Bradley Chubb, yes or no? Yeah, I’m with it. I’m with it. Bradley Chubb. I’m 100% with it. But Chris, there’s one person that Dan Morgan has to have in mind. With every decision he makes this offseason. We’ll discuss that guy. Let’s get the sucker started. Get dialed in, Panthers fans. Here comes an in-depth look at your team. Exclusive interviews, locker room insight. Let’s huddle up for Panthers Playbook presented by Wake Orthopedics, a WakeMed physician practice. Here are your hosts, Dennis Cox and Chris Lee. Welcome back to another episode of Panthers Playbook. I’m Dennis Cox. That is Emmy Award winning Chris Lee. Hate it or love it, the underdogs on top. Mm. And he gonna shine homing until his heart stops. Let’s go. Hey, hey, drop a comment here congratulating Chris Lee on his Emmy Award-winning documentary that he co-produced along with Cliff Bumgartner about wrestling and, yeah, shout the, the name of the documentary once again, When Giants Walked Here, uh, History of Pro Wrestling at Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. So, you know, you can watch it right now on the PBS app When Giants Walked Here. Free, free to watch. Beautiful documentary. I actually got to see it at its premiere. Absolutely fantastic work. And it truly was awesome. So congratulations to you, Chris. I wanna, I, I told him to bring the trophy. I told him to bring that trophy. And you know what? Here’s the thing. We, we, there’s some hardware here. Now. I want to see the Panthers win some more hardware. Obviously, they won an NFC South title. I want them to win some more hardware this coming year. Tedero McMillan, Offensive Rookie of the Year, hardware. I want to see more hardware. And I want to see obviously the Lombardi. I want, I wanna see a Lombardi for this team. That’s what I want. That would be really cool for them. And I, I think right now, believe it or not, like the expectations have really gone up out of the roof for the Carolina Panthers really quickly, right, because they were ahead of schedule, getting to the playoffs this past year. We weren’t expecting it. Now you have Bryce Young on a rookie deal for the next 2 years. With some room to work with a little bit if you’re gonna go for it. You can go for it afterwards. But it’s gonna be a lot easier if you can go for it right now in the next two years. Maybe not 2026, but 2027 is looking like a sweet opportunity. So the reason why we mentioned that everything we said at the top of the show that everything revolves around one guy for Dan Morgan, and it is Bryce Young, because the decision is going to have to be made this offseason. Not maybe this offseason, but after this season. Are you gonna pay the guy? So if you are making deals with anticipation that you might have to pay a 50+ million dollars dollar per year contract for Bryce Young, well, guess what? I also know that in a couple of years, Nick Skorton’s gonna need a contract extension. Terrell McMillan’s gonna need a contract extension. Jalen Coker is gonna have to get paid. There’s some other guys that are gonna have to get paid as well. Well, guess what? You can’t keep everybody. You just can’t. So every decision, there’s gonna be some real difficult decisions, but the, the, but the most difficult one is going to be Bryce, plain and simple. I know they picked up his fifth-year option to buy a little bit more time. But it’s make or break this year for Bryce Young and Dave Canales. It’s make or break. Chris, I wanna give you a number here. Wrote it down. Numbers 9. Bryce Young’s jersey number. Ironically, ironically, but the number Give them the guy a hard run. But the number is 9. There are 9 teams in the NFL going into 2026 that have the same play caller and quarterback for the 3rd straight year. Only 9 teams in the NFL. It’s Cincinnati because Zach Taylor, their head coach. And obviously Joe Burrow. Buffalo because you have, uh, Joe Brady. Obviously, he’s a head coach now, but Joe Brady is still the offensive coordinator. You have Josh Allen, Denver, Bo Nix with our guy Sean Payton, Kansas City, you have Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid. And then on the NFC side, you have. Dallas, Brian Schottenheimer was a 1st-year head coach, but he was the offensive coordinator for 2 years before that as well. So you have continuity there. San Francisco with Brock Purdy as well as Kyle Shanahan, the Rams with Matt Stafford and Sean McVeigh, Green Bay, Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love. And it’s Dave Canales and Bryce Young in Carolina. That’s it. That’s it. So only, basically 1/4 of the league is going to have the same play caller and quarterback for the 3rd straight year. That’s it. That’s it. Exactly. So. Either you have it or you don’t. That’s the way the league has gone. There’s no more like, let’s give this thing 4 or 5 years before we figure it out. The league isn’t like that anymore, but for, for good or not. It’s what it is. I will say though, I think that the Panthers, even though, you know, a lot of the action has not started yet, you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll see what happens when free agency really opens up. But the Panthers have already made some moves that to me signify that they’re all in and trying to make this year the best possible that they can for Bryce Young. And we hadn’t talked about this a lot. But them hiring on, uh, Darryl Bevel as an offensive assistant and he’s gonna be an associate head coach next to Dave Canales speaks volumes because he’s worked with Russell Wilson and Tua Tagovaoa, two smaller in stature quarterbacks who have a somewhat similar play style to, uh, Bryce Young, somewhat similar. Um, he was able to Put them in, in good positions, uh, and help them with their careers and most importantly, both of those guys got to the next big contract. Russell Wilson’s gotten two big contracts. He’s gotten a few of them, um, gotten a few, so like, you know, when you have somebody like that who’s kind of set that foundation for you, sometimes you can go on and get paid. Bryce Young hasn’t gotten to that next contract yet. Maybe Darryl Bellville can help out with that, but not only just that. Potentially opening up the offense for them. And, you know, what that could do. What are the blind spots that Dave Canales has? And I think if you kind of sit back from a psychological standpoint, you can kind of see how things are happening. Dave Canales has grinded so hard. He’s been an assistant for so long, and he’s wanted to be at this spot. He’s finally got it, got to the spot, and now he wants to do what he wants to do. He hasn’t learned to adjust very well yet. This guy Darryl Bevel has been in it. They have history together, of course, being there with the Seahawks. I’m a little iffy on that because I kind of wanted a newer voice, but also I, I like the fact that they have some, uh, some continuity with each other. But he’s able to come in, bring, uh, some new ideas, new, um, a new voice to things, and maybe help. Dave Canalis and Bryce Young see their blind spots, but also maybe be the connector between each other because like you have your quarterbacks coach, you have your offensive coordinator. Let’s keep it real. It’s not really that it’s Bryce and Dave Canales and uh those are the guys really like I’m not trying to, you know, pooh poo on, on Brad Izzik or anything like that, but the connection is not gonna happen. Uh, between them unless somebody else can come do it. And I think Darryl Bevel could be that person to do it. You know, it’s interesting. I remember a few weeks ago you mentioned when Mike McDaniel got fired from the Miami Dolphins about, hey, take a look, like bring him in. But Bevel was with McDaniel. So that’s the thing, like you’re getting a little bit of that, a little bit of a taste under that. But here’s the thing we forget about Mike McDaniel is that he was actually a run game coordinator and all that with, with Shanahan. Exactly. So hopefully that improves as well because you look at last season, this is where Bryce Young finished. In the NFL. Bryce Young was 17th in the NFL in touchdown percentage. 17th in the NFL. He was 24th in the NFL in completion percentage, which is below league average. He was 63.6%, league average was 64.4%. He was 26th in QBR. He was also in yards per attempt of quarterbacks attempting 200+ passes last year. Again, I did this research. He was 32nd in the NFL in yards per attempt. That’s crazy. 302, 6.3 yards per attempt, league average was 7. Here’s another one for you as well, Chris, is that his completion air yards. So if the passes that were actually completed, how far past the line of scrimmage on average were those passes completed? 4.8 yards. Thirty-third in the NFL. 33rd, 33rd. He was worse than a guy who didn’t start. I mean granted, there’s like a couple of people that had like injuries like, you know, Mac Jones started a chunk of games and things like that. 33rd in the NFL, 4.8 yards. League average is 5.8. That’s not good enough. That’s just simply not good enough as a whole. It’s not good enough. We, we could talk about the comebacks and all those kinds of things, but there’s a lack of consistency. That also is Bryce Young. It’s Dave Canales. There’s a compounding number of, number of things, but You have a legit #1 wide receiver in Tetarea McMillan. We all know what Jalen Coker is capable, capable of doing. We’ve been on the Jalen Coker bandwagon for since his rookie season. Now, obviously, there’s still that needs to be improved around him. I think the pressure rate was obviously a little bit higher than you want it to be. He was pressured, I think 10th most in the NFL in terms of pressure rate last year. So there is a little bit of context and all this, but still, If you’re gonna pay this guy, that has to, all those things have to be better, plain and simple. I don’t have the final stats in front of me, but like at one point in the season, especially during that like win loss, win, loss, win, loss 10 weeks that they had, um, they were one of the best teams in the NFL in, in 4th-down conversion rates, right? They’re fantastic at it. It’s a great thing, but I also think it’s a bad thing, and I think this is another area where I think Devil, Darryl Bevel can maybe help unlock something in Bryce Young, which kind of goes along with what you’re saying. Um, it, it also like, you need the players, right, around it. So you need the explosive players, you need the home run hitters, you need the folks who can make things easier for Bryce Young. And then he, he has some of that. But a lot of it has to be on him. To unlock it. How can you start getting more chunk yards so you’re not in those 4th and 1 situations as much? Because, I mean, let’s keep it real. The Panthers aren’t gonna, aren’t gonna sneak Bryce Young too much. You’re not gonna, you know, use too many, you know, bootlegs on Bryce Young, on 4th and 1 because if it’s him and a linebacker at the line of scrimmage, who’s gonna win that? It’s gonna be the linebacker. You know, he’s, yeah, in terms of like who’s, who’s, who’s pushing who, yeah, it’s, it’s gonna be the linebacker, especially if they connect, you know, Bryce, you know, is shifty. He might be able to make a miss, but might if it, if it’s gonna be a connection, you know, he may not be able to win that. So how do you get those chunk yards, and those are the things that you were, you were like screaming about all this past season, uh, getting more explosives, and that’s where I think, um. A big part of the Carolina Panthers, uh, focus needs to go into this offseason. Again, we’ve said this. Folks have now 2 years of tape on Dave Canales and Bryce Young and the system that they run. What are gonna be the wrinkles? What are gonna be the new things? Like, even with the Kansas City Chiefs, they’re, I think that’s a great example through Patrick Mahomes’s tenure, you kind of know what they wanna do. You kind of know where they wanna go, right? You know they’re gonna have a heavy dose of Travis Kelsey. Uh, you know that they’re gonna run the ball. You know that they’re gonna, they’re gonna, they love the screen game, right? And that’s gonna set up the big bombs. And you know that, uh, Patrick Mahomes can kind of, you know, uh, improvise, improvise and do things on his own, right? You know that that’s gonna happen, but they always give you a, a new little wrinkle, a new little look to kind of confuse you, some eye candy to where you don’t, you’re not sure where your eye should go or your attention should go if you’re a defense. And that’s where the Carolina Panthers could stand to do something a little bit newer because like now, like, I don’t wanna, you’ve been able to like look at plays and I’ve been able to look at plays when we go to games like, you know it’s coming. And if we know what’s coming, if we see it from the press box and we don’t study film all week. What does the defense see? What do they, you know, what are they able to diagnose, uh, out there? And they actually studied the, the tape, man. That’s their full-time every single day. So, um, I, it, it’s, I don’t know if that’s as much on Bryce Young as it is, uh, Dave Canales and, and the coaching staff. However, I do want Bryce Young’s voice in that, and I don’t know if Bryce Young’s voice has been valued the way it probably should be. Dave, Darryl, all you guys go out for lunch, have, uh, get a yacht, put it on Lake Norman, just sit out there and, and talk, you know, Bryce, what makes you more comfortable? Why don’t you like throwing it to these people and this particular person in this particular situation? What could I do as a play caller to make it better? What should we add? What should we subtract? What would you like us to call it a little bit more than what we had before? All those conversations need to be had if they haven’t been had already, and start implementing those things. And then at the end of the day, if you give him everything that he needs and give him that insulation, if he can’t make it happen. Then you know where, where the blame stands. It’ll literally just be on him right now. You can’t all the way blame Bryce Young for the way the offense sputtered. He has some blame. He doesn’t have a massive chunk of it. He doesn’t have all the blame. And so that’s where the coaching staff needs to come in and try and the front office to get the players, uh, to come in to make sure Bryce Young, uh, is, is fully insulated. I, I think we’ll also find out early on this upcoming season is how much Dave Canales actually does trust Bryce Young. Because I, because they spend some time together, yeah, because clearly play calling, I always say this. Decisions that coaches in front offices make tell you exactly what they think about a player. That’s 100%. So people would like to talk, well, why doesn’t Dave let Bryce throw deep? Why doesn’t, you know, Dave let Bryce throw in the intermediate routes and all that stuff. Well, ask yourself why isn’t he? It’s probably because he doesn’t fully trust him. Because again, I’ll, I’ll revert back to Dave Canal is saying this in a postgame about why the lack of shots downfield. This is actually after they lost to, if I remember correctly, after they lost to New Orleans at home. Why, why a lack of downfield passing game? Like you’re 11 weeks into the season. He’s like, well, we still got to work on the me to you factor and all these kinds of things. And if I, again, I’m paraphrasing here, but Canal is saying that, You know, if we have some success on it early in the game, I’ll call a little bit more. So it’s like, I don’t fully trust the guy going in that if he makes a mistake that he’s going to correct himself. That’s what he’s saying. Because again, you go to the Atlanta game, the one at Atlanta. What happened early in the game? They connected on a couple of intermediate routes. Dave’s like, OK, I’ll call a few more. I’ll call a few more. Bryce Young’s best game 48 yards. Bryce Young’s best game because they were connecting. If I remember correctly, it was in, in passes 11 to 20 yards downfield. I remember correctly, it was 9 to 15 completion where the target was 9 of the target was 11 to 20 yards. Yeah, Target was 11 to 20 yards downfield. He was 9 to 15 on completions, like on attempts there. That’s where you pick up chunk yards because that’s where you can catch and run. Where, OK, on a, on a deep dig by Terrell McMillan, he’s 15 yards downfield, he can catch and run. All of a sudden, it’s now a 27 yard gain. Now it’s another big gain or like the, the deep touchdown pass to Xavier Lee get down the left sideline, 36 yards. There was a massive chunk play before that. It’s like boom, chunk play, chunk play, ball’s in the end zone. I will say this though, at that point in the season. The NFL was fearing Rico Dowdell in the run game. So when you have that run game that could be feared, and we just talked about that with the Kansas City Chiefs, you’ve seen other teams use that to their advantage, um, you can take those chunks towards the end of the year when you’re stopping a run and the Panthers run game left a lot to be desired in those last. 7 weeks or so, um, you know, there were, there were like a couple of decent games in there. The Buccaneers game at home was decent, but other than that, like, you know, there, there was a lot left to be desired. That’s something else that I think needs to be fixed, and it’s not, I don’t think it’s necessarily Cuba. I don’t think it’s necessarily the line. And I hope because you mentioned this earlier with Darryl Bevel maybe he picked up some stuff from Mike McDaniel. Um, it just feels like, and we’ve said this before, uh, really the run game from the Panthers has been very predictable, you know, the, the past game, and we just talked about predictability before, but the run game has been very predictable and it just feels like it’s, it’s just a, You know, it’s, it’s something where it’s like, you know, if you know, you know, like, let’s, let’s overload this hole over here and, and that’s what’s, what it’s gonna be like. Chuba Hubbard is a great athlete, but he’s not the shifty make you miss guy or whatever. So if we overload on this area, he’s just gonna have to try to power through us and if we get You know, a tackler on him and we can get him down to the ground and we’re good, um, and that’s what it just felt like for, for the Panthers. Maybe Jonathan Brooks helps that, but also the different types of play calling, um, you know, I go back to that first drive of the Tampa Bay game at home, and me and you talked about that in the postgame. That was the most variety in, uh, in a single drive in a In a run game that they’ve had, they ran power, they ran zone, they ran counter, they ran jet sweep, you know what I’m saying, all in one drive. I, I remember I turned to you. They ran it because Rico came in from the right of Bryce Young, takes a handoff, then counters back to the right. I went, when’s the last time we saw a counterplay? Hadn’t really seen it. Haven’t really seen it. I literally turned to you in the press box. I said, When’s the last time we saw that? But even with that, like, You know, and they had the jet sweep to, to Jimmy Horn and all that like, and then, um, there’s, they ran so many different looks out of that. The, the Buccaneers were on their heels were spinning the, the entire time. And so, and I’ve that I have, we have yet to see that type of a drive since then. I wanna see a little bit more of that mixed in because where you’re talking about the air yards. What they can do in that run game is gonna help Bryce out so much, so much, and, uh, maybe help the Panthers continue to have leads towards the end of games, um, so that way. Um, they can just sit back, hand the ball off, keep Bryce Young clean and upright, and have the, the defense just hold the, the, you know, uh, the other side of the ball, and so the other team just doesn’t score, makes everything a little bit easier, uh, for the Panthers. So that’s what there, there’s so much that’s there, and I think they have that foundation now. They just need to build on it for this year. It’s, look, 3rd year, Bryce Young, Dave Canales, either they have it or they don’t. Plain and simple. Like, it really can’t be that simple. Take it to the next level. Again, Darryl Bevel, hate it or love it, the underdogs on top. Hey man, we gotta get you one. Yeah, we gotta get you one of these. I want an Emmy. Gotta get you one of these, you know what I’m saying? I want one. Get you one of these. I don’t even know how to do it, but all right. But this guy did it. Again, leave your thoughts in the comments below about Bryce Young, Dave Canales in the future, and also congratulate Chris Lee. Proud of you, man. Listen, I really am proud of you for real. It’s a team effort. Shout outs to team, uh, Cliff Bumgartner. Uh, well, we were the team, so exactly. So it’s the two of you, but you know, it’s a team effort. Uh, shout outs to him, uh, and shout outs to PBS North Carolina, and shout outs to the Emmy Committee for voting on us and let’s go, us getting this. Make sure you subscribe. Again, shout out to Wake Orthopedics, the sponsor of Panthers Playbook. We’ll see you all next week.
