The Drive with Josh Graham - Substitute Teacher Day

Attention please. This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Tune into The Drive 3 until 6pm weekdays on the Sports Hub. I love it. It's brilliant. I told Dez during the break, I have this terrible habit of just grabbing the mechanism with which the microphone is held up in front of me as I talk on it. Dez, I told you.

I just finished telling you I wasn't going to do it. It comes time for me to say words. Here my hand is wrapped around it.

So sometimes it makes a little rattling noise. I'm trying. I promise I get paid to do this.

I'm a professional. I've noticed that people that sit in that chair, they have their own little things. Everybody's got their quirks. Josh chews on pins all day long. I'm sure I do something. Sawyer's usually my producer on Saturday, so he could probably tell you whatever my tic is. Whatever it is. Don't grab a pin in that studio. Neither of ours is as weird as Josh's.

No. I know a lot of people chew on pins, but that fits him. It's weird. He eats them. It's weird. He gnaws them down. It's crazy.

Then you pick them up and you're like, oh, Josh has been here because the bottom of this pin is gone. Not about that. We've been over his... I don't think he claims to not be a dog person, but he has a cat. Right. He's a dog.

I get that people have cats, but to not be a cat person and own a cat is weird to me, much in the same way that that habit of chewing on pins is weird to me for Josh. Speaking of which, he just completed a four-day marathon. He did four football games in four days. Josh is going to check in with us. He's at the airport. I believe BWI, the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

He was trying to pick out a snack. He's going to join us by phone prior to departing and coming back to North Carolina to describe. He was there at Bucks Panthers on Thursday as media, at Wake UNC on Friday as media. He went to the East Carolina Navy game as, I believe, just a fan in both of these cases.

Then he went to the Baltimore Ravens game in which Lamar Jackson cemented his place as the greatest football player to ever live. Is that safe to say, guys? No, it's not. I'm going to call him that today. At least for yesterday. I'm going to call him that today. He's the septem-VP of the NFL, right?

He's been phenomenal to this point. So Josh got to see that live and in person. We're going to talk to him a little bit later this hour about all that fun stuff. But as promised, the good and the bad that happened in the NFL yesterday. We talked about the injuries.

Let's dig in on those just a little bit more, right? Drew Brees injured his hand. Aaron Donald comes in, full head of steam.

They just bat hands together. To be Aaron Donald charging you, Drew Brees got away. He got away just fine as far as I'm concerned, if I am his coaches in that scenario. He has ligament damage in his hand, required surgery. He's said to be out for up to six weeks. That's according to Ian Rappaport.

And this guy's intern, Aaron, has now sat down. This is a manageable six games that Drew Brees is going to miss for the New Orleans Saints. They're at Seattle, then they host the Cowboys who looked really good yesterday. Then they host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, worst team in the division. They're at Jacksonville, at Chicago, and then they host the Cardinals.

So they get three home, three away during this stretch. I think at Seattle's always tough. The Cowboys are going to be a tough out.

Other than that, to me they're all winnable. And when your star quarterback is hurt, all you really have to do is survive. So Drew Brees out for six weeks. If the Saints go three and three in that stretch, they're fine.

And bad news, I got bad news for you Panthers fans. Because they get a bye week after those six, Brees is not only going to be back. He's going to be back with a bye week to prepare. And he's back for both Panthers games.

Just your luck. I don't know if I'm going to see Drew Brees at all this season. I know they said six weeks, but I would have to think that... Okay, say he's out for, let's just say six weeks, right? So it'll be what, week eight and you said they got a bye?

Yeah. Week eight? So it'll be week nine? If it is exactly six weeks for recovery for Drew Brees, it works out beautifully for them. Because they've got six games that he'll miss, then a bye week, then his first game back. I'm trying to picture him coming back and being able to do Drew Brees things. Because it's a thumb on his throwing hand.

Sure. So even if he is able to come back, it's like, well, is he going to be able to throw it at the same velocity as he was? Because he was already losing a little bit of that already before the thumb. Can he get it down the field? I mean, with... This little guy, he's got little hands is what you're trying to say. Sort of.

I get it. I think with really both Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger, I think the big question now comes up, what if they don't come back? Because Big Ben was talking about retiring a couple of years ago. I think it's a fair question with Roethlisberger, who we'll get to here in a second.

Because I want to ask the ultimate question, which injury here is the bigger hit to their team? And again, Brees out six weeks, followed by the off week. He's going to be there for both games against the Panthers and the Falcons.

But in these six games, they might fare pretty well because it could be argued they have the best backup quarterback in the NFL. In Teddy Bridgewater. He's the highest paid. So, in theory, he would be the most reliable. Miami wanted him to be the starter.

But then again, that makes me question, is he good? Because if Miami wanted him to be the starter, does he want him to lose? It was all part of the plan. All part of the process, right?

The process in Miami. So I think Teddy Bridgewater is pretty good and could go 4-2 in these next six games. And if that's the case, especially because we don't know where the Panthers are, the Falcons are capable but are just so Jekyll and Hyde, hit or miss. I don't know from week to week what they're going to give you. And I don't think Tampa Bay is as bad as some people believe they are, but I'm writing them off as the worst team in the division.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Carolina never plays well in primetime games, no matter who they play. It's the first Thursday night. No one plays well on Thursday night. I don't know what it's going to take for the NFL to figure this out.

Actually, they're not going to figure it out. They know good and well that Thursday night games are trash. But the TV deal is enough to justify it.

They had the lightning delay, so they had to stop and go. Speaking of which, trashy national TV games cannot wait. Week 8, Steelers and Dolphins. No Big Ben, and well, the Dolphins. I think to answer your question, I think Breeze being out hurts more because honestly, I don't know why everybody was picking the Steelers so high in the preseason looking at them.

And I agree because think about what they've lost now. James Conner got hurt over the weekend as well. Ben's out. Conner, indefinitely, who knows. No more Antonio Brown. No more Le'Veon Bell. And I think a lot of people just sort of assumed because of the perceived bad attitudes from those guys with their different situations, both leading them out of Pittsburgh.

A lot of people just wanted to hope that there was going to be addition by subtraction with those two. But that's impossible. There's no way.

No way. The Steelers were going to be worse. And Big Ben, I don't get it with him. They felt like an 8-8 team with him.

You know what I mean? It felt like he was going to get them to 8-8. But just looking at their team, their defense just seems normal. There's no one on their defense that I'm scared of. It's a totally normal team. It's a bland, normal team. Juju's Schuster is nice.

That's fine. Now who's going to throw it to them? And even that, this was his first year as a 1. And that's not really going all that well. Honestly, Mike Thomas never had a losing season as head coach of the Steelers, but this could be the year that it happens because I don't see the Steeler team winning more than six games. They didn't even look like they were playing for Big Ben.

Actually, I take that in reverse. It isn't like Big Ben was excited to be out there. Kind of the same thing people have been saying about Cam Newton.

He seems kind of disengaged. Big Ben was looking like that too. Even said at one point. What was the quote toward the end of last season? He was like, man, I just don't even know if I like football anymore.

In so many words, it wasn't exactly that verbatim. When you start saying that kind of stuff out loud, that's when, as a football player, you've already mentally kind of checked out. So I think that's why it was so easy for him to decide, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and have the surgery now. If it's going to be any trouble at all to come back, nah, I'm done for the season.

Yeah, I'll just go sit down. I get it. So that's Ben Roethlisberger. He'll be replaced by Mason Rudolph, who was a borderline first round prospect upon coming out. Now, Bridgewater for the Saints has had many more opportunities to prove himself. Rudolph could be okay and seemed to sort of give them a shot of life when he came in. Now, with a backup, I mean, there could be a number of factors there. When someone is inserted into the game, it's like, you know, okay, Ben's going to be back eventually. We just need to make the best of this time for a guy like Rudolph.

It's his opportunity, that sort of thing. But which is going to be the bigger hit to his team? Ben Roethlisberger being out for the season or Drew Brees being out for six weeks. I still think the Saints win the division even without Brees for six weeks. I think they win the NFC South.

And I think Big Ben, even though I didn't expect as much out of the Steelers as I did the Saints coming into this NFL season, I think that's the bigger hit. It's for the entirety of the season. They might be just pretty bad now. But we like to even things out. We like to keep even kill realistic on this program. We've been over the bad.

The Dolphins, Drew Brees, Big Ben. Let's talk about the good on the other side. Darren Vaught filling in for Josh. This is The Drive. Stay tuned now for... This is... Countdown. Commence 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

I would like to introduce you at this time... The Sports Hub at AM600, AM920. Now back to The Drive with Josh Graham. What's up? Darren Vaught in for Josh Graham.

You're on The Drive. Thanks for tuning in here on The Sports Hub. Just as very, very bad things happened in our football consumption yesterday.

I'm going to rephrase that. You watched very bad football at points. And very bad things happened to people like injuries on the football field yesterday.

You saw some really good stuff as well. Including from a couple of quarterbacks that I really want to hone in on here. And my understanding is Aaron, you are a Kansas City Chiefs fan.

Which unless it happened within the last 12 months befuddles me a bit. Would you care to explain? Sure, yeah. Well, I'm from here.

Born and raised in Winston-Salem. Right, okay. Knew that. We didn't have the Panthers until 95. Right. So I started watching football by then.

Sure. The Chiefs at that time was the first team I remember watching play. It was Joe Montano playing John Elway's Broncos.

Man. And Neil Smith, Derek Thomas. They had a nice squad.

And they lost even that game. I don't know. But something about them, I really just liked them. I think I knew by name who Joe Montana was. Yeah. Because I wasn't old enough to quite really grasp who Joe Montana was.

Sure. But I knew the name Joe Montana. And the fact that he was our quarterback was probably kind of cool. Why didn't you come to the Panthers once the Panthers came?

I mean, I pulled for the Panthers, but you know, I'm not a ship jumper. Aaron, it's really interesting that you mentioned Joe Montana. Because I think as we're all well aware now at 3.35 p.m. the next day, Patrick Mahomes had himself a day yesterday. In the second quarter alone, he went 12 for 17, 278 yards and four touchdown passes against the Oakland Raiders.

He threw four in a single quarter. That's a lot. It is. It's quite a few, Aaron. I feel like Aaron is throwing darts at me because for the past... Yes, he's staring you down as he says these things. It's pretty funny. Even with less context, I'm enjoying it.

Okay, so this started in the summer on The Rundown, the Saturday morning show that I hosted. Aaron's a part of the panel where basically I kept telling him all these teams have tape on Pat Mahomes now. So it's not going to be so easy.

It's not going to be 50 touchdowns and five interceptions. This isn't even a matter of Aaron being right and being a fan. It's a matter of you being just outright wrong. Pretty much, yeah. Because it wasn't so much me being wrong.

I just said I need to see more. It was just one year. I need to make sure it's not a fluke. And then, you know, last week he comes out and throws for 400 yards and four touchdowns or whatever. And then this yesterday, he does that nonsense in the second quarter. And I was in the car and I was in the car because we had part of the Raiders Broncos on our network here before I flipped it over. And it was 10-0 Raiders. So I'm like, hey, John Gruden's got these guys playing hard. Chiefs finally found somebody's going to play him. I got out of the car for 10 minutes, got back in the car and was like, what?

What happened? The most dominant 10 minutes in NFL history is what happened. Four touchdown passes in a singular quarter in the second quarter. Aaron, I say it's interesting that you mentioned Joe Montana because Joe Montana, like the legendary Joe Montana and Patrick Mahomes are tied with eight career games of four or more touchdown passes.

They're tied for their careers. Joe Montana played 192 games in his career. Patrick Mahomes has played 19. 19.

In 19 games, he tied a Joe Montana passing record. I mean, you're right. Good. Yeah.

No, no, wait a minute. No, I tried to be I tried to I tried to be, you know, nice and cordial and calm about it and be a gentleman about it. You were being somewhat respectful.

You know, I did my best. But Desmond Johnson, I've been trying to tell you for I don't know how long. It is not just my fandom. I've been a Chiefs fan for a long time. I've seen a lot of bad quarterback play.

Matt Castle, bless his soul. Joe Montana in a Chiefs uniform, by the way. That's that's one of those right up there with like if you see a picture of it, you might because it was your your indoctrination into being a Chiefs fan.

You might think of it this way, but it's a strange one. It's like it's like Jordan in a Wizards uniform. Jordan in a Wizards uniform. Farve Jets jersey.

Yeah. Farve with the Jets. Jerry Rice with the Seattle Seahawks is another one for me. Yeah, that's weird. He even caught a couple of touchdowns that season that he played for them.

I forgot he played for him. Yeah. Weird. Because people when I bring this up, people will mention Jerry Rice as a Raider.

And it's like, no, no, no. That's not even as weird. Montana, San Francisco 49ers did.

Yeah. I mean, that's how I grew up. I met the 49ers because of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and those guys. And I was a Cowboys fan, you know, as a kid growing up.

And then when we got the Panthers in ninety five, I left the Cowboys because I finally had a home team and I've never looked back. But you're talking about good things this weekend. And the quarterback is playing good. Dakota Dak Prescott is destroying everything. He's good. He's not.

He wasn't included in the two that I absolutely wanted to get to, but it's worth mentioning. That guy through two weeks while negotiating a new contract with Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys has completed eighty two percent of his passes. Yes. Unbelievable. They look like they might be the best offense in the NFL, except for the Kansas City Chiefs, who you can't help but be the best because of Patrick Holmes.

But the second quarterback I wanted to get to might be the greatest player in football history. I'm just saying what it's. I doubt. Guys, I dabble in hyperbole. OK. My mind.

So it's a thing that happens. But this young man. Is eight in one in his first nine starts as an NFL quarterback, only 12 others have done that or better in their first nine starts at quarterback in the Super Bowl era. And it's Lamar Jackson, Jackson, Jackson, pretty good, pretty good for a running back.

Just for reference. The other guys that were drafted ahead of him in that twenty eighteen NFL draft. Baker Mayfield, number one overall pick, six and eight as a starter in the NFL. Josh Allen, the only one besides Lamar, actually with a winning record as a starter in the NFL, is seven and six as a starter. Sam Darnold is four and ten. Josh Rosen is three and thirteen. And it looks like the Ravens got the steal of that draft. Darren, you care to tell Desmond here where that one came from in Lamar's record?

It was an overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. He's beaten everyone. He's beaten everyone. He has been tasked with beating other than the team that at this point you really expect him to beat. Not bad.

I mean, not bad. I'm confused as to why people are surprised that Lamar Jackson can throw. It's like they didn't see him at Louisville. He won a Heisman. It wasn't just him running around. He's electric. Yeah, he was doing all this before.

This is not revisionist history. Because I said it at the time, how you could you could be high on Josh Allen, who actually is turning out pretty, pretty well. How you could be high on him and not Lamar Jackson was so confusing to me. And I look, I get what's been successful at quarterback in the NFL and what hasn't been successful.

RG3 came in and lit up this league prior to getting sniffed out. And it was a Shanahan offensive scheme thing more than anything. And then he got hurt and never really got a chance to recuperate that career. Mike Vick is another example, like people, people say that you can you can and they wanted to make this more of an arm issue for Lamar Jackson than it actually is because he's got a pretty good arm.

It's not Pat Mahomes, but he's got a pretty good arm. He's a decent passer at worst. Mike Vick was terribly inaccurate.

But set the league on fire. It's been done before in different ways and people just refuse to believe that it can and will be done in different ways going forward. So the Lamar Jackson stuff, he should change positions, all that nonsense.

It just it never it never aligned with me. You know, the thing that bothers me the most about what's happening with Baltimore right now, they are basically running the same offense that Carolina has run for the past four or five years with Cam Newton at quarterback instead of Lamar Jackson. It's not all RPO. It's not all smoke and mirrors. It's kind of a mixture of all of that and it keeps you on your toes like you have to account for Lamar Jackson in the run game.

So you can't really stuff the box and he's got an arm where he can throw it over top of you if you do. That's literally the formula that Carolina's used for the past five or six years. And for some reason, they have totally abandoned it like for the first two weeks of the season. And I'm hoping after seeing, you know, Lamar Jackson and others have success with their formula that they go back to that for Arizona this week and get back to, you know, the ground game comes first.

Don't worry about these little five yard completions to CMC here in the air or whatever, just get back to what you do. And it sounds like Baltimore's kind of figured out what to do with Lamar best from watching Panther film for the past couple of years. And they acquired Mark Ingram from the Saints and there could not be a better fit running back for Lamar Jackson. Also, I mean, a variable with the Panthers dilemma, Lamar Jackson hasn't had to have his arm corrected with multiple surgeries over a few postseason or off-season.

That's valid. I mean, maybe they would like to get back to that with Cam Newton. He won an MVP doing what you're talking about.

But it could possibly be an issue that they just can't get there again. Josh Graham has been gallivanting the sports world over the past four days. He hit four football games in four days, I believe, to his media and to as a fan. We're going to check in with him. I think he's at the airport snacking on something before flying back for North Carolina.

Josh Graham, a guest on his own show, as I, Darren Vaught fill in. You're on the drive. This is where the magic starts. You're on the drive with Josh Graham Showtime, the sports hub at AM 600, AM 920. What's happening? You're back on the drive. Darren Vaught in for Josh Graham. Man, we're halfway through this.

This show is flying by. All right, so we were talking wake football. And now I can't think of many people better to ask about matters of college football than our guest, Chip Patterson of CBS Sports, who joins us now, Chip, cover songs came up a little bit earlier. We were talking about Eddie Money.

And I don't know if you were aware of this in his later years. He put out a covers EP, which included When I Come Around by Green Day. And I happen to love that cover. You know, I'm a pop punk guy. So Green Day is like the method for me.

So to cover it and do it well is a high compliment. Do you have a favorite cover song? This puts me in a really particular generation. Like on Napster, the gourds cover of Snoopy Doggy Dogg's Gin and Juice was improperly labeled as Fish Gin and Juice. What middle school me thought was Fish doing a country cover of Gin and Juice was actually the gourds, as I found out later in high school. But like me, Napster, like a jam band cover of Gin and Juice is at that point for me in middle school. That was a sweet spot.

Chip Patterson is with us. I remember like whether you download it from Kazaa or LimeWire, Napster in that case, it always, always irritated me, the mislabeled songs. But yeah, that's a that's a pretty I feel like that one was experienced by a lot of people.

There were a lot of people that improperly had Fish, Gin and Juice in their library. No doubt about it. But that's a very specific thing to have been perturbed by in formative years that you and I, we're part of a group.

It's going to get smaller as the year goes on that have experienced that. But yeah, no doubt. Aside from music, appreciate you stopping in to talk college football with us. Chip also worth noting great stuff on college hoops and golf as well at CBSSports.com.

Also check out with Barton Simmons, the Cover Three podcast that he does. Tua Tongaveloa has more touchdown passes than incompletions for the Alabama Crimson Tide right now at this juncture in the season. Is there any chance that he finishes the season with that statistical anomaly?

No, no chance. Number one, things are about to start getting a lot tougher for Alabama in terms of the opponent. They've got Southern Miss at this week with the noon kickoff that Nick Saban was so upset about. But I think that what we're going to find with Alabama that's going to be interesting is that I think they might have to score a lot. So I think that means that Tua's going to have more attempts.

And so that's the big part of me saying no, is that I just think he's going to have to chuck it around the yard. That's just kind of who Alabama is. The turn of phrase I've been using to talk about the top of the SEC is that Alabama is Big 12 Alabama and Georgia is Old Alabama because Georgia has just got the boa constrictor thing going where they're bigger and stronger than most of their opponents and they just don't make mistakes.

I mean, it's like the industrial stabilization complex, like all of it coming full steam ahead. Jake Fromm is brilliant. He doesn't make mistakes. It's perfect. And Alabama is like, well, we've got four NFL wide receivers.

We're just going to get out there and chuck it around the yard. And the storyline that's kind of going under the radar for now is as Alabama continues to take injuries at key positions on defense, that forces young players into action. Those players are talented, but now we've got a depth issue and we've got a depth issue with an Alabama defense that might have to be on the field a lot because a lot of these games that Alabama plays in are going to be 45 to 24 with the defenses out there for 80 snaps. In North Carolina, they played 83 snaps and they were exhausted and if they've got depth issues on defense and they're getting tired and some shootout games against the likes of LSU and Auburn, there's a chance Alabama can get got. So their greatest strength, their passing game could also end up being a weakness in some of these close games late in the year. I think it's an interesting observation considering the circumstances as they are for Alabama, right?

And as they enforce or assert themselves on the dynamic of a way a game breaks out over the years, you know, a slower game, you don't require as much depth to your point. But even in that they are becoming more of a team that needs to score more often, you see Jalen Hurts transfer out. He's the guy under center at Oklahoma and is a Heisman front runner mainly because whether it was unlocked by Lincoln Riley or it was there with Hurts all along, he's not only this impressive runner, but I mean, he might be the best passing quarterback in college football right now.

To whom do we credit this? Has Hurts had this in his wheelhouse the entire time? He's gotten better. So you credit Jalen Hurts, and I've tried to make that a good part of the conversation around Oklahoma. We saw a lot of Jalen Hurts by the third game of his freshman year. He was the starter.

I don't think he took the first snap. I could be wrong, but he was sharing snaps in those first couple games. And then I think the third game of the year, he was named the starter. And then that freshman year, he was most dangerous as a runner. He was serviceable as a passer, and he was the SEC's Offensive Player of the Year. Not Freshman of the Year, Player of the Year. And now, like surprise, surprise, great football talent, young college athlete improves, you know, with some coaching and some hard work.

And all the resources in the world, when you think about what's around him there, he really committed himself to getting better, and he has. And that's what's so fun, like, if Tua wasn't there, he probably would have just continued to improve, get better, become more dominant as Alabama's quarterback, but Tua's a unique talent as well. And so, you know, it is going to be fun to watch as, like, if these two teams play in a semi-final, it might be the game of the year. I mean, it might be 52-51, but it might be the game of the year to see those two quarterbacks go back and forth. Hey, man, versus a 2011 or 2012 Bama-LSU matchup that ends up 9-8 or whatever, I'll take it.

Any day of the week, I will take that. Think about what Alabama-LSU is going to be like after seeing LSU against Texas. Like that game might be 52-51, nuts. Chip Patterson of CBS Sports is with us on the drive. Closer to home, I do want to keep talking about the quarterback position. Friday night, Wake Forest gets a score by a victory over North Carolina.

They move on to 3-0. And I think they've sort of been, it's that phenomenon, Chip, where I as a baseball guy use Garrett Anderson, formerly of the Angels, the outfielder, as my example. For the longest time, he was the most underrated guy in Major League Baseball, so much so that when everyone starts to notice and note that you are underrated and you are actually very good, you can become overrated. So it's not quite to that degree, but Wake Forest sort of was that as a dark horse ACC pick, I think, within our state and in our backyard as like, OK, well, maybe they'll be the second best team behind Clemson, who's obviously going to be first and foremost. But prior to the season, they had a quarterback decision to make that so far has turned out really well for them in that Jamie Newman is performing about as well as anybody in the ACC at the position. And he took over the job from Sam Hartman, who started more games a season ago. Our guy Brian Geisinger of accsports.com and the ACC Sports Journal offered this comparison to me a little bit earlier today.

And I'm curious as to know your thoughts on it. He said he sees a lot of Jacoby Brissett in Jamie Newman, just in his the way his physique sort of the way he had that one run where he just rumbled into the end zone. And I don't know that people were aware of how how thick and capable in those ways Jamie Newman was prior to seeing him break out in this big way for the Deeks. Do you see that at all? The Jacoby Brissett comparison? I'm bad at player comp, yeah, no, I'm not good at that, and I don't I think that's probably one thing that might have limited me in some sense, because sometimes my NFL draft talk is like, all right, can you come up with a player comp? I don't know. Not really. I can tell you what he was in college.

I can tell you what I saw with my own eyes and what I know. But I've I've got no idea how he fits into the to the modern NFL. That's for y'all to figure out. Right.

Good luck. And I famously have rode for and caped up for players as they continue to disappoint me, for example, in fantasy, just because I like him in college. Total sucker for a college centric mindset all the way there. What I see in Jamie Newman is and he's got a great command of all the different sort of inner workings of that offense. And they've really built it up so that from the run pass option decision making, from being able to recognize when you've got a hot route, when when Sage Surratt has that one match up that y'all talked about that we're going to take advantage of because of a size differential. I think that his sort of total command and presence out there allows Wake Forest to go fast. And because Wake Forest is moving fast, they're really stressing opposing defenses, defenses that might be bigger, right, like defenses that they might have a size disadvantage against across the board. But because they're just backpedaling the whole time, that's you know, they're just hanging on for dear life because of the tempo and whichever quarterback is better at being able to move that offense without having to huddle, without having to spend too much time looking at the sideline, that's going to be the one that's going to unlock its full potential because Wake Forest is I think one of the 10 fastest teams in the country through three weeks. And that is the way that they stress opponents. And so to be the successful quarterback, that is as important as any physical trait that you've got. And I think that's a credit to Dave Claussen because traditionally speaking anyway, that is a flaw in their recruiting because of the academic requirements.

A lot of the times they can't have the physical specimens on either side of the ball that a lot of their ACC counterparts have. Chip Patterson, appreciate it as always. And of course, the Napster note. That's great.

That's excellent stuff on a day that we're trying to remember Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek. Yeah, yeah. Just again, very specific.

But if you had Napster and you knew that their songs were improperly labeled, it drove you crazy. All right, Chip. Appreciate the time, man. Be well.

Sounds good. Y'all be well. We'll be right back with you on the drive, Darren Vaught in for Josh Graham today. He'll be back tomorrow. He's in the middle of traveling from Baltimore. He did four football games in four days, including things with Cardinals at Ravens yesterday. So we got to see pretty great performance out of Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, as we have discussed, as well as the Panthers who we saw earlier in the weekend on Thursday night get their second loss of the season at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

And we are privileged to be joined by Jim Zocchi of the Panthers Radio Network now. Jim, what's going on, man? How are you? Good, Darren. How are you doing?

I'm excellent and appreciative of your time, as always. Before we get into football, man, I happen to notice via your Twitter your connection as indirect as it might be to Ric Ocasek of the cars that we lost over the weekend. Tell us about that. Well, first of all, I believe if somebody changed it to Ocasek, I could be wrong on that.

I could be one of those. Yeah, I've heard both. I think I've said both.

I don't know. I went to, you know, what I would consider, you know, nationally a more obscure college. You know, it's pretty good size.

It's about the same size as App State as Bowling Green State University in Ohio. And, you know, though I'm not the age of Ric Ocasek, he's a couple decades older than me. He went to school at Bowling Green and actually stayed in the same dorms, Cole Hall, where I stayed for two years. So of course, everyone pretended as if the room that he had was the one that Ric Ocasek once had when he was at Bowling Green State University. So that's why Kevin Bacon, loose connection to Ric Ocasek of the cars. Oh, fascinating.

That's pretty cool, actually. I would especially think so, like as a college age guy, to be able to say that you were in the same dorm room as the lead man, the front man for the cars. So... Well, cooler in the mid 80s when I was there, mid to late 80s, because the cars were actually popular at that time, but now probably lost on most people. But at that moment, they were on the radio at all times. For certain. And we've discovered today just by feedback from some listeners and the guys in the studio here that the cars have some more recognizable tunes than I think most people realize today.

It's songs that you know, but you just didn't realize it was the cars. So appreciate you sharing that, Jim Zokey, radio analyst for the Panthers Radio Network is with us. It's the ninth time in the Panthers history that they've started with consecutive home losses, Jim. The best they've ever done following that up is seven and nine.

2007 was the last time that happened. In the coming weeks, including at the Cardinals on Sunday, what's going to indicate most, whether or not this Panthers team is a contender and maybe better than that seven and nine mark? OK, so I can't filibuster an 80s pop rock for the entire segment of the Panthers football. They got to get something going with QB one. I mean, to me, I thought the defense played pretty well this week. Held the other Thursday, held the Buccaneers at three point two yards a carry. You know, really didn't give them a ton in the past game, one touchdown pass to James Winston.

The defense was good offensively. You know, Cam was about 50 percent, which is not good. And then we all know he's not running at all, which is not good.

And that's the two fold problem. One, Cam's not nearly the quarterback when he's a one dimensional pocket passer as the multi threat that he is. And you know, the greatest running quarterback in the history of the NFL.

That's a pretty big weapon to not use two weeks in a row, but whatever reason. And then secondly, it takes away from Christian McCaffrey's effectiveness. They figured out early on when Cam wasn't running that unlike week one, if Cam's not running, we've got to focus on that guy, number 22. And that lessens the effectiveness of Christian McCaffrey. So to me, it's McCaffrey's ready to go. The receivers had three guys around 90 to 110 yards with the two receivers and Greg Olson, Samuel and D.J.

Moore. So you've got guys that are capable of making plays, but he's got to make them. He's got to make the throws and he's got to run. If he can't run, then that's going to be a problem.

I don't know if it's a health thing or I don't want to do things. But for whatever reason it is, if it's not there, that's going to really throttle back the offense quite a bit. You mentioned his health and Jim Zokey's with us from the Panthers radio network.

I wonder and I would ask you to just use your best guess. What percentage of of the changed game plan when it comes to Cam is is do you think health related or is it maybe just trying to sustain some success as he's getting up there in years? Look, throughout his career, he's taking a ton of hits. And maybe the Panthers are just trying to change the effects of that and have him get hit less often.

And I mean, how would you assume that that is being broken down? You know, just again, because they said he's healthy. He said it about two weeks ago, he feels like a rookie. He likes doing the vegan thing.

He said his body feels great, feels good. Coach Rivera said after the game, what's not an issue, it's not a health thing. So it seems like it's got to be some amount of game planning to preserve him with a rookie backup quarterback and another quarterback who's played one game in the league, basically, and Kyle Allen. So with them and Will Greer, that, you know, they're not up to speed at right, it's probably where you'd like them to be at this point, if you had a play and you would. It might be a certain amount of what's, you know, let's see if we can win while reducing some risk and some load on Cam out of the gate initially.

And that would seem, yeah, they've not been far off. I mean, the Rams game was a three-point game. And we all saw Thursday night, the Buccaneers, if they picked up a yard, they would probably win the game.

If they pick up a yard, they have to score a touchdown. So it's not like it's Miami where it's 102 to 10 over two weeks. I mean, they're right there. They're competitive.

They're in these two games. But, you know, sadly, it counts the same as the Miami Dolphins record does, who are getting throttled 110 to 10. So they got to, you know, somehow get this together and get a win in Arizona. They go 0-3.

I don't want to know what the stats are on starting out 0-3, and what that means for not making playoffs or not having a winning record. The drastic disparity there, Jim, of course, when we make reference to the Miami Dolphins is that, well, the Panthers, they're not just outright trying to lose. So hopefully, I would hope. Yeah, with higher expectations. Yeah, with higher expectations. Jim, are you concerned at all, and I know there was less of it in week two on Thursday than there was, especially off the short week, but coming out of week one, 29 touches for Christian McCaffrey.

He was on the field for 67 of the 67 offensive snaps that the Panthers took. Is that a workload that's concerning to you at all? Or is it sustainable in your eyes when it comes to CMC? You know, I think, you know, you wouldn't do that every game. You're not going to give 30 touches every game. But he is capable of that, absolutely.

He is in unbelievable shape. And as you saw in the first game, didn't slow down any more in the fourth quarter than the first quarter. Now, it's also not December, and he's not played, you know, 12, 13 games yet. So you don't want to do that. You just know that's not going to work long term, where he can sustain that. But certainly he can be 20, 25 touches a game, and nor have I said he's had backs like that throughout his coaching career that has carried the ball at least that much, if not more.

So yeah, I think you can do it. But I think you want to do it when it makes sense, you know. If you've got other guys that are capable of sharing in the workload, it won't make you less predictable, so you should be more efficient as opposed to impiling into the line for two yards. So I think, you know, you want to, like Cam, protect him from, you know, being used up too early physically in his career. And then secondly, you've got other guys. It's not like you have to.

It's not like there isn't, the cupboard is bare there. You got Samuel, D.J. Moore, some other weapons. We saw Greg Olsen is still capable of a 100-yard catch game when needed, so there are other weapons there.

Honestly, I hope one of them is the quarterback, you know, the quarterback can do those option plays he used to do and run the ball the way he's done in the past. And that was, of course, I mentioned 29 touches in week one, just 18 on Thursday. That was, again, on a short week. But also, just in an attempt to spread it out, it seemed like to me. And if everybody else can contribute, it takes a little more off Christian's plate. And I mean, you know, if you are more effective with less attempts, it makes the offense more deceptive, as you've alluded to.

So a big story today and last thing for you, Jim, before we let you go, I know you've got something else to get to here. The Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, ligament issue in his hand, near his thumb, on his throwing hand, surgery today, out up to six weeks. We've sort of been batting around their opponents throughout that stretch. They've got three away games, three home games. The toughest, as I see it, would be their next two at Seattle, and they host the Dallas Cowboys, who have looked really good to this point in the season. How do you think this affects the NFC South landscape? Because if everything goes well and according to plan, Brees, if he's back, if it's only those six weeks, they'll have a bye week. And then he's their quarterback for the Saints, that is, for both of the matchups against the Carolina Panthers and both of their games home and away against the Atlanta Falcons. Does this drastically change things in the NFC South?

Absolutely, yeah. This is a leveling of the playing field. I mean, the Saints have been the team to chase the past couple years, of course, Super Bowl quality team. And without him, Teddy Bridgewater is a tremendous drop down. Taysom Hill, we don't really know what he would do with a bigger workload if they decide to go that direction with him.

So yeah, I think that's huge, because that's what makes it go. They've got Kamara, they've got the great receivers, it all begins with Drew Brees back there. So if he's not going to play, he's not, obviously, for about six weeks. It's huge, it brings Atlanta, obviously, with a quality win against Philadelphia. Panthers, you mentioned, were close against teams like the Rams, they could do something in Tampa Bay, where their win over Carolina looks improved, at least, whatever that is, with Bruce Arians there. So to me, it could be one of those years where nine and seven, something like that, could win the division. So we'll see how it plays out with that injury. I think it makes things certainly a lot more interesting with the Saints.

Taking a step back, maybe leveling it right there, as you mentioned, with Carolina and Atlanta, who's certainly capable, as we saw against the Eagles. All right, Jim Zocchi of the Panthers Radio Network, appreciate the time, as always. Have fun out west this week, all right? Thanks, Darren. You got it. Thanks for watching, I'm Darren Zocchi, and I'll see you next week.