It didn’t start great, but it ended on a respectable note.

I was there when Joe Person was handed the statue, not the Academy Award, but close North Carolina sports writer of the year. He and his wife also found my tie, so I have other warm feelings about that moment. He joins us now on the Adam Gold Show. I guess we can congratulate Andrew Carter of the News & Observer.

He'll get that award. I still think you're the holder of it until they give the statue to somebody else. Yeah, or until I find your tie laying in the street outside the beautiful downtown Winston-Salem area. Yes, I was in a panic.

I was very excited when you found that. Let's talk about the Panthers. First of all, what was your take on the 12 games that Steve Wilks coached? Yeah, listen, we could do the whole segment on that, but in a nutshell, he made this franchise respectable again in a matter of three months.

This was a team, as Josh Norman put it yesterday, they were about a half step away from having fans with bags over their heads in the stands. He was just watching from afar at that point, and he sensed it, and he really wasn't overstating things. It had gotten very toxic here with Matt Ruhl, and Steve Wilks came in and just became the adult in the room. He was respected universally across the locker room. Guys relate well to him. Brian Burns said yesterday that he just kind of gets it. He knows how to connect with us, and they won some games.

The other thing that Matt Ruhl didn't do in two plus years is really ever settle on an offensive identity. He'd say he wants to run the ball, and they do it one week, and the next week they're trying to pass 50 times. Steve Wilks looked at the quarterback room and said, we've got three quarterbacks. None of them really are that good anymore or ever were, and we're going to run the football, we're going to play good defense, and we're going to try to be competitive. With the exception of the Cincinnati game, they were in every game and won six of 12. They went six and six.

Six and six is like a major hot streak considering what they went through for a few years. Joe Person from The Athletic is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. Do you think David Tepper values what you just talked about in terms of what Steve Wilks did for the Carolina Panthers? I do. I do think he values it.

How much? I think we're going to find out over the next couple of weeks because when you look at this list of candidates, and you've seen it, it's a bunch of young, for the most part, offensive coordinators, and then Steve Wilks, whose background, as you know, is on defense. The two kind of outliers on that list are Frank Reich and Jim Caldwell, former head coaches, both, again, from the offensive side of the football. Does David Tepper want the next bright, shiny object, which he was kind of where he went in 2020 with Matt Rule. The difference being this time is he's not looking at an unproven college coach. I mean, these offensive coordinators that they're going to interview, Ben Johnson, Shane Steichen, Mike Kafka, Ken Dorsey, I mean, these guys have spent their, if not the entirety, most of their careers in the NFL.

Matt Rule had one season as the Giants assistant offensive line coach. So, yes, there's a long way of saying he does value what Wilks brought to this organization. Does he value it enough to make him the head coach?

I don't know. I think we're going to. I really don't. I think he should. I wrote a column Sunday night from New Orleans suggesting that or advocating that.

I don't know that that'll happen. I don't know what he's going to do. I've not had a conversation with David Tepper. I'm only my experience with David Tepper is through sound bites, watching him in interview settings and things like that. My read is that Steve Wilks not a shiny enough object. He's more cast iron. But I would I would say there's nothing better to cook in than a cast iron skillet. And I think he is maybe David Tepper is more all clad than that.

People who cook will understand what I'm talking about. I thought the most interesting, interesting name on that to me was Jim Caldwell, because and maybe Caldwell is on it if he decides to go with Steve Wilks. Can I read into it that way? Yeah, I think that's an interesting. Yes, I had the same thought. And also with Frank, right? Are these guys who are these guys will could partner with, if you will? Yeah, I don't know. I think it's a possibility. I do know that's going to be an important part of Wilks presentation today to David Tepper in terms of listen, this is, you know, we were kind of just, you know, we talked about earlier, Adam, about how they were doing it with a running game and not really passing.

You know, that's, that's all fine and well. But what's your big what's your big picture vision for this offense? Which of these four quarterbacks in the draft?

Do you like, if any? What do you think about Derek Carr? Who's your offensive coordinator going to be if you know if it's not one of the guys you mentioned? A name I've heard, incidentally, is the Eagles quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson, who's, you know, obviously done very well with with Jalen Hurst said in the last couple years. So, yeah, that that's a huge piece of it. Because I think, and I think pepper can look at the last 12 games and they, you know, defense play pretty well. And the guys in the locker room love you. I respect the heck out of that.

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Steve? Well, right, but to me, their offense was based on their personnel. So they, they all they had this year were backup quarterbacks masquerading as starters. They still, you know, we're how many how many years have we been looking for a second wide receiver to DJ more? Terrace Marshall did make a nice catch, but he basically didn't have any kind of year of that a number two wide receiver would have they still don't have a pass catching tight end.

Offensive line can run block can't really pass block all that well. So they did what they could do. I thought they did the best they could with I mean, to me that New Orleans lost the game in the first half. They should have been up by probably 17. And it was seven nothing is kind of left the door open for Carolina.

I just my example of what a head coach should do is here with our hockey team and how rod Brenda Moore is the hurricanes connects with the community cares about the team and makes everybody else care. I get the sense that Wilkes can do that there, but it's not a commodity that I think is often valued by ownership. And you know what?

I agree with you. And I mean, listen, Steve will screw up the West Charlotte. He very famously, I think it was when he was in high school, uh, maybe college. He, he was selling cokes, you know, outside of the stadium on game days.

He and a buddy of his, not, you know, not inside, but out, you know, more head or mint one. And you know, he, he loves it here. He kept his off season home here when he went to the Cardinals to be their head coach briefly and then went on to Cleveland and so forth. And why I do, why I think your point is very important is David pepper could use some good community PR here. The teams has stunk for five years, pretty much since he bought it, bought, bought them from, from Jerry Richardson. He just had a disastrous, uh, PR deal with, with the rock Hill situation where, yeah, we're going to do this great thing. And no, actually we're not, we're going to, we're going to leave rock with this Hawking steel half completed pile of, of rebar and, and, and a bunch of millions of, of contractor money.

So, yeah, like I think it's important they have naming rights situations to think about. Like you, you want to engender some good will in the community. And, uh, and Steve Wilkes does that again, fans, you know, I think mostly what I've been hearing from fans is, yeah, we like Wilkes. This has been great, but man, we, we still got to do something on offense. Well, Wilkes knows that like that you were just making that point to Adam. Like he, he was just kind of trying to bandaid the situation, make this team competitive.

That was, that was the solution in the short term. What's his bigger vision. Yeah. Does he like, does he like Bryce young? I mean, the world seems to like Bryce young, um, and the Panthers now that that's a whole, that's another conversation that, you know, that, that number one picks for sale.

Now Chicago got it now since Lovey Smith, a farewell present to Houston. Um, but anyway, it's a fascinating deal and, um, it's gonna, it's, it's going to be fascinating to see how this all plays off. All right. So final question for you, Joe person, uh, from the athletic is that at number nine, do you think they go quarterback big, but if they do, doesn't it just speak to having wasted, even though it was a mid round draft pick, having wasted a draft pick and trading up for Matt Corral a year ago.

Yeah. You know, I, I just don't think you can let Matt Corral influence your decision this year. I mean, it was a third round pick and you're right.

You gave up an extra third to get up and get them. Uh, you don't know what you have in him. I don't think you can assume he's going to be the guy. And so it feels, I may be reading the room wrong and you know, if Lamar Jackson becomes available, maybe they, they, you know, who knows, but it does feel like in talking with Scott fitter yesterday and the fact that he and assisted GM Dan Morgan kind of were, they were pretty much every Saturday, it seemed like one of them was at one of the big four quarterbacks games, young Stroud, Levis or Richardson. And, uh, I do think they're going to take one in the top 10 and, you know, again, we're, we're putting the dust, the card out in the front of the horse a little bit because who's the head coach going to be, but I, but it does feel like this franchise is ready after passing on Justin Fields and Mac Jones a couple years ago, after passing on Kenny Pickett last year, I think, I think they're ready to, and they've got the draft capital if need be to move up and, and, you know, get that number one pick potentially with all the, the extra picks that the Christian McCaffrey trade brought in. All right.

Well, I hope, uh, I hope they come out of this looking better at quarterback, otherwise, uh, well, Baker Mayfield to be available again, although that's probably didn't work out the last time. Uh, Joe person, that's just, that's not even fun. You're right.

You're right. I apologize for that. I'm going to give my award back, uh, at Joseph person on Twitter from the athletic covers the Panthers. Thank you very much, my friend. I'll talk to you soon. All right, buddy.

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