The Carolina Panthers begin their season on the road against the Atlanta Falcons

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Again, G-O-L-O.com. And because I think it's helpful to check in with the opposition, not that Michael Rothstein who covers the Falcons for ESPN.com, not that he is the opposition here, but he covers the Falcons. So, let's check in.

Alright, Michael. In Desmond Ritter we trust, huh? I mean, yeah. First of all, I am in no opposition to Raleigh. I have family that lives in Raleigh. Oh, do you?

Oh, yeah. My brother lives just outside of Raleigh. And I have a bunch of friends there. I love the city. So, no, no. I am of no opposition to Raleigh. Okay, good. I try to be there as much as possible. You know, go to the Yacht Club and Home's Life in Youngsville.

Wait, wait, wait. There's a Yacht Club in Youngsville? Yeah, my brother is a bartender there. I got to check that out.

It's up sort of in my neck of the woods. Alright. Now I have a friend.

If you go there, if you go to Yacht Club, ask for Brett and that is my brother. Perfect. So, yeah. Absolutely. So, on to Desmond Ritter, who is not, you know, I'm not related to Desmond Ritter in any way.

Okay. They do believe in Desmond Ritter. They believe in Desmond Ritter very heavily. They, after the season, it was interesting because they wouldn't out and out say, we're committed to Desmond Ritter. But they did, they made it kind of clear, like they really liked his progress. They had, it seemed like there was an organizational wide talking point of mentioning that he didn't throw an interception in his four stars. So they were clearly setting the groundwork for saying Desmond Ritter, unless something is too good to pass up, is going to be their guy this year. And that is what we've seen. And you've seen progress from Desmond Ritter from week to week during training camp.

But the very honest truth is this. No one knows what Desmond Ritter is going to be. Right. Desmond Ritter probably doesn't know what Desmond Ritter is going to be because we haven't seen it. Haven't seen it enough, haven't seen it when it's been his team, hasn't seen it when it's been an offense tailored to his strength.

We have seen none of this. So if anyone's sitting there and telling you, yeah, Desmond Ritter is going to be great. Or conversely, if anyone's sitting there, Adam, and telling you, you know what, the Falcons needed to go after Lamar Jackson, the Falcons needed to upgrade at quarterback. Well, those are your preconceived notions because no one knows. We're going to know.

I don't think we'll know by the end of Sunday because a one game, one game is a smallish. Right. But by the end of September, we'll know. We'll have an idea of what what's up, potentially good or bad. And that to me is the real answer. Anyone else who's trying to sell you something is just trying to sell some subscriptions or have a, you know, have a hot take that'll end up on freezing cold take if that still exists on the Internet.

I think, I think it does. Maybe they're just trying to sell a membership to the Yacht Club. Hey, you know what, if they're trying to do that, I am not trying to do that. That is not my purpose.

No, it's fine. It's even like, look, if it if it helps out, Brett, we're all about that. But they did bring him some help. Bijan Robinson also drafted a wide receiver very high. So talk to me about about B or that Drake London might be a year ago. I don't even know anymore.

Yeah. And Kyle Pitts, too. So I want to ask you about him. But let's talk about the former University of Texas running back who, along with Jameer Gibbs, was all the hotness coming into this draft. So how how extensively will Bijan be featured? Oh, you're going to see a lot of him.

A whole lot of him. Yeah, he's he's special. And I say that very objectively.

I have said this a few places and I believe it. Running back is a tough spot, although he's not a running back. He's an offensive option. People need to just get over the running back thing.

Right. He is an offensive option. He's going to be used a bit of everywhere. But you you look at his talent, you look at his skill set. If he stays healthy, he'll be putting on some sort of jacket at the end of his career, whether it's a red one.

That's like a Ring of Honor jacket for the Falcons or the other one. I think he's that good. I've covered a lot. I've covered the NFL now.

This is season 11 and I covered college football for a decade before that. And there's only one other guy I remember every day in practice watching and being like, you know what, that guy. All the time, really, every day he's doing something that I go, oh, all right, like every day. And it's not just like making a great play.

It's like, oh, no, that's something different now. And that other guy was Calvin Johnson. So that should tell you kind of where my head is at when we're talking about Bijan Robinson. I think he has that type of skill. I think he has that type of possibility. But health is a factor here and how he's used. But Arthur Smith is a very creative, innovative offensive mind.

So I think there's a lot of a lot of good that could happen for Bijan Robinson. And going back to Ritter, this all plays into it. Right.

Because it's very simple what they were trying to do. They whether it was Ritter or somebody else. Right. They invested top 10 picks in running backslash offensive option. Wide receiver Drake London was number eight last year. And then Kyle Pitts is the number four pick as a tight end who can also play wide receiver. Sure.

In theory. And what you've done is you've now given so much talent to surround them. And then you bring in Johnny Smith, you bring in Matt Collins, you have Cordell Patterson, Tyler Algiers, kind of the forgotten man and all this.

He rushed for a thousand yards last year. Like there's so much offensive young talent there other than Johnny that you're you just need to distribute, man. You need to just be a point guard if you're Ritter and you should be at worst feasible on offense.

So are competent. And then if you get anything from Ritter, you're real you're real good. So that's I think what we're going to see is we're going to see a lot of Bijan. We're going to see a lot of Drake London, a lot of Kyle Pitts. Those are going to be, to me, the three top guys in the offense. Don't be surprised if we see a decent amount of Johnny Smith, though.

Right. Because you saw how Arthur Smith used him in Tennessee. Offense is different. But Arthur Smith does like having multiple tight ends. And, you know, people freak out here about, you know, like that. That Mac Hollins is the second wide receiver and it's like, yeah, but Mac Hollins is also maybe the fifth option in the offense.

That's fine. Yeah, but one of the things that we know about Mac Hollins and we've seen him in the NFL for a while, too, but we watched him here at North Carolina is that Mac Hollins can get down the field and he's a big target. So there's nothing wrong with somebody who can get down the field and also happens to be a big target.

Right. And he's a willing blocker. He'll play special teams for you. And again, if he is your fourth, fifth option in your offense, that's fine. Like, you actually probably have a pretty good offense if he's option number five. Michael Rothstein from ESPN.com, also related to the Youngsville Rothsteins at the Yacht Club.

All right. Let me go to the defense before we have to say goodbye, because I read that Arthur Smith says defense is going to be a collaborative effort. My guess is that the offense belongs to Arthur Smith, but the defense, I'm not saying he doesn't trust defensive coordinators, but it's a little bit more by committee, I guess. What are we expecting on that side of the ball?

Well, I think what he's saying, collaborative effort, it goes a bunch of ways, right? Because so on offense, they've really gone to try and become almost position agnostic and skill positions. All those guys we just mentioned can play both multiple spots.

Right. Defensively, they're trying to maybe get to that, too. And that might sound like how, but they've got guys that they're cross-training. They look at guys as kind of hybrid guys, as defensive ends, offensive linebackers, or outside linebackers. Even maybe some inside-outside with a guy they brought in named Kayden Ellis.

Jesse Bates can play theoretically three spots if they need to, and they paid him as one of the highest-paid stations ever. So I think some of that is when you're talking about personnel. But Ryan Nielsen's in his first year running in defense on his own, but he has a lot of experience there on that defensive staff.

Jerry Gray has been in the league forever. Frank Busch is a former defensive coordinator himself. So there's a lot of talent there defensive coaching-wise and experience-wise, but make no mistake. They'll say collaborative effort. This is Ryan Nielsen's defense.

Right. This is Ryan Nielsen's plan. It is Ryan Nielsen's scheme, and it's going to be a much more aggressive scheme and a much more aggressive approach than what we saw with Dean Pease. And some of that is Dean Pease's scheme, but a lot of that, too, is just the personnel they had. They were so hamstrung at salary cap situations, and they didn't want to put themselves further in a hole like some other teams do, like, you know, the Saints and the Rams, just to kind of keep kicking the camp forward.

They kind of said, no, we're going to we're going to eat this. And now they were able to go sign guys, and they brought in a ton of guys on defense in free agency. And that's how they chose to build their defense. You got David Ominata, you got Kalaus Campbell, Bud Dupree, Kate and Ellis, who I had mentioned earlier, all guys that they brought in for front seven help. And it's shown in practices, but much like we're talking about with Des and Ritter, those guys are known commodities, except kind of for Kate and Ellis.

But the difference is, is we just don't know how it's all going to look working together. But we know what guys like Campbell, Dupree and Ominata can bring when they're healthy. I know there's a lot of optimism around the Falcons. They're a sneaky choice to win the NFC South, although I think you can make a case for the Saints as well.

But it should be a fun season and a very important game. You can make a case. I'm going to throw this at you, too. You can make a case for Carolina. Oh, yeah, you could.

I absolutely do. I cover so Jim Caldwell, you know, a little bonus nugget, I guess. So I covered Jim Caldwell when I when I covered the Lions, I covered his tenure and I watched him rework Matthew Stafford like the Matthew Stafford. He got the Matthew Stafford that that left there and ended up winning a Super Bowl were, I won't say completely different quarterbacks, but he changed his footwork. He made him he had to read stuff differently.

It was a painful process. The fact that Jim Caldwell is on the Panthers staff, along with Frank Reich, along with Josh McCown, there is not a better situation for a young quarterback in the NFL than what they have in Carolina because of the experience that those guys have. Yeah, no, I agree. I love the the the addition of Jim Caldwell to that staff. And I think, you know, here to me, most of the optimism, I think Bryce Bryce Young is going to be very good. But I think most of the optimism around here for me is the quality of the coaching staff. And I was just I was team Steve Wilkes. I really wanted him to get the job.

I thought he deserved it, but I'm not complaining at all with what Carolina did with their coaching staff. All right, we're we're not enemies. We're friends and we'll hang out at the Yacht Club next time you're in town. Michael, I am looking forward to it. I mean, you keep me posted. All right, first first dinghy is on me.

I have no idea what that means. Michael Rothstein from ESPN.com covers the Falcons at Michael Rothstein on Twitter. I'll talk to you later, man. Thanks. Are you struggling to lose weight and keep it off? Tired of wasting time and money on starvation diets that lead to more frustration and stress? If there was a weight loss solution that could actually work for you, would you try it? Then head to Golo dot com. I'm Steve. I lost 138 pounds in nine months on Golo.

I'm Amber. I've lost 128 pounds with Golo taking release. If you're ready to take back control of your life, head to Golo dot com now and see how Golo can work for you.

That's Golo dot com. My sleep is way better. My inflammation has gone way down. Golo saved my life. I was way overweight. That's what sent me down the path.

I wanted to make sure and live for my kid. I have literally tried everything. I was on the verge of getting gastric bypass surgery and I saw the Golo commercial and it was the last thing I tried because it worked. Join over two million people who have found a better way to lose weight with Golo. Your healthier and happier life begins at Golo dot com. That's Golo dot com. Again, Golo dot com.