Steve CAN’T DENY IT: Tetairoa McMillan is a STAR! Panthers’ Playoff Push

Steve CAN’T DENY IT: Tetairoa McMillan is a STAR! Panthers’ Playoff Push

Dare I say it, Panthers legend Steve Smith. Are your Carolina Panthers a playoff team? We are seven and six right now. Steve, maybe one of the biggest wins in that stadium in a number of years, maybe knocking off the best team in football in the Los Angeles Rams and and making Matthew Stafford not look like the Stafford we have seen of late in a defense that was definitely short-handed. Um but forcing turnovers, Bryce Young making big plays, running the football. Um we are six and one in one score games this season. The the Carolina Panthers, I mean, we got some big wins on that schedule so far this season. We got a lot to go through through the course of what could happen, what needs to transpire. You want me to tell you the chances right now before we get started? Oo, tell me the chances. You want the chances? Okay, we got we got Tell me the chances. Got we got a buy. Then we got the winning that game. They should be they should beat the buy. Uh then they got the Saints which they need you cannot have a letown out of the buy against the Saints lost to the Saints this year. Um that is at the Saints too. Yes. Yeah. That building gets rocking. Then you have Yes. Bucks Seahawks Bucks. Right now they have a 22% chance of making the postseason. They beat the Saints. Um it jumps to 33%. Now if they essentially win the three games in the division, they have a 99% chance of making the postseason. The Seahawks game actually really doesn’t even matter that much. It’s beat the Bucks twice, right? That’s that’s essentially the week 18 game could come down there. I I I I push back a little bit because you have to beat you’re forced to beat the Bucks twice. Mhm. Now you have a Seattle Seahawks game in the middle who are extremely physical. Very physical. and you now have to deal with staying healthy but also staying fresh because if you can make it to the playoffs, you know, most likely, you know, win a division so you have a home game. I was very surprised not at the Panthers beating the Rams. I was surprised of how the Panthers were hanging with the Rams immediately. It wasn’t some things happened and then momentum shifted. It was actually from the jump a back and forth between defensive stops by both teams, offensive explosions by both teams. You It kept you on the edge of your seat because you were Look, when you’re when you’re the Rams, you’re going, “Ah, we’ll get through this. We’re fine. We’ll find a way. But if you’re a Panthers fan or or a team that doesn’t really vibe with the Panthers, you’re going, “Ah, they’re six and six.” You go, “When is this team going to make a mistake?” And it was the reverse. The Carolina Panthers down some young talent, which means there’s some younger talent that has to get get back in there. Younger. Mhm. And all of a sudden, I don’t want to say they were nothing dropped off, but it does help. But here’s the thing, execution is the key. AO being a former coach understands Shawn McVeyy’s offense. But just because you understand the offense doesn’t mean that you’re going to have this performance from the offense by the Carolina Panthers to be able to complete passes that all year long you’ve been shutting teams down. You’ve been going down to the wire, right? You lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, but you were a play or two away from doing some really good things. and that Carolina Panthers loss last week on Monday night with a short week against the San Francisco 49ers. Missed opportunity, suspended players, uh ineffective running the football consistently, maybe relying on the pass a little bit too much. Well, all of a sudden, they come into this this Rams game and Rico doesn’t really have the explosive runs. And who does? Chuba Hubbert runs with a purpose. He catches a little screen pass out of the backfield flat and all of a sudden hits on the Canadian pro boosters and gets going. Don’t know if you know but he is a Canadianb born guy. He he and I joke with him. He calls gas pro. Pro, right? And I’ll tell you it’s Yeah. should call that should call that play outstanding. It was a great design against his own. It was. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. So, I I I just thought it was good. And then defensively, people are talking about, oh, the national media should be giving Derek Brown. Derek Brown is a Pro Bowler. Derek Brown had a 100 tackles at D tackle. You don’t He doesn’t need some folks on the couch to say he’s a hell of a football player. Everybody knows him. Every offensive coordinator is game planning. Where is number 95? Is he in the A gap, B gap, or is sometimes he plays the edge and he’s keeping contain because he’s such a dominant player, slanging, tossing, removing people out of the way to make tackles. And I’m not talking about DBs. No. Or wide receivers or or running backs. I’m talking about he’s d getting double team having his right hand on the tackle, left hand on the guard or the left hand on the center, right hand on the guard. Mhm. Stalemating and tossing one guy and making a tackle, closing, collapsing the the running back hole in ways you just don’t normally see a dtackle at such a young age. He’s not he’s not really old. No. Right. He’s had some injuries, but he still has a lot of tread. A lot of tread on tire, man. And I I’m I’m just impressed with the way this defense is starting to come together. And then the absence of the Pro Bowl leading votes with JC Horn not in there, Mike Jack comes and gets him a pick six, which was pretty impressive. Also too though, I hate to say it, Puka Nakua made a damn good catch as well. you know, just as a wide receiver, you just admire when two just nagging just but it it was it was such a good game. It was a surprising game. More than anything is it’s showing that Dan Morgan had such a great plan and everybody keeps now all this, oh, Dan Morgan did a really good job, but couple of weeks ago, y’all were, you know, had him on skewers talking about he doesn’t know what he’s doing. So, I it’s it’s just really cool to see um and unfold and watch this team really start to go down and play some teams where like in week three they go ahead and blank the Atlanta Falcons, right? And then they go in overtime and beat the Atlanta Falcons. But then they get mollywalked and and don’t score hardly any points against the Buffalo Bills. and then a a three-point win against the Green Bay Packers in a way that no one in Lambo no one saw controlling that game and really keeping the Green Bay Packers out of sorts to the point of where team people were starting to question are the Green Bay Packers legitimate? Did acquiring Michael Parsons really actually helped them? So, it’s it’s just the Panthers have changed the narrative when they play teams, especially when they win. How good is that team? I don’t believe that you can say that against the Los Angeles Rams, but you can say that was the most impressive win outside Atlanta Falcons uh week three game where they won 30 to zero. No one saw that coming and no one saw that the Los Angeles Rams would falter to the Carolina Panthers. Yeah. I mean, because the Rams are, and I think we’ve said this, I I I think they’re the best team in football. We’ve done episodes on them. We’ve done episodes on this offense. Make sure you always go back and check out those those previous episodes we’ve done. We did one on Stafford and and Dvonte Adams and Puka Nakua. So, just subscribe, like, you you’ll get all the episodes. You’ll know when they’re coming. Uh, and that’s why we we knew how good this Rams team was, Steve. When I look at this game, I think of Dave Canales and I think of where he came from. when you watch this game and they ran the ball a ton. Yeah, they controlled the clock in the second half. The Rams ran three plays in the third quarter. Three. That’s it. Then they hit on some chunk plays in the passing game when they needed them the most. Yep. And they created turnovers on defense. Who whose exact formula is that? It’s Pete Carol. That is how Pete Carol that is how Pete Carol plays football, right? And that is one of Dave’s not not in Vegas right now. Well, yet that’s how he wants to play football now. That’s how he used to play football in Seattle, but that’s what they used to do all the time. It’s still the formula he swears by and and I think Dave I mean that’s somebody that Dave really looked up to and coached under and and learned a lot from learned a lot a lot. But I I look at it and like this this team is it hinges and I’m curious what happens moving forward. I’d like your take on it is now I use Simply Safe. I I got a new place and I’m sitting here and I go back and forth. I’m always somewhere, but I’m never really at home on a consistent basis. And I really love Simply Safe because there’s no contracts. You can cancel at any time. But I love on the app, you can utilize and see everything that’s going on. It’s just not there to secure and have security for your home. It also prevents crimes from happening. They will get on the horn and try and will get those bad guys out of the way. But the biggest thing I love about Simply Safe when you’re traveling, one of the biggest things I love right here, they got a water sensor. Now, what is this water sensor? Like, Steve, what are you talking about a water sensor? Here’s what I love about the water sensor. They have this little old gadget. And this gadget, you just take it and you sit it at the on the floor or by the toilet or under the sink. 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Again, that’s simplysafe.com/89 show and lock in your discount. There’s no safe like Simplysafe. If you look at their rush rushing success rate and their wins, they are completely correlated. When they run the ball well, they win football teams. Yes. Period. And you saw Chuba Hubard the way he was able to to carry the load in this game when we thought it was going to be Rico Dattle from here on out that you know Hubard had lost his job and I mean still starting though Rico’s still starting but when when you got two guys that are willing that’s what I want to know how they’re going to use him. Yeah I I think they’re going to use I I believe they’re going to use fresh legs. Yeah, I think they’re going to use them the same way where they’re not going to take out a guy who’s who’s balling to put in a guy to just make sure his feelings aren’t hurt on the sideline, right? But you also have to say, “Hey, sometime some games, man, they just got you bottled up this game.” And so we got to give we got to give we got to give some some guys other opportunities. That’s same thing in the past game where you getting double team. They can’t force the football to the wide receivers getting double team. They have to make other guys press this defense. And by pressing that defense, that allows the the the receiver who’s getting double team who who isn’t getting any passes. Well, he gets to eat. Maybe not in this game, but it does help him in the next game because teams are going to go, “Okay, when when last week they did this, they used this game plan and that didn’t equal success. They they still lost. Well, we don’t want to do that. Let’s let’s play a little bit more conservative. Let’s not put our all of our eggs in the basket of stopping or neutralizing one particular playmaker. Let’s make sure that we can neutralize and brace for impact and minimize all of the playmakers on that team. Whereas Trouba Hub or Rico Dows um T-Mac who’s playing really good football, second I I believe second in receptions doing a really good job running some excellent routes. Now people have said and all that stuff. Look, when you look at this, the draft pick of getting T-Mac, my biggest my biggest complaint wasn’t the player. It was the need for the Carolina Panthers at that time. They’re building philosophy essentially. The the philosophy they did not need a wide receiver in comparison to they don’t and still don’t have consistently a presence on the edge to create sacks and pressure on a quarterback. This is a team who’s won a football game with zero sacks. That does that is not a norm. Mhm. And I’m not pointing out to be Debbie Downer. pointed out to say that at some point you got to you’re going to have to address and get some uh edge rusher edge rushers because with those edge rushers that allows your young linebacker core to not also be get who are not getting hit five or six yards down the field by blockers and then a running back is scathing through going on 50 or 40 and 30 yard runs like the Buffalo Bills. So, you got to be careful and utilize. All I’m saying is now was it a good pick? Absolutely it was. Look at look at the outcome. You look at Xavier Legette, he hasn’t really done everything that everybody expected. You heard him when when they drafted when he was drafted. Oh man, we really see him as that Debo Samuels senior type of role. He’s not Debo, he’s Xavier, right? He’s X. And he just just because they went to the same school, just because they have physical attributes, doesn’t mean that it’s all of a sudden going to translate, especially when a guy who, you know, he has seven, I think 17 or 1,200 yards his senior year, but until then, he didn’t have anything. and subscribe. Go back and look at my breakdown with Xavier Legette to to show you. Go ahead and fact check me. Go back and look at the episode what I broke broke down Xavier Legette and telling you why and what I thought of the young man. Still love him. Think he’s a heck of a football player. Still learning. But I don’t think you you all of a sudden just because a guy did it on at the college level that it means that he’s going to do the exact same thing at the pro level. And but staying on track, T-Mac is playing outstanding football. I can go on record. I was wrong. I I thought that wasn’t a good pick. It wasn’t. was a great pick and it’s coming to fruition and it’s helping them and helping Bryce to this day. So kudos to Dave Canales and Dan Morgan for go going against the grain and getting a playmaker. Now you got to get some playmakers on defense because the next couple of weeks you’re going to get a high dosage of Bucky Irvin’s back. You’re gonna get this run game from the Seattle Seahawks. So, you’re going to have to have all the guys on deck to stop this run cuz these teams, they don’t give up on a run. They don’t abandon it at all. Yeah, both both run. And by the way, uh Mike Evans is back at practice. Uh Chris Godwin’s back on the field. So, Chrisin back. Yeah, he’s a big fans of Chris Godwin here on this show. I I I I agree with you, Stephen. And when I look at the T-MAC uh and I look at what Jaylen Coker did in this game and I look at where they’re at in the passing game, I’m kind of circling it back to like we we are seeing an identity of this offense. And Shawn McVey kind of put it perfectly after the game. He said, “We were getting pushed back regularly.” And this is a good defensive line in Los Angeles. Great defense, very good defense. And he’s like, “We were getting pushed back. Running backs were constantly falling forward. We were sitting there in third and short over and over again as a defense.” And what’ they do? Stack the box. single high safety. And in those moments, then you rely on making a throw. When there’s a little bit different coverage on the back end when the box is full, they have to be able to make those throws to throw teams out of just putting everyone in there and finding ways to be a little bit more uh adaptable as as an offense. And you saw Dave Canal take those hits. I mean, fourth and two, fourth and three, what were they? Two touchdowns and and they find ways to go downfield in them. By the way, I wanted to mention that as a as a you know, as it pertains to you as a receiver on on the throw um that they had to uh on the four on the fourth down one to to T-Mac. Um it seemed like he threw him open, if that makes sense, when he was coming across the field and the the corner looks like he tries to undercut it a little bit and he layers it over the corner. I thought that was a really good really good throw. Honestly, it was great. It was it was great ball placement and the wide receiver T-Mac did a really good job of keeping the integrity of the route, the angle, not bowing back, not going too high. It was pitcher perfect. It It is the way you draw it up on the paper and he did it to a tea and the throw was layered and spot-on and so it just made it it just made it a beautiful beautiful throw. Yeah, it really was. I thought I thought like I thought it was like when I watched I got to ask Steve about this throw. So layered was the thing that came into my mind just it it was layered but it also has to do with the wide receiver needs to do his job and T-Mac did his job. Excellent. Excellent. Set up the route, kept the integrity, kept the right angle and and that’s what that’s a teaching tape right there. That’s when you say hey this is what you’re supposed to do when they say run to the area. This is where the area you supposed to be and a quarterback should be throwing it. When you watch practice, a lot of times in training camp, they have these big old nets that that that with three three little pockets that they’re practicing or they have that trash can where they’re trying to hit in the trash can. So, it’s it’s having that touch, right? Making sure that you are in tune with having that touch because we’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks, they get excited when a guy’s wide open and what happens? Overthrows them a little bit because they they get a little antsy. So, it was a great job by Bryce staying under control, keeping his emotions levelheaded and going through his progressions and then stepping through and having good footwork. And it was pitcher perfect. Yeah. And you know what? He was protected well on some of these things. He was he really was surprisingly. And I say I didn’t think I didn’t predict it, you know, obviously. I was surprised just because, you know, the Rams bring pressure. they get after the quarterback really well and and to be able for Bryce to be able to sit back in pistol and shotgun formation and really do a good job and not seem rattled and that that was very surprising. Yeah, it was it was Yeah, very surprising. Hopefully optimistic. The other one I I got to ask you before we go is uh Jaylen Coker caught the other fourth down but he caught a couple of balls. It it feels like they’ve been wanting to get him more involved. What have you seen from from Coker lately as they want to try to get him some more targets and some more balls? Well, you have to get him some targets because, you know, teams are going to going to want to take away T-Mac. They’re going to say, “Hey, other guys need need to beat us.” T-Mac makes a great catch. Coker Hunter Refro makes a key third down catch as well. So you got all these guys that’s making this catch. Coker has, you know, he’s not fast, but he knows how to run routes. He knows how to utilize his body. And if you go back and look at the interview, he was stating, he said, “Hey, I knew I had to get get the angle and I had to use my body to create separation.” That’s a young man who knows exactly who he is and how to get open with the tools that he has. Sometimes people talk about someone’s lack of speed. It’s not about the lack of speed is do you know what to do with what you have and Coker knows exactly. He has never been a speedster, but what he is is a hell of a route runner. I I watched him at Holy Cross and one of the the the biggest plays that stood out to me wasn’t against Dartmouth, wasn’t against some of these other guys. It was against Boston College. When you go back and look, he ran a curl route versus a very active handsy corner. And he ran that route to perfection. And that tells me a lot because you don’t really get that type of route running from a young guy in college, especially a guy at Holy Cross. But you got to give credit where it’s due. and he’s been running great routes since the beginning and only will continue to get better. Yeah. And you love curl routes, so Yeah. Exactly.

The Carolina Panthers pulled off the upset of the season, beating the heavily-favored Los Angeles Rams 31-28 and rocketing into the thick of the NFC Playoff race!

NFL legend Steve Smith Sr. and Insider James Palmer break down the massive victory. Steve is ready to admit when he’s wrong, praising the massive clutch plays that put the team over the top.

Inside the Explosive Episode:

*The Upset Breakdown:* We dive into the game film, highlighting Bryce Young’s clutch 4th-down throws and the defense’s critical turnovers that powered the victory.

*Steve Eats Crow: The T-Mac Leap:* Steve famously expressed doubts about the Tetairoa McMillan draft pick, but he is now willing to admit when he’s wrong. Steve breaks down T-Mac’s performance, from his consistency all year to his game-winning touchdown catch, explaining why T-Mac is the real deal and a true WR1 in the making.

*Playoff Push Status:* James analyzes the current standings, explaining how this monumental win completely changes the Panthers’ path to the playoffs and their standing in the NFC South race.

The Missing Piece: For the Panthers to go from a playoff hopeful to a consistent, perennial threat for years to come, Steve identifies the single, final piece of the puzzle that GM Dan Morgan needs to acquire this offseason.

This is the most critical analysis of the Panthers’ future you will find!

0:00 Panthers Upset Rams
4:50 Defense!
8:25 Canales Success
16:55 T-Mac

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