Greg Olsen Interview previewing Week 8 Panthers vs Bills | The Avenue | Carolina Panthers

Greg Olsen Interview previewing Week 8 Panthers vs Bills | The Avenue | Carolina Panthers

Welcome to another edition of the Avenue. Kristen Baloni, our thief Trey Boston. Trey, week seven. The Panthers three straight wins. They’ve won four out of the last five. They just beat the Jets 13-6. Tell me what you thought about the game. What did I think about this game? Are we the people witnessing Carolina Panther football to the tea? This is what we’re used to seeing. I told you guys, we’re a team who wins 1310, 912. We’re gritty. We have wins that, hey, most people might not like, but the W is in the win column. And that’s what I love seeing watching this team. We’re developing. We’re continue to trend in the right direction. So, watching this game, I know a lot of people were like they’d like to see more points on the board, but what I saw was a defense who continued to dominate. Six sacks when I challenged the boys to go get two or more turnovers, two turnovers. I mean, listen, we wondered, was the home and away games uh are we were we a different team? No. Last week I told y’all the recipe of winning is taking care of the line of scrimmage, running the ball, stopping the run, taking care of the ball. Listen, that’s what we did on the road. And we just saw Carolina Panther football done right. And that’s how you get W’s in the column. I don’t care how you do it. No such thing as a ugly win, says Coach Canales. So let’s get dubs and let’s have fun doing it. That’s what I saw from our boys. Yeah, Trey, you mentioned it. Six sacks, six points allowed in this game. The Jets scored six points, which is incredible. This Panthers defense has now moved into the top 10 in the league. Did you hear that? Yes. Did you hear that? Let’s take a look at this. Okay. And then just for a comparison sake, we have weeks one through seven of last year compared to weeks one through seven of this year. And we should just say Derek Brown out all season. There were a lot of injuries that were sustained last year. So, we have to take those numbers with a grain of salt there. But, let’s focus on the numbers from this year. Eighth in rushing yards allowed, 10th in passing yards allowed, 13th in points per game, and fifth in first downs allowed. Trey, when you look at these numbers, what impresses you the most? One, like we said, Derek Brown is back and and I know exactly how that feels. I lost KK my last season here. Uh, what I will say is what has impressed me most is the guys have believed in the system. Evo’s been here for years. We’ve seen how well his defenses have been. So for him to come back this season, the first few games, us kind of be weary, not knowing what we were getting, now they’ve started to turn it on. They’re starting to believe they the belief systems already there. Guys are now in the system. And when you have guys feeling in in a flow of how they like to do things, how they like to call plays, how they like to uh just communicate with each other, we’re witnessing the Carolina Panthers defense take the next step, and that’s what I love seeing. Well, talking about the next step, as you said, you challenged this team to not just stop the run, which they have been doing amazing over these last few weeks especially, but also to get after the quarterback, which they did in this game, as you mentioned, six sacks. What does that do for the confidence of a team to have your defense show up in a different way, especially as you get ready to face Josh Allen? Absolutely. I mean, they come in bunches, whether it’s turnovers, sacks, like once you start getting them, the confidence of your team to, hey, we’ve done it before. Let’s go get after them is there. I mean, it it’s like real life once you do something and you know you’re capable now. That is the standard. So to see these guys go get six sacks before playing the Bills. Now these guys are going to go into this game knowing that they can get after the quarterback in multiple ways. I mean we saw guys like Scoring light up the uh the sack one and a half. We had a half come from Princely. We had Aan Robinson with another. You had big Derek Brown with a twopiece. I mean, this is the type of Dline that is getting after the quarterback and Pat Jones being out and these guys showing up in the way that they’re showing up. This team is developing a next man’s up mentality and they’re one I I think they truly believe in the guy who’s coming up next and they’re starting to ball out and I love seeing it. They are and it really starts from the top. Trey, you have played with some great leaders. You’ve been a leader yourself. when you have your leaders like Derek Brown, like JC Horn playing the way that they’re playing, what does that do? And I also just want to give a shout out to JC Horn. Those two interceptions, not just two interceptions, but two great ones, the one-handed in the end zone, the second one where he turns his head around and catches the ball. When you see your leaders setting that tone, what does that do for the rest of this defense? Oh, it’s huge. I mean, again, when your best players I mean, they talked to Derek Brand after the game and they said, “Hey, victory Monday.” He’s like, “What is that? We’re in the process.” I mean, when your leaders want to get back into the film room, they want to get back into the building and continue to build off of what y’all been able to do, and they want to keep the momentum. That’s important. The guys who are next to them say, “Hey, we want to work. It’s what we’re doing. It’s why we’ve been better.” JC Horn and DB are playing like the respectively best players at their position. Right here we’re watching the second interception of the game of JC Horn. I mean, man coverage. What are you thinking going his way? Oh, you think you got a deep post? Oh, you think you got him by a few yards? That’s bait. Let me go get that with a one-handed snag. Thievery is alive. It’s never died. And JC Horn and DB. Oh, why why do I mention DB? Oh, yeah. Because DB stands for defensive back. Three PBUs from our boy on the line. Man, these guys are playing insane. I told y’all early in the season, when you have guys like this playing respectively the best in their position, you’re going to have the guys around them so much better. Playing free, being able to do their 111. Man, these guys are taking care of not only a whole defensive line, but onethird of the field. Now your team is allowed to have fun, fly around. Hey, Merrick has been balling out another one with a sack, flying all over this field, talking with these coaches before last game. Man, I just told them how much I enjoy watching how they’re featuring these guys, their weapons, and this team is looking like a complete new team. And I’m excited for the future of these boys. I love that you said respectfully, Dererick Brown and JC Horn are the best of their positions. I would say disrespectfully because the way they are disrespecting these opponents. Oh my goodness. Well, speaking of great performances, Trey, during wins, you give out your chain to somebody that you think just had an incredible performance. Rico’s gotten it the last two weeks. Who’s getting it this week? Okay. For the first time, your boy had a hard time just giving out one chain. So, what are we giving out? Two chains. Two chains go to Derek Brown, JC Horn. Again, both of these guys lit up the stat board. Two sacks, three PBUs. Derek Brown led the team or tied with the lead at seven tackles. Hey, JC Horn locked down. Two INTs. Don’t go his way. There’s a seat belt for you babies. Everybody, let’s do it together. Clamped up. Let’s go. That’s my chain game. If these boys keep playing this way, you can find the guys around them. Woo! Playing good ball. I gotta tell you what, I’m buckled in over here. Buckled in. I’m buckled in and ready for the ride. All right. As you said, Derek Brown said, “What is victory Monday?” We’re on to the next. And Trey, we know that you get us ready for this next opponent. When you turn the page, so how are we doing it this week? How are we turning the page this week? To turn the page, like Derek Brown said, we’re back in the office. We’re falling in love with the process. When we’re around each other as a team, we are getting better. The chemistry is growing. When we get into the lab this week, it’s about the confidence of knowing that each week we can win every game. The Bills are a little shook up. They just lost their last two games. They’re coming off a by-week, but that doesn’t matter to us. We can care less about a victory Monday. We’re in the building. Hey, do we run the ball well? We absolutely do with a two-headed monster and three with a little mini ATN. And what I will say is this Bills team is pretty bad. 31st in yards per game, 32nd in yards per attempt, averaging over 156 yards on the ground versus these guys. So for us, I think to turn the page, we get back into the lab. We know that we have to run the ball. When we are run play actioning as a team, we’re showing that we are a threat. You can’t just see what we’re going to do. We’re not onedimensional. This team is capable of showing the highlights of who we can be. And if you get a Bill’s Woo in Hey, hey, where are we playing them at? We’re playing them at Oh, yeah. In Bank of America Stadium where we’re undefeated. Yeah. I was going to say, what’s the record? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you ain’t undefeated. So, I’m letting you guys know right now to turn the page. Know that we got these boys at home. We’re going to have fun doing it the way that we do it. Carolina football. Let’s go. All right. We’re going to talk about a little bit more and have Trey break down the Bills in just a second, but of course, we’d be remiss if we don’t mention the quarterback situation here in Carolina. So, it’s Wednesday morning when we tape this. The team has not taken the field for practice yet. They’ll do that a little bit later this afternoon. But right now, we are hearing from Dave Canales that Bryce Young is daytoday with an ankle. There have been other reports that have been out there that called it a little bit more serious. Dave Canalis said that’s not the case. He’s dayto-day in this building. We’re going to get him out there today and see what things look like. So Trey, we don’t know as of right now. If you’re a player on this team, how do you feel about that situation? How do you prepare for both quarterbacks? Yeah. Well, how I feel about that, I feel pretty good. If I know our identity right now is run, play action. I know that we still have the guys who run the ball. And why I feel good about that? Because if Bryce does happen to go down, we have a veteran quarterback in Andy Dalton who’s been an allpro. He’s been a veteran in this league, the red rifle, knows how to get it done. So for me, I played with a Derek Anderson where all confidence in our team was in DA. So I know Andy Dalton has that same type of respect from this team knowing that, hey, when he needs to pass the ball in that play action setting, this is what he does best in his career when he’s been at his top of his game. So, I am feeling good as a team. I don’t worry about who’s starting. It’s about us being the best version of us this week. That’s it. Yeah, it was such a good point. You said this on our on our pre-show meeting. You were like, “No, no, no. Andy Daltton’s a guy.” Like, it’s Andy Dalton that we have that could be playing in this game. You know, such a great point. Such a great reminder. Well, talking of quarterbacks though, we got to talk about Josh Allen. Trey, yes. If you’re on this defense and you know that you’re going up against Josh Allen, what does your game prep look like? Yeah, well, this season I’ve seen a lot of running the ball coming from the Bills. Joe Brady’s really tried to establish the run to get the ball out of Josh Allen’s hands a little bit more. Now, again, this is one of the best players in the league, former MVP. So, to know that they’re feeling like, hey, we got to get it off him a little bit more. They’re in shotgun, so the ball’s in his hand every single play to make a play for them. I think going into this game, we have to stop the run. It’s something that we’ve done well. If we stop the run, make them one-dimensional. I think that this receiver core doesn’t match well against our DB core. I like the way we’ve been playing. So, if ball’s going to be in Josh Allen’s hands, I think we have to contain him because on his feet is where he’s most mobile and he makes plays. But if we can keep him inside that pocket and allow him to make plays from there, and we stop the run, making them one-dimensional, knowing that they’re going to pass the ball, I like this Panthers team to take control, especially this defense, the way they’ve been playing. The momentum is there. Get after the quarterback turnovers, which they’ve had a few turnovers in the last few games. You’ll find yourselves exactly where you want to be. I should say Stephen, our producer, is a savage. Look at the graphic. Haley’s Haley’s husband I love it. Oh, that’s amazing. That is so good. All right, Trey, you talked a little bit about this and I want to go back to it. So, the Bills have lost two straight. Yes. Which is not something the Bills do often. So, there are weaknesses there. Yeah. What are they and how how did teams affect them in these last two games that the Panthers can take note of. Yeah. What I saw was takeaways. Takeaways was big for them. Uh they had two turnovers uh versus the Falcons. I want to say uh there was a few more verse the uh Patriots. looking at that when they don’t take care of the ball. I mean, you see it right there. They’re 31st in turnovers. They’re not playing good ball in these last few games. So, if you could take advantage of that and penalties, look at the penalties. They’re 29th in penalty yards per game. Those last two losses were big when it came to stopping the run, turnovers, and penalties. Something that we’ve said that we in the past have had to stop and that’s exactly what we’ve done. So, for the Bills, we have to take advantage of this. Whether that’s hey go on double counts white 80 white you got to find a way to get these guys into pre and postnap penalties as well as hey if we run the ball well man just run the ball and find ways to get turnovers simulated pressures when when when you face veteran quarterbacks you want to give them a lot of makeup you want to give them disguise you want to give them one look then you do another one look then you do two other things, but it must all come together. So, look for simulated pressures. Us looking like we might blitz, dropping out of it again, knowing that if we can make a one-dimensional, they’re going to pass the ball. We got guys in the zone. Picked off. Thiever is alive. There you go. Thievery is live. You asked for these numbers, Trey, so I want to share them with you. When you uh create two turnovers, no, sorry, when you turn the ball over two times, you only win about 32% of the time. Minus two. So, you were minus two in turnovers. you have a 38% chance. Yeah. Uh 32% chance. Therefore, if you do the math, when you force two turnovers, you win 68% of the time. And as you can tell, math is not our strongest suit, right? So, we’re just like, we’re like, what what are those numbers? When you add them up, 30% of the time you lose. If you have two turnovers, 68% of the time you win. I’m trying to tell y’all the the math is there for us. Again, statistics are statistics. It’s hard to win games when you’re turning the ball over and giving the team the ball to have more possessions. For us, that is the winning recipe this weekend. I want y’all to look at that. Who wins the turnover battle? Who has the most penalties? And who stops the run? You’re going to find yourself in a W column if you can do those three things. And Trey, I just want to say I’m not good at math. You’re probably good at math. I heard you talking taxes earlier. So, let me just say I’m not good at math. Okay? If if I’m not good if I’m good and you’re not good, then hey, I got to be better as a team, man. It’s it’s it’s team. I gota get right. You are picking that up for me. You’re disguising my flaws right there. I love it. All right. Coming up, we are going to talk to the guy who is going to be broadcasting this game. Panthers fans, you know him well. Greg Olsen. He is joining us in just a minute. But of course, now before we do this, we have been talking about Derek Brown and with good reason quite a lot on the show. But right now, we are going to hear what he had to say because he was miked up in this game with the Jets. Take a listen. Blue skies meet the sun’s kiss here in East Rutherford, New Jersey, off of exit 16 W. Let’s go, boy. You know what it is. There you go. Right off the rip. Here we go, boys. Let’s go, boy. Let’s go. Damn it. Let’s go. Go ahead and wake that the up. Wake that the up. Give me one. There you go. Goddamn. Go eat that. That’s two. Godamn it. Let’s go. We all weing need for the started again. But I will say this and we’re not going to talk about them again. Never get them hope. They can’t with us. So we got to go out here and do what we do. Hey jump day. Hey dominate on three. One 2 three. Dominate. They want a defensive showdown. Let’s give it to him. Merrick playing in the box. Fields. moves. Engulfed by the embrace of Derek Brown. You got to tell them quit running at me. God damn it. Derek Brown today. Seven tackles, two sacks, three passes batted down. You’re a big ass bear, bro. Princ got all of it. I bet you I’ll challenge it to watch it. Hey, he already got half on Bobby. He good for today. All right, joining us now we have Panthers legend, NFL legend, and broadcasting legend Greg Olsen. Greg, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Yeah, I’m happy to do this. This is fun. Two Panther games in three weeks is pretty uh pretty incredible. That’s right. And certainly the fans are excited to see you on the call. So, you did the Cowboys game a couple weeks ago and now of course you were doing this matchup with the Bills. What I want to know since we have you is what is your process like as you prepare every week for these games? Yeah. You know, it it’s actually very similar to when I was a player. I I’ve kind of worked it out that I have like my set like Mondays is a Monday. Tuesdays I have like a very particular schedule and kind of throughout the course of the week now that I’ve done it for a few years. Um you know, it kind of just takes care of itself, the routine. So on Mondays I typically don’t do a lot. I get I get back late on Sunday nights from my previous game. Um kind of put all that to bed, finalize my notes, put put, you know, close out all those files, close out all those those spreadsheets and whatnot. And then, um Tuesday, I jump into the team that I know the least, you know, so a team, so a week like this, for instance, um I spent most of yesterday just watching Buffalo. Who are they? You know, aside from Josh Allen, you know, who’s on the field, what are their numbers? What’s the O line look like? uh who are their main weapons, defensive rotations, just getting a feel for who they are and what they look like. Uh today will be my my Panthers day. Dive back in, refresh any of my notes from a couple weeks ago. What’s changed, you know, since you saw them last? And in this case, only been one game in against New York against the Jets. So, u finalized some things that I had for that Dallas game that maybe don’t apply. Are some of the storylines from the Dallas game still applicable and I can build off some new information there? Um, Thursdays and Fridays we typically have our calls with the team. So, we’ll get into that tomorrow. And then, you know, very similar to like when we were players, Friday kind of puts a bow on the week. Uh, Saturday is a cleanup day, a walkthrough day. And for me, it’s make sure all my boards are accurate, make sure I don’t miss anything with the injuries, make sure personnel-wise I’m square. And then, uh, we do our production, our big team production meeting Saturday night. And, uh, wake up Sunday morning and get ready to rock. Listen, man. Listening to this guy’s process. He’s a professional in every sense of everything he does, man. Legend. Hey, listen, Gio. I heard you say that, hey, you know, the least the Bills, but the most has to be the Panthers. So, what have they been doing lately when it comes to being successful that they continue to do to get W’s on the board? I think there’s a lot, right? I think so. You start on the offensive side of the ball. I I’ve thought for the last couple weeks, I think Dave Canales really has started to understand exactly how to lean into the strengths of his team. What what are those strengths? You know, they’ve made a big investment the last couple years in the offensive line and even though they’ve dealt with some injuries, I mean, the Cowboy game that we did, they didn’t have Taylor at right tackle. Obviously, they’ve missed Robert Hunt for the vast majority of the season. Um, I know Damen Lewis being banged up. Hopefully, he’s back. So like it’s been pretty remarkable that that probably should be the strength of the unit is is the offensive line and the depth has really come through with them. And then obviously on their backs has been that run game with Rico D and now getting Chuba back. Um and you know you see the ability now that Dave has taken that run game, tied it into some of the passing game things that he wants to do that maybe Bryce wasn’t comfortable with earlier in his career. getting under center, more of a play action, turn your back to the defense. Um, so I think they’ve done a nice job now piggybacking the really uh, you know, efficient and explosive running game. It’s been one of the best in the league over the last couple over the last couple weeks, if not the best. And then Bryce’s improvement as a play action passer. Now with Andy potentially playing, we’ll see how that all sorts out at quarterback. Um, I think it bodess well for whoever is behind center. I think you’re seeing teams around the league understand that playing in the gun, playing in a dropback mode for an entire game, it doesn’t matter who your quarterback is, is very difficult. And I think Dave has a great feel for that and and has really done a nice job marrying the two elements together. And then defensively, I Derek Brown must be the best player in the world because the the remarkable turnaround um and again it’s more than just that. I’m joking, but like the defensive turnaround that they’ve seen is really impressive. And I know last year was frustrating. And I know last year there was a lot of, you know, a lot of commentary about whether I should come back and whatnot, but I’ll tell you, he has done a great job. The team has done a great job. The defense, the offense, they complement each other very well. I I really have enjoyed just seeing the growth out of the group on both sides really over the last four weeks. Greg, you talked about the fact that you’re taking stuff from the Cowboys game and you’re going to look at what has changed for this game against the Bills. One thing that we’ve talked a lot about is the fact that this last week was the first time that we really saw this team be able to pressure the quarterback. Do you think that can continue against Josh Allen and this Bills offense? Well, I know for the Panthers, they certainly hope so. Um, you know, you go back and you watch that Buffalo game against Atlanta. Um, you know, so two weeks ago, obviously, Buffalo had a buy, but um their their prior their their most recent game and they had some issues up front. You know, Atlanta, you know, some of their pick games and some of their stunt plans, they had a lot of free rushers, some simulated pressures. Um, and they had some success. So, obviously Buffalo is going to spend a lot of time diving into that over the by-week and and leading into this game, of course, to try to clean some of that up. And um yeah, you have to assume that’s been a big part of their emphasis over the buy, but for the Panthers, yeah, I mean the they went into the game with five sacks and they had six in that one game. So certainly a significant improvement. Um I think what you always do, right, like taking just like my my nonbiased just commentator role, what I try to do going into the game is saying, okay, how much was it improvement? How much was it in difference of scheme? Were they doing some different alignments? doing some different pressure packages or was it just the team that you played? Right. I I I called the the Cowboys Jets game um a couple weeks ago earlier in the year and the Cowboys defense came in 32nd in the league. They couldn’t rush the passer and they had their best game of the year. So, I’m not saying that’s Carolina because they’ve played a lot more consistently. Well, more than just the Jets game, but like you always just try to figure out like how much of it is us, how much it is them, what aspects can we take from that game that we control that we can carry forward into the next. So certainly for confidence, certainly to just take a deep breath and kind of get that off your back, um it goes a long way to in essence more than double your sack production in uh in one game. You’re never going to apologize for that at this in this league. Now, Greg, one thing I love looking at this roster is the way that Dan’s been able to put it together. Back in our days, we did well in the draft. How do you feel about the way Dan’s been able to put this team together? I think they’ve done a great job. I I think Dan Morgan and Canales and and the entire front office, I I really like, you know, you could tell that there was a plan, right? And and not every pick is going to be perfect and not every free agent signing is going to be a home run. That’s the nature of this league. you look around and and it happens every year to to everybody, but I think there was been a real clear plan going in. You know, you saw it last last year previously in the 24 season going and say, “All right, we’re going to really solidify this offensive line. We’re going to be really good in the front for Bryce, you know, at guards with with Damen Lewis and Robert Hunt. We’re going to get strong there.” They felt good about Icky and obviously Taylor has been playing for a long time and probably one of the more un unrecognized but maybe underappreciated right tackles around the league. when you ask opposing coaches and opposing teams, I think Taylor Motton’s football resume and reputation maybe is a lot more than it is uh publicly and in the media and and obviously in the conversations amongst some of the you know the Lane Johnson’s of the world. So he he’s certainly highly respected. So that was a great first year. You can see they continue to draft skilled players. I mean, a heavy investment in the offense around Bryce, which I think was very intentional with Xavier Legette and now obviously with uh with with Tedo McMillan. So, I I I like that plan. I think they’re going to continue to invest going forward defensively. Now, I think that’s where they got to continue to just add more players, add depth, add young talent to go around with the JC Horns and the Derek Browns and a couple of the kind of upper echelon pieces that they already have in place. So, you can see there’s an order of operations. I think that’s always the key to a good front office as opposed to just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping it sticks. So, I have a lot of respect for Dan. I have a lot of respect for Dave. I think they’re they’re they’re working in unison. I think they have a clear vision, a shared goal, and um now it’s just a matter of executing those draft picks from a from a personnel standpoint and then the coaching staff developing them developing them on the field. That that’s always the connection that takes teams to the next level. And um I think there’s a lot of signs that that process is happening. Greg, you said you spent yesterday looking at who the Bills are aside from Josh Allen. So what did you find out about this team through their first six games? You know, I I think obviously Josh Allen’s the best player in the world, if not in the conversation of the top two or three. Of course, the reigning MVP. So much of what they have done over the years has been on his back. But you can similar to what we talked about before, you know, what what Dave is doing, what Canales is doing with the Panthers offense and and trying to get Bryce more under center and and you see it across the whole league. You see Mahomes, they’re doing it more in Kansas City. I mean, this is not just this is something that has become very commonplace across the league regardless of who your quarterback is. And you’re seeing a lot more now with Josh Allen over the years. We’ve seen Josh stand in the gun. Every ball snap to him and and every play is contingent upon his ability to either make a designed in rhythm play or obviously a scramble run, scramble pass, improv. They are like top five in the league now at getting under center. It’s a lot of big body 12 personnel, 13 personnel, heavy bodies on first and second down. One of the higher run teams in the league. I I almost feel like that’s got to start coming back a little bit. I almost feel like you could overcorrect unloading off of your star quarterback. You still have the best player in football. I expect more of the plays to the ball to be in his hand. Uh maybe not quite to the extreme it was years ago, but certainly a little bit more now because he’s very good. Um I think skill-wise I think James Cook is a really good back. I think offense I think offensive line w I mean offensive wide receiver mode I still think they’re trying to figure out exactly what that looks like and and who is their number one dominant threat but um listen the reality is you play against the Bills and they got that guy behind center. Um it’s a tough matchup. So Gio, the last two L’s that they’ve taken have been to the Patriots and Falcons. How were they able to get after Josh Allen? I mean he had a couple turnovers in these games as well. sacked a couple times. You know, how are the Panthers able to come at them and contain him? You know, that’s the million-dollar question. And and of course, you go back and and the assumption is you go back and you see what everybody else did. You say, “All right, well, how did you get free rushers? We’re going to run that blitz.” You know, how did you get how did you get pressure off his How’d you make him go left and flush him into a free rusher? The idea is you want to go copy everybody else. But then you take a step back and you say, “Well, the Bills got some really good coaches, too. Sean McDerman’s been doing this a long time and and Babage the defensive coordinator and Joe Brady the offensive coordinator names and guys that we all recognize you know from their time in in Carolina and uh you have to say okay they’re going to try to plug some of those holes. So what can we do that is in the similar vein to the success some of the other teams had but obviously understand that they’re going to spend the entire buy and the entire week not allowing those same problems to rear their head. So that’s always the gamesmanship of the NFL. Um there I we I’ve always thought that you make a team prove they fixed a mistake before you get away from it. So I think early in the game come out with some simulated pressures, some overload pressures where you’re not just blitzing more than they have and letting Josh just throw to open spots or they’re not really Panthers are not really a heavy man team. They want to be more zone coverages and play with their eyes. So, how can you generate some overloads? Drop some guys off the line of scrimmage to cover up some of the hot reads to get guys in his face in the throwing alleys. Piece the plan together there because one guy is not going to bring him down. You have to rush him as a unit. You have to rush him with sound gap control because he’s almost more dangerous to you outside the pocket as both a runner and a passer than he is standing at the dot behind the behind the center. So, it’s certainly a big challenge. um the last couple games there, you know, some things that hopefully they can learn from, but uh Josh Allen is really good. Sean McDermott is a really good coach. Joe Brady’s a really good coach. Like they got some they they got some guys over there that are going to solve some problems as well. So I I think it’s going to be a great matchup. Yeah, tall task for sure for the Panthers. One that we know they’re up for. All right, before we let you go, Greg, I want to ask you about one of your other jobs. It is so fun to hear about this and certainly people have been following along on Instagram. You and our buddies Luke and Stu have been coaching at Charlotte Christian for a couple of years now. I heard the season is over. How did it go for you guys this year? Yeah, it went well. Um, we had a good year. We had a great group of boys. Um, two years in a row now that we’ve done it. We’ve taken seventh and eighth graders and a lot of them have never put their helmet on. They didn’t know how to buckle their chin straps. Uh, they had never put on shoulder pads. We we spent the first couple practices in August when training camp started just trying to figure out you’re like, “All right, kids. This is how you get dressed for practice.” You know, they’re all like strangled. Their jerseys are caught over their shoulder pads and then all of a sudden at the end of the year, the final game, you roll them out there and you’re like, you don’t recognize them, you know? You don’t It’s just incredible to see the growth, the the maturity, their confidence, how physical and hard they play. Trey, you’d be really proud of how hard and fast and physical our young kids play because we don’t accept anything else. It’s something that we bake into all of our messaging and all of our culture. But tell you what, they buy into it and and teams would play us and the parents and the coaches and everyone would come and they just like it looks like you guys are playing like a different sport, like you’re playing at a different speed than us. And I’m like, if there’s one compliment you can give us, that’s it. So, we we had a great year. We love doing it. Um, like you said, we’ve done two years at Charlotte Christian. The two years before that, we just did Pop Warner because the kids weren’t old enough to play school ball. But, um, it’s over now. I I have a lot more time on my hands. I don’t know exactly what to do because I’m not in my office like game planning seventh and eighth grade football schedules. But, uh, it’s it’s one of the most rewarding things that we do. Now, Gio, were any other coaches able to get bragging rights on my boys? What was the record of the season? We were undefeated. Let’s go, man. Did y’all expect anything else? I know y We’ve won 14 in a row. Oh. Oh my. Hey, listen. The hottest thing in Charlotte, I’m telling y’all right now, if you thought you were going to get bragging rights off my boys, try again. We always say, man, we don’t shy away from it. We we we lean into it. If you want to play real ball, let’s play because, you know, everybody wants to do seven on seven and and all that stuff is great. And these teams, they spend all year and five wide playing passing and they’re at every camp and every showcase and that’s fine. Yeah. Yeah. But when the real when real tackle football starts and uh there’s hitting, there’s tackling, there’s sacks, there’s violence to the ball, it changes real quick. That’s what we stress. That’s again, that’s just our model. That’s what we stress. We think there’s plenty of time to teach them cover four. where we think there’s plenty of time to teach all these f we got to teach the fundamentals of football. Tackling, blocking, how do we set edges, how do we hold our gaps, how do we run block, all the fundamentals that I think get skipped over because everyone’s so worried about the plays, passing yards, running. Like there’s plenty of time for these kids to to do all that in high school. We got to give them a firm foundation that we can build upon. And that’s the model that we take. That’s amazing, Greg. Congrats on that. 14 straight wins. And thank you so much for taking the time. We know how busy you are. We know this is your Panthers prep day. So, we appreciate the time. You got it. It’s great to see you guys. And uh I’ll see you guys this weekend. All right. It is time now for your segment because you tweet in questions to Trey. We got some good ones this week. Trey, this one’s from not Chris Butler. Okay. What or who do you see in this year’s team that reminds you of the teams you played with here? Love that question. Okay. What do I see? I see a team that reminds me of our 2014 team who again started off the season kind of iffy. We ended up seven and eight and one winning our last five games. So, why does it remind me of that team? We were a team that year that was trying to find ourselves. Um, we were trying new things. We were getting new guys involved, but we had a foundation of who we were. And that’s exactly who this team reminds me of. A team who’s has a foundation but is now having the confidence about what they can do and their abilities inside of it. So like that team 78 and one we already are above 500 and I look forward to seeing how we can execute off of what we’ve been able to do these last three games in the last four out of five. Can we keep the momentum going? Do we know exactly who we are? And can we win ball games in a Carolina Panthers football style? I think we can. And that’s who reminds me of it was a that was a fun team and and 78 and one if memory serves was enough to win the division that year. Right. Setting the foundation for that 2015 team as well. All right. Next question from Eric Ash. Do you think it’s possible for JC to travel within this scheme? And should they allow him to do so? Okay, Eric, I’m going to give you some insider information. Uh oh. I have talked to the coaches about this uh personally. Um but one thing I want you to know, our team is not a man-to-man team. So what you find out is if we’re mostly running zone and then you find JC Horn running across formations, then as a offense, I now know we’re in what? Manto man. So what also happens is once teams know that you’re in manto man, what they would do with JC is they would get them to one side and they put that receiver that he’s on into the slot. So then we’re finding ourselves as a defense moving too many pieces instead of saying, “Hey, lineup, play ball. You’re not better than any of the guys we have out here. Can you get the job done?” So, I will say for our scheme, it’s not needed. JC’s playing great ball. If we can say every week, the left side of the field is a no-go for this team. That’s exactly what we want to do because it allows our team to know us best and we worry about what we can do. Take care of the rest and we get the job done. So, is he capable of doing it? Absolutely. Do we need to do it? No. We’re good. We got the best corner in the game. Tell them take away this little island over there. Well, and speaking of traveling within this game, Trayvon Merrick, man. Okay. I was talking about I was talking to Nick Scoron and he was like, I don’t even know what you would call his position. Come on. All right. So, listen. What you’re saying with uh uh JC is kind of what we do with Trayvon Merritt. Like, we actually have him all over the field. He is the travel guy. He’s the Joker where we’re messing up offenses because they’re uh uh they’re turning the defense towards him and next thing you know he’s either dropping, he’s blitzing, he’s he’s everywhere. So, that’s a guy who in the scheme were really playful with and we allow to open up the scheme for. So, I do like that addition to what we’ve been able to do. Mhm. All right. Next tweet from Bridget Stock D1. I think that’s Bridget Stock is how she does it. If you could implement one thing to deepen the unity of the team that would last week over week, what would that be? Okay. Now, Bridget, I don’t know what these guys do on their off time, but what I will say is something that we did back in our days was every Thursday night game, we would get together as a team or position group and we just relax, chill. We’d uh either go to each other’s homes or, you know, uh we we’d go to the bar or or spot that we can eat and just have communion, man. Have fun, man. Just be in each other’s presence. Um be able to talk about life, be able to talk about our faith, just just build that chemistry. And the more you find yourself building chemistry outside of work, the more when you’re working for your brother inside, you’re willing to do everything and anything it takes to see each other successful. and to see a win for each other. You truly delight when your brother is doing something that is helpful not only to the team, but you’ve seen his success. So for me, I love when guys get together outside of the stadium and build the chemistry because that’s longlasting chemistry that I have with my guys that to this day we still talk about. To this day we still try to get together when we can outside of our families. But that is how you build a team and roster. I love that. You know, I got to do an event here at the stadium with Josh Norman last week and there was a similar question of like what made these great teams and he said you just know each other so well that you just when you’re out on the field you just have to give somebody a look and you know what that means and I imagine Trey like you said a lot of that is built off the field as well as on the field. I love that. All right, last tweet from the doctor cardiac says, “Are you going to the game Sunday? If so, how many selfies are you going to photobomb?” And just just for a little bit of context here, yeah, let’s check this out right here. Listen. Yeah, man. I was at the game this weekend. I saw this beautiful family taking a pick. I said, “Hey, I know they’ll be in the back like, “Hey, there’s Trey.” Hey, hey, the the people said there’s Where’s Waldo? And the Panthers have there’s Trey. So listen. Hey, hey, Dr. Cardiac. Hey, I might be in the building this weekend. How many photo bombs? That’s for you guys to find out. Listen, I love I love taking pictures with the fans, with the people. I love supporting those who support me. So, we’re a big family and you guys know it. So, if you find me in y’all’s picture, make sure you tweet it out. Your boy’s always in a photo bomb. You never know. You never know. I love that. Speaking of the family, we appreciate our Avenue family. We appreciate you guys being there with us every single Wednesday. This show is so much fun. Trey, this was awesome. Once again, week seven. We’re having a great time. So, thank you as always. Hey, man. Thank y’all for tuning in, man. Hey, we got the bills this week. Let’s go.

Panthers legend Greg Olsen joins the Avenue to talk to Kristen and Tre about the Carolina Panthers upcoming matchup against the Buffalo Bills in Week 8. Tre also breaks down how the Panthers defense can contain quarterback Josh Allen.

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