Catching up on the Carolina Panthers as training camp is ready to start

This is the best of the Adam Gold Show Podcast. Brought to you by Coach Pete at Capital Financial Advisory Group.

Visit us at CapitalFinancialUSA.com. This is the Adam Gold Show. According to BetOnline.ag, Jimmy Garoppolo's next team, the odds are, if it's not the 49ers, and it doesn't say week one team, it just says next team. Browns plus 225, doesn't look like that's going to happen, they signed Josh Rosen. One year deal.

Excuse me. Giants, where Daniel Jones is, plus 350. Seahawks, makes sense, right? Drew Locke, probably not going to be the answer there. Yeah, I don't see him getting into the division.

Geno Smith. I mean, if you're not keeping him, I've never understood that. We don't want you, but we don't want to play against you. What?

I don't get it. Seattle is plus 350. The Texans, right? But they have settled on that guy from... Davis Webb? Davis Webb, isn't Davis Webb with the Giants?

There's another guy, I think. Maybe he's also named Davis Webb, I don't know. With the Texans plus 400, the Lions... Davis Mills, sorry. Davis is mixed up.

You did. Lions plus 500, Bears plus 1200, Jets plus 2,000, Saints plus 2,000. Where are the Panthers on this list? Darren Gant, Panthers.com joins us on the Adam Gold Show. I'm really surprised the Panthers aren't listed here. He's a quarterback who's a decent starting quarterback. I'm surprised David Temper's not interested.

How are you? You remember the Panthers just traded for Baker Mayfield, right? Work with me here. So, let's just say you get the 49ers to pay two-thirds of the contract, and you give up a mid-round conditional pick. Think of the depth in the quarterback room then. See, I will defer to a visionary football savant of my acquaintance.

The great Mick Mixon believes that it is inevitable that someday a team will put two quarterbacks on the field at the same time. Just to create mass confusion. Where's the ball going? Nobody knows. It could come from any angle. It's going across the field. It's going downfield. It's Mick's theory, not mine. But, you know, it's worth thinking about. Why not?

All quarterbacks all the time. You know, it's funny, when I saw the story where Garoppolo was given permission to go seek a trade. I mean, it was facetious, and I'm being facetious here.

Although, there's some truth in every bit of sarcasm, as I've always pointed out to people. The Rock Hill Herald once gave me permission to seek a trade by asking me to cover Winthrop basketball. They were telling you something, Darin Gant.

Yeah, I think they were. So I tweet out like, come on Panthers, get on this. And so many people completely took it seriously. So I leaned into the joke, like this would be another incremental step up. Look, I'm not going to bring it. They didn't give up anything for Baker Mayfield, and they're not paying them much. So it's a no brainer roll of the dice. You know, if I had to, if I had to place wagers, would either of them be the starting quarterback? Not this season, but next season?

I would say probably not. But we'll see what happens. Maybe Lamar Jackson will be the starting quarterback the following season. It's hard to tell. I mean, but it is, I think to your point, it is, it is reasonable to think the Carolina Panthers looked across the quarterback landscape and, you know, was Jimmy Garoppolo considered as an option here?

Yeah, probably. But for a lot of reasons, including the financial, I heard you running down the laundry list of teams that could be Jimmy destinations. I mean, if Seattle wanted him, they could probably have him, but they probably have to take on that whole contract. 49ers aren't going to do them any favors right in there. And a lot of those other destinations you covered, but I mean, listen, did the Panthers consider Jimmy?

They did. I think it's reasonable to conclude that they probably preferred Baker in the short term for reasons, health and financial. Because they did get Baker at a deal and it sets up an interesting training camp. Certainly we'll be out there charting every pass and every rep, every one of these guys.

I can't, I will be able by the end of training camp to tell you exactly how many snaps each of these guys took with exactly which offensive lineman and that kind of thing. It's going to, we're going to take it to a ridiculous extreme, I'm sure, but it makes it interesting. I am in the middle of, you know, filing our ask the old guy mailbag for the weekend. And, you know, there's a lot of stuff about quarterbacks. People want to know this is moving the needle.

People are interested in a way they haven't been for a minute. This is better than the kicker battle from a few years ago. Oh, absolutely. Better than a long snapper battle from last year, which will continue, by the way, with Thomas Fletcher coming back this year to compete with the grizzled veteran JJ Jansen. JJ Jansen is my guy, man. We're all team JJ Jansen here. Darren Gant. I love JJ. Panthers.com joining us here on the Adam Gold Show.

Ask the old guy all the time at Panthers.com, but there's other reasons to go check out his work at Panthers.com. Adam Gold in studio with my man Coach Pete DeRuder with the Capital Financial Advisory Group. We are talking retirement. Coach, let's say I have more than a million dollar balance in my 401k. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. How can that actually come back and bite me? Well, because, and this is a thing that we, it's a mirage. You see mirages.

I've ridden in the desert before. You see what's water ahead, but it's not there. Well, your financial mirage is thinking that that total balance in your 401k or your IRA is yours. We have two people that want to get ahold of it. Two uncles.

Uncle North Carolina and Uncle Sam. Right. Both of them are going to do some damage to that balance depending on what kind of other income you have. You could lose 40% of your value.

So if you're looking at a million dollar IRA, maybe it's only worth $600,000 to you. So how do we get around this? Well, you don't get around it because you end up in jail if you try to do that.

Ah, I see. But you can do tax planning to minimize the effect of taxation into the future. The tax train is coming, Adam. We need to make sure to minimize the effect of the derailment of our financial accounts. And for the next 10 people, we'll do it at no cost or obligation. We'll put together your very own tax and retirement plan. 800-661-7383 or text ADAM to 21000 for coach Pete DeRuta.

Before we get to one thing that I think the most recent thing that you posted today, uniform number roulette. I do want to ask you more about Baker and Darnold. They've said all this Baker has for the most part because he's been the one who just got acquired and he's been the one front and center and answering questions.

He has said all the right things. But this is a difficult situation for Sam, maybe more for Sam than it is for Baker. Because if Baker doesn't win the job, I can't help but just call this a failure. I mean, I have to assume that Baker is going to win the job. If it's close, it's Baker, right? I mean, it's fair for you to think that and again, I think this will be addressed in that mailbag that should be posting within the hour at Panthers.com. You should all enjoy some leisurely weekend reading Baker's the better quarterback to over the last four years. I don't think it's any stretch to say that if you just look at the numbers, you know, Baker's thrown more picks than Sam, but he's also thrown a lot more passes and a lot more touchdowns.

So I don't think that's necessarily a slide and you know, he the thing is Baker has to come in and win it. There is at least some baseline degree of comfort with Sam and I don't mean that to say they'd be completely fine with Sam playing the way Sam's always played. Sam would obviously have to be better than he's been to keep this job, but he's also been competent. He's been around, he knows the system and all those things from spending the last four months tucked in Ben McAdoo's pocket, which he has done. And to his credit, Sam hadn't always been a hang around the offseason, you know, early in the offseason.

He's still done some stuff on his own, but he's been a lot more time here than he has in the past and I think is better equipped to compete for a job than he has been. But again, I think most people probably go into this competition assuming that Baker Mayfield is going to win it, but he's still got to go out and win it. You know, he's still got to get in games and make some plays and get to know these new people.

I mean, he is, you know, he's basically never met half of these guys. So he's going to be walking around with a name tag on the front of his shirt saying, Hi, I'm Baker, like me. Look, the one thing I will always say about Baker, and I've said this for years, and I think last year he was injured, whether it's his non-throwing shoulder or not, it impacted his play over the course of the entire season. And I've always wondered why people always, whenever they talked about Baker, they were just like, well, he's trash. He's hurt. I think he can be good.

I do. I mean, I think he can be a, you know, a mid-tier starting quarterback in the league, somebody that you can win with. I don't necessarily think he's the kind of guy who can, you know, make you win, but I think you can win with him.

Well, we'll see. I think one of the most damaging things, if you'll allow me to interject here. I think one of the most damaging things in our National Football League discourse over the last 10 years or so is that you're either the GOAT or you're trash.

And there's no in-betweens. I mean, for a long time, the Carolina Panthers had a quarterback in Jake DeLong who, when at his best, was somewhere around the 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th best quarterback in the league. And they went to a Super Bowl with a guy like that, so it can be done. Only one team wins the Super Bowl, and usually it's a team with Tom Brady, but most of the time, I mean, this thing's rolled over. I think Matt Stafford is a very good quarterback, and the Panthers made a play for him a year or so ago, and it didn't work out.

He chose Rams, and that worked out well for him. But Matt Stafford, who's never considered particularly elite, there's a place, and I think success can be had with people who aren't, you know, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, because there ain't before those guys, and everybody else in the league has to play. So there is a value in having some guy, you know, I heard somebody slamming Baker Mayfield by saying he's a league average quarterback. It's been a minute since the Carolina Panthers have had league average quarterback play, if you define that as the middle of the league, so 15 to 17. They had one of those in a minute. Really, since T.J. Watt whacked Cam Newton in the shoulder, they have not had that, so if this is an opportunity to upgrade, I don't see the danger in doing it.

Again, I'm not really slamming the move, and again, it didn't cost them anything, and it's not really hurting their salary caps. Matthew Stafford also got a really cool cell phone deal out of the whole trade. And he still loves his old phone.

It's amazing, isn't it? It's an old, 12-year-old flip phone. Yeah, I miss my Blackberry, by the way.

What? I miss my Blackberry, by the way. I had an old Blackberry Pearl. That was all I had. Oh, I love that phone. Let me ask you this. Somebody had to teach me how to use it, and then I got an iPhone like two months later.

Because the iPhone was, as I was told by my mother-in-law, idiot-proof. Yep. Well, we can fix that.

Yep. All right, so I'm reading your piece today, and Amari Barno, defensive end Virginia Tech selected in the sixth round, is wearing number 90. Why? Well, I mean, Frank Alexander wore it once upon a time.

What's the harm? I mean, numbers are numbers, and I get it. I mean, it's Julius Peppers back in the day. But I can assure you, there are former players who do not want their number in circulation. There are teams that do not want to put certain numbers on new people. I promise you, Julius Peppers does not care a fig. Okay. Whether Amari Barno or Frank Alexander or Frank Costanza walks in wearing his number.

I mean, he really doesn't. So that part of it's never a problem. While we're on minor peeps today, I do think there's a danger in retiring too many numbers because you start to run out. Right. At what point would we run out of numbers, though?

Huh? At what point would we run out of numbers? We'd have to retire 25 numbers. We'd have to have a franchise like the Steelers or the Cowboys to retire too many numbers. Well, I mean, I've had people alternately suggest to me that the Carolina Panthers should retire 158-59-90-89. And you start going through, especially with those linebackers, you start retiring. Sam Mills is off the table. Right.

You retire at Thomas Davidson and Lou Kuechly and all of a sudden you're going to have a lot of linebackers run around on the field on Sundays wearing number 46. That's okay. You're allowed to do that now.

Well, and it's fine. And I'm a number anarchist. I still want to see the NFL-led defensive tackles wear single digits. I want it. I think that looks badass.

Oh my gosh. If you're a defensive tackle and you're wearing number nine, man, we know you're good. We don't have to ask, is that guy good? Wait, he's a nose guard wearing number nine?

Yeah, he's good. A nose guard wearing number eight would have both his number and his picture on his jersey. Think about it.

All right. Well, if Julius Peppers is okay with it, I'm okay with it. But I'm not really okay with it. To me, that number 90 should be off the board, especially since he came back. You never know. Someday it might be.

I do think the minimum barrier for retiring numbers for a young franchise that's not done it before should probably be Hall of Fame. And Sam Mills is going to, you know, Sam Mills was fine. Sam was a defining character. And there's a lot of stuff on Panthers dot com about Sam Mills. I know special Sam Mills to the Hall of Fame section. I saw there's more coming, by the way.

But yeah, Sam was fine. And I understand doing that early on because there was an emotional connection there beyond the fact that he was your best player early on. But yeah, I think moving forward, if you don't get in the Hall of Fame, we probably shouldn't be having that conversation. And I don't think we should retire every Hall of Famers number.

I will get on board with that. My numbers that nobody will wear 51, 59, 89, 90, 1, and whatever number you are. Come on, it's two. It's right there. It's number two.

Number two. That's what everybody tells me. Yes, I know.

You're the best. Darren Gantt with two Ts for extra talent on Twitter. Go read Ask the Old Guy. Read his piece on Sam Mills.

Read the numbers piece, which is really just about numbers. Johnny Hecker's going to wear number 10. There you go. And a wide receiver. I have no idea who he is.

He's wearing number 13 now. And that's cool. Darren Gantt, you're the best. I appreciate your time, man. Yeah, y'all have a good weekend.

You too. Off of the crossbar! And the Hurricanes have won the Stanley Cup! June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6th, 1997 with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Cane's Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move. Presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now.

Find Cane's 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcasts. Nino Nederreiter, two years, $4 million per to the Nashville Predators. I mean, I wish him well. If that was the offer, if he would have accepted that on July 13th, he'd probably be here. But they thought they were going to get more.

Yeah, he went looking for term, and that's fine. At his age, you kind of want to roll the dice a little bit. I think he basically ended up with what he would have gotten from the Hurricanes if he'd taken a hometown discount. Maybe even a little more. Maybe the Hurricanes would have gone 3-5 or something. 2 for 4 is good money for someone his age with his numbers. He'll help Nashville.

Goes to the other conference so you're not worried about all that stuff. Nino was good here. Obviously, the trade, getting him for Victor Rask is like trading someone else's nickel for two quarters. It's not even addition by subtraction.

It's exponential multiplication by subtraction. Victor Rask currently residing in the Where Are They Now file. Nino was great here. He also didn't score when they really needed him to score. In the playoffs. Seven goals in 43 games.

So, fine. And look, what did the Hurricanes need? They needed either an upgrade over Tony DeAngelo or to replace Tony DeAngelo, which they did in a completely different class of player. And they got Max Pacioretty, who, when healthy, is an elite goal scorer, will help the power play, just like Burns. And they needed guys who would convert some of the chances they create. And Nino just, in the end, terrific defensive player on that line with Jordan Stahl. He was great this year.

And Jesper Vos, he was great. But he wasn't scoring. And for $4 million a year, he's got to put a few in the net more. And he can do it. He's capable. He has over the course of his career. But when you replace someone like him with someone like Max Pacioretty, if Pacioretty can stay healthy, it's another exponential improvement. And then Andrei Kase, just an absolute lottery ticket roulette spin. I'll be curious if he plays with Stahl and Faust. I don't see that coming. He's a penalty killer.

No, I know, but that's very unprotected ice time. I'll be curious who plays there. I really will. Or do Stahl and Faust stay together?

It's possible they don't. Look, I've always liked... I'm with you on that. I've always liked Faust playing up. I've always liked Faust playing up, but I don't know how you kick somebody out of the top six who's in there right now. No, but you can make an argument that without a clear number two center, if you're going to go with basically two 3A's with Kokiyemi and Drury and Stahl, or three 3A's with Kokiyemi and Drury and Stahl, are you better off spreading some of the talent around and using Jesper Vos as a go-getter with a couple skill players? Using Pacioretty on one line, using Faust on one line, and sprinkling it around a little bit so you're not so... The way this team worked with Crocek, with Aho, with Stahl, it made sense to load up those two lines and then come back to the Stahl line. I'm not sure when you look at Aho and Drury and Kokiyemi and Stahl that it makes as much sense to go with a 1-2-3-4 system. I think you may be better off kind of treating Stahl like your fourth line center, playing him with like Nason and Marnuk, and then having three lines that have some balance. Maybe Faust plays with Drury to protect him a little bit, and you put some skill on the left side of that line.

There's a number of ways you can go. You've also got to find a spot for Marty Natchez, and there's not an easy place to put him in this setup we're talking about. Unless that's in Calgary.

Different conversation. We'll have that next week. Next week we'll talk about what the Hurricanes should have given up to get Kaczuk. Although, I will say this, if the numbers did work out, if Calgary had kept Kaczuk, which it looks like they won't be able to do, and they were going to have to trade Mangiapane, I would have moved Heaven and Earth to get Mangiapane, because he, like Pacioretty, is exactly what this team needs. He is a goal scorer, no question.

And he finishes, and he creates and he finishes, and he would be great playing with like Aho and Terra Vainen or something like that. No question. This is the Adam Gold Show. Off of the crossbar! And the Hurricanes have won the Stanley Cup! June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6th, 1997, with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Cane's Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move. Presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now. Find Cane's 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcasts.