right decision in, in that regard. I’m like there was nothing that like really could in terms of video that really could overturn it. I don’t know, it was 5050. It’s gray area. The part for me and I agree with that. Uh, because like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a hard to overturn that the part for me was the, the, the official that sit sitting right there and looking at it and sees the ball come loose. How do you then say, oh, he completed the, the, the, the, uh the process of the catch on the field when you’re, when you’re looking and seeing it going loose live because he had the same view the Panthers bench saw had and that’s why they went crazy right there because they saw the same thing because it wasn’t like, it wasn’t like he for sure got it at, at, at the, at the high point came down and then all of a sudden the ball, you know, just went loose after, you know, he completed the catch. This was kind of a, a juggling thing and then you saw it go loose, um, at the end. So that’s the part for me where it’s like, you know, I don’t know if I’m an official and they have a hard job. I’m not ragging on the officials too much. But if I’m an official, I don’t know if I saw enough live to call that a catch. So then if you do go back sa same point that you just made, if you do go back, go back and look at it. Is there enough to overturn it? I don’t think so, you know, I don’t think there’s enough either way, uh depending on what’s called on, on, on the uh field. And then also there, there’s a shout outs to hold on. Let me get the name Fernando Aguilar and he sent me AAA Tweet Green Bay third and four at uh the Panthers 31 yard line and it’s um 30 to 3239 left in the game. And in this Tweet, the play clock is at double zero and the ball is not snapped. The center is actually still looking back at Jordan Love and I assume it was snapped immediately right after that, but we didn’t get a delay of game penalty on them. Um, we talked about the y tour gross Matos. Uh, call, that was bad. So there, there was a couple of times there where I was just kind of like, man, like, I know it’s just the Panthers. I know they have no, no chance. I know the Packers are gonna give you ratings when you get to the, to the postseason. I know that, but you, now you’re going for conspiracy theory. Go on, bring it on, bring it on, bring it on. I mean, I, I sound just like Cannes fans and ESPN. Well, that’s different. That’s different, sir. Go on. But I mean, it’s real though, like it’s, you know, it’s, and, and then, uh, also picking up the flag for, uh, the, the first roughing the passer that should have been called against Bryce Young. Like, you know, it’s, it’s stuff like that where it’s just like, come on, man, like at least at least call the call it the same way on the other side. Yeah, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna call it one way for the Packers, right? Even if we disagree with the, with the, with the call, call it the same way for the Panthers. That’s what makes people think that weird things are going on with the officials. Yeah. II, I totally get it. Um, this is where the coaching me comes out you know, like, yeah, you could talk about the officiating and stuff. I’m like, well, you still missed a bunch of tackles. Like you still, yeah, exactly. Like you still missed a bunch of tackles. Yeah, you still gotta do all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that’s where the coaching me comes out. But, yeah, what if, what if, what if, um, but unfortunately it’s a 33 to 30 loss in this one. maybe Cam Newton can fix the officiating. Maybe Cam Newton will do if, if, if, if, if David Tepper hires him as team president, which Cam Newton is just basically throwing it out there. He’s like, hey, hire me as an executive, just give me an incentive lading contract basically, like no salary just, you know, if we hit these benchmarks, you could pay me based off these things, then, you know, things will turn around for the Panthers. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know exactly what his role will be, but is he, is he gonna pick personnel? Is he gonna talk about fan experience? There’s a whole lot of different stuff, but hey, Cam Newton’s throwing his name into the hat and Cam Newton loves hats. So here’s, he does love hats. Here’s what I took from, uh, Cam Newton’s comments that he had, uh earlier this week on his podcast and he’s also brought up some stuff last week and all that. So the last couple of weeks, cam Newton has kind of been, you know, talking about the Panthers. Um I took from it that he understands what’s going on. He has a relationship, a prior relationship with David Tepper. He understands firsthand what the Panthers are doing wrong. He’s called out Matt rule on things. He said I had to coach to coach. He said that about Matt Rue. He talked about David Gettleman and how David Gettleman got in the way of the Panthers winning when they were riding high, how David Gettleman and his ego got in the way of all of that, right? And then to have that like insight and, and to know what’s going on, I don’t think this is about necessarily personnel even though I do think that Cam Newton has an eye for personnel. Remember he runs this seven on seven league and he’s had or, or team, excuse me, and he’s had folks like George Pickens, you know, as a part of his team and others there, he has guys that he’s coached on the youth level who are now in the NFL. So I’m sure he knows how to look at talent, but we’re not going to use him as, as the GM, right? Talent evaluator. Just a, this is just a president role. I think David Tepper needs somebody like Cam Newton who is the li liaison between uh David Tepper and what the team is doing. So when the, when the GM meets and say, hey, we need this blah, blah, blah, blah that, that should go through Cam Newton to David Tapper. So that way David Tepper doesn’t start meddling. Right. Preferably this, this general manager is not Scott Federer. So there’s somebody who can just run the team. They don’t have to worry about it. They can get input from the best quarterback in the franchise and by the way, he can pull Bryce Young aside a few times during the week and give him some pointers and some tips. I, I think it, it, it seems like it works to me. I Kev was basically saying it was like, I’m gonna be the guy that’s gonna hold Tepper accountable. Yes, that’s, he said I’m gonna be Tepper’s accountability person. That’s exactly what essentially what he’s saying. Like, you know what? That’s fine, like, hey, you know what you need to stay out of this, like you need to stay out of like this kind of stuff over here. Like you should be involved in this, you need to stay out of this kind of stuff over here. You need to let this person do that job or whatever it might be. If, if that’s what Tepper needs like this, like the, the voice in here saying, no, don’t do that. That’s what he needs and you know what? That’s fine. I, I, I’m ok with that. If that’s simply his role, fine, make that happen whenever it’s best for the franchise moving forward. I’ll take it, Chris. Uh, can we give a shout out to the fans even though it was mostly, uh Green Bay fans there that 70,000 tickets distributed look really like 70,000 today. Oh, yeah. People used their seats, their tickets today. Well, it’s a nice day. I mean, here’s the thing last week, it was, last week, it was pouring rain, it was gross, it was cold outside. You know what? I don’t blame people for not wanting to show up. But you know what, beautiful day, like you said, a lot of Green Bay fans, I bet a lot of people got tickets as a Christmas gift. Hey, early Christmas gift, let’s go to a football game and it was gorgeous outside. I mean, granted, I’m sitting in Emerald Isle and it’s 65 degrees at the time. We’re recording this right now and it’s gorgeous out here. I know your background for sure. And thank you, I appreciate that. Um So yeah, that’s just kinda, that’s just kind of where things are. So I I totally get it at the end of the game, at the end of that game. It really felt like an old Panthers game from like the 2000 tens. Like because there were fans in the seats, it was loud in there and Panthers fans were loud and there’s an energy you felt like there was energy, there was momentum and it felt, it didn’t feel like this dead place that we, we’ve seen before. So, uh, shout outs to the fans even though, you know, there were a lot of Green Bay fans there. Uh, it did feel like the Panthers fans who were there, came there to show up. So I look everything all around besides the defense and their tackling and in officiating everything all around gets, uh, gets at least A B for me. Like everybody got a B and, and I haven’t been able to say that all season. That’s, those are high grades. Those are high grades. Yeah, let’s put those ones on the refrigerator for sure. All right. Uh, Merry Christmas, everyone. Thanks so much for, for checking this out. I know a lot of people got a lot of holiday stuff going on. So thank you all, Merry Christmas to you. We’ll have another episode for you all on Thursday because that’s what we do. We still bring it for you people. We’re still gonna bring it for you. Uh, but nonetheless, uh, 3330 leave your thoughts in the comments section below and if you haven’t already subscribed, please, I really do appreciate it. Enjoy Dennis. I will. Merry Christmas to you, Chris. Thank you, Merry Christmas to you. Happy holidays to you. Happy Kwanzaa. All of that good stuff. We’ll see you all on Thursday.

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