Scooter The Muppet

This is the DRIVE Podcast with Josh Graham. I love it. I need it. Couldn't live without it. You can hear the DRIVE weekday afternoons 3 till 6 on WSJS. So glad to have you on this Thursday DRIVE.

It is WSJS News Talk Sports for the Triad. Where things are cooking on the NFL coaching carousel. Last night, the L.A. Chargers hired Jim Harbaugh. We all kind of saw that one coming. Just in the last hour, Raheem Morris, not Bill Belichick, hired as the Falcons new coach.

That leaves just a couple of openings. Washington and Seattle because the Carolina Panthers hired their coach as well. Dave Canales from the Bucks. That is the Panthers next head coach.

We still don't have an official announcement from the team, but we expect that at some point during today's show. Last week, we said to expect the Panthers to make a hire this week because, well, it was a year ago tomorrow when they hired Frank Reich. But speaking of Frank Reich, Dave Canales is stepping into a completely different situation than Frank did a year ago.

And not for the worst, despite the fact that Carolina had the worst record in the sport this past year and do not have the number one pick in the draft that they would normally get for that worst record. Canales is actually a lot better set up to succeed than Frank Reich was. And here's why. There is actual alignment between Canales and the team's front office. That might sound like a small thing to you.

I can assure you that it's not. This is where your support comes from as a coach. This is what protects you, insulates you from ownership that could be meddlesome like David Tepper has been in the past.

This is not an arranged marriage. A lot of people have piled on David Tepper for things that are easy to pile on. You know, with concerts. Yeah, you're going to talk about concerts and not answer why you fired your coach the day after it happened.

You're going to throw a drink on somebody in Jacksonville. There are a lot of things you can nitpick about David Tepper as the owner, but give him credit where it's due. He hired a search firm. There are more voices part of this process than there were in the past. I'd like to think the voices in that process said, hey, it's probably best as an organization if you don't pick the coach, but instead hire a GM first and then that guy, he picks the coach. So Monday, Dan Morgan is your general manager and a guy that nobody else had requested to interview ended up being the Panthers head coach.

And that might sound like a bad thing to you. However, to me, it signals as clear as day that Dan Morgan was able to hire his guy. Not Dave Tepper swinging for the fences, trying to make a big splash in a cycle that had pretty big fish that you could go for, some of which might not end up getting jobs in this unprecedented cycle.

Bill Belichick, maybe Mike Rabel. They hired their guy. And that is progress. It's progress unlike where the Panthers were before. Unlike Scott Fitterer, Dan Morgan seems like a strong willed guy that won't allow coaches to go with him to ownership over the coach's head, criticizing them.

Mike was revealed in the athletic story we saw where the Panthers were described to be like the Hunger Games behind the scenes. Dan Morgan's not going to do that to a coach he worked eight years with in Seattle in Dave Canales. Dan Morgan's not a lame duck GM the way that Scott Fitterer was.

So from a front office alignment standpoint, this is a lot better. Also, Dave Canales knows who his quarterback's going to be. Frank Reich, at this time a year ago, did not. He didn't know who was going to be his day one starter. When he took this job on January the 25th or 6th last year, 2023, he had the number nine pick in the draft. Sam Darnold was a free agent. Nobody knew who the quarterback was. Even if Dave Tepper said we're going to draft a quarterback, we're going to trade up to the number one pick and we know we're going to get Bryce Young and told him that during the job interview.

I know he didn't, but I'm saying, let's say hypothetically, he did know. You still can't handle him a playbook or work with him until May. Dave Canales doesn't have to deal with that. Dave Canales knows who his quarterback is and by the end of this month, figuring out some things with the staff over the next week can hand Bryce a playbook. He's already been on the phone with Bryce, I bet, and telling him some of the things he expects, some things he wants him to work on. That could have already happened. Frank Reich couldn't do that until May with Bryce.

Couldn't work with him. And if that's, again, if that sounds small, let this one sink in. When was the last time the Panthers went into an offseason knowing who their quarterback was going to be? In the fall. Because last year, Frank didn't know. The year before that, it was the Baker Mayfield experience, but Baker Mayfield didn't arrive until July. So we thought, okay, was it going to be Sam Darnold again? Run it back with Sam?

Okay. The year before that, we didn't know if it was going to be Teddy Bridgewater coming back or if the Panthers were going to make a move in the draft. They traded for Sam Darnold.

He ended up starting. And then the year before that, Matt Rules hired, and is it going to be Cam or are they going to go into free agency and find somebody? And they went and got Teddy Bridgewater.

It's been five years since the last time the Panthers have been able to say that. And another thing that's a huge plus for Dave Canales, assuming that Seattle doesn't nap up Ejiro Evero, Dave Canales could walk in with an established defensive coordinator in place. A guy whose defense was top four in the NFL in total defense this past year. Last year, I had a great defense with Denver, too, even though that coach got fired in the middle of the year.

This is before Sean Payton was hired. You could have Ejiro Evero already built in and a defense that you can lean on out of the gate. Here was Dave Canales a few weeks ago speaking glowingly about Panthers DC Ejiro Evero.

Yeah, let's first give credit where credit's due, you know, Ejiro Evero. He's done a fantastic job against us and just in general this year, you know, if you look at some of their numbers defensively, you know, he put a good unit together really tough. That front seven is really tough to play against. They got great secondary players, you know, and so they really presented some challenges to us. Another thing I'll throw in there. It's kind of a big deal that Pete Carroll is no longer coaching right now.

And here's what I mean by that. There are a lot of good assistants that Pete Carroll had in Seattle that Dave Canales worked with and Dan Morgan worked with that are looking for jobs right now. So if you're trying to put together an offensive staff and you're thinking is he going to be able to pull all those assistants from Todd Bowles, maybe you get some but you also can pull from the Seattle tree to which again Pete Carroll. They're replacing a staff in Seattle.

So when I look at this, I think Dave Canales is a lot better set up than. Frank Reich was a year ago. I think they're modeling this after Indianapolis last year where you kept Frank Reich's defensive coordinator. When Frank was fired mid-season in Indy, Gus Bradley, and then you hire the young offensive mind to be the play caller Shane Steichen, and then you're hoping it quickly fires this thing up and the Colts won more than twice the games they won the year before. They went from four wins to nine and if you think that's out of the question because the Panthers don't have their first overall draft pick, the Colts, they spent their top five draft pick last year on Anthony Richardson and he was hurt in September. And that's losing your quarterback.

So don't tell me that you can't turn this thing around pretty quickly. Dave Canales, your Panthers coach, a good hire that could be a great hire if some of the coaching tree stuff, some of the coaching moves that we see, the hires that come next fall into place. OnX at WSJS radio if you want in.

That's where we're streaming video in addition to YouTube and Twitch. Will Dalton, the executive producer of this show. W.D., how would you grade this hire?

I'll give it a B plus right now. Just because we don't like telling you so we don't know if he's going to keep ever or not. And seeing what might happen with his OC is he going to be calling plays a lot of questions still need to be answered about this. We've actually had some time to pour over ACC football schedules that were released yesterday. So taking a quick break from the big Panthers news of the day, I can't believe what I'm about to say. But the path is right there for NC State to make an ACC championship run.

Yes, I said it. They were big winners yesterday. Frankly, we knew this by just looking at their opponents, which we've had for a while now. Other than the road game at Clemson, there are no heavyweights on the schedule. None of the teams that made the ACC championship last year, not Florida State, not Louisville, no Virginia Tech is on the rise, no Miami. If you don't think schedule is important, ask Louisville last year who didn't have to play FSU or Clemson and got to the ACC championship game. Syracuse is the only team that doesn't play Clemson nor Florida State, but they're replacing a coach and they're Syracuse.

They're not really in the conversation to make an ACC championship run and compete with teams like NC State. The schedule, I think, added to the Wolfpack's chances. I think if games are placed improperly or not in your favor, that can cost you a game or two in a year. And I think if they're placed properly, that can add a win or two.

And I think it's in the plus category for State. They have a bye week after their Cal Road game. So you don't have to worry about, oh man, the logistics of getting back from the West Coast and preparing for your next game and what that looks like. The bye is right after they go to the West Coast. Their first two Power Five games are sandwiched between G5 games. So they have a G5 game and then they play against Tennessee and Charlotte. And then they have a G5 game and then it's Clemson and then another G5 game. So it's never that back to back early on in the year.

They kind of ease into it. And there are no consecutive road games until the last two games of the year. And if that sounds difficult, it's Georgia Tech before North Carolina. And by the way, it's a Thursday night game, the Georgia Tech game. So you have nine days to prepare for North Carolina the last game of the year. But you might think, Josh, a short week game that late in the year, that's tough going on a Thursday night on the road. A bye week right before the Georgia Tech game.

So it couldn't break any better for them. The Pack, they've had a terrific offseason. I think they upgraded at quarterback with Grayson McCall. He met with the media for the first time as the Wolfpack quarterback yesterday.

And after hearing him speak, seems like a great fit. My attitude is really similar to a lot of these guys here. You know, the past couple of years, they've been one or two games away from getting over the hump. I think we're all here to prove something. And you know, this is the year to do it. I got one last shot at this thing. So I'm very blessed to be here, really excited about this opportunity. And I can't wait to go.

Watch out for the Pack. The Drive with Josh Graham only on WSJS. When big news happens, such as the Carolina Panthers hiring Dave Canales, Bucks, OC, you really want to talk to an insider.

And that's what we're doing right now. Mike Kay, Panthers beat rider with the Charlotte Observer, joining us now. So to me, the big, the big overarching story of this week, Mike, is a lot of people have criticized David Tepper for how this organization is going to be structured. Why don't you hire the GM before the coach? Why don't you have, why do you keep having arranged marriages with head coaches inheriting GMs or vice versa?

And why don't you let the GM pick their own guy? A lot of that seems to be put to bed in that Dan Morgan was hired to be the GM before they hired a coach. And pretty clearly, since nobody else even requested to interview Dave Canales, Dave Canales had the ties with Dan Morgan. This was Dan Morgan's guy, it seems. What do you think we learned about David Tepper through this process, if anything?

Well, I think what he probably learned is that the big fish were not going to swim in his pond. I mean, I think if you're, if you're, if you set out and you had a search firm and they, or technically they weren't a search firm, they were an advisory firm. And you ended up going with your in-house candidate for GM, who is incredibly tied to your former GM.

And who was coming off a two and 15 season, and then you go out and you get a head coach that, you know, for better or worse, was not looked at as a head coaching candidate for a plethora of other openings. You know, I think that says a lot about where they're at as an organization. And maybe that means that, you know, that Morgan and Canales were just the most in lockstep. And that's what Tepper wanted. It's a very clear departure from like the matchmaking, like you said, of Reich and Fitterer and Thomas Brown and all that stuff.

You know, sometimes the devil you know is the devil is better than the devil that you don't know. And I think for the Panthers, they're kind of betting on, they're doubling down on the Seattle model, clearly. But on top of that, they're bringing two guys who know each other very, very well. Does that make it more likely to succeed than what we saw a year ago?

Because one thing that a lot of people in that building told me, yes, this job's not going to be the most appealing, especially with seven other openings. But at least for the first time in five years, whoever takes this job will know who the quarterback is on September whatever when they kick off the season. And they can hand the guy the playbook, unlike Frank Reich, until May of last year. Yeah, I mean, I think, look, I think Canales and Morgan share a same root system, right? They both come from Seattle, Pete Carroll, John Schneider.

They know each other very well. And they know what needs to work here. In a lot of ways, hiring Dan Morgan is effectively bringing in somebody or keeping somebody who was part of the buy-in process on Bryce Young, the buy-in process on trading what they traded for the first overall pick.

This was, you know, to your point, if I'm a first time GM, do I want this job if I'm external? I mean, no first round pick. The offense is a mess. You might lose your defensive coordinator because you just passed on him twice for the same head coaching job, even though he is under contract. So technically you keep him. But if Canales has his own guy, you know, what are you going to do? And then on top of that, you know, I don't know that there was a guy who was a clear-cut home run candidate who would come here. And so I think when you look at that, the best way to kind of alleviate that issue is to hire people who are like-minded and know what they need to accomplish. Mike Kay's with us, Panthers insider with the Charlotte Observer and beat Ryder.

This is where I need, this is one of the biggest questions I have. The timing of this is interesting because nobody else was trying to hire Dave Canales. But also, what the heck was that with Mike Rabel?

What exactly happened? Did he get to Charlotte? Did he talk with the Panthers today?

What was that all about? I just know that he was on the books. I don't know if he got here or not. I mean, Atlanta didn't end up hiring him before he got here. I don't know what the rush was, unless you really want to get to Mobile for the Senior Bowl like I do.

Full coverage, by the way, on www.CharlotteObserver.com A bunch of stuff coming out of Mobile. Get some fish, get some seafood. Good stuff. Yeah, well, yeah. And hopefully they don't schedule this press conference in the middle of me being in Alabama. But anyway, no, I don't know. I think that kind of tells you, you know, you've got Ben Johnson still in the playoffs, Todd Munkin still in the playoffs, Mike McDonald still in the playoffs.

Those are some hot names. And you didn't even wait to get a second interview with them or the potential for a second interview. I think that tells you all you need to know, right? That kind of tells you about, you know, if you requested the interview and it was kind of a lukewarm response, I don't know this for a fact, but I mean, Ben Johnson's been the guy everybody talks about for Carolina for two years.

Whether it's insiders, media reporters, whatever. I mean, kind of tells you where things are headed, right? And so I think from a timing standpoint, they didn't really need to wait. But what I will say is the new scheduling of interviews really is a detriment to teams that don't have head coaches because teams that do can just kind of start searching for guys to replace it at the coordinator, especially if they're out of the playoffs. And so maybe it was just like Canales is our guy. You know, we might as well hire him now so we can get a jump on the coordinator job. That's the only thing I can think of from this timeline. What do you think about Ejiro Evaro getting head coaching interviews and some viewing him as a serious candidate?

Because tinfoil hat Josh is starting to think about, you know, Raheem Morris has ties with with Ejiro Evaro. If he gets the job in Seattle, can getting head coaching interviews be a workaround to get past being blocked for coordinator jobs the way that the Panthers say block the Jaguars from interviewing him as a DC candidate? Atlanta, Ejiro Evaro is up for the same job as Bill Belichick. I don't know if he can get the head coaching job, but can they at least bring up in the interview, would you be willing to potentially be the DC if we throw enough money at you? You'd have to I believe that the only way that he could do that you'd have to give him an elevated title above defensive coordinator. So I think you'd have to be assistant head coach, something of that ilk.

That's fair. Seattle should hire Ejiro. I mean, point blank, Seattle should hire him as head coach. More than Raheem?

I mean, I think when you look, I mean, I think Raheem is a great candidate. I think you couldn't go wrong with either one of them. I would probably hire those two guys over anybody but Vrabel. But if you're going to, Vrabel is interesting to me, man, like especially for Seattle, he's completely different from Pete Carroll, but also very, very similar. Look, I think Ejiro deserves a head coaching job.

I really do. I was kind of surprised he wasn't on everybody's list like he was last year, especially with the abundance of openings. Really sharp guy, really impressive. He was one of the few bright spots here. And what's interesting is he's coming off two back to back seasons where his head coach was fired in the middle and he still succeeded. And I think that's partially why a little bit of like the luster or like the the polish is off like his candidacy.

You know, he's not getting as many interviews or, you know, initial interviews is because I mean, he's been associated with two train wrecks, not his fault, but he's got to pick his next job very, very wisely. And I think, you know, I think Tepper would really like to keep him. But I also think like if Canales has his own guy, I mean, you kind of got to let him walk.

Last thing for you. Do you expect Canales is going to call plays? Is this going to be built, say, like Indianapolis ideally a year ago where you keep Frank Wright's DC like they kept Gus Bradley and then you have Shane Steichen calling the plays trying to jump this right away? Yeah, I think that's a logical thing to do. I mean, I don't know who his offensive coordinator and title would be, but that's logical to me.

You bring up Indianapolis. What's funny is the guy I'd compare Canales the most to is Nick Sirianni. Yeah. You know, a guy who didn't have experience as a play caller beforehand, took on play calling and just realized that play calling and head coaching were just a lot. There's only a few guys that are extremely successful in doing that over long periods of time. And so I think it'll be interesting. Canales has only been a play caller for a year.

So it's not like you're high. And it's not look, it's not like Tampa did like an incredible job offensively. They were 17th in passing offense last place in rushing offense. He's got some really good track records with quarterbacks and back-to-back years, but really if you're hiring him to be at the head coach and you just think this guy's a great Pete Carol S program builder. Maybe you let somebody else, you know cook and he's the CEO head coach that's very heavily influential on the quarterbacks and wide receivers. Mike K great stuff throughout this process.

I think when you see stuff like across sports media over the last month that don't sound so great or look so great. You do appreciate how the big stories that we talk about day to day are, you know, byproduct of the reporting you do on the ground and we appreciate it as always and hope you enjoy the seafood and Mobile. Thanks for the time. Thanks for having me.

Good to see you guys. Weekly positivity in just a bit. Here's something to be positive about zero dollar joining fee through January 21st Northwest NC's YMCA is online YMCAW or YMCA in wnc.org always trips me up state-of-the-art fitness equipment pool and exercise facilities.

They're available to you free childcare for members as well zero dollar joining fee right now one of 12 locations and then you're welcome at all 12 locations as a member before we get to weekly positivity. It feels like because we've talked about Dave Canales for so much of the week. We haven't gotten into why Dave Canales today is the right choice for the Carolina Panthers or why he ended up being the choice number one his history with Dan Morgan relationships matter.

And they overlapped eight years with each other. So if Dan Morgan was going to get this opportunity with the Panthers. And he got a chance to pick his own coach will pick a guy you trust and a guy who's well-respected the guy who's positive and great at communicating like Dave Canales seems to be but we'll get to know him a lot more now that he's the head coach of the Panthers.

We hope to have him on sometime soon. And by the way, we're still waiting for the Panthers to save for sure that this is done. The reporting is that they've negotiated they are negotiating terms, but they have agreed. That Dave Canales is going to be the coach but we still have nothing from the Panthers yet. That's the first reason his history with Dan Morgan that matters. His quarterback track records another thing Baker Mayfield being top 10 in the NFL and passing is no small thing. Geno Smith being top 10 in the NFL this at that stage of his career last year.

That's no small thing either. Oh, but the head Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and DK Metcalf and Doug Bo. Yes, they have better personnel and better offensive lines.

We know that. But it looked a lot better than what Baker Mayfield looked like in Charlotte. You know, it's looked a lot better than what we've seen of late getting somebody who can help elevate Bryce young that had to be the key and the last thing I'll say is he's an inverse of Frank Reich. Frank Reich, reach red, older, not that creative.

You have to fit into my system. What we hear about Dave Canales is we're going to adjust the system to whatever our personnel is. He's younger.

He's 42. Never been a head coach before. Different backgrounds, different type of coach that you're getting and usually whatever industry you're talking about, you want to replace whatever you fired with an inverse of what you fired with your next hire. And Carolina is doing that with Dave Canales. Now, I think it's a positive thing that the Panthers have their coach now. I think it's positive that it's an offensive guy.

I think this could have gone a lot worse. I think it's positive that Bill Belichick's not in your division, which we now know Raheem Morris is the head coach in Atlanta. I think that's positive too. So there are plenty of positive things for us to discuss.

If you would like to share something positive with you, something going on with you, and win Doobie Brothers tickets at the same time in Raleigh this summer, 336-777-1600. Your chance to win right now in Weekly Positivity. Oh, yeah.

If it bleeds, we can kill it. Oh, yeah. Weekly Positivity brought to you by Biscuit King.

Lexington. High Point. Biscuits. But not just biscuits. Pancakes.

Even burgers. What? Yeah. 336-777-1600. Give us a call and tell us something good. Let's start with Josh in Clemens. Hi, Josh. Hello? Tell me something good. I've got a lot of things that are good, but the one that is the most present right now, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer early last year and had a double mastectomy in July.

Started chemo in August and she ended it two weeks ago and is doing very well. Would you say that she's doing very good? Very good. Well, do you know what else is good, Josh?

The Doobie Brothers. And you and a guest will enjoy yourselves at the show in Raleigh. Thanks for sharing and for calling.

336-777-1600 WD. Tell me something good with you. Well, I said it before and I'll say it again. I'm so happy. No, I'm taking the Panthers off the board. Tell me something good. I wasn't going with the Panthers. What were you going to say? I didn't have to play Judge Judy today.

That's right. You were supposed to have jury duty today. You got out of it. I did. I didn't have to do that. Well, you didn't get out of it. You just caught a break. No, I did that. Why do you think they ruled you out? I don't know.

They look at you like, heh, radio producer. Uh, nah, I'm going to X this guy out. I'm going to get him out of here.

Yeah. And we had Dario together. That was good.

I got him rap. Tried their tendies. That's right. And they were good.

Good tendies. WD, I can't imagine what today would have been like, the Panthers hiring a coach. That's good. The odds, just imagining that a few months ago. Hey, the day the Panthers hire a coach, your producer has jury duty. That could have happened.

That could have been it. Thanks, Greensboro. Let's go to Kurt, who's in Jamestown. Hi, Kurt. Hi. How you doing, Josh?

Let me think about that. I'm doing good. Tell me something good with you. Oh, well, what I think is good is that the Hornets got LaMelo Ball back. He's healthy. They traded for some good players. Williams is coming back soon.

Our rookie is looking good. So I think the Hornets are on the upswing and may make the playoffs. Would you say they have good players that they brought in potentially?

I would say at one time they were good players. Yeah. Leaky Black hitting a couple of free throws. Yeah. Jordan Sernkamp was with us a few hours ago. He was telling us about raising canes. And then I learned that there's a raising canes in Chapel Hill, which is good.

Speaking of tendies. Yeah, that's that's good. Kurt, thank you so much for the call.

There goes Kurt in Jamestown. In terms of something that's good for me, I'm struggling to come up with anything right now, just because I lost my debit card this week. You did that a few days ago. Which had never happened in my life before, losing a debit or credit card. I'm usually really responsible.

The rain outside isn't amazing. Sarah Braver just sent me a Snapchat of Willow the dog devouring her bed. She even said, don't get to this before weekly positivity. She thought that this would ruin my positive move. See, this is the part if I were saying these things, you would end weekly positivity.

And that's been... I'm ruling these things out. These are not things that I wanted included. But you did.

No, no, no. These are things that aren't included. That are not good. Let me think about something that might... I'm not used to this. I have, what, that I'm just usually... You not having something. Somebody in the office came up to me today and said, I'm not going to lie. First time I met you, I thought you were weird in the sense of, you're just super positive and I don't really know what your angle is.

But then they realized that you're just this bubbly nice guy. People say that in my church group. That's good. You know, tonight people are coming over from my church group that we have each week. And that always lifts me up.

And that's good. Mike Fordham in the Covet says, weekly negativity. Is this a real person?

It looks like an AI generated Muppet. I've gotten that one before. You know what?

That's been weekly positivity. You listen here, Mike. I can't even see what you look like. Don't even want to imagine it. Look like a Muppet. You know how long I've had to deal with this WD, this Muppet thing? Oh, this is a thing for you.

Oh, it's a thing. You know, when I worked in Colorado, I didn't know the Muppets wasn't really a show that I watched all that much. So when I lived in Colorado, small town of 2,400 people, and I had to do sales in addition to radio and did some play-by-play for high school sports, I had the nickname of Scooter. And I didn't know where it came from. They were just like, oh, yeah, you just have that vibe, Scooter.

Okay. And then I get to Greenville, America, and I have a buddy who now does television in Tampa, oddly enough. Got to know Dave Canales a little bit.

He also photobombed Melissa Stark epically during her interview of Jared Goff after the Sunday night game this week, but that's neither here nor there. He introduced me to the fact that, oh, you look like Scooter the Muppet. And that's why that nickname was yours. So he proceeded to only call me Scooter the Muppet. Scooter, hey, Scoot. Scoot, what's up? Scoot. So then I get here to the Triad, and B Dot, sixth man of Tar Heel Basketball, hanging out with us in the studio, and he saw that reporter call me Scoot, Scooter, and then looked up the Muppet and then put a side-by-side on social media of Scooter the Muppet and myself, and it's uncanny. Apparently there was an episode of The Muppets where Scooter had headphones on and a microphone in front of him, and it looked just like me with the red... Do you know what we're even talking about? I'm pretty sure I've seen this. So just look up Scooter the Muppet. If you're not driving a car right now, if you're watching on our video stream or whatever, you can do this as well.

This is a segment we call Looking Up Things on the Internet. Scooter the Muppet. Oh, I see it. So yeah, I'm self-conscious about it, Mike. Self-conscious, and it hurts my feelings. Yeah, I can tell you're all shaken up. Certainly doesn't belong in weekly positivity at all if you look like a Muppet, and here's the thing. If I wanted to just solve it and have that go away forever, I'd just get rid of the glasses, but the problem is I even debated this on my wedding day.

I'm going to have these pictures. Oh, you would. If you're watching on YouTube, Twitter, X, there's Scooter the Muppet that has the headphones on. And it looks just like you would. Let me put my glasses back on.

Because sometimes you wear that type of sweater vest, so it's uncanny. It happens. You interrupted something.

What was I talking about? Something about if you took the glasses off. Those pictures are going to exist my entire life during my wedding. Do I keep the glasses on or do I take them off? So I decided I wear my glasses all the time, so I wear my glasses during my wedding ceremony.

I want to see my wife. But then people say, well, why don't you wear contacts? I'm sorry. It's just too tedious.

It's too tedious to wear the contacts. This is not the direction I expected the show. We're two NFC South coaches. We're hired in the same day, including the Panthers. I didn't think we'd end up at Scooter the Muppet.

I didn't think that we would get there, but we're here. Somebody wants a side-by-side. How about I just scoot over here? Yeah. Oh, I can make this happen very easily.

You can do the side-by-side? Well, I can pull your screen. I hate it. This is great. This is great radio. It bothers me. I don't know if it's great radio. It's visual.

It is, but I don't know what's happening. What do we got in Take It to the House today? A story involving a lost phone, Walmart, and a bomb threat. That's next on The Drive. Darin Gan, Panthers.com will join us on tomorrow's show. Our second favorite Darin, Darin Vaught, will be joining us tomorrow as well. Very strange that the Panthers are going to be here. They're going to be here. They're going to be here. They're going to be here tomorrow as well. Very strange that the Panthers have not confirmed this Dave Canales news.

It is done. Expect that at some point later on tonight. We'll have to figure out when the Panthers are going to have their press conference. My guess would be Monday just because you have the football games over the weekend, Senior Bowls on Tuesday. Maybe the latest you could have it is Friday, the press conference, a week from now. But nothing from the Panthers yet.

That wouldn't make me concerned about the process or whether or not he's the guy, but that's just something to pass along. So it's Darin Vaught and Darin Gan tomorrow. We've got Graham's gambling, handing out picks for championship weekend after going 3-0.

3-0 last week. Keep it simple, it should be a great Friday show. But enough about Friday show. It's Thursday, we have one more order of business to take care of, and that's Take It To The House. Pass to 15, pass to 10, pass to 5, for The Drive will take it to the house!

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They have financing options to fit any budget. Don't wait for a small problem to turn into a big expense. Go to tarheelbasementsystems.com now to schedule your free inspection. WD, what do you have to close us out? Who knew that a lost phone could cause so much trauma and chaos? So apparently this Walmart customer accidentally left his phone in the bathroom, and the person who found it allegedly used it to call in a fake bomb threat to the store.

Oh man. That's according to the deputies. I'm not sure why you would just randomly find somebody and say, hey, let me do this. This man was 28 years old, was arrested, and now faces a felony charge, a false report about planting a bomb or weapon of mass destruction after this incident unfolded at a neighborhood Walmart. Apparently this guy found the phone, the dispatcher said someone said there was a bomb at the Walmart, and then hung up the phone. Then apparently he calls the dispatcher a second time and said, tick tock, tick tock, and just hung up the phone. What?

Yeah. He was committed. What did he think was going to happen? I'm just blown away by this guy trying to be... No pun intended, right? A movie, yes.

Be like a movie villain. Was he inspired by Hans Gruber in... What's the movie? Die Hard? That's what it sounds like. Yeah. An evil villain of sorts, threatening to blow stuff up. Not good.

No, it's not good. Apparently this guy was seen entering the bathroom after the phone had been left. The actual owner of the phone came in after the fact because he was looking for it.

They were actually able to look at the surveillance footage and piece together who did this. Were you ever the type, the mischievous type as a kid that would blow things up or trap a frog underneath something in the hot weather? I wasn't much of a prankster. I was too much of a chicken.

That doesn't surprise me. I was too much of a chicken back in the day to mess with people. People just viewed me as a goody good in the sense that they would never invite me to do these things.

I probably would. And one time I asked, I was like, hey, how come you don't invite me to do these things? And they said, one guy sitting in front of me in a Spanish class my sophomore year of high school turned around and said, dude, it's because your dad's the dare officer. Oh, that makes sense. That does make some sense.

Doing the math in my head that checks out, your dad's the dare officer. I would say probably the most mischievous things that I did as a kid were prank phone calls. Really? Yeah. That was like a big spend the night at a friend's house when you have like a big sleepover with a bunch of friends, like little prank calls or whatever to other people in your class. You really are a loser. Ding-dong ditching is another one. Gosh, W.D., you're the lamest. Ding-dong ditch? That's so lame. I mean, I was a kid.

What do you want from me? I was hoping if you did something mischievous you were at least knocking down mailboxes or something. No, ding-dong ditching prank phone calls. Kids, don't knock down mailboxes. I didn't do that either, so don't do that.

Or ding-dong ditch. Losers. Apparently that's lame, I guess. It's annoying. You shouldn't do it. It's not the right thing to do. And it's also lame. So it's like a double negative.

I was a kid. Is Washington going to have their coach? Is Seattle going to have their coach by the next time we talk to you? Two hires made the day, one yesterday. One the day before that. Who knows how we're going to close the week on a Friday drive.