HOUSTON — Getting to see another bunch of kids always freshens things up.
For the Panthers on Tuesday, that meant being there when the Police Activities League brought the energy in a scrimmage as they practiced.
Tomorrow, that means the Houston Texans, and a different level of competition than they've seen so far.
The Texans have done the building the Panthers are working on at the moment, allowing them to win 10 games and the AFC South the last two seasons. Quarterback CJ Stroud walked into a more stable situation than his draft classmate Bryce Young was able to, and you can see that in the results.
They have an enviable base of young talent in a number of areas, which will test the Panthers in ways that will be educational. And the simple fact that they're moving up a level in competition alone is a good thing.
We'll learn a lot in the coming days in Texas, including what it's like to see the sun, adding that to the extreme humidity that's made home feel like a terrarium for the last week.
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Panthers fan from the beginning, and I was feeling pretty good about this year until the Cleveland game. While the offense did look improved, I saw very little to encourage me about the defense. Poor tackling and very little rush. Is it time to be looking for a new defensive coordinator? Maybe four wins this season. — Jay, Newland, NC
Well, as long as we don't overreact to the first quarter of the first preseason game, ...
The starters played two series against the Browns. On those two series, the Panthers forced a three-and-out and then allowed 35 yards on the next eight plays, which ended with a fourth-down stop by D.J. Wonnum.
Now, did Shedeur Sanders start looking better against the Panthers backups? He did, and the lack of depth on display during that first game wasn't necessarily an encouraging sign. But we also sort of knew already that the Panthers weren't a particularly deep team, because it takes more than one or two offseasons to build a well-stocked roster. They spent the last two years of free agency stabilizing things, first the offensive line and then the defensive line. That was on purpose. (Also, when Derrick Brown plays, which he didn't last weekend, it's reasonable to think things will improve.)
The other point to make here is that the first offense played two series also, and put together a solid touchdown drive on their second. The hope is that since most of the progress (and depth) is on that side of the ball, there will be a little more margin of error for the defense while it grows. They'll need to score points because they're not built at the moment to be a dominant defense; they're still too thin in too many important spots. But there's certainly an improved base of talent, and improving any amount on defense should allow them to make strides. Remember, the league average was 23 points allowed per game last year, and if they'd have allowed just that coming down the stretch, they'd have beaten the Chiefs and tied the Bucs last year and they went to the playoffs. It's not everything, but it's not nothing either.
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I've seen speculations of trading Jalen Coker from national reporters after his preseason Week 1 performance. My thing is, if the staff has invested time and effort into him (per the wonderful article from Kassidy Hill), why would the team want to give up such a young guy on a cheap contract? Seems counterintuitive to a developmentally minded team, per the words of Dave Canales. — Carter, Charlotte
I think the idea of trading Jalen Coker makes a lot more sense for people trying to attract attention on the internet than it does for a football team, for precisely the reason Carter mentioned.
For some reason, there's a corner of the football content universe devoted to inventing and then debunking fictional trades. I guess people are bored, but when we started rewarding people for saying outrageous things (and stupid ones) by giving them money and our shrinking attention spans, we made a terrible mistake.
At any rate, no, of course not, that would be silly. The Panthers might have more receivers at the moment than you can put on the field at one time, but that's a good thing, not a bad one.
As good as Adam Thielen is (spoiler: still quite good), he's also turning 35 in a week and a half. That's a lot of trips around the sun for a football player, and suggests he might not actually play forever. So planning for a time without an Adam Thielen seems like a smart thing to do. It's sort of like having a 401 (k) and funding it appropriately. It might be flashier to drain your retirement savings and buy a boat or something, but in a few years, you'll probably be glad you didn't. (Besides, the best kind of boat is always the one owned by one of your friends.)
But if you're out here reading Kassidy Hill and Panthers.com, you knew that already. Trust your instincts, wise one. I bow to your Buddha nature.
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I'm an original PSL owner, and I've always enjoyed listening to the live radio broadcast during games at the stadium. Last year, the broadcast was on such a delay that you couldn't really listen. I've emailed the Panthers twice to ask this question, but got no reply. I know it's not your department, but I was wondering if you could find out if there will be a way to listen to the broadcast in real time next year. Thanks! — Steve, Concord, NC
Full transparency. I sat on this letter for a year and a half until I had a satisfactory answer, which meant one I could explain. Partially, as Steve noted, it's not my department. But I am broadcast-adjacent, and am proud to share that this problem has now been solved, after a few years of working on it.
Last Friday during the Browns game, we unveiled a "ultra-low-latency stream," which sounds a little dirty but is actually a fascinating little piece of technology. In short, you can now listen to our game broadcast on the Panthers app while in Bank of America Stadium without that delay Steve mentioned.
It takes time to make a signal go from the Panthers Radio Network's mouths into a bunch of machinery, up into space, and back down into a different machine. But we've worked out the technical part with our friends at Stream Guys, and now when you're in the stadium, you can hear it in real-time. It's kind of like sitting in the booth with Jim Szoke and Kurt Coleman and Kevin Donnalley in the preseason, and Anish Shroff and Jake Delhomme and Luke Kuechly and the gang during the regular season. All of those guys are very good at their jobs, so being able to hear them as they're painting word-pictures and dispensing wisdom should only enhance the in-stadium experience.
We had over 300 people streaming it last weekend during the Browns game, and I'm told there were no reported complaints. So fingers crossed, and spread the word.
And to reward Steve's patience, I'm definitely making him this week's Friend Of The Mailbag, and getting the appropriate honorarium to him.
Hopefully, in less time than it took to answer his question.
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The amazing picture from the Bojangles with Jake and Steve in the last mailbag brought me a great smile (Thanks!) and a question: what are your favorite "two-man personality teams" from over the years — Panther duos whose entertainment quotient goes up a level when you're talking with them together? Thanks again for all you do. — Steve, Chapel Hill, NC
There are a couple of current options, though that number is growing as the team develops a little confidence borne from results and a little more personality.
Chuba Hubbard and Tommy Tremble are the buddy cop movie you didn't realize you needed, in which a Canadian running back and a tight end from the Atlanta suburbs become besties. They're together a lot, and know how to both push each other's buttons and also push each other on the field. They can finish each other's sentences.
Derrick Brown and Shy Tuttle are this way, too.
"I didn't expect him to be as goofy as he is, I didn't expect that," Bobby Brown III said of Derrick. "Him and Shy, they sit next to each other in meetings and everything, and all they do is talk trash, like all day, every day during the workouts. They both call each other fat. Like they're both not over 300 pounds."
"Shy and Derrick, they're like brothers, always bickering going back and forth, but it's hilarious, man," Wonnum added. "I'm here for it. When you're in the dog days and that kind of stuff, we need that. I mean, they're both big dudes, bro. So really, the fat jokes are wild. Because a fat dude calling another fat — I'm not saying that they're fat — but a big dude calling another big dude big, it's actually hilarious."
There are some all-timers, though. Ryan Kalil and Jordan Gross both had the kind of seditious sense of humor that made them the kings of locker room pranks — and there were no sacred cows in that herd.
"The gold standard," JJ Jansen said of the offensive linemen, who kept the entire building on their toes, and were willing to go to great lengths to make jokes (like hiring actors and producing music videos kind of lengths).
Jansen and Greg Olsen weren't as committed to the bit, but also had a lot of fun. Back in the old days, Rod Smart and Jarrod Cooper were the comic relief for a team that made a Super Bowl run, but they were definitely more juvenile (as in making animal noises while eating food out of each other's hands on the team bus, among other more disturbing stories, trust me). They were more like the Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O to Jansen and Olsen's Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, or Kalil and Gross' Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, but funny in their own way.
Guys like that have a value to a team, because it's a long season, and you better be able to find the humor in it.
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The Panthers have a Hall of Honor for the best and most impactful players throughout the years. One name that I have not seen mentioned, at least publicly, is our three-time All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowl center Ryan Kalil. How often does the committee meet, and why is he never on the list? I'm always hearing how football begins and ends in the trenches, and here's one of the best trench players in the NFL. Let's give him the recognition he deserves. Thank you for your time and effort, and for the continued hard work getting information to all the Panthers fans from Brazil to London and Texas. — Charles, Flint, TX
Thanks Charles. And while we're talking about Kalil already, this gives me an opportunity to get up on one of my personal soapboxes.
When you're talking about Panthers legends who aren't already in the Hall of Honor, the first two obvious names are Cam Newton and Luke Kuechly. And there are a number of dudes who are definitely deserving.
But beyond the former league MVP and defensive player of the year, the guy with the most decorated career, and in my opinion, the strongest case is Kalil.
All he was was one of the two or three best centers in the game during his entire career. He was athletic enough to get to the second level, strong enough to anchor against much bigger men, and smart enough to traffic-cop the offense from the front to back.
There are a couple of things that hold him back from the kind of recognition he deserves. One, he's a center, and only real football nerds go that deep into analysis of the guy who touches the ball on every single play.
Secondly, his career spanned 13 seasons in a way that made it hard for him to win one of the awards he probably should have won. Since he started in 2007, he was a little late to be considered for the All-Decade team of the 2000s, which included Hall of Famer Kevin Mawae and Olin Kreutz. And since he only played 16 games once after 2015 because of injuries, he lost the traction he deserved for the 2010s All-Decade team, whose centers were Maurkice Pouncey and Alex Mack, both of whom played the entire decade.
Now, these can be esoteric distinctions, and all four of those guys were great players. But Kalil was better than at least two of them.
And there's at least one number to point you in that direction.
ProFootballReference.com has a handy tool called a Hall of Fame Monitor. It's an attempt to empirically measure players based on their all-time achievements and contextualize their impact.
They use a formula that gives mathematical weight to individual honors and team success, e.g., you get so many points for a Pro Bowl, more for All-Pro, etc. There's a lot that goes into this formula. But you get a 25-point bump for making the All-Decade team.
Mawae was great for a long time. His HOFm score was 98.53. Pouncey, who is eligible for the Hall this year and ought to get in someday, was a 75.18. Mack was a 71.5, and Kreutz a 58.08. Kalil was a 48.35 without making the All-Decade team. Which means if you take away that gigantic statistical bump those other four guys got from a subjective honor, Kalil is ahead of Mack and way ahead of Kreutz. And if you add a 25-point bonus to Kalil's score, he's ahead of Hall of Fame center Mick Tingelhoff, and just behind Pouncey and Jeff Saturday, who I think have strong cases for eventual enshrinement in Canton.
But this is me way down in the weeds, and I am admittedly a Ryan Kalil truther, having seen his best years with my own two eyes, allowing me a perspective on the way he impacted games on the field.
Ryan Kalil was not good at football; he was great at football. And as you can tell, I have thoughts.
Also, his name has definitely come up in Hall of Honor committee meetings, and he's certainly among the Panthers legends with a great chance to be recognized someday.
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Had a little observation on the Xavier Legette's loss of discipline that got him tossed early in our first preseason game. I went to see Rodney Dangerfield on The Tonight Show in the early eighties. We had to wait about six hours in the August California heat to get in. They only accepted the first 14 of about 200 that had waited all day, and we weren't able to even sit together. Once in, they escorted about 30 folks to the front rows. We were warned not to interrupt Johnny Carson once he started his monologue. Well, he starts and makes mention of someone being fat. At that moment, one of the escorted guests stood and yelled, "How fat was she?" and was promptly escorted out. Someone said in our group, "ain't no way anything like that would ever pass through our lips." Coker, after being a walk-on, would never allow himself to be goaded into an ejection. Not only did Legette lose his cool, but he gave his competition a starring role. I do hope Xavier understands that the NFL can translate to not for long. — Don, Trinity, NC
That's a good story, I respect it, but the point may be stretched a little thin.
Legette and Coker are competing in the sense that they're pushing everyone, including the defense, every day in practice. But I don't see them as a one-or-the-other in any scenario.
They're a couple of really promising second-year wideouts. And when Dave Canales talks about young wideouts, considering his background coaching the position, he talks about plans for players in three- and four-year increments.
So XL understands he can't lose it like that. It's been made clear to him, and from his press conference earlier this week, he appears to get it.
Now, will other teams try to instigate him, the way they used to Steve Smith (knowing that 89 was always willing to rise to the bait, and often accelerate the fire)? Probably. So XL will have to know he has a target on his back now.
While he has a lot of fun on and off the field, he appears to be a guy who takes his work seriously, as evidenced by his Jugs machine habit adopted after the Philly game last year, or the way he's gone about preparing his body for a long season.
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With the depth on the defense line that we now enjoy, do you see opportunities for more four-man fronts than we've seen from Evero in the past? Maybe even an occasional 5-2 look in obvious run downs? I know DCs are usually fairly rigid in their scheme philosophy, but I don't remember the Panthers having this many quality interior DL in a really long time. Can you have too many War Daddies on the line of scrimmage at once? Thanks for the insight, laughs, and truly excellent work on Blueprint. — Rick, Locust, NC
Thanks, and Blueprint was amazing, but that's all on our talented video team. They're the heroes putting out all that cool content on the team's Youtube page.
The Panthers have the bodies to load up on the line, if they want to. They actually have more qualified defensive linemen than they've got spaces for on the roster, and that wasn't the case last year. When you consider Derrick and Bobby Brown, A'Shawn Robinson, and Tershawn Wharton, they have four front-line dudes with complementary strengths. Mix in a rookie like fifth-rounder Cam Jackson, a veteran in Tuttle, and guys such as LaBryan Ray, Jaden Crumedy, Jared Harrison-Hunte, and others, and they've got legitimate competition for roster spots.
There will certainly be times when they're in four-man fronts, but that'll be with guys such as Patrick Jones II and Wonnum, though they have a lot of versatile pieces. The point is, they've got more people, so they have more options.
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Hey Darin, it's August and the Panthers are tied for first place! Hope springs eternal. Been a fan since they played the first game in Clemson. I get the feeling that the team is moving in the right direction. Improvements in personnel on both sides of the ball.
I see the NFL changed the kickoff rules again. What is the Panthers' strategy for improving in that area? — Norm, Greenville, SC
Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith talked about kickoff coverage the other day, and the short version is, they intend to try to bounce the ball in the landing zone between the goal line and the 20, and make the other guys field it.
Footballs are pointy on either end so sometimes they bounce funny, which can make them harder to field. And making it harder on the bad guys is the point, and there are numbers to back up the thesis that it's harder.
As for returns, they are planning to improve them by increasing the competition for the job. Between rookies Trevor Etienne and Jimmy Horn Jr., they added some guys in the mix who have the kind of burst and speed to make things happen.
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And on that note, let's go lightning round, brought to you by the patron saint of the lightning round Jeff from Fuquay-Varina, to close it out this week.
Hello Darin, original Fan from the first preseason, second-time mailer. Reading comments this week in the Mailbag, I was thinking that at my age, sometimes it gets confusing during the month of August, but so it goes. I live next door to Fort Bragg, and I was wondering if anyone could get this started with the higher-ups? I don't know if your pay grade calls for this, as I've read you say a few times your pay grade on certain things isn't that high (little pun), but it would be really nice to see a scrimmage game during the preseason at Fort Bragg for the soldiers one year. Baseball managed a regular game a few years ago, so let's get the Panthers and the NFL on board for a scrimmage. Maybe the proceeds from the ticket prices going to a great local charity for military families? — Donald, Raeford, NC
Do they have a stadium there? I have no idea. I know a preseason football team is like moving a small army (over 200 people in the traveling party to Houston). But I also know that coaches are very protective of both players and routines, so going offsite would be a months-long process including making sure the grass is NFL-ready.
But I love the thinking. I'm all for unique locations, like the Reds and the Braves playing a game at a race track the other week. Everything about that was great, besides the result.
My spouse is a Vietnam Vet who uses a cane to walk. What type of cane can he bring to the stadium? Thank you. — Lucy, Matthews, NC
All medically-approved canes are allowed in, per VP of venue operations Bonnie Almond. And thank him for his service.
How is Christian Rozeboom doing? He isn't mentioned much. — Mike, Bryant SD
He's doing well. Knows the defense and is experienced in calling plays. He's a good, solid, downhill linebacker. He's also great at not attracting attention to himself. When you see long-haired football players, you anticipate a character, because "hair on fire" is one of the great football cliches. But Rozeboom is a fairly regular cat, and good at his job.
What time does the stadium open for preseason games? — Rosalind, Indian Trail, NC
Gates are open two hours before kickoff, so come join us early, that way you can watch everybody warm up, and see JJ Jansen, so you know what uniform everyone's wearing that day.
What local Charlotte TV station is airing the Panthers' preseason games? — Brian, Gastonia, NC
Also, here's a pro tip: a lot of streaming services might show a different program in their guide. But if they're part of our network, tune in there no matter what the guide says. Trust the force.
What are the chances that Dan Morgan and Julius Peppers roll into Dallas over the weekend for some last-minute scouting research? — Jonathan, High Point, NC
I smell what you're cooking there, Jonathan, and it's not brisket.
I understand the temptation to swing for a big target, and that guy in Dallas who has requested a trade certainly is one. But you can't rush a build if you want it to be stable for the long haul. So aside from the cap room required for a guy like that, you'd also be coughing up a lot of other assets to acquire the right to pay him. And that's not the play for a team trying to become stable and solid and then good.
