Panthers at 49ers Week 12 Reaction | Postgame Show | Carolina Panthers

Panthers at 49ers Week 12 Reaction | Postgame Show | Carolina Panthers

Welcome to the Panthers postgame show. Kristen Baloni alongside Panthers legends Mike Tolbert and Al Wallace. Guys, a disappointing Monday Night Football loss to the 49ers last night. Mike, I’ll start with you. What are your initial thoughts from that game? You know, I think that um we have to show consistency. Consistency in who we are. You know, we’re a team that can run the football very well and play bin, but don’t break defense. I think we got to stick to that format. and um continue to be who we are. No. Yeah, I I’ll echo that. I I think when you look at this performance last night for me, a former player and obviously uh being a huge fan of this this team and Bryce Young and Dave Canales, it’s disappointing because you knew the opportunity that was right in front of us, big stage, Monday Night Football, and to come up short. Um yeah, the disappointing is the word for me. So, um you mentioned consistency, Mike, and we’re going to take a look at some numbers here specifically with the offense. We saw the defense put together a great performance specifically in that first half giving the offense opportunities, but when you look at, as you said, that inconsistency, what do you see from these numbers? I know you mentioned the run game. Yeah. Well, we didn’t have um as many plays as you would like, you know, total all throughout the game anyways, but having only 18 plays ran as an offense before half is not going to be anything that can help you win the game, right? So, we got to sustain drives, be better on third downs, uh, and get to third down, you know, um, and capitalize on turnovers as an offense. Mhm. Yeah. For me, it’s rhythm. It’s finding the rhythm, and you see 43 total plays there. Uh, the lack of consistency in the run game is, it’s something that you can ill afford even with a depleted San Francisco 49er team. And you can see some of the miscues here where guys are are been so dependable all season throwing, catching, blocking, tackling, uh that did not get the job done. And I think that throws off the timing and the rhythm. First and second down. Can you gain positive yardage on first and second down? It just makes it easier, more manageable for your quarterback. You you mentioned the the third down. So 14% on third down, but more so than that, you know, we were talking last night after the game, just one for seven. You only had seven first downs in this game. Al, what do you attribute that to? Yeah, I I think you know it’s a week- toeek thing in the NFL and teams like the 49ers. Uh Robert Salah is a incredible was a former head coach defensive coordinator and they’re going to find ways to frustrate you to confuse uh a quarterback whether it’s a veteran or a guy in his his third year. So, I think what it comes down to is being consistent and moving the ball. Positive yardage and not getting penalties, especially early in drives. When you get penalties early and in the series, it really sets you back and now you’re playing behind the chains. Mike, um, we talked about kind of the lack of the run game. How would you have liked to see that get going early? I would like like if you look at the way the game started, San Francisco gave Christian the ball, what is it, seven or six straight times, right? I would like for us to do the same thing. Like, let’s use Chuba. Let’s use Rico, get them downhill because we know they were missing their defensive studs, right? They’re missing Fred Warner and some of the other guys. So, let’s run at them. Let’s see if these backup players can actually play. We know what Rico can do. And then that makes the game easier for Bryce. Yeah. Here’s my view from a defensive perspective. even when it’s not working, if teams are dogged in their approach to running the ball, it just it wears you down and you may not reap the benefits until the third or fourth quarter. So even when there are negative plays, even when you’re not having success, if your identity, right, key word, if your identity is running the ball, run the ball. Even when it’s not hitting for four or five yards, explosive plays, Rico Dattle, Chuba Hubard are going to hit those body blows. And you’re going to start to see teams bend at the waist. They’re going to start feeling that in the third and fourth quarter. And when you get away from it, you really let them off the hook. You mentioned, Al, some of these players that uh this team has come to rely on. We expect Tedro McMillan to have a big game and there were some miscues in that one which is bound to happen throughout the season. But what did you see between Bryce and T-Mac? Yeah, there was a bit of a disconnect and and you know it’s hard for us to say. I don’t want to pretend like I’m the expert that I go to these practices and I understand the relationship and the timing uh and the play calling of what it is between you know those two guys. But I do know in the offseason they built an incredible rapport. We saw that last week on the the touchdown where T-Mac kind of breaks off a route and does a little will in the end zone for a touchdown. So, you just got to get back to that. And it’s a long season. He’s a rookie. It’s a young guy and you just never know what is going on in the week of preparation that leads to this and they’re on the West Coast. Who knows what it was, but they were a little bit disconnected. And as we said, that’s that’s bound to happen every once in a while. I want to talk about that first interception from Bryce Young in the red zone. The Panthers had gotten the ball thanks to a turnover. They were right there in the red zone. And then on first down, we see this interception. And Alan, Mike, you were saying you don’t mind the play call here. So, what was it in that situation? Yeah, I I don’t mind the the play call. I think uh Dave Canales is thinking, hey, I’m going to give my quarterback that I trust an option, right? He’s run the ball a couple of times this series to get that ball down inside the 5 yardd line. If the play is the pass is not there, he’s going to take off and race to that front pylon. Bryce made the decision to throw the ball. You can see Chandler Zavala right there in front of him. One single defender. I think you got to use your wheels. We’ve seen Bryce Young do this so many times and only Bryce understands what he saw from a quarterback spot with Mitchell Evans in the back of the end zone. That was an unfortunate break in the red zone coming off of a turnover. Here is what Dave Canales had to say about that interception. Let’s take a listen. Yeah, it was a great action. You know, he had uh Mitch open in the back half and there’s an option he could take off and and run it into the front pylon. You know, he saw Mitch and you know, right when he turns back in, they had a defender on the edge who popped out and intercepted it. You know, at that time, he made a great play on the ball, but um you know, we’ve been running the ball there in that situation and uh felt like we could, you know, get another ch uh chance to run at if we didn’t get the completion on that role, but um I’d like the call. You know, it was a it was an aggressive call, a play action that we had opportunities on and unfortunately came out with an interception. All right, Dave Canales saying the same thing, Al, that you said. I like the call. It was an aggressive call. We stand by that. And unfortunately, it just didn’t work out in that one. And that, of course, was not the only time that the offense had to take advantage of those turnovers and we’re going to talk about some of those turnovers that the defense created. Really great half for them, especially in that first half. But Mike, you mentioned a little bit earlier kind of the disparity between the run plays and the pass plays. 34 passes in this game compared to just nine runs, the fewest rushing attempts this season. Where where is the disconnect there? You know, I I’m not going to pretend I was in the meeting room. You got to tell us. You guys have got to tell us exactly what happened. I’m not going to pretend I was in the meeting room. But I I will say that um the what the game plan looked like was that almost like paralysis by analysis, right? It’s almost like we understand that every team we play against is going to stop try to stop Rico, try to stop Chuba, stop our running game, right? So, let’s go ahead and let’s pass the ball. Let’s air it out. Then that’ll open the running game up. But like we said earlier, you just got to be who you are. You know, eventually it’s going to work. You know, you might get two yards, three yards, but you’re moving the chains, constantly moving the chains, and then one’s going to break because the defense gets tired, right? So, you just got to keep being who you are. Yeah. I I just think you got to go into it saying this is our our plan and we’re going to force defenses to bend to our will. We’re not just going to succumb to defenses loading the box and saying we’re going to stop Chuba, we’re going to stop Rico, and we’re going to force Bryce to throw the ball. That’s going to be the game plan for the rest of the season. So, you can’t go into it thinking, “Well, we’ll just shift. We’ll pivot.” I think you got to be forceful and that this is who we are. This is what we’re going to do. The offensive line pieces in, pieces out of that line, but we’re good enough to get this done. We’ve done it before and you got to stick with it. You got to fight for it. You got to demand that you run the ball from your guys in that huddle. And you guys said it because we know it works well. We know that if this team gets back to that, we have seen that formula work. Um, let’s talk about these interceptions. Unfortunately for the offense, just three total points off of the three interceptions, but what interceptions they were. Al, I want to ask you about JC Horn. Two from JC Horn, one from Mike Jackson. What did you see? Let’s start with JC Horn. I always say got to make his dad proud right there. Five interceptions this season, which is tied for the lead league. So Al, what can you say about him? Well, JC is just a guy that I can tell that has been in the film room. He understands exactly these routes, the concepts, how defenses want to attack him. And you just watch him kind of fade in an area, just track the eyes of the quarterback there. He undercuts uh Brock Pury and comes up with it. Now, his dad’s not going to be proud of the the run after the catch skills from JC Horn. But this guy just has feet. He has patience. He understands that Jennings is not going to run away from him. And man, he’s going to go get that. So, I like what we’ve seen from JC Horn this year. Just aggressive. But more than that, his film study, his understanding of route combinations, and exactly where he needs to be as a quarterback. And Mike, you know, as we said, the offense not able to take advantage of those, but as a defense, you have got to come away feeling good about specifically those interceptions. Well, absolutely. I mean, you feel good about the way the way the defense played in general last night. I mean, they they played like like we always say, bamboo don’t break. You know, there’s not like we had a thousand points scored on us. You know, they continuously continuously um made plays when they needed to be made. You know, you put Christian in a box, you came up with three turnovers, you know, in order to give your team an opportunity to win the game. And how does that build confidence, Al, going forward into this season, which is still very much up for grabs in the NFC South? Yeah, I think as a defense, you just want to give the ball back to your offense. You want to create short fields. You want to steal possessions away in the NFL. Teams are so good on that offensive end. And when you see this defense perform the way it did, especially on that back end, understanding how talented the wide receivers are in the NFL, and you’ll get to see another group coming up this week uh with the Rams. You feel really good about JC and Mike Jack and all the guys that have stepped up and performed well. This offense has to take advantage of that. if I’m going to give you the ball on a short field, I’m going to buy you an extra possession by taking the ball away from the opponent. We need to put points on the board and and yeah, I know they’ll look at that um when they when they break down this field and and see some opportunities lost. And then Al, unfortunately, the what was the highlight of especially this first half, that defense started to sustain some injuries, right? They come in already down their starting linebackers in Trevan Wallace and Christian Roseboom. And then you look at some of the injuries that happen, especially on the defensive side. JC Horn goes out with a concussion, as does Claude and Cherless, who was already filling in at that linebacker position. And then Cory Thornton, who was filling in for JC Horn, also goes down for an ankle. And you just, you hate to see that. It’s, you know, it’s late in the season. We know that every team has injuries, but gosh, it was hard to watch yesterday. Yeah, it’s tough because guys are able to step up. You’re talking about Claudine Chairless who stepped in with Bros Boom and Wallace out. You can see the physicality that he brings to the game. He goes out, we just highlighted JC Horn and the interceptions and the plays he was able to make. It makes it tough if you’re a Jerro Ao to go out there and implement your game plan to make sure guys are capable of doing what you’re asking them to do if all your horses are not out there in the race. And man, it was tough to see body after body go down on that defense. Mike, you know, at this point in the season, the Panthers are still yet to have a buy one more game before that, you know, how I mean, you both know how tough it is on the body. What are these guys feeling right now? Well, I mean, they’re going through it. You know, this is the the point of the year where especially for rookies, you know, this is what we call the rookie wall, you know, around week 12, week 13 where most colleges are getting ready to wrap up for the season. So, they’re not used to it. You know, they got to get their body going for another five or six weeks and a playoff run. So, um, this time of year, everybody’s dealing with something. Whether that’s a a finger or a hamstring or whatever it may be, everybody’s dealing with some type of injury, but you got to fight through it, right? You got to continue to be who you are. Be where your feet are. You know what I’m saying? Be present in every day. All right. Coming up, the guys are going to go to the board to break down that run defense. But first, if you need gift ideas for the Panthers fan in your life, we’ve got you covered. Go on over to shop.panthers.com. You can shop our gift guide at shop.pan panthers.com/x-2169. Great stuff over there. Go check it out. Back here on the Panthers postgame show. Mike Tober, Al Wallace here for you taking a look at the Panthers defense who gave up 20 points to the San Francisco 49ers last night. But Mike, let’s take a look at Christian McCaffrey. This running game, this Panthers run defense that’s been solid this year. They’ve really picked it up. They’ve get gotten some bodies back that are healthy. We’ll just look at how teams are starting to attack this defense. The key right here, as always, is going to be able to find number 95, figure out where that guy is on the defense and kind of say, “Hey, can we run away from him right here? We’re going to show you Derek Brown right there.” Because, you know, he’s right there. We’ll highlight him. That’ll tell you Brock Pury, whether it’s a play out of the huddle or if it’s something he checks to when they get to the line of scrimmage. You find a way to run away from that guy. He’s the most disruptive. Now, the boundary is here. Um, which is different. You think you want that running room going away, Mike, but right here, what we’re going to see is a little bit of a crack toss into the boundary. CMC is going to do his thing. Uh, but you you know that. So, we’ll stop it right here. We’ll take it back just a little bit so we can look at how this defense is aligned. So, this is the threeman front. You know, Panthers are multiple. They’re going to line up in a fourman front. in this version here. One, two, three. Right. And there you can see it. Derek Brown just away from this play. We know it’s going away. Mike, if you’re an offensive player and you know you have a dominant force like Derek Brown in there, tell me why you would run away from the big guy. I mean, obviously there’s game plan, guys. There’s guys on every team that you’re going to game plan for. Derek Brown is top of the charts on that one, right? But this is just a good game plan by Cal Shanahan and this San Francisco 49ers team because you going to run a weak side crack toss. Weak side crack toss is very few and far between. But you know, like you said, we got to get away from that guy cuz he’s a disruptor, right? So you run a weak side crack toss and you got free releasers based on that 4-3 defense. It’s just a good scheme that you put the hand ball in the hands of probably one of the best running backs of the last decade. Yeah. And very rare. I know you played this position right there. That’s one of those unicorns still on the field of fullback. You’re going to see these guys get up here. Now, you’re talking about kind of free releases. Trent, uh, Trent Williams, one of the best offensive linemen. You’ll get your center here. These two guys, you see the stances right there, right? It’s going to be hard for them to get that penetration, be disruptive, especially on the crack toss. What we can’t see is DJ Wom out here. That’s the guy they’re going to crack, right, with Jennings and get this ball to the perimeter. We’re going to let it play because Christian McCaffrey with the vision, the way he plays football, he’s going to find it. There you see the free releasers. Here comes the fullback. Kyle use takes care of Mike Jackson and almost a walk-in touchdown against the Carolina Panthers. It’s just very difficult for teams right now or easy I should say. If you want to have any amount of success, you run away from 95. It proves how dominant he is in the middle of this defense and the challenges the Panthers are going to have to face all season because it’s a copycat league, right? See this on film and they’re going to go after that defense on the run. All right, guys. Thank you so much for the breakdown. Let’s look at the NFC South standings. And Mike, you look at this. You know, first place was up for grabs last night and that didn’t happen for the Panthers, unfortunately. But this team is still in control of its own destiny here. Absolutely. I mean, you have to go out and just play good football. you know, you got to finish the season the right way. You know, I was a part of a team that started 37 and one and end up winning the division and making the playoffs and winning the playoff games. So, it’s definitely there for the taking. You just got to go take it. You got to have that mentality of going and take a win every weekend. Yeah, I I think it’s a good position, right? You’re still half game looking up at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You have two remaining games against that team that is a half game up on you right now. Nothing gained, nothing lost. an opportunity. Yes. If you could have walked away last night as the NFC South leaders, yes. But man, you you feel good about the the opportunity and your goals being able to check all those goals off for the remainder of the season. I want to to ask you guys about the overall state of this team. We talked about some inconsistencies on offense, but you know, we do the away games. We sat here the first two weeks. They were 0 and2 and then to battle back to 500 to still be in the driver’s seat and control your own destiny for this NFC South. Al, what does that do for a locker room? Uh, I think it gives you confidence, right? Especially where you’re speaking on the start. It feels just bleak at the beginning of the season, but you know, and you still talk about how much football is still left in the season. And so you sit right now, you certainly don’t feel good flying back from the West Coast, the performance that you had last night, but still with an opportunity to just achieve that first goal, win your division. Once you’re in, it’s a new season. So I think if anybody in that locker room had signed up to be right where they are, half game out of first place in the NFC South, they’d all raise their hands. They’d all stand up in that that team meeting room. So I like where they are and that confidence has to be high. You got to clean it up. You got to be more consistent. But you’re right where you want to be, Mike. when you guys were in that season, as you said, you starting to to the point where you don’t think that you’re gonna make the playoffs, much less much less. I’m I’m a fan. I I remember that season well. What was the motivating factor for you guys? How did you become the team that you ended up being? Well, I think we we took accountability. You know, that was the biggest thing that we did was we understood what we could do, right? So, we took accountability. We put it on ourselves. We increased the way we practice. Like the intensity at our practices were out of this world, right? So, we were chirping at each other. We were fighting sometimes, but that’s what it took for us to get us going. And uh we went on a win streak. We end up winning the last four games, something like that, to win the NFC South. I will say, you know, pulling in this morning, there are a lot of cars in the driveway, a lot of players cars, and they didn’t land until 7:00 in the morning. So, no one really went home to get any sleep. They are here. They are focused. And that’s always great to see. I want to take a look at the next four games on this schedule. Guys, let’s start with the Rams. I mean, Al, they look great. That’s a tall task at home. Yeah, the way they look uh this past weekend, it looks like the best team right now in the NFC. Uh Matthew Stafford, Devonte Adams, who comes over, of course, you know what Puka Nakua can do. And that defense, guys, that defense is pretty formidable as well. So, uh pretty scary proposition there. But the Panthers have played some of the top teams in the NFC. You just got to in your building just come out swinging. You got to swing for 60 minutes. And Mike, as a player, I don’t think you can overstate the importance of that by-week so late. One of the latest in the NFL, but then to come in healthier and face the Saints and then the Bucks. Yeah, I mean I think it gives you an opportunity to get the guys back, you know, to get uh Trevon Wallace back and Christian Roseb Bloom to get those guys back on the field, but it also gives you an opportunity to re-evaluate leading into the end of the season, right? You go into those meetings. You understand like, hey, this is what we need to work on. These are the two teams that we got coming up. We got to go to New Orleans. Let’s go get this victory. We know how they beat us the last time, right? Let’s go. Let’s go get that one, right? A lot of motivation right there. there. And as we said, Panthers still in control of their own destiny, guys. Thanksgiving coming up in just a couple days. What are your plans, Al, what do you got going on? Yeah, I’m going to head down to Florida uh after we wrap up here and just right now. Yeah. Yeah. Eat just eat myself into oblivion, watch some football and enjoy, you know, the family um and and hug on mom a little bit. I love that. Mike, what are the tools up to? Um we have to work. So, you know, we we run the Rock Box gym, so we have to work. We got to teach class and we have a whole turkey day is what we call all those motivated people. Not like me and Al. You know what I’m saying? The opposite. That’s that guilt-free that guilt-free workout before you eat everything. So, we have to do that. Then I’m going to go home and cook. So, okay. All right. I like to hear that. We’re going to our in-laws and my mother-in-law is a great cook. So, I’m going to be like, “Oh, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy.” Mike’s going to be doing all the hard work on Thanksgiving. We hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving. We’ll still see you at the normal time on the Panthers Huddle later this weekend, but again, hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, guys. Thank you as always and thanks to all of you for tuning in to the Panthers postgame show. [Music] [Music]

Kristen Balboni is joined by Mike Tolbert and Al Wallace to talk through some of Bryce Young and the offense’s struggles against the San Francisco 49ers in primetime on Monday Night Football. Hear from head coach Dave Canales on the missed opportunities in the redzone and breakdown Jaycee Horns two interceptions against Brock Purdy.

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