All right, Chris, there’s only what, four weeks left that we only have four weeks left of this week. We both moved on. We are both for those who are watching our youtube. We are both rocking our Carolina Hurricane stuff right now, but they have their own struggles. But you know what? They can, at least they can win. Let’s get this sucker started. The state of North Carolina covers 53,000 square miles. It is the habitat of the 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. That’s Chris Lee. Dennis Cocker with you. Boomer. Sen is going to join us the show on Fox that he has, has watched game time with Boomer is. And so for those who might be in the Raleigh area, uh, Fox 50 where you can watch that, check that out, we’re gonna talk a lot about Bryce Young and that’s been the conversation, obviously pretty much all season. Chris, it’s been about Bryce Young. It’s been about his development, his growth and it’s frustrating right beyond frustrating for Panthers fans, Chris, that Bryce Young ha, we haven’t seen the growth that we hoped and expected from the number one overall pick. Yeah. And, but, you know, a lot of that too, you know, people call us Bryce apologists and things like that. But, um, like from our perspective, right, we’re both media members. You work in radio, I work in television and uh you know, we, we work for the same company that happens to own both. But we also know that we’re just as good or just as bad as the people who manages. Right? I wouldn’t be in positions that I’m in right now if Rick Gall and, and Joel Davis weren’t so good at what they’re doing. And then you have Paul Heder and, and Brian Ruby on your side who are good at what they’re doing. And, you know, if the, these were like, if all these men just were inept or incapable of running these organizations, we’d probably look very, very bad on what we’re doing. Like, our stations wouldn’t be so highly rated, they wouldn’t be number one uh in, in certain time slots or in the market, uh as a whole. And a lot of it has to do with leadership and uh a lot of it really does go back to who’s at the top and at the very top of this thing is David Tepper. Um And and the people that he’s decided, uh, to hire or to not keep around. Uh, and it’s the reason why the Carolina Panthers look the way they do. I mean, we, we’re wearing Carolina Hurricane stuff right now and it’s amazing that Tom Dundon bought the team, the Carolina Hurricanes the same time that David Tepper, the exact same year, same calendar year, 2018, the same time David Tepper bought the Carolina and one is on its sixth straight losing season. The Carolina Panthers are, whereas the Carolina Hurricanes in the last five years because their season is still going on right now. The last five seasons, the only team in the NHL to have won in the postseason in each of the last five years. Now, they haven’t won a Stanley Cup, but they’ve got to the Eastern conference finals twice. The only franchise that has won a playoff series in the NHL in each of the last five seasons. It’s amazing how leadership at the top and when you have that core group of guys and hopefully that core guy that this franchise, the Carolina Panthers builds around is Bryce Young. This is where we turn into a guy who played the position for a long time. Boomer Asai and he joins us right here next on Panthers Playbook, joining us now on the Panthers Playbook podcast. Uh, of course, uh, friend of the show has been on here before Mr Boomer Sin and, uh, there’s been a lot that’s happened with the Carolina Panthers since the last time we had a chance to spo speak. We were just kind of then talking about middle of the season issues with the team. And since then, uh, your good friend, uh, and buddy from, uh Maryland, uh Frank Reich has been fired and then of course, more struggles for, for Bryce Young, but let’s go back to, uh Frank Reich really quick. Um what are your, your assessments of kind of the job he was able to do? Did he get enough time with this team? And, and what are your, your thoughts about his firing? Well, you know, Chris and Don, I do not have any inside information in regards to whatever happened there at the disconnect with the owner, the general manager. I’m not really sure. I know that in talking to Frank, he was, uh, really disappointed. He really likes Bryce Young, he likes the team. Uh, he liked the, he loves the area, of course, because he spent at least 12 or 15 years down there. So I know all of this stuff hurts and it’s not easy, especially when a friend of yours goes through it. You know, we just arbitrarily talk about head coaches, their job status and whether or not this guy’s gonna get fired, that guy’s gonna get fired and when it does happen in the middle of the season, whether it be Josh mcdaniels or Frank Reich, uh, these things you got to remember that they, they do have families and that they, they have to deal with that part of their life as well. Um I would just say this, that, you know, it was a rebuilding job from the start. It will be a still a rebuilding job whoever takes over uh next year and uh depending on what they decide to do in the draft and free agency, uh you have an owner that seems on the outside to be un patient and wants to build a winner as, as quickly as possible. But in this league, when you draft quarterbacks high in the draft, you just never know how it’s gonna go. And, you know, here we are with four games left in the season and CJ Stroud coming off of his worst game against the Jets and he ends up with a concussion and we don’t know whether or not he’s gonna play this week. And of course, Bryce is still struggling to be able to read defenses. These are all the natural progressions of these young quarterbacks and how owners view all of that from their seat. Uh You know, I can’t really answer that, but I just know that being impatient uh at a time when you’re really looking for true stability is not a way to have success in this league. So hopefully, Mr Tepper will figure out what he really wants and will stick by whoever he does hire and give them a chance, at least to build something from essentially what looks to be, you know, a very bare c is the job attractive for a potential candidate. Is that if I’m Ben Johnson, do I? And I have options? I choose in Carolina. I mean, if you’re Bill Belichick, you’re not going there. Uh, I mean, but if you’re a guy like Ben Johnson or anybody who’s never been a head coach before, uh, you’re gonna get a very good pay. Uh, you’re gonna be able to work with a young quarterback. That’s, that’s a positive regardless of how that young quarterback looks right now. We all know that inside Bryce Young, he’s a winner. I believe he’s a winner. I just believe physically he’s overmatched right now. He needs to mature and he needs to grow up a little bit. And then once that finally kicks in, maybe he’ll have the same career path as a Tua toga val oa because Tua struggled early on in his career. And everybody was wondering whether or not Miami took the wrong guy by, by bypassing Justin Herbert at that moment. So now all of a sudden, Tu is in the MVP conversation so you never know how these things are gonna play out. But I would say that, you know, like I said, it’s one of 32. It’s a well paying job and somebody, uh, will take that job gladly, uh, to see if they can get that thing turned around because all coaches think that they have the elixir to make it work and, and that can fix it. They’re very proud of themselves and they are very prideful in what they do. But unfortunately, in some cases, it just does not work. And, and obviously that was the case with Frank when you look at a lot of the, the film on the Carolina Panthers and you look at the all 22 it’s, you, you can kind of see a lot of different things where maybe receivers aren’t getting open, maybe they’re slower on routes than what some others would, would be. Uh And then also maybe there’s times like uh the Tommy Trumbull this past week, he kind of slows up on, on a pass because I guess he maybe didn’t assume it was going to come his way and it looks like an overthrow for, for Bryce Young and from a quarterback’s perspective when you’re not sure where a receiver is gonna be when they’re maybe not as reliable, getting open or, you know, running the route the right way or things like that and you have what looks to be overthrows or under throws, does that impact your placement? Because there are people who are wondering where is that uh accurate guy from Alabama in some ways. But when uh you’re, you’re dealing with uh things like that. I was just wondering from, from that type of perspective. Does that impact uh where you can place the ball when you’re not sure and not on the same page as those, uh, as those wide receivers or I would say the word that you’re looking for is indecisive. Everybody’s indecisive. Uh, and they’re indecisive because the quarterback is learning, the quarterback is going through the growth spurts and then, and the, the learning curves that you can’t even appreciate how difficult they are until you’re walking in a man’s shoes. And I’ll, I’ll say later on in my career, I was traded to the New York Jets in 1993. I still, I was 32 years old. I knew the offense that I was stepping into at the New York Jets. Even there. It took me with new players around me, new coaches calling the plays and putting the, the game plan together. It took me a good 34 months of summer work and then at least a good month within the season before I really started getting comfortable with everybody. And that was at the age of 32. You know, Bryce is a young man and he has no idea or they don’t have any idea these young players are coming into the league. I have no idea what they’re stepping into what I would have loved. And this is me, I guess Monday morning quarterbacking if you will, what I would have loved to have seen down there now that we’ve seen this body work thus far and how hard it’s been for Bryce. I would have liked to see him sit for 6 to 8 weeks, let him watch and he’s all and do the things that, you know, that a, that a professional quarterback can do. And that’s why Andy was brought in there was to elevate Bryce and, and maybe, uh, accelerate his learning curve a little bit. But when you’re, when you’re doing it on the sideline, it’s, it’s hard to be in that guy’s shoes out on the field. So I would have liked to have seen Andy Dalton maybe start 6 to 8 games and maybe they would have, you know, been a lot more competitive, maybe they would have been in more games, maybe they would have won a few more games and then maybe around midway through the season, if the team felt like it was out of it, it’s time to get price on the field. At least he would have been able to see what it was like from the sideline for the first eight or 10 weeks of the season, the way that they went about it and maybe they went about it because they were selling season tickets and he was the first overall pick, you know, it was the completely wrong way to go about it. They should have went about it the way that Kansas City did with Patrick Mahomes. If you think back to the way that Andy Andy Reid handled him when his first year, when he was in Kansas City, should they do that now? Should they, should they let Dalton play and let, and let price sit or is it, you know what, just go ahead and get those reps or do you think? I feel like I feel, I feel like they’re all past that now and I think, you know, there’s no question that, that price is, you know, not processing things quick enough and that leads to indecision that leads to receivers stopping, not thinking the ball is coming. You know, if you play with a guy like Tom Brady, you’re always your, your radar is always up because the ball could come at any moment in time. That’s the way I would say Brock Purdy is with his offense out in San Francisco, Lamar Jackson. Now Patrick ball, man, you better be ready because that ball could be coming at a moment’s notice. You can’t take anything for granted. That’s how decisive the g really top end quarterbacks in the league are Dak Prescott at Dallas right now, Josh Allen up in Buffalo, those guys are all playing at a very high level. So if you’re on the field with them as a receiver, tight end, uh running back, you know, you just never know if the ball is coming to you. So you better be ready. So when you’re playing with a young quarterback who is indecisive, who doesn’t read the defenses, who is not processing quickly enough. It’s gonna lead to indecision all over the place. It’s gonna lead to holding penalties. It’s gonna lead to false start penalties. It’s gonna lead to all sorts of problems, burn time outs, all of those things are going to be a part of the learning process for a young man. And that’s unfortunately what the Panthers, the Panthers are going through right now. How much, uh, actually can carry over though when you know, there is gonna be a new head coach, more than likely a new offensive system for next year and he’s kind of relearning it all over again and maybe even some new weapons, how much of that can even carry over into year two. Yeah. So that happened to Daniel Jones here in New York that happened to Zach Wilson here in New York and, you know, anytime you see something happening like this to Young Clare, that means you’re going to retard their growth a little bit. And I would think that there will be another learning curve that he’ll have to go through assuming that there’s gonna be new coaches and a new offense down there. The other thing, however, that will be different and will be positive will be he, he’ll know where he stands now when he comes in next year, he’ll know that he’s the leader of the team. He’ll know that it’s his team. You know, he’s still trying to figure all those things out as we speak, even with only four games left in the season. So he’ll be a much more mature player next year. Much more. I’m sure he’ll work on his, his body, he’ll put on, put on some muscle, put on some weight. I’m sure he’s gonna work on those lower legs, the lower half, much like Tua Tonga Bao did, uh, in his off season and he will commit himself. I, I don’t ever question that about Bryce Young. He will commit himself to the team to the aspect of being the best quarterback he can be and he’s gonna be a learner. He’ll soak up things as a sponge. So I’ll be able to step back for him. But, uh, men mentally and physically, he’ll be so much more mature next year, uh, than he was this year when we spoke to you last, I asked you what his biggest weakness was. You said throwing with anticipation. I wanna ask you now, where does he improved from week one to week 14? What area have you seen, Bryce grow? It really, really hasn’t. And I think, uh a lot of that has to do with some of the things that are in around surroundings. Uh, you know, getting a, having a coach being fired in the middle of the season, having your quarterback coach, your running back coach thrown out of the building, all of those things are, are gonna, are gonna hurt him moving forward. There’s no question about that. So you don’t see growth. Uh, he may see it, he may feel it. Um, I’m sure he’s a exhausted right now. Uh You know what? It’s interesting watching Tommy Devito up here with the Giants. You know, it’s been a nice little buzz here. Three weeks in a row. They win. He plays well, doesn’t turn the ball over. Everything’s great. Now they got to go on the road to New Orleans, there’s tape on Tommy Devito. So New Orleans defenses, uh, will, will adhere to some of the things that he does naturally on the field and I’m sure Tommy’s all jacked up and he can’t wait to get down there and then he’s gonna run to a wall and that wall is going to be a team that’s going to be ready for him. Uh, Bryce has been dealing with that all year long and I’m sure that is, is it exhausting for him mentally right now? And probably can’t get, can’t wait to get away from the team and the league for a good month and then jump back in with whoever the new coach is. So, uh, I haven’t seen much of an improvement, but I think we’ll see it next year. Definitely just because of the maturity aspect, boomer, if you were given, uh, the job of, uh, fixing the Carolina Panthers, I guess, either as a head coach or, um, you know, as a GM, you look at, uh, this roster, you look at what maybe Bryce needs, um, you know, from, from a personnel standpoint, uh, what areas are you looking to fix? What are you looking to upgrade on this roster to make sure that Bryce is in the best position as, as possible to, to succeed next year. So Chris, let me tell you this, you know, as a, as a media member, uh, I realize that I am unqualified to take on one of those jobs. Now, there are people in the media that think that they can do that just and step out of a booth and go be a head coach. They’re out of their minds. They have no idea the enormity of the job, uh especially when it comes to evaluating players, drafting players, signing players or free agents, making trades. I mean, there are so many aspects that go into it and it’s something that I know from my friends who are G MS and who are head coaches and who I talk to on a daily basis. I just know how hard their job is and how committed they have to be to the team and everything in their life is second. It’s like football’s first and everything else is second. And we always talk about priorities in life. The NFL, you know, your priority has to be the people in that building, the people that are working underneath you and making those decisions for me to sit here, you know, from, you know, whatever it is 800 miles away and decide what I think that the Carolina Pan, there’s need to improve. I think we all could probably figure that out faster wide receivers, federal offensive linemen, uh, you know, a top five defense would help and, you know, that doesn’t happen overnight. And that’s the thing that I was talking about when it comes to impatience of owners, uh, you know, when they are impatient and they keep changing, they keep setting their franchise back without realizing it until they feel like they finally got it right. And I don’t know if that will be the case this time around for the Panthers. Hopefully it will be. But, uh, you know, you probably know better what you think they need and where those, uh, players can be found for me. Uh, what I do is I look at the overall totality of the league and where they rank in that area. And I would say right now, they’re probably 32nd in a lot of areas, which is not a good thing for the next incoming coach, but at least he’ll have a blank slate and hopefully a much better, younger, more mature Bryce Young next year. So, what I heard is David Tepper being the, maybe he should run the team, maybe he should be the coach. You know, that’s the way I look at it. I mean, he’s already apparently tried to call plays. All right, my final question for you. Is this, you talk about the next head coach, give me one name who’s gonna be, who is a good potential coach for not just this team but for Bryce up, wow, it’s, it’s hard to say, you know, you’re thinking offense because that’s, I think that’s why they hired Frank Frank had a track record of working with so many different quarterbacks and having success with them that they probably felt like he was the right guy. So if you’re gonna be thinking offense again, you’re gonna be thinking Ben Johnson, uh, probably from the Detroit Lions whose name is gonna be bandied about, you know, the guy that I, you know, two guys that I do really like that really, uh, have paid dividends for the teams that signed them this year are two defensive coordinators. Oddly enough, one is Brian Flores in Minnesota. The other one is Jim Schwartz in Cleveland. Uh, Jim and Brian both have a head coaching backgrounds. They were head coaches, they’ve been around winners, they have been winners themselves everywhere they’ve gone. So, you know, maybe one of those two guys is a defensive head coach with an offensive young, uh, offensive mind to help Bryce is, is the match made in heaven. But all I know that I think David Tepper is gonna have to pay somebody a lot of money to take that job just simply because of the state of the team and the uh I would say the decision making from David himself that has left people scratching their head about the long term viability of being a head coach there. Well, we thank you so much, uh, for joining us and to talk a little, uh, Carolina Panthers with us, talk a little bit of Bryce Young with us. Uh, there’s another quarterback in this area by the name of Drake May who’s coming up in the NFL draft. Uh, have you had a chance to look at him? And what are your quick thoughts on, on him before we let you go? I have, I have looked at him, boy, he’s got everything. He’s got the size, he’s got the arm, he’s got the athleticism. Um I, you know, there was a point in time where I thought maybe the Giants would be able to dra uh, draft him with the second overall pick. I, I do believe that Kel Williams is gonna go first. I still feel that way. I felt that way for the last year. I mean, the way the, the, the kid carries himself on the field, I, I just don’t know about all the outside stuff, the outside influences for Cale because he’s such a big star already in college. Drake is a little bit more understated and seems to be, you know, willing to go where anybody will take him. So that’s a good thing for him. Uh I wouldn’t be surprised if New England takes him with the second overall pick if they hold on to that pick because they’re gonna need a new quarterback up there and it looks like that they’re heading in a new coaching uh way as well as the reports out of New England. Now have Bill Belichick and Bob Kraft realizing that this end is very near uh in about four weeks. So that, that will be interesting as well. What happens in New England? But I think Drake is, is a guy that has a very high upside, has everything that you want in a quarterback, including the size, which in my estimation is the most important thing. And I think that’s bearing itself out when you see the difference between say a CJ Stroud and a Bryce Young this year. Well, if the Chicago Bears want to, they can uh get Drake made with that first overall pick. Thanks to the Carolina Panthers. Boomer. I said, thank you so much. Make it up. I cannot make it up guys. Thank you so much. Good luck. The rest of the way. Hang in there, man. It’s only a month. All right, great chat there with Boomer Asai. And uh he had a lot of really good stuff in there and something that I never really thought about uh when it comes to Bryce because he’s having indecision, which is leading to indecision around him. But that indecision around him is leading to indecision around Bryce Young and indecision with coaching staff. It’s a vicious cycle that’s going on right now. It’s a vicious cycle that’s going on. So, yeah, independently of what’s going on around Bryce. Bryce hasn’t played well, but Bryce around him, nothing has played well. Nothing’s helping Bryce and vice versa. So, it’s a, like I said, it’s a, it’s a, keeps, it just keeps feeding itself in a, not a very good way. Think about security. Right. Like in any type of relationship, a personal relationship, a business relationship, you know, whatever it ends up being, if you have a certain level of security, you know what you’re, you’re doing, you’re confident in your performance within that. Right? And, you know, I talked about, um, you know, our organization that we work for, uh, before, but let’s talk about maybe like, you know, personal relationships. I know that every single day I can count on my wife for certain things. She knows that every single day she can count on me for certain things. So when it comes down to me paying the mortgage, when it comes down to me paying whatever else over here, when it comes down to me, being there to, as a shoulder for her to cry on whatever, she doesn’t have to question any of that. So therefore she’s secure in the things that, um, and the things that she’s gonna be doing to help run the household. Right? Like, and, and that’s not happening with the Carolina panthers. Uh right now there doesn’t feel to be uh a lot of security there, especially when uh you know, that you can get canned super quick for, for David Tepper or he’s not letting you do what you do. He’s meddling too much in what you specialize in that he doesn’t specialize in. So, um you know, and it, and it impacts everything and it goes from the top down and our kids, they are wonderful kids because they are secure. They don’t have to think about if mommy and daddy are gonna feed us, they know it’s coming. And so their behavior isn’t erratic when they go to school and things like that. And that’s just a good example of just the family dynamic. You put that into an NFL organization and you can see what can happen when the things just aren’t working from the top. Uh and, and we’re seeing it right now on the field and all of this, all of this can be traced back to David Tepper. Yeah, a lot of it can all those picks traded away all the things that just, yeah, it’s a lot of, it just goes right to the top. Like you said, here’s something else I thought about too. Every and we, we basically kind of said this before a few weeks ago and we made our decisions on who we would keep around with this team, but everything that’s valuable about this team, um that they have and, and people that we want to keep around or players that they’ve uh drafted, that has worked out all happened before Scott Fitterer was hired. Right. Derek Brown is not a Scott Fitterer pick. No, Brian Burns is not a Scott Fitterer pick. Nope, Jimmy Tim was not a Scott Fitterer pick. The only, the only person really, I mean, outside of bright young, we’re taking Bryce out of this, uh because he’s, it’s, it’s yet to be seen what he will be, but the only person really as far as like maybe assigning or uh or not, actually none of the picks but a assigning. Yeah, Frankie Lou and uh, Johnny Hacker. Those are really the only ones and that you can look at from the last, you know, three years that Scott Federer has done is like, ok, that’s a pretty good one and, but his, his batting average is not good when it comes down to evaluating these players, man. Yeah, if you look at the, the 2022 draft just last year for the Carolina Panthers, 11 guy is actually like worth it. That’s really been worth it. That’s Icky Iwan and he, there’s even still questions about him. I know Amari Barno is good at special teams. K Mays is a backup but there’s only three guys from last year’s draft 2022 that are actually still on the Carolina Panthers roster. Just three guys from a draft last year. That are still on the roster wild. That’s, that just goes to show you how bad this team, how poorly this team has been run. You want to talk about building up a team through the for the future, you build it through the draft, right? Yeah, you can sign free agents to supplement, but you gotta build through the draft. Every great team builds through the draft. But man, it’s uh it’s bad. It really is that bad. And sadly, there’s no end in sight. I think it’s gonna take at least three years to get this thing back around three, three, three. Uh The, the thing that’s going through my head right now is Tony Braxton song un break my heart, unbreak my Say, you love me again. On that note, make sure you smash the subscribe button and leave your thoughts in the comments section below about this episode and just your thoughts on the Panthers and what Boomer Sen had to say about Bryce Young and the future of this franchise. Uh So big. Thanks to Boomer. Big. Thanks to you, Chris Big. Thanks to you for watching and listening to Panthers playbook. We’ll have another episode for you after this coming game on Sunday, I cried so many nights we’ll see you Sunday.

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