Carolina Panther preseason game #3 tonight!

Like you're a quarterback, so I'm going to ask you about Bryce Young in a second.

Good. But the first two preseason games have not been pretty. They have not been good for, I think, a myriad of reasons. So if you had one thing that jumps out at you that's concerning, maybe it's hard to put too much stock in anything in the preseason, but what has concerned you? Well, the number one thing for me is the communication on the offensive line, which is, you know, everyone wants to say, oh, it's preseason. It doesn't matter. It's preseason. It doesn't matter.

This one, I think, actually matters a little bit more because, right, like Iki Akuanu and whoever's playing guard next to him haven't been communicating well, Iki Akuanu being the left tackle, and they've gotten Bryce Young hit a bunch of times. And then after the game, Frank Reich and whoever the offensive staff is will tell us, well, the play calling's been vanilla, right? We're not trying to show anything. It's been vanilla. And I'm going, well, if it's vanilla, then everybody should know exactly what they're going to have to do, right? If the play is unsuccessful, you can say, well, we didn't want to show anything. If there's a miscommunication and you say it's vanilla, it's like, okay, so we're messing up a vanilla playbook. What are we going to do when we get to, you know, to use that example, like, you know, Rocky Road with sprinkles?

We can't get vanilla right. So the communication up front, and I know Corbett's been out, but, I mean... That's on the other side. That's at right guard. And if one guy up front gets hurt, like, it's football.

You're not going to play every game with all five starting linemen. If one guy messes all of that up, then you're in kind of big problems, big trouble. So the communication up front is the thing that's really getting me. Here's, because that was my first concern. I have two major concerns.

That was my first one. Because it's not just communication. If Kayvon Thibodeau is the only player lined up, wide of you, and you're Icky Iquanu, there should never be a situation where you are looking inside. It's common sense.

What is that? And, you know, it was a misheard call is what we heard. Oh, okay. Which, you need to hit a you sure, right? Like, you're calling for me to come down. I know there's nobody outside me. And even if you think like, oh, a running back's behind me and maybe he'll... You think a running back one-on-one with Kayvon Thibodeau?

Not a good recipe. That's where Icky Iquanu has to look back at Bryce Young and go, you sure? You sure? Like, before I pinch down here and help the guard and leave Kayvon Thibodeau unblocked, let's just be aware that you know he's coming, right? And obviously all that would be in code or sometimes just hand signals, but there needs to be like the tap your helmet. Like, we're all on board with this.

This seems like a bad idea. And even when he's known his assignment, it hasn't gone well because two plays later, Thibodeau just went right around him. And he knew what he was supposed to do. Look, Thibodeau can be an elite player. It's why the Giants drafted him high. It's why everybody thought he was going to be a great player. And the Jets' defensive front, even though they weren't playing a lot of their starters, the Jets probably have one of the top two or three defensive fronts as a unit.

Not just the Stars, but the guys behind the Stars. So those are two difficult tests for an offensive line that is still trying to figure it out, even though they kind of bring back most of what they had a year ago. That's, first of all, getting beat one on one, which he did by Thibodeau. You saw Bozeman getting bullied by Dexter Lawrence. He's a local guy. He's a monster.

That's why they paid him $900 million, whatever they paid him. But like that in the preseason, I kind of like, I can forgive that. You haven't been punched in the chest in a while. You're getting used to that. That's why the missed assignments are so confusing to me.

But if you look at the, you brought it up, right? They returned most of the offensive line, and they were solid last year. They weren't great. They were middle of the pack, which I would take, like if you'd signed me up for middle of the pack this year right now. The 13th best offensive line in football.

Oh, I'm all over it. And I'm looking at Bryce Young and going, that's enough for you to learn. That's enough for you to develop. That's, you know, you'll learn how to deal with pressure because they won't block everything.

You'll learn how to have a nice clean pocket. The 13th, I would love. 26th, I'm terrified of what that means. And through to, and again, it's preseason, so grain of salt, handful of salt, whatever you want to say. They've looked more 26th than 13th.

Tim Donnelly from The Drive, they'll follow us here if you're listening on 99.9, the fan in Raleigh. Other thing that has concerned me, and I know injuries play a part, I know pass rush plays a part, but I thought the defense really made Daniel Jones look like Dan Marino in the game against the Giants last Friday. I don't know that the Lions are playing a lot of their starters in the final preseason game, so I don't know what we take out of this. And I know Carolina is going to play their starters, but Daniel Jones' stat line was pretty gaudy, and none of their receivers were anything other than wide open. And then tight ends and everybody. Everybody. Yeah. I think there's a lot being put on Brian Burns and Justin Houston right now because they weren't out there. Right. And, you know. Notice Derrick Brown, I think, right?

Yeah, correct. There's two ways to make a receiver not open, right? Either guard them or put the quarterback on his back before they can get open. I think there's going to have to be, there's going to be points given up this year, especially if guys like Dante Jackson and J.C. Horn can't stay healthy. And they brought in, what was it, Troy Hill, who's, I don't know. Von Bell's good. I like Von Bell. I like Von Bell.

I love Jeremy Chin. So they have some players, but the games where Brian Burns specifically isn't winning his one-on-one a lot, I think there could be some strain on the back end there. I love their off-ball linebackers, too. Like, there's a lot that I like about that defense. It's just everything kind of starts with Brian Burns being better than whoever he lines up across. So, you know, if the other team has a stud tackle, it could be a long day.

One more thing before I let Tim Donnelly go. By the way, Panthers Playbook. The next episode will drop, what, after the game tonight or tomorrow? Yes, it'll be after the game.

You'll have it for the weekend, so it'll be Saturday morning, whatever that is. I have loans to mow. Oh, so there you go. Yeah, I have loans to mow also. It's one lawn, but it's, like, four. We can have yard conversations another time.

Let's do that. We'll whip at our John Deers. Here's the other thing that I think that, this is why fans, I think, are mad. Not mad, but frustrated, is that they see the first pick in the draft, quarterback, that they're now convinced that they love, and they should. I think Bryce is going to be great, but the expectations with an all-star coaching staff, which I think is an accurate portrayal of this group.

Correct, very much so. And young players on defense and some young talent on offense, they're like, now's the time when we get back to being good again. So they want it to be, they almost want the finished product well before we can get the finished product. This season, and I've said this from the moment they traded up, and it wasn't even the moment they drafted Bryce Young, this season is a success if Bryce Young looks like a franchise quarterback. The win-loss record is less important because you'll win a lot of games with a franchise quarterback over 15 years. The problem is, the things that are, not problem, but the challenges, the things that are best for developing a young quarterback also happen to be the things that good teams do. I was saying this yesterday, how is Bryce Young going to learn how to find an open receiver if all the receivers are hurt and no one's open?

He's just going to be going like number one option, number two option, number three option, back to number one. It's like he's not learning how to find the guy or throw the guy open. Same is true with the offensive line.

How is he going to learn how to go through a progression like I just described if he has one and a half seconds to do it? So like, yeah, winning is protecting your quarterback and getting open and opening holes in the run game. Developing a young quarterback is protecting your quarterback, getting open, right, opening holes in the run game.

So they got to figure out a lot of stuff around him in order for him to develop as much as he possibly can. And that's the goal. That's the entire goal of the season. It just looks a lot like winning football. I think what they're going to end up doing is leaning into their hashtag, keep pounding. I think they're going to be running team again.

And that's okay if you can do that successfully and then do play action and make some plays. But I don't see a great offense just yet. And they're what, 9th and waivers? I think somewhere right now there's a team with four good running backs that wants to keep three. How about the Jets who have five good running backs? How about Michael Carter coming back into the area? Or Bam Knight?

One or both of them because Israel Ibanakonda has opened up eyes. Pittsburgh running backs with the Jets? Get out of here, Curtis Martin, all over again. So yeah, Pitt running backs, man. They're quietly good. Because obviously, I mean, there's some guys I like, like Miles Sanders. Hopefully, he stays healthy, but you can't trust that guy to stay healthy. Chuba Hubbard when running the ball is good, not as great in pass protection. Blackshear's good? Blackshear's, as a pass catcher, I love. If you go back to his time at Virginia Tech in the ACC, he's got wide receiver skills, little less between the tackles. So if you can get somebody that can maybe fill Miles Sanders' role if he goes down more completely, I think that the waiver situation might work out there. But I think they lean on the run game also.