Is he brave enough to predict the Panthers post season? 

That time of year where it's so hot outside that it's always freezing inside.

That's why I got sleeves on. Victorious producing. 20 years ago, around 20 years ago, between 19 and 20 something years ago, Will Kunkel and I might have found ourselves matched up against each other in a basketball game on a June 27th as we both used to work at a summer camp on the coast of North Carolina. Both kind of grew up going there as well. And then a winding road has brought us both to the sports world and ended us up back in North Carolina where he is a guru in all things Charlotte sports.

And I'm a goofy fill-in guy who gets called in the summer to sometimes kill some time on the radio. So it is my pleasure to welcome him now. You can follow him on Twitter at WillKunkelFox. You can also check out the A Relatable Journey podcast that he does that is super cool. And he's one of the hosts of Charlotte Sports Live on Fox Charlotte. He is Will Kunkel. Will, what's going on, man?

How you doing? Dude, man, what a crazy ride. You draw it out like that. That was a long time ago back in camp. It was a lot of fun. You used to run that joint, too. I remember when you were a camper, too. You were like one of those like huge kids, dude. You were a big, big kid and you used to be like intimidating.

I'd be like, I was a couple years older than you, but even as a counselor you'd be like, I feel like this kid could probably beat me up if he wanted to, so I better watch it. And then, I don't remember, go ahead. I remember my northern gregariousness wasn't always loved in the south in the manners that we're taught. Alright, well it's funny enough because that was one of the questions that I'd like to think that it probably helped teach you some manners because you seem to be a super polite guy.

You do a super cool podcast, but that was actually one of the questions I was going to start. How are you a full-fledged, assimilated southerner now? You seem to fit right in there in Charlotte.

You still get your big NFL. Charlotte's got a little bit of the glitz and some tall buildings, but it ain't, you know, New York City. Are you adapted now as a North Carolinian or do you still look to go back? No, you know, honestly, Charlotte's like such a great spot because it's such a transplant city. It's not, like, Charlotte itself isn't really the south. North Carolina obviously is, especially once you get outside of Charlotte, but Charlotte is so unique in that manner and in regards to what they've done up north, I don't know that I can even go back up there.

I'm not rich enough to pay those taxes and pay those bills, man. Now, it's good that you don't have a southern accent yet. No one's going to mistake you from moving from Alabama or something like that. Let's talk a little bit of Hornets before we get to Panthers. It was funny, part of the inspiration for me hitting you up, I was telling Victoria, you know, I get called into guest hosts, and so, yeah, I used to have a great stack of, I could connect to a lot of the folks around North Carolina who were in the media and all things like that, but it takes me a couple days to start just thinking about things like that, and Victoria had some audio clips to play that she pulls every day of stuff that's going on, and it was like Will Kunkel on, you know, the Hornets draft pick, and I was like, Will Kunkel?

I was like, wait a minute, we don't need to play Will Kunkel audio clips, let's just call Will Kunkel. So let me ask you, what do you think about the Brandon Miller pick, and why do you think it didn't go over so well with the fans and famously the mascot there and that gift that was widely seen? As for the mascot, that was one of the funnier clips out there because you've got to know internally, just don't do anything, do nothing, because you are going to be all over everything. As for the fans, I think so many of the fans, and obviously this is true in almost every sport, they don't really know what they're talking about in regards to prospects. They know their guys that are on their teams, and they fall in love with those guys and that make complete sense. They don't know a lot about Scoot Henderson or Brandon Miller, they don't scout them, they don't break them down, they don't watch film.

So when you find a guy like Scoot, you certainly aren't watching him in the G League on Ignite, so what you do is you fall in love with him on social media, and everything on social media is going to be the best highlights of the best highlights. And I'm not saying Scoot's not worthy of being the second draft pick overall, and that he's not a good player, but the fans fell in love with him. And in Brandon Miller, you know, obviously a lot of controversy surrounding him off the court, and then you pair that with Miles Bridges.

It's completely understandable. You pair all those emotions, and you also have a franchise that has never really done well drafting, especially with Frank Kaminsky and Cody Zeller didn't really pan out. Like, okay, kill Chris. You could go on, you could do this list forever, unfortunately, so you just kind of put that all in a pot, because they were supposed to be good last year. It was supposed to be the biggest offseason, and Miles Bridges ruined all of that. And then there was an embarrassingly bad season, and then they were good, and who takes their odds to get number one, and then oddly enough moved up to number two anyway.

So I think you put all of that, and it's just all that frustration and emotion. I like your point of, like, if you're a fan, you might as well bet on booing, because there's a good chance you'll be right that it's the wrong player. You have no idea whether it's wrong or not, but just based on history, I'm going to take my chances booing, and there's a decent chance it'll be bad.

Obviously, we don't want that to be the case. Do you back the team? Do you like the Brandon Miller pick? Yeah, I do not think that there is enough of a difference between Brandon Miller and Scoot Henderson to where you can be overly excited or overly upset. I think they were both very good players, and it's more about fit and more about availability in the draft. There was not a lot of 6'9 guys that can dead sharpshoot, and this kid can't.

He shoots 40% and he's 6'9", and he likes to play defense. For all accounts and all interviews, he's a pretty good kid outside of the one horrible mistake that led to a woman being murdered by somebody else, not Brandon Miller. But to be fair, if you look at his past behavior and his behavior after that mistake, there isn't anything. So I'd hate to be judged on my worst mistake.

Thankfully for me, his worst mistake is hopefully nothing that I'll ever come close to, and hopefully he's learned his lesson. Alright, moving over to the Panthers. I know it's the dead of summer. We haven't seen anybody play. We don't know what's going to happen with Bryce Young. There's tons of new parts and pieces for the Carolina Panthers, especially in the coaching staff. But as you look around at what the disaster is with the rest of the NFC South, am I crazy to say the Panthers would not win any other division, I don't think, in the NFL, or I wouldn't pick them two? But I'm sitting here in the middle of the summer thinking, I can't have more faith in the Panthers to win the division than any other team in the NFC South. Am I crazy, Kunkel?

You're definitely not crazy. I would hedge the bet a little bit on the Saints because they got the best quarterback in the division in Derek Carr. We all envision great things from Bryce Young, but no rookie quarterback has ever come in and just lit the world on fire. So we have to prepare ourselves for Bryce Young to have a very up and down season as every quarterback does. I would be more worried about the defensive side of the ball right now because they don't have a good pass rush.

Utor Gross-Matos has got to have a year or else his career in Carolina is over and they've got to stay healthy in the secondary and maybe even add another name back there as well. Because if J.C. Horn goes down or Dante Jackson goes down, we saw what happened in Tampa Bay. They should have been in the playoffs after they'll win that game, but they couldn't stay behind receivers. They just let guys run all over the place. So I don't think you're crazy at all and they wouldn't come close to winning a division elsewhere in the NFL.

In the NFC South, and that's all that matters, they have a chance to win with nine, maybe eight wins. Will Kunkel joining us. You can follow him on Twitter at WillKunkelFox. Check him out on Charlotte Sports Live on Fox Charlotte. I was talking about this earlier.

There's been comparisons. Obviously up here we talk a little bit more of the Carolina Hurricanes than you guys do up here in Raleigh. And Dundon and Tepper came in about the same time and from the start, Tom Dundon, owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, put the right guy in place as coach and from that a lot of things went well. Tepper, on the other hand, seemingly put the wrong guy in place as coach or maybe other positions and things did not go well.

Is it easy to, I don't know exactly how I'm trying to ask this. He seemingly, with this new regime, has made every right decision. Not only the right coach, but GM, the support around him, the quarterback gurus, the right people to build a first round draft pick. Am I being a sucker to quickly switch back over and be like, hey, I didn't see a whole lot of competent decision making, but now I'm totally switched over and I'm like, all right, maybe Tepper is a competent owner. I don't know exactly what the question is in there, but like, should we reserve judgment and at least wait to see what this coaching staff does? Or is it okay to say, hey, maybe Tepper did learn from his mistakes and knows how to play the NFL game?

I think you'd be silly if you didn't adjust your opinion. You can't judge an owner on one decision. He got it wrong and he got it wrong notoriously bad. It went really poorly with Matt rule, but to his credit, he gave him enough time to really make, you know, proverbially hang himself. And he did after that 49ers game.

And then Dave Tepper had a press conference and he said, you know what? I gave him too much time. I didn't give enough time, whoever you ask. I'm always going to be wrong. But having said that, I got it wrong. And it's not easy being an NFL owner and I'm learning on the job.

And here we are. So to his credit, he knows his weak spots are, and he's admitting that he got it wrong versus saying it's somebody else's fault. So he went out and he, and he let the football guys make this higher. He wasn't nearly as involved in the decision process.

He was there and he was asking the questions that Scott fitter and Dan Morgan and Samir Suleiman wouldn't necessarily ask from a business standpoint. So he was involved in hiring Frank, right? But he got this one seemingly, we think, right. But every NFL owner is one head coach higher away or one quarterback away from getting it all right or getting it all wrong. So like credit Dave for admitting he was wrong and now kind of changing and admitting that he's learning and on the process. So I think it'd be silly to say, oh, no, he's an idiot. I know what he's doing because, oh, here we are. And it seems like he might know and he's willing to learn. Here's the one thing that I feel like you guys still need to hold his feet to the fire about, um, why did we get Taylor Swift and Charlotte? What's up with that? We didn't because if we did, I'd be $2,000, $3,000 more poor because my wife claims she's not a Swifty yet is talking to friends about trying to find the cheapest tickets in Paris. As if that makes any sense at all.

No, then you got it the wrong way, man. You could have saved yourself a trip to Paris or at least sending her to Paris. If we could have just had Taylor and Charlotte, then you guys could have gone and joined it there. But I feel like somebody's got to like ask Dave Tepper, like, hey, man, I don't want to get personal or offend you and have him like, what is this question coming? And then be like, why didn't we get Taylor? What's up with that?

How come we couldn't get Taylor? You know what? If there's a press conference with Dave and the next while she's still touring, I got you. Yes. Thank you.

We are getting Luke Combs back to back for a couple of nights. So I guess we'll take. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Big Panther guy. Are you going to end up? Are you going to end up in Paris for a Taylor Swift show?

Concho? Hell no. I told her I said, listen, I don't usually sign off on, you know, my wife going on a trip to Paris without me. I'd love to go. But you know what? That's on you. You can go get you and a girl's trip.

And I'll be here doing whatever it is that I do, eating, eating out of the dumpster while you spend all our money. Will Kunkel, check out his work. He's great year round, but he's really great during football season covering the Panthers. He also covers the Hornets, all the things going down there in Charlotte. Follow him on Twitter at Will Kunkel Fox. Check out Charlotte Sports Live and check out his A Relatable Journey podcast. Does some cool stuff on there with his faith and the faith of others getting their cool stories. It's not just sports people in the relatable journey, right? It's all kinds of folks.

Yeah. It's like Nick Kosa, the dancing weatherman. We have a lot of sports guys too, but it's really cool. I was actually just posting one today on my Instagram at Will Kunkel about a girl that was an atheist and she's now a big time athlete. She got a car in a bicycle wreck or a motorcycle wreck, excuse me, and was paralyzed and was a complete atheist and is now has a strong faith and has done things in her life that she never could have done without being paralyzed and coming to God. So it's a really special story and she does Tough Mudders. And I don't know if you know what a Tough Mudder is, but I can't even do one. She doesn't have her use of her legs and she kills this thing. So it's a really, really great lesson.

Her name's Jesse Strawham. It's very cool not to get too mushy or whatever, but there's times I've not worked in sports as much or as long as you have, but there's been times where this has been my full-time job. And I think for me, part of it is, and no offense to anyone, sports is a cool thing. It's part of society.

It can lift people up, bring people together, be fun or whatever. But sometimes I'm like, am I really fulfilling things talking about the number two draft pick again? And I think it's cool that I feel like you probably have a little bit of that same itch and you balance it out by doing the job you love and doing it great and then balancing it out with these other stories and having this podcast that touches on this other part of your life that's super important to you. So kudos to you for making your way through life, finding a cool career, and then also finding the spot to say, you know what, I want to do a little bit more than just sports.

So that's awesome. Man, I appreciate that. It's really my kind of you to say, and I hope you keep killing it out there.

Super proud of you, man. And one day we'll catch up on the court somewhere, right? We will. Do you still play ball? Dude, I played ball today, so that means I'm off for another eight days before my feet and knees to recover. Same. I played last night, and when I can schedule a massage next, then I'll play after that.

So we're old, but still love the game, man. Hey, dude, keep up the great work. Next time I'm guest hosting, I might just have you back on, and if not, I'll see you on my TV covering the Panthers and whatnot. But keep doing great work.

Follow him on Instagram at Will Kunkel, Twitter at WillKunkelFox, and check out the A Relatable Journey podcast. Be good, my dude. Have a good Fourth of July. Thanks, brother. You, too. Go, America.