Attempting to bring some Carolina Panthers zen...

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See website for details. We need to keep things pleasant, I think. It's so easy to hate.

It's so easy to dislike. It's so easy to get disgusted that sometimes we need to remind ourselves that things aren't as bad as we want them to be. Just do a few woo-saws. Woo-saw.

Yeah. We could do a few woo-saws. We could do the downward dogs. We could do the woo-saws.

Go touch some grass. You know, do all the things. We could do all of the things. One of the things about a Monday after an NFL weekend is that usually for fan bases, you get to take stock of where your team sits. It's always about, well, did we get a win? Did we escape injury? Did we do all the things we set out to accomplish to do? Most importantly, get a dub.

Did we get a dub? And at this time of the year in the NFL, it's about the haves and the have nots because we've pushed past the trading deadline. We are getting back those early season bumps and bruises guys, usually, because right away the 53-man roster is like, all right, designated for IR or we've got them on the pup lists or whatever it happens to be. And we start getting guys back. So for your Carolina Panthers, if that happens to be your team and that's who we are talking about right now, J.C. Horn has been designated to return from IR.

So yes, a little Zen, right? Gonna get one back of our key players could play against. And then we remind ourselves it's the Dallas Cowboys. Yikes. The Dallas Cowboys this past weekend decided to play a game against the New York football Giants in which the final score was 49 to 17. Yep. Dak Prescott through for 404 yards and recently discovered that Brandon Cooks also plays for his football team.

It's funny how it works out like that. Brandon Cooks, who was pretty much invisible this most of the season, ends up receiving 173 yards. Had enough yak. He's fast, but just got overlooked because it's C.D. Lamb, right? You got Jalen Ferguson new to the building. He's got Tony Pollard and you get a touchdown and you get a touchdown and you get a touchdown. Now, that doesn't excuse the fact that the Dallas Cowboys are not exactly, you know, tearing the house down when it comes to to record and whatnot. They are six and three, but they're undefeated at home.

And that's a different thing. But they are coming to Charlotte this upcoming weekend, which will be like a home game for them. Yes, the Cowboys fan base does travel incredibly well. I don't think I've been in a city that I have as worked in and I've worked in a number of NFL cities and now I'm here in the triangle and close to Charlotte to where going to a game did not involve roughly half the building being Cowboys fans, if not more. It's like if you're at, say, when Kobe Bryant was playing for the Lakers and Lakers would visit Charlotte, Kobe Bryant, the Lakers, that would dominate the building quite a bit.

Sure. Or at a Carolina Hurricanes game where you see one of the New York teams come in or maybe the Bruins or maybe even a Canadian team, one of the original six. Yes, you would see many more of those fans outside of hurricanes fans. It's just the simple economy of the fan base. It's what it is. They travel well.

They feel pretty well. When asked about facing the Dallas Cowboys this Sunday, head coach Frank Reich, who just wrapped up a press conference, offered up this. Yes, it's, you know, it's a. Yeah, I think what you're saying is exactly true. There's a both and what changes is that matchups change and the schemes change that you're going against.

So you're exactly right. From that aspect, it changes in how we game plan and approach it. You know, I would think if you talk to most of the players, they might not admit it, but when you're going up against hot team guys, you know, it's an opportunity, you know, things have not been going well for us as a team. So it's an opportunity.

That was a very plain statement. Things have not been going well for us. Speaking of vanilla, here's an opportunity for us. Well, of course it's an opportunity. Every week's an opportunity. Frank, you have one win on this entire season. It will be an opportunity, an opportunity against a team that is playing very good football coming off a very undeniable win.

That's the best way I could put it. There was no way the Giants were in that football game at the opening kickoff. It was not going to happen, but they hung a 49 piece on the New York football Giants. That is definitely a team that is on a roll and a team that is trying to make sure that the Philadelphia Eagles, the defending NFC champions do not get far away from them and they stay within striking distance. The Cowboys are that team. They're an enigma wrapped in a riddle sometimes. Sometimes they play really, really good football. Other times, you're just like, it's a head scratcher moment for you. Meanwhile, on the flip side of that, as I try to find you some Panthers Monday, Zen, you know what you're going to get with the Panthers right now.

Oh yeah. And it's not pretty. You don't really have to elaborate much on it's not pretty.

You really don't. There's no confusion. There's zero confusion between these two football teams.

There absolutely is none. There is a talent level that is a, there is a gap. There is a gap between the Carolina Panthers and the Dallas Cowboys. A game that is, I mean, every game is a must win, but it's a game that it's not even, it's barely a litmus test because there's no comparison to be between these two teams.

Carolina and Chicago was more of a comparable kind of yin versus yang kind of thing. And as you look at the Panthers and you see where they're going right now and you see, okay, JC Horn's going to come back, but. Judy was boring. Hello. Then Judy discovered jumbacassino.com.

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Chumbacassino.com no purchase necessary for prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply. See website for details. So what do we do with the play calling right now? What do we do with Bryce young and Adam Thielen? Do we try to force Sanders more into this offense? Have we given up on miles Sanders as a, as a viable one at this point?

And we're moving on. Can we get Hayden Hurst the ball a little bit more? No, one's questioning the defense right now. Diana Racini and the athletic wrote basically like they're questioning everything else about how this team is put together, how this team operates on the field. Sometimes you get blessed with the right coordinators and the right head coaches. And when you look at how this Panthers team operates, they do all right when faced with some adversity, like if the game is close, they're okay. But this is not a team that plays from behind very well.

No, it's, it's like the Russian of the Russian hockey team back in 1980. You don't know what to do when you're trailing. You don't have a plan for that.

You don't. It's like, okay, we have these options. We have this extra set of plays or this set of plays that we go to when we're down 14, because you do have to throw out the script. The Panthers are not an explosive offense.

The explosiveness right now has come on special teams. Yeah. I'm not talking about Eddie Pinheiro. No, no, not at all. Unfortunately, he tries, but yeah, trying does not get you wins.

That is the problem. We can try and try and try our hardest, but it's not getting us wins. It's not creating the separation that this team needs as a national football league team that plays in the NFC South, which is still a hot garbage division.

Well, and you know, speaking of frustration as a Panther fan, this is one of the things that I've talked about over the weekend, like with my dad even is just with the cycle. So we were told that we're going to let Steve Wilks go because we're going to think differently. We're going to have an offensive mind. So we're going to clean house, get an offensive minded staff. We've got Frank, we've got, you know, Thomas now, but here's the offense stinking and here's the defense, which is meh to me. I feel like it's worse than it was when Steve was here. So now we've got a bad offense and a not so great defense and we're going backwards. This is the frustration like, okay, this is, we did all of this for that boo.

Hope is a very dangerous thing. And the hope at the start of this season was this team was not going to be this bad. And as I try to find these moments of Monday's in for you, I will remind you that the NFC South is hot garbage. The New Orleans Saints who lost Michael Thomas and car in the same game are five and five. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are four and five. The Atlanta Falcons, who I believe are like their eighth quarterback, are four and six. This is the time of year where you start seeing those Z's in the standings, like out of playoffs kind of thing.

The Carolina Panthers one and eight. They're not out of the playoffs. They have not been mathematically eliminated from anything.

And they are not good. But and as we look for more Zen, and I'm trying to help you stay grounded, but it's not helping that I give you more evidence that Kyler Murray is back in Arizona and Kyler Murray decided to run his team back against the Atlanta Falcons. At least it was Atlanta. So Atlanta took the loss. But Kyler Murray led the Arizona Cardinals who were one and eight to a second win on the season. So now they are two and eight. So the draft pick that the Chicago Bears hold is still pretty darn awesome as the number one pick.

More kick in the teeth. Next year's draft. And not only do they have one pick, they have their own still as well. So the Otis Panthers fan, if you so desire, is to cheer on this team. Is it possible, though, to cheer on this team?

It's hard. I think even the most diehard fans and you are one of those included, Victoria, have a tough time rolling out of bed going, Hey, it's a Panthers game day. Who do we got? Dallas? Yeah, no, no, not at all. But you still have New Orleans and you still have Tampa and you still have Atlanta on your schedule.

And it is a hot garbage, hot garbage of a division. So you look for the Zen and you hear Frank talk about I'm sorry, Coach Reich. I don't know. I don't think I can call him Frank. He's Frank. Are you allowed to call him Frank?

Because if I call him Frank, it feels like I have a personal bond with him. And I do not know. I do not. You are not my brother from another mother. You are Coach Reich until I get comfortable with you. And right now I am uncomfortable with you.

There is no comfort. Call him dude. Just be like, Hey, dude, you should make better calls. Zero comfort in him as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers right now. There is nothing that he says right now that reassures me that there will be a win on Sunday. Not one thing.

I don't buy anything, he says. And I'm so over him saying, well, we're we're progressing. We're working towards this.

We're going to do. No, you're not progressing. You're not. You're not doing that. You're actually going backwards.

So I don't believe anything he says to be measured and throw stones to throw stones. It is the head coach's responsibility to get his team together, get them on the same page. No one's questioning them trying the players. No one's questioning the players trying. They've got nothing to gain. Like you can't even say they're throwing games for a draft pick because we're not going to get it.

Got nothing to gain by stinking. This is their last home game, by the way, Sunday for three weeks. They don't come back until the 17th of December. So this is it like they are hitting the road. This is the last gasp of anything happening at home, like home cooking. If that exactly if that exists at Bank of America Stadium, this is the last chance to even add a pinch of salt or create something from scratch. I hope there's some magic.

I don't see it happening. You know, when the fans feel most passionate at home now, I've noticed by going to the one game that I went to when they boo David Tepper, that is like when you get the most. I mean, granted, we were all excited when they won at the end.

But at the same time that the of the second time was when we were booing David Tepper because that's where we're at. It is bad that the fan base, the the ire of the fan base is the ownership. That's that is as bad as it gets. When you start calling out quarterback play or you start going, oh, man, that defender keeps getting the quarterback keeps getting burned or whatnot.

I get that. That's like fandom. That's like, you know what? I mean, our team just isn't playing well, whatnot. But if you're laying everything and the most passionate thing you can get about, get get behind is the fact that you dislike the owner.

Yeah. You have a huge institutional problem right there. We just saw this play out up in Washington under different circumstances, but they dislike the owner there, too. And Carolina Panthers fans, I'm sorry, Victoria. We're stuck. We are stuck.

David Tepper. So hate on him to bang on that drum all you want. Yeah, but that is not changing.

Hey, but at least he's bringing music to Charlotte, too, since he's a. There is your Zen. OK, round two. Name something that's not boring.

Laundry. Oh, a book club. Computer solitaire, huh?

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