Carolina Panthers rally but come up short in 33-30 loss to the Packers

This year, set a self-improvement goal. Like socially dominating your friends with your superior streaming knowledge. Catch up on the hits you missed with Prime Video. From Reacher to Taylor Swift, the eras tour extended version.

And The Hunger Games, the ballad of songbirds and snakes. Watch everything included on Prime. Rent or buy new releases. Add on hundreds of streamers. One app, one password. Prime Video.

Find your happy place. Restrictions apply. Prime membership not required to rent or buy.

Visit the Amazon.com slash Amazon Prime for details. Paul Weihander in for Adam Gold today. Thanks for joining us on this first show. Post-Christmas Day, Graham Hill is producing. Good afternoon, Graham. Happy Boxing Day. Happy Boxing Day. Happy Boxing Day. Hopefully the folks out there who celebrate Christmas had a great Christmas, or at least a good Christmas. Not everybody has a wonderful Christmas. I don't want to scream that at you because we are flooded with the joyous messages of the season, so to speak, for roughly three weeks prior to the Christmas holiday, which also leads into the Hanukkah holiday. And it is the first day, as you mentioned, of Boxing Day. For those of people who celebrate, visitors from Canada, welcome to the Triangle. Our lights got boxed up in the process when we were taking down Christmas decorations without watching on WRAL Sports Plus. Yeah, we have some in-studio elves, I suppose, or gremlins, the naughty elves. Some of us got some coal here in the building today when it comes to our video screens, but that's okay.

That doesn't affect what's coming out through the speakers. And for my brothers from another mother and sisters from another mister, happy Kwanzaa. First day of Kwanzaa today, for those who celebrate that as well. So as we continue this season, I'm reminded of, because we are in the middle of the NFL, in the middle of college bowl season, and also in the middle of college basketball season. This is known as crossover season for most people.

You get a little bit of this, and you get a little bit of that. You have NFL playing still several more weeks because of the extension of the year. The NBA, who normally kind of kicks off the regular season on Christmas Day traditionally in years past. I've had to work many Christmas days in some of my prior career stops handling NBA basketball events.

Nothing like opening up gifts, trying to have some family time or whatnot, but then having a noon tip, of which you've got to be in the studio two hours prior to test satellites and then go on the air an hour later with a pregame show, of which the majority of people either aren't listening to or they are enjoying from the comforts of their home. And you're the only one on the road, which is great because if you've got to go to the studio, what normally is a 30-minute drive or a 30-minute subway ride tends to be about five minutes because there's nobody around. Yeah, driving into work today, coming down 6 Porch Road, I was like, wow, nobody's trying to cut me off in traffic.

I'm going to have to swerve out of somebody that's not properly in the turning lane. This is great. No heavy ham jam for you, then. No heavy ham jam. Shout-out Honey Baked Ham.

Which is delicious, by the way. Graham, hopefully you had a good Christmas. I had a very solid Christmas. Unfortunately for Panthers fans, not so much. Let's get it started. So for those of you who had to sit around and enjoy, well, I don't know if it's enjoy family, whether you like your family, whether you don't like your family.

Fortunately, I'm in a good position where I do like my family. You also had to sit through Christmas Eve NFL games. There were so many NFL games. We had games for four consecutive days thanks to the NFL scheduling process. One of those happened to be in Charlotte, where it felt more like a home game for the Green Bay Packers as the Packers fans traveled en masse.

I guess I would assume they didn't really have to travel. I would assume the majority of Packers fans, kind of like Cowboys fans, Raiders fans, travel or just kind of live in areas, and wherever they happen to play, they migrate to them. Yeah, they came to Nashville.

That's the closest place they can get snow around here to feel close to Wisconsin. Panthers losing 33 to 30 for those of you under a rock or literally just did not get to watch any of the action over the weekend. We're going to help you get caught up a little bit today, although we do want to focus on the future and move forward past this weekend because there are still two weeks left in the regular season of the NFL. Panthers lose one 33 to 30. They were down 30 to 16 in this game in the fourth quarter, and I'm not saying there was a lack of urgency for the Panthers to win this football game, but it never felt like they wanted to be in the game. They just happened to be in the game towards that fourth quarter. DJ Chark showed up in the fourth where Bryce Young threw a couple of good touchdown passes. It never felt like they were like in this mode, though, like they needed to like, yeah, we need to score some points, need to score some points.

That's what frustrated me. Even though they tied it up at 30 to 30, they just happened to tie it up at 30 to 30, and then they gave Jordan Love his Christmas moment. Jordan Love gets to take them down the field, and they get the field goal.

We know what happens. Packers stay in the playoff race, sort of. Bryce Young, though, had his best game as a Carolina Panther, so let's find the silver lining in a 2 and 13 season. Bryce Young and DJ Chark. Let's give DJ Chark some credit, who almost had 100 yards receiving, and I've got another stat that's going to blow your mind here in just a hot second, but Bryce Young, who threw for more than 300 yards, most of that coming in the second half, so first half was kind of meh.

Second half, yeah, he had his game on, definitely played, and he's gaining some more experience. What is he getting out of those potential game-winning drives? Again, we just, being able to understand the moment, know what's going on, we all do that. We all embrace that as a unit. It's something that, you know, it's what you play football for.

Obviously, especially in the past, we put ourselves in bad situations that have made ourselves do that. We don't have to do that, so we want to try to be better at that, but when those moments come, I just have full faith and confidence in my guys that we're going to step up, we're going to execute, we're going to do what's right and be able to move the ball, and we all have that faith in each other, so I think that's where it stems from. Faith, it's the perfect word for this time of season, right?

Faith. Have some faith in your offense. The Panthers scored 30 points. Panthers scored 30 points at home, like, up until this week had scored, like, 200 combined for the entire season. If I'm not mistaken, most points they've scored with Bryce Young is playing as quarterback, right?

Yes. Because before that, the last time they scored as many points was 27, that was Andy Dalton. That was Andy Dalton's game.

Correct. So Bryce Young, in his faith, again, a good word for the season, faith in the team that they can get things done. Go down the field in two, I won't say hurry-up drives. They ran two drives.

Second drive was only about two minutes, but it was big play drives. Again, DJ Chark, almost 100 yards receiving, two touchdowns. Adam Thielen is essentially a half, one half a football away from having 1,000 yards. His first 1,000-yard receiving year in five seasons. Like, a career renaissance for Adam Thielen.

So as we look for silver linings, because lots of silver and tinsel this time of year. As we look for silver linings in a two and 13 season, the silver linings are Bryce Young is faithfully executing what offense is left to be placed in front of him, which will not be the offense that he'll be running next season, unfortunately. He's got DJ Chark, who showed up big way. Adam Thielen on the precipice of a 1,000-yard season. If he could just get Miles Sanders to get more than three yards a game and Chuba Hubbard to run more for more than 43 yards, it would have been okay against the most suspect of suspect Packers defenses.

Yeah, for sure. The Packers scored 33. You gave up 33 points to the Green Bay Packers. They made Jordan Love look like a superhero. You cannot make Jordan Love look like a superhero. When Jordan Love starts believing in himself, you talk about Bryce Young talking about faith.

When Jordan Love starts feeling it, he gets that look, and he gets help. He got help with the dubs catch towards the end of that game-winning drive and the field goal. He got help from Aaron Jones, who ran for 127 yards. Again, for a Packers defense that is supposed to be lauded, the Packers, it was 9-6 against Atlanta.

9-6. I'm like, you shut other teams down, but is it because your defense just can't quite come clicking? Notice how Bryce said, I believe in the guys in the locker room to get things done. I think he's talking about the offense right now, because maybe this was the magical turning point for him. Maybe it wasn't.

I'm not quite sure. Lame Duck coach Chris Tabor gave his thoughts on Bryce and the wide receivers doing the wide receiver things. I thought they played well.

That was evident. I thought our quarterback played well the whole game. I thought our receivers played well the whole game. They made tough contested catches.

You're watching a group grow. And as I said, as I stood up here last week, those guys made plays. You saw it carry over today. And what we talked about was, since you did that, that was the standard.

So now that's what you're chasing. And I thought today they took the standard, they met it, and then they moved it up some more. So that's good for us, because, I mean, you're either getting better or you're getting worse. And I know that's all coach speak, but that's real. And I saw a bunch of guys get better today. I like the coach speak.

I'm writing this down right now. That's exactly what it is, coach speak. But do you notice how Tabor speaks in almost near third person when he talks about, well, our quarterback played well, our receivers played well. If you have a relationship with your offense or your defense, you say Bryce played well. That's fair.

I never thought about it like that. You say DJ Chark caught some balls, made some plays. Adam Thielen was our do it again. Tommy Tremble, in terms of pro football focus, was like top five in terms of ratings for the tight ends. But when you listen to Tabor talk, he says our quarterback played well, our receivers played well. Does it sound like a coach that he's connected to the players in the game, or does it sound like a coach who knows he's only got two games left in front of this team, and he's the special teams guy, and he's going to be special teamsing somewhere else?

Yeah, I was just about to say, no, it does not. But again, maybe that has to do with stepping away from the role of being a special teams coordinator and then taking over the fire sale that is the Carolina Panthers right now. But again, it's kind of hard not to know who Bryce Young is with, especially with everything coming into this season.

Overall, first round overall draft pick, but never thought of it like that. The third speaking in third person. This is where if you're a guy and you're out with your buddies at the bar and you're looking to hook up or whatever it is, and you know, you've kind of got the girlfriend or whatever, he said, yeah, my girlfriend, you don't mention the name. Yeah, my girlfriend. Oh, yeah, she's this. It's kind of like being in that conversation.

I'm disconnecting just a little bit to help out everybody else. I don't blame Tabor for talking in near third person. Our quarterback, our guys, our wide receivers, like he was put in a bad, he's in a tough spot in a tough situation, not a bad spot. You're a head coach in the NFL. That's not a bad spot.

You get to prove yourself. We're going to talk about that in just a hot second. All right, let's move on here and talk about the reset of the MVP race in the NFL, which for the longest time, and you could believe from everybody who wanted you to believe in the Brock, that it was going to be Brock Purdy. Brock Purdy last night got outplayed, outclassed and got outed from that game last night against the Baltimore Ravens, which everyone believes was supposed to be some sort of magical setup at the Super Bowl, which it still could be. 49ers still seem to be the class act right now because the Eagles are kind of struggling just a bit.

They're trying to get their footing back. The Cowboys are an enigma wrapped in a rill for sure. But Lamar Jackson turned it up last night to where I'm not sure how many people were believing in the Brock before to be MVP. But now the betting lines are all on Lamar Jackson. Lamar talked about having a chip on his shoulder and how they were being disrespected going into that game. And rightfully so.

I'm going to say this. Home teams always have home field advantage. There are very few teams, especially in this era of the NFL right now, where you walk into another team stadium that was playing as well as the 49ers were, and you're going to steal a win. Like you might steal a win based on the spread, but you might not just get the dub overall because that's what it looked like.

But it was dominating. Like Baltimore is the real deal and they keep getting all the Keith Mitchell got hurt last week after the season. They've been dealing with this kind of rotating King Ghidorah in the backfield with three heads and whatever, whatever they can run out there healthy or whatnot. And they're always going up against the next Godzilla team, so to speak. But Lamar Jackson is the guy.

He's the guy that rolls in there with the scientist coat and the and the beakers and the clipboard and goes, yes, I think we can make this happen. And I'm being plain and kind of sarcastic at the same time. But Lamar Jackson, if you take him out of that equation, they're that team does not the Ravens do not move the way they move without him in that lineup.

Oh, yeah, for sure. They just keep turnover rocks and boom. There's another wide receiver. There's another running back. As you mentioned, they just keep finding ways to get these players in crucial situations and Lamar Jackson credit to him makes a star out of most of those guys. He but he is the star. That's the thing. Like he is the shining star that they are the moons that orbit around him. They are the planets that are over around him. Like it's Lamar's NFL right now.

It absolutely is. He's got them just bumping and grinding to dubs and I can't there's there is just Ravens are 12 and 3. They're winning on the road.

That's that's the thing. And I think that's why Lamar was kind of like, hey, man, you guys got to respect us a little bit more because we are winning everywhere and we're doing it without question. There are no questions when you rolled into these when you when the Ravens roll in. Yeah, 12 and 3. I mean two games to go.

Let's just make it happen this way. Brock pretty right now based on the NFL odds has fallen from the leader in the clubhouse, so to speak down to about fourth based on the aggregate. If you're looking for a surefire, make your money. If you live in a legal betting state, Lamar Jackson at MVP, even at minus 180 right now, 170 mean Christian McCaffrey, unless he has like an eight touchdown performance here in the last two games. He's kind of the overall number two and again, if you're looking at Dak and Jalen hurts, probably not want to go there and definitely not Pat Mahomes. Pat Mahomes looked anything but yesterday and we're going to that next. How the Raiders did us a big favor yesterday. The Raiders taking out the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas Day in the first of three Christmas Day games, 20 to 14 Raiders over the Chiefs. Lots of defensive plays clearly led by a defensive leader and head coach Antonio Pierce, who was legitimately barely coaching in this league until he rejoined the Raiders.

He got him fired up in his locker room after the game. How about that? How about that? How about that?

Everything we talk about, ill intent, violence, physicality, execution, the will to win. Look at that second quarter. What do we say we're going to do in the second quarter right away to leave us a touchdown?

Seven seconds. Third quarter. Come right back out. Do what we do. And then we say the fourth quarter. Finish. Finish. Offensive.

Hell of a job. God damn Jermaine go down, I look around, see a big 6'8", I'm going to run down the side and grab his helmet. He called me, grab his, he called me. Hey, man. You know, it ain't been done a lot around here doing what we just did. But we believe.

Ain't about what I said. I will. We will. I believe.

We believe. Tell you what, Antonio Pierce, here is the Raiders have a weird bit, having covered the Raiders for several years on the West Coast. Raiders, you talk about ownership, Panthers ownership, weird ownership or whatnot. The Davis family just win baby and whatnot. Mark Davis doesn't have the most stellar reputation with the Raiders, but they do win football games, even with the craziness that happens in the front office, in the back office, the firings of HUD Co. I mean, it hasn't gone well for them coaching wise.

Let's be honest. If there is an equivalent of the Carolina Panthers, it is three time zones to the West. It is in Las Vegas with the Raiders, but the Raiders still put on an interesting product and they may have struck gold finally for Raiders fans. That's why I'm wearing my Raiders gear.

If you're watching us on the stream, it's why I have it on just as a reminder of what is also out there in this weird, crazy NFL that we have going on. Antonio Pierce was the head coach at Long Beach Poly High School in 2017, so six seasons ago. Then he went and joined Arizona State and Herm Edwards as a recruiting coordinator and was an associate head coach and then got ousted when Edwards left there in 2021, then joins the Raiders as linebacker coach. And now he's interim coach of the Raiders in which, as we know, the Josh McDaniel's experiment failed miserably.

And the John Gruden years have moved on. All of a sudden, you have a head coach in Antonio Pierce. What side of ball did Antonio Pierce play? Defensive side of the ball. What other first year coach right now who played on the defensive side of the ball is having a very good year?

The Meeko Ryans in Houston. There is a pattern, maybe not a pattern, but maybe a clear course for the Raiders at this point to turn over the reins to a guy who has his locker room bought in. And I'm a sucker, a sucker for halftime speeches and postgame speeches. I'm a sucker for them. I get sucked in. I will watch every last minute. It doesn't even have to be the best thing. It could be full of bad words.

It could be just slow clap the entire time. But he's got that locker room going. And for some reason, he's still an interim head coach. But they will figure it out there. And the Raiders did this great favor, proving a couple of theorems, right? Like, if you've taken geometry, the proofs, and the theorems, for those of you who are still thinking about math or can understand that math, we have figured it out now in the NFL for right now. First year head coaches, defense, defense, defense, defense, defense, defense.

Feels like it's working that way, right? Not so much with Brandon Staley, but he was there for a bit, right? But have the right guys around you and get that locker room to buy in. Get the locker room to buy in.

You don't always have to be the mad genius to get things to go your way. But the Raiders did us a favor by knocking off Kansas City because it means we may not have to see as much Taylor Swift. We may not have to have as much Kansas City Chiefs stuff thrown at us.

Merry Christmas to all. Like, how many more times do I have to hear Andy Reid say, now do it again with those nuggies, right? That insurance commercial. There was a Taylor Swift cam yesterday during the Nickelodeon version of the alternate broadcast of the Chiefs Raiders games.

And they kept showing her and they kept putting her on there. And they kept talking up Pat Mahomes and Pat Mahomes this and Pat Mahomes that. The Raiders proved the Chiefs are mortal. The Chiefs are nine and six.

The Raiders are seven and eight. And everyone, and I agree with Pierce, he's like, oh, that's a big upset. That was a huge upset. No, not an upset. A reality check for the Chiefs.

A reality check. They beat them at home. They beat the Chiefs at home.

Not an upset. Raiders were on the upswing as it was anyway. They had to figure their stuff out too, just like the Chiefs say they're going to figure their stuff out too. But I tell you what, I don't need to hear Andy Reid say nuggies anymore. All right, speaking of that, the NFL is the owner of Christmas Day. Full ownership, handed over, signed the deed.

They didn't even have to take out the mortgage. The NBA had a triple header yesterday. Actually, they had five games yesterday. The NBA normally uses Christmas Day, having been a part of this Christmas Day extravaganza of the NBA on the broadcast and team side. Christmas Day, huge for the NBA. Like, love it. They love it.

Loved it, loved it, loved it. And then, prior to the season, the NFL said, you know, we have a Sunday on a Christmas Eve and we could move some games to Monday. Well, let's all jump on that bandwagon and see what happens. Yesterday, I did not watch one lick of basketball.

And I can't imagine that America did either. There were three pretty good football games on yesterday. You had Raiders, so you brought in the whole Raider Nation thing.

That's for sure. You had the middle game yesterday. Eagles fly, Eagles fly. And Tommy Cutlets with the Giants, of which apparently the Cutlets are now spoiled because they got benched in the second half. And, of course, this just as some of the biggest distributors of products related to football fans, just got their Tommy DeVito jerseys in. Probably not good timing on that. And then we had Ravens 49ers close today in a battle of two teams that was the Super Bowl before the Super Bowl. We'll see. Let's all pump the brakes on that one. Take about 20% off.

We'll see if that is the way. But we had three football games. I watched yesterday in between trying to put together stuff for my kids and playing games and cleaning and doing things like that.

I managed to watch all of one football game and portions of two others. And I did not watch one lick of basketball. And that is a shame for the NBA because the NBA normally had the flag planted. Like, this was fully ours. Like, we own Christmas Day. It's the unofficial second kickoff of the NBA season. And they had the play-in tournament, which maybe, or the in-season tournament, which maybe has replaced Christmas Day NBA games.

Because I don't see anybody. Let's all just be true to ourselves here right now. How many people out there are still rolling with a Christmas Day jersey they bought because the NBA issued a Christmas Day jersey of the Knicks, of the Celtics, of the 76ers? In my case, it would have been the San Antonio Spurs. How many people are still rolling with those jerseys? But when it comes to the NFL, they don't roll out specialty jerseys. They just play football. And for Christmas Day, and they had the alternate broadcast going on, and they had, again, decent matchups. Taylor showed up with Santa Claus, of which I don't think Travis Kelce is ever going to dress up before a game ever again.

Otherwise, he's going to get skewered if that relationship lasts. I'm rooting for you, though, guys. Eagles, Giants, Ravens. I'm just saying right now, the NFL, they have fully bought it. They have bought Christmas Day. They own it, and the NBA is just renting space at this point. There is no way that they will take that back, and there is absolutely zero chance the NFL gives up Christmas Day at this point.

There is just no way. Just the schedule allows itself. Just as they've staked themselves to international, they have leapfrogged the National Basketball Association.

It's not great news for the NBA, which, again, you want to try to find eyes on the product. Luka Doncic scored 50 last night. 50. And that's the first time I've mentioned that.

And I was going to say, that's the first time I've heard of it. You have 50. 50 points.

I don't even know who won the other games. Luka Doncic's had 50, and they beat the Suns. That's the only reason I know, because Luka scored 50. That's the only reason I know, because Luka scored 50.