The Panthers have a new HC and GM, how will things look next season?

I'm sure Joe Person from The Athletic, who covers the Panthers, has his Taylor Swift Super Bowl playlist already made up.

I appreciate his time as he joins us on the Adam Gold Show. How are you, my friend? I'm good, but you know who's getting overlooked this week is Christian McCaffrey's supermodel girlfriend Olivia Culpo. Where is the love in all the Tay-Tay fests for Olivia? Does she have any, would you say Culpo, does she have any Culpies or something like that? Because it's all about the Swifties. I'm sure, well I think you just anointed yourself a founding member and father of the Culpie group.

I'll wear that proudly. You have a ranking of the top ten free agents I want to get to in a second. Is the best development, though, in the hiring of Dave Canales that he has been able to convince Ejiro Evero to stick around?

I don't think there's any question. And we haven't heard the rest of his offensive staff, but you know, all due respect to some of the guys that he's hired over there. I mean, Ejiro Evero is, I mean, he's going to be a head coach in this league. And I think that was what Evero's camp was concerned about is, no, wait a minute. I know you hired me and you gave me three years at a very nice number, but you did so when Frank Reich was the coach. I don't know Dave Canales. Frankly, I don't know how great the prospects are going to be and how does this impact me, Ejiro Evero's future head coaching prospects.

So I get where that was coming from. But, you know, unfortunately for him, but fortunately, as you said for Dave Canales and Panther fans is Ejiro just did not have much leverage. I mean, unless he was going to get a head coaching job this year, Dave Tepper made it pretty clear he was just going to continue to block of arrow from taking lateral moves. So look, I mean, was the defense perfect last year?

No, it wasn't. You know, Brian Burns took a step back as a pass rusher that the pass rush in general and, and, and turnovers slash takeaways were not, you know, great. Part of that was because the offense didn't score and the defense never went into the fourth quarter. Never, not once with a lead where the opposition was having to throw to catch up, which as you know, are the big time sack and strict sack and take away opportunities that where you start to pad those types of statistics. Not to mention, it seemed like the defense was on the field, like 60% of every game.

I mean, I know it wasn't necessarily that, but the defense was on the field a lot and if the offense is also turning it over, there's nothing good about that. Joe Person from the athletic is joining us here on the Adam gold show. All right. What is job one for Dan Morgan? Figuring out Brian Burns, who we just talked about. I mean, this is like, this is a guy they don't have a first round pick as you, as you know, I don't know that they really listening, listening to Dan Morgan answered that question last week. He didn't sound maybe wouldn't have shared it publicly, but he's like, look, 33rd pick is pretty much like a late first round pick.

And he's right. But, but one way or another, if you're thinking about tagging and trading Brian Burns, you know, what are you looking for in return? I mean, they've already missed the opportunity of a lifetime a couple of years ago with what the Rams offered.

They're not going to get that again. Right. Especially after Burns numbers dipped last year, but you could still get, I mean, a pretty decent call, I think for Brian Burns, but you know, Dan Morgan was Scott fitters. Number two, when, when the Panthers turned that deal down, turned that offer down. And so my stance would be that they'll probably hang on to Brian Burns and hopefully try to extend him rather than, you know, have to use the franchise tag, which would be a big number, somewhere around 20 million that cuts immediately into your salary cap situation.

Right. That's the other thing is it's, it's hard to, you know, I don't want to say rebuild, but in my opinion, it is a rebuild. I mean, I, I've talked to people about this, that we have different opinions on what the state of the roster is.

I think the roster needs, oh, I don't know, anywhere from a, a 30 to 50% overhaul. And it's hard to do that without draft capital and without cap space, because if you use cap space to re-sign Brian Burns, you're going to have to use more to re-sign Frankie Louvou, maybe not a ton, because I don't think he's necessarily going to break the bank in free agency, but you also want to think about Derrick Brown go, right. I mean, there's so many things that they, even though he's not necessarily going to walk out the door as a free agent, they've got a lot of things to think about when it comes to a future money allocation that I just don't see how you keep Brian Burns and get better.

Well, that's the one thing about an extension, how, how, as you know how that works with Louvou too. Like if you sign them to long-term deals, then you, the, the signing bonus gets prorated out over the course of the deal and you can put him at a low salary to have most of them manipulate the cap. Eventually you're going to pay the piper down the road, but they could have, they could do it to where this year's salary cap was not impacted. It would be, it would be much to their benefit if they extend him rather than have 20 million, one year guaranteed salary go against the books.

I mean, that's, that's the worst case, but, but they might have to, you know, like Burns was pretty well dug in he and his side last, whenever that was last July and August. And, but, but you know, he just had a pretty mediocre year by his standards. So maybe he's lost some of that leverage to your point about the roster. I agree with you as do a lot of people across the NFL.

I was at the senior bowl last week in Mobile, Alabama, and talking to agents and personnel guys from other teams. And they're all, all of them, uh, to, uh, to, to a person said, that's a bad roster, you know, like they, they, that Dan Morgan's got a, you know, a lot on his hands because there's a lot to fix there. I mean, is it devoid of talent?

No, it's not, but, but from one to 53, it's, it's kind of a mess. And so, um, I, I go back to your point, like they got to fix the offense, but at least they're starting from a decent position defensively. And if you keep a JC horn healthy, um, and Derek Brown is, is we're seeing him play like he did at Auburn, which is among the most disruptive interior lines in the game, but a lot to fix on offense, as you know, tight end, uh, principally wide receiver or two or three. And, uh, and I think they need more depth up front. I mean, yes, you you're, you're not going to have to, there's no way there, the injury situation at guard is going to be worse than it was in 2023, but you still want to protect yourself, which I don't think they did a good job of last year. If Joe person is joining us here, covers the Panthers for the athletic.

If the, if the Panthers let's just dream for a second, if they have a healthy season on the offensive line, is there offensive line top half of the NFL? Hmm. I don't know if I'd go that far. Um, last year, if you'd asked me that question, I would have said, yeah, right. Cause we, we knew, and I know you're not talked about it and the quantum before on, on your show.

And I, I don't know where, I don't know where he is right now. I mean, I, I think it kind of got in his head. He said it got in his head last year. I mean, he'd lost all his confidence, um, that they have got to get that icky, a quantity situation solved, or, or, I mean, they thought they had their left tackle of the future. And I, and I think they, Dan Morgan would tell you, they still do. And for Panther fans, you hope they do, but you know, last year did not give you a lot of confidence in that regard, whereas the year before it did.

And some of it was skiing. Like I talked to people on, on that Matt rule staff that said, you know, even after rule was fired guys like Ben McAdoo and, and former offensive line coach, James Campin, they gave icky a lot of help his rookie year, whereas Thomas Brown and Frank Wright chose not to do that as much. So, uh, you know, ideally you got, you have your left tackle going into his third year of his career.

You're not having to have, you know, a bunch of, you know, gimmicks, I say gimmicks, but got tight ends being kept in or running backs, chipping the pass rusher. But um, yeah, I don't know. I, I do like the guards Christiansen and Corbett, especially Corbett went healthy and he just had a, he just, you know, he, he had a tough year. Yeah.

Uh, all right. To, to wide receiver, did we, like, I look at it, I see Adam Thielen who in my opinion is a great possession guy, really the tight end that they'd ever had be plays more like a tight end who can run, uh, you know, put 20 pounds on him. He's Jimmy Graham maybe. Um, but we had really nothing out of Hayden Hurst or the other tight ends. And while Jonathan Mingo occasionally flashed at times last year, um, I'm just not sure what he is. Uh, what is the level of optimism that Mingo becomes good? Or since you can get wide receivers anytime in the draft, somebody named Pooka Nakula was a fifth round pick and a superstar.

I mean, it's amazing how this happens across the league. So what, when you look at that position, do they need three new guys for, yeah, I mean, I think they need to hit it in free agency and the draft, uh, for, to, to be sure. And, you know, obviously Dave can, Alice has a connection to Mike Evans. I don't, I don't know how strong you can have.

They were together one season, 12 months. So I think Panther fans who think that can Alice is going to deliver Mike Evans. I think that's a little unrealistic. Now, you know, Dave Tepper's millions might help them.

Uh, but I, I had this conversation with someone a couple of days ago. If you're Mike Evans and I granted Mike Evans won a Superbowl with Tom Brady. Like it's not, he's not the guy chasing the elusive ring, but you still want to go somewhere where you, where you're going to be relevant. And if I'm looking at this roster, I mean, a lot of it depends how these guys feel about pricing, but I'm not sure if I'm Mike Evans, I'm not, I think I'm looking elsewhere first.

And then if Dave Tepper, you know, gives you a life changing deal and blows the rest of the market away, then so be it. But you know, but you know, there's still, whether it's, even if you don't get T Higgins or, or Mike Evans, I mean, you, you can find some pretty decent wide receivers, you know, more, more so than they did last year with dealing and, uh, and DJ sharks in free agency. But, but to your point, I like the idea of taking one in the, in the draft too.

I mean, I, I kind of like it at 33. Uh, you know, they, they may decide depending on what happens with, with Brian burns that they need a pass rusher that, I mean, they're going to get a, they should get a good player at 33. And I would look long and hard at a wide receiver. They say that the, they meaning, I guess the people who know these things more than I, uh, say that the, this draft is very deep on talent and offensive line.

It's always good and wide receiver. There's thousands of wide receivers now, uh, but offensive line defensive back, uh, you know, there's, there's a lot to be had in this draft. They could get offensive line help. Uh, my, my suggestion would be to trade Brian burns, uh, get the most you can for him and then even take some of those picks and even trade back a couple of times, uh, to see if you can accumulate, uh, maybe an additional day to pick or maybe some, uh, some extra fourth rounders. I think this, they need, it's almost safety in numbers. We've only got six picks, uh, and not a ton of cap space to work with.

So there's a lot of work to be done. Would Mike Evans look good in a Kansas city chief's uniform? Joe man.

Oh man. They, uh, he looked good in about any uniform, but I, I did want to follow up on the point you were just making Adam. And that's the, the, the idea of accumulating picks and not looking that, you know, the, uh, sorry, I'm, I'm fumbling for my words. Greg Olson last week, that's who I was trying to say, told me, uh, he did a little media blitz for, for his charity. And he said, you hope the Panthers don't look at this and think they're one player away.

And, um, we'll be at wide receiver. I think that's what he was talking to your point. This, the fact that they hired that in a cycle where they chose not to even talk to, uh, bill Belicheck or Jim Harbaugh, they did have a kind of what seemed to be kind of a, you know, almost like a, uh, just for show only interview with Mike Rabel, but when they go and they hire two guys, Dan Morgan and Dave can Alice first time GM first time head coach, who did not draw interview requests from any other team.

And then they gave them six years. I think that tells you like, we're okay. I mean, Dave and David Tepper and patients is not two things you want to put in too many sentences together. But I do think you can't necessarily view this as like, Oh my gosh, we're going to get T Higgins and we're going to the playoffs next year.

I mean, it just doesn't feel like that to me that there are too much heavy lifting to be done. And so to your plan about draft picks, I think it makes, you know, makes a lot of sense on some levels who's winning Sunday. I just picked for the athletic against my better judgment. I went, uh, my heart told me to go with Steve Wilkes and Christian McCaffrey and to a lesser degree, Sam, uh, Sam Darnold. Uh, so I'm going 49ers and, uh, I, I, I picked against the chiefs last year too. And so, yeah, it worked out well, that worked out great. Pull me once. And I guess I'm about to be fooled again. Uh, Joe person at Joseph person on Twitter. Thank you so much, man. I'll talk to you soon. Enjoy the super bowl, buddy person here on the Adam gold show.