Carolina Panthers training camp and someone who will be watching from the sidelines

Here to not talk about Dan Snyder, if we can at all help it, because that will be the goal of everyone moving forward, and instead focus on positive things, like the hope of a new year as zero and zero record, as training camp begins. Who better to talk to than Darren Gitt, reporter for the Panthers, my good old friend. Darren, how are you doing, sir? Not too bad, not too bad. I thought you were going to drop a, there was a certain former owner who once referred to Snyder as my little friend Danny, and so that's been rolling through my ears in the last little bit, so good news for all the fans of the Washington franchise who are no longer subjected to that.

That sounds like something that a long time wannabe NFL owner would say about somebody, and refers to people in his now field as my guy or whatever it is, but we'll leave that aside. My question for you, Darren Gitt, the Panthers are headed to Wofford, practice starts next week, I think they move in this weekend, do I have that right? Yeah, rookies report tomorrow, veterans report on Tuesday, a little bit different schedule this year, they're doing some things differently, but different is kind of the order of the offseason for the Carolina Panthers, they've gone a different track at quarterback, at coach, and rebuilt a defense on a brand new platform, so change is the order of the day, so we should have plenty to work with once we get down to Spartanburg. My question for you, do you get a dorm room? Yes, sadly, my days of the Marriott are over, I will be in a dorm, I'm not sure which one, I'll pick up my keys when I get down there, but it's definitely a life I am not accustomed to. Wait, wait, wait, be serious, you'd rather stay in the Marriott than the dorm? I feel like the dorm is almost like, I don't know, there's like something cool about it, something you wouldn't normally do.

Are you kidding? But you and, I'm trying to think of who, the marketing staff aren't playing beer pong against each other in the halls and seeing who has a lot of stereo setup and things like that? Something like that, yeah, I think there is an idealized notion of training camp, and I will say this, I believe the idea of going away to a camp is good in theory, I think all the things that football coaches like about it, it's good for our digital staff too. We are going to meet with some new co-workers, we're going to be in the trenches with them for the first time, and in that setting you get to know people better when you are sequestered away from the comforts of home for two and a half weeks in Spartanburg. And when you are down there, the comfort is the appropriate word, because there's not a lot of it.

Nobody signs up to sleep on a twin XL mattress, I don't think, once they pass about 21, 22 years old, right? Yeah, the creature comforts are not there, but there is something to be taken from the experience of camp. When all you've got to do is work for two and a half weeks, you do get to know the people you're working with better, you operate in tandem. I think better coming out of it than you go into it, and that's what Frank Reich is hoping for with these guys too, because again, there's a whole lot of new parts coming together in a short amount of time. Panthers reporter Darren Gant joining us.

I hope you didn't have to rent a refrigerator like I did, I think the last time I lived in a dorm with that racket of a program, the old fridge rental. Anyway, let's move beyond that. Actually, before we move totally beyond that, I love the tradition of Wofford for all the reasons that you spoke about, and obviously there was a connection there with the former owner that's why it started, but it's in the other Carolina for where they normally play and stuff like that. We keep this answer as long or short as you want or need to, but to update me, not digging into the abandoned practice facility, but what's the future of training camp look like? Do they still want to build a dedicated practice facility somewhere?

I forget. I think all the options are on the table. Obviously the link to the previous owner is the reason the Carolina Panthers have always trained at Wofford, but it's also a good facility. Are there times when people around the building look at different facilities? I know people have checked into whether Boone would be a feasible training camp locale, and I would have loved that. Trust me, nothing would be better than a 70 degree training camp instead of a 180 degree training camp. When you look at which schools have which facilities, Wofford is such a good fit. To me, that hour and a half away from home, that's kind of an ideal window. When you start looking at things, I think it gets to be a drag if you start moving your team across country the way the Cowboys do to train in Southern California.

I think if you can put your stuff on a truck and have it somewhere in an hour and a half, that's still pretty workable for all the people who have to do the logistics. There really aren't that many places that aren't also hosting big time college football programs and have just an abundance of extra space. Wofford, because when they moved in, and I just posted a story at Panthers.com of Dom Capers kind of looking back on the 95 camp, one of the big differences is during training camp in 95, Wofford didn't have lights on the practice field because, let's be honest, Wofford didn't need lights on what amounts to interdural fields for them the rest of the year.

And they were running portable lights off generators, so it smelled like diesel hanging around the practice field a lot of times when Dom was doing night practices in 95. But I think it's a good situation for them. Will they be there forever? I don't know.

Will any of us be here forever? It's one of the things Frank Reich and Dom and all those guys, they've all got backgrounds, done it different ways. Some people are used to. There's a convenience to working out in your own facility.

You don't have to move all your stuff, but I do think you'd sacrifice some of that bonding time that we talked about. Training camp and philosophy. Will we all be here forever? From Darren Gant. Question about the quarterback. No, actually question not about the quarterback. I want to talk about anything but the quarterback. The quarterback will eat up all the oxygen in the room. He was the number one pick, came out of Alabama, the number one college football school of the past two decades now.

All the hype, all the expectations, taking sides out of it, people still high expectations for him. Put him aside, what's the next best storyline or question we should be asking about training camp for the Carolina Panthers? I think it's going to be how that defense comes together.

You don't want to put a rookie quarterback in a situation where he's got to play a bunch of big 12 games early on. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions on the defensive side of the ball. There is a big question mark as to who is the outside linebacker opposite Brian Burns. Can you convert somebody like Marquis Haynes? Is it going to be D.J. Johnson, their third round pick?

Do you have to go outside and look for somebody? How do you turn Shaq Thompson and Frankie Louvou into 3-4 inside linebackers, which is something neither one of them have particularly done in their lives. How do you turn Jeremy Chin from a linebacker to a safety to largely a nickel in this defense this year and somebody who's going to move around and do a lot of different stuff? Can the cornerback stay healthy and stay on the field?

If they can't, how good is this team really? I think there's a lot of stuff going on on that side of the ball. If you can use what Aveiro was able to do in a short time in Denver last year with kind of a mix and match cast of characters, I think there's reason to think he knows what he's doing and can create positive results.

We've got to see a lot of that. I mentioned Burns. There's also the matter that he's going into the final year of his contract. That's obviously going to be a subplot along with every Brian Burns story over the next calendar year.

A lot of stuff happening on that side of the ball that doesn't have anything to do with Bryce Young. There, I said his name. You can no longer claim that it won't appear on your show. There we go.

It's fine. I'm excited about Bryce Young as the quarterback. Just in general, it's cool when you have the number one pick, right?

There's going to be attraction to that. I wouldn't have been opposed to the Panthers being Hard Knocks. Hard Knocks always did like... Don't put that devil on me, Ricky Bobby. The only thing about Hard Knocks is it completely warps your perception of the team. They are good at storytelling and editing and making you think that some seventh string wide receiver is now going to return kicks and score four touchdowns this year.

This guy has got it. That's the only thing I don't like about it. It totally warps it and I don't want that to happen to my team, but I'd love to see behind the scenes on this Panthers team. Listen, Hard Knocks and all the things, the offshoots, the Amazon series that happens during the year with certain teams, I think those things have their value, but I think in a way they've also outlived a little bit of their usefulness.

They used to be novel 20 years ago. They used to take you places you cannot go, but I can tell you from our perspective, we put together a three-part video series called Panthers Blueprint this offseason. My colleagues in the video department, who I'm going to get to hang out in the dorm and play ping pong and everything with over the next two and a half weeks, we put together basically an hour and a half docuseries about this team's offseason and the way these things all came together. And we have access that no one else has. So I think teams are better able to provide the content that really in the past in NFL films was the only one able to do it and we're not the only team doing it. So I think as time has gone on with technology and everything, don't get me started on, you know, as old newspaper guy bemoaning the state of the media industry, but things have changed and I think fans have opportunities to see things and participate in things that they didn't 20 years ago. And I think that can be a positive and this in my opinion is one because I mean that Blueprint series takes you inside draft meetings in February when you hear Frank Rice and Scott Fitterer talk about what they're looking for in a quarterback and you realize in hindsight that it was Bryce Young all along and I think that's a story that we're the only one that's going to be able to tell.

No, you're exactly right. It's the technology side there where 20 years, when is it, 2001, 20 something years ago, you know, HBO was able to say we can put high definition cameras everywhere and now in 2023 it's like high definition cameras are literally just everywhere. They're just there. I have one in my pocket and if Aaron Gantt has one in his pocket, how special is it really?

They probably just could plug into like Wofford's internal camera system is probably good enough to run whatever HBO was doing at Hard Knocks in 2001. No, you're right. Alright, let's do talk to the quarterback for just a second and I'm going to try and pull something out of you. Well, who does?

I don't care if you've written about it somewhere else. I've heard good talk about him. It seems like they've got the right set up. The wise sage, Andy Dalton, you know, the young guy that there's no doubt that he is the future without officially answering the question of who might walk out there week one. They're just a helpful pair.

Both guys get the situation. My question to you, is there an anecdote that you've seen yourself or heard that sort of best illustrates, alright, this is the guy that Bryce Young is. I know you well enough to know you won't give me a cliche like he was the last one to leave practice, you know, at the OTAs or whatever it might be.

But is there just something that he's done or said or that you were like, okay, I've seen this and that, but that made an impression upon me. Well, one of the things, and we are going to have more on this very topic on panthers.com in the coming weeks. So stay tuned.

That's my shame. I will tell you that the what you describe it as a cliche about first man and last man out. And I know that stuff gets overwrought.

In his case, it also happens to be the truth. And I will tell you this specifically during OTAs and stuff, they're out there and you see guys, you know, getting a little extra throwing with a rookie receiver or something after practice. That kind of stuff is done. After that, Bryce Young tucks himself into the practice bubble there next to the practice field behind Bank of America Stadium by himself and does about 20 minutes of core workout on his own. And there are no cameras. I mean, this is one of those things I just see on my way out from one place to the other, you know, and there's a security guard waiting every day after practice to take him inside. He's doing it and there's not cameras. He's not doing it for show. It's not something there are guys who do that kind of stuff for attention.

Hey, look at me and how hard I'm working. He hides himself away and does that work? I've seen him do that. I know at the end of OTAs, I saw him in a meeting room with a number of different offensive assistant coaches and they were talking through the language of this offense.

I mean, you know, you're putting together two different systems when you're talking about Thomas Brown's Rams background and Frank Wright's background as a play caller, you know, with the Eagles and the Colts. And then when you see him in a room with guys talking through the language and OK, we call this this, can we make that become one word instead of four? You know, that's that's the stuff he's doing. And, you know, all the stuff about Bryce is processing speed, his maturity, all those things.

They are also true. But I mean, I have seen the guy source my two eyes, do stuff I've never seen rookie quarterbacks do. I look forward to reporters trying to get clicks, standing and taking pictures at angles to make him look as small as possible.

Those always do well on Twitter. But but I look they can take maybe they can take some pictures of him standing next to Steve Smith because they're the same size. There we go. I love that guy turned out OK. You can tell the people that are going for it like there's the you know, they'll get the angle that they're like, oh, let's see if we can make him look small.

I just want to see him play. That's all. Derek Gant, thank you so much. Enjoy your time in the Wofford dorms. Make sure you bring your whole book of CDs, your case logic CD book with you. I don't even know. I'm pretending we're the same era.

I don't know what you would have taken to a college dorm. You can't be that much older than I am. We're about the same era. I think you're the CD era, right? I was early CD. There were a lot of cassettes in the 1983 Toyota Starlet heading up the mountain in route to Boone. So, yeah, it's I think I might have you buy a couple there, Hayes, but it's we're at least in the same ballpark.

It's going to it's always interesting. There's no doubt about that. And if you and if you need a bunch of CDs, I've got about four boxes of them in the basement that my wife really wants me to get rid of because she was like, what are you going to play these on?

I don't even have anything to play. That's what they said about vinyl. That's what they said about vinyl. A lot of good stuff here. Coming back. It's coming back. That's what they said about vinyl. Don't give it away.

There's something to be said for hoarding, right? Yes. Derek Gant. Check out his work at Panthers dot com.

Ask an old guy and other features. He's got great stuff up on the Ring of Honor. Is that what we're calling it? The Ring of Honor? Yeah, the Hall of Honor. The Hall of Honor.

I knew I didn't have it exactly right. Yeah, he's got some good stuff on them and I'll have great stuff at training camp. Follow him on Twitter at Darren Gant. He'll give you more than just training camp play by play tweets, which are always my favorite.

Bryce Young completed the pass to so-and-so for 13 yards. Heck yeah, let's go. Check him out, Darren Gant. As always, thank you for the time, my friend. Anytime. Hey, see you, buddy.