Chris 2003 2015, 2025. What do all three of those seasons have in common? The Panthers going to the Super Bowl, baby. Let’s go. Keep pounding. We’re going this year. Bryce Young all the way. Xavier Lequette, we’re gonna do it. Yes, sir. Oh, we’re here, we here, we’re here. Let’s get this soccer 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. Here are your hosts, Dennis Cox and Chris Lee. Welcome back to another episode of Panthers Playbook. That’s Chris Lee, Dennis Coxy with you. All right, we got the, the officially the dates and times of the NFL schedule. We’ve known the teams for months, but it’s, we finally have the long drawn out reveal of who the Panthers, or I say when the Panthers are playing their games this upcoming season, who they’re playing, what weeks and all that kind of stuff. And the reason why we opened up, Chris, by the way, leave your thoughts in the comment section. Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa, who do you hate the most? I want to hear it from Panthers fans. Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa, who do you hate the most? Chris, actually, I want to know your answer. Who do you hate the most? Real quick. New Orleans. I hate saying New Orleans, New Orleans. I really wanna say Atlanta. I really wanna say Atlanta. I do, but I think Sean Payton did enough damage for me while he was there to make me put the Saints a little bit over, uh, the, the Falcons. That’s fair. I respect that. I totally respect that. But the reason why we started off saying 2003, 2015, 2025, what do they all have in common? They opened the year. Against the Jacksonville Jaguars, they go on the road. And Chris, something that actually popped into my mind, 3 of the 1st 4 games for the Panthers this season on the road, including the 1st 2 weeks of the year at Jacksonville, at Arizona before coming back home to take on those Atlanta Falcons in week 3. Yeah, uh, that’s gonna be a very interesting uh start to the year for uh the Carolina Panthers. I had to write something down really quick. That’s the way you say that. That’s exactly how I say it. I don’t I don’t understand it. I never understand it, Jaguars, but I don’t understand it. Um, but I will say this though, um, all of those games, the 1st 4, and listen, I’m falling into the trap again, falling into the trap again because I did this last year. All those games are winnable games though. 100%, all those games are winnable games, you know, like the Jags, I mean, you know, they, they were picking what number 2 for a reason, right? Uh, they were 5th, they moved up to they’re picking 5th for a reason, that’s right, they move up, I forgot. Just like we were picking 8th for a reason, but the Panthers were up trending towards the end of the year, and the Jaguars, you know, they’re gonna. to have a new coach, new situation going on down there. We’ll have to see what’s going on with them. That will be their first opportunity under their new head coach to work out the kinks, right? How did that work for Dave Canales in Atlanta, you know what I’m saying? um. Was that, was that Atlanta? No, I’m thinking what was New Orleans? I’m thinking about Frank Reich with uh in Atlanta, yes, week one New Orleans. How did that work for Dave Canales against the Saints, right? It was tough. It was tough. There’s a lot to iron out in that first week, so that that is a winnable game. What do we do to the Cardinals towards the end of the year? Uh, beat them. And over time, and you know what? I know they’re gonna want some, some, you know, some get back, you know, teams are different and all that. They’re gonna want some get back and all that. Uh, however, I feel like that game right there was one of those statement making games and also one of those games that let the Panthers know, oh, we can do this, right? I say they can, they have the ability to go on the road and take care of business. At Falcons, what do we do against Falcons? Home against the Falcons? Uh, I mean we beat them in overtime last year on the road, you know. Right now, in, in, in this moment in time, right? Not, you know, what people may project or whatever, as a quarterback, if you’re starting a team from scratch, who would you pick first as a quarterback? Would you pick Bryce Young? I love my dude from North Carolina or Drake May. Well, that’s a tough one. honestly, it’s a legit tough one. If an NFL franchise might go Drake May in that regard. It’s close. It’s close, but I think a lot of NFL teams would probably actually would take Drake May, even given what they both accomplished and did in college, right? Are you taking that into account at all? Yeah. I mean, I think, well, that’s Dennis Cox, ladies and gentlemen, I would take Bryce Young, uh, you know, with that, like just even just with an account of what they did in college, uh, who they played with, what they did, what their results were, all that type of stuff. Remember North Carolina, uh, probably under, uh, you know, developed, I wouldn’t say underdeveloped, uh, what’s the word I’m looking for? Under Underachieved, I mean that’s a different story, but and I don’t want to get into that because this is not a college football show. But those 1st 4 games. I don’t know. That’s, that’s looking real 2 and 23 and 1-ish to me. I mean, I’m, I’m doing it to myself. I’m doing it to myself. I’m, I’m setting the expectation here just to get chopped down again. I’m gonna get chopped down. We just might, we just might. I mean, we knew, we knew these opponents and stuff going in. It’s all about what momentum you ride into the season, and Jacksonville is an interesting one because Trevor Lawrence has been teetering for, for the early start of his career, but they have Travis Hunter coming in. You. Just don’t know what he’s going to be doing. We’ll see in the preseason, him probably play exactly for them, the Jaguars, but we will see early in the preseason, OK, how much is he gonna be playing defensive back, how much is he gonna be playing wide receiver, but you just don’t really know. Now, you might have an understanding of their offensive system because of what he did, their head coach, um, coming over from Tampa Bay. So you might have an understanding of maybe what their offense looks like, but in Tampa Bay, you had Mike Evans. But now he is Travis Hunter. So it’s, it’s, it’s just a different group of people. So I don’t know what to expect from, from Jacksonville this upcoming year. I really don’t. And Trevor Lawrence is also hurt for a chunk of the of the season last year as well. So I don’t know. Jacksonville is a They’re probably looking at the Panthers stick at the exact same thing. Oh man, week one, we got a home game against the Panthers. That’s, that’s a beatable team. It’s very real. They’re 100%, 100%. So, and the battle of the ETM brothers too. Yeah, exactly. The ETM brothers also Jimmy Horne Jr taking on his former teammate and Travis Hunter, like there’s. Travis Hunter, Gardner, Tedderroa, McMillan in college. So there’s a lot of different crossovers and storylines. Two former Tampa Bay Buccaneer offensive coordinators, now head coaches God’s so corny, man, dude, like, what a cornball. I’m like, let’s call it what it is, dude. You corn ball, man. Anyway, no, but you know, the, the thing that stands out about the schedule looking at it though, love the fact that we’re gonna get prime time. Uh, with one prime time at the 49ers, Christian McCaffrey on the other side. I just hope he’s healthy and plain in that game. Me too, me too, and you know what, that’ll be a game where I’ll honestly be split down the middle because I love Christian McCaffrey. Not that I want the 49ers to win, and I don’t, but I want, uh, Chris McCaffrey to do well against this new defensive line, and there’ll be a good test against Christian McCaffrey, especially if everybody is still healthy in week 12. But the thing that the two things that stand out to me. This schedule does not scare me whatsoever. We knew the team’s going in. We’ve done that for months. Also, just with the order though, the, the order and everything like that. The schedule doesn’t scare me, but what does scare me is a week 14 by. So you’re telling me you gotta play 13 weeks of NFL football before you get some time off, before you get a week off to rest, and that’s after training camp and all that too. This is. Essentially what December? I didn’t even look at the date on that. That’s that’s December where you’re gonna get that time off. So that’s gonna be, that’s gonna be a tough stretch, going from late July to early December, that would have been. Well, let me get my calendar, get my calendar. Are you looking like December 6th, December 7th? That’s what you’re looking at. Yeah, December 7th is that weekend, because the 49ers is the 24th, uh, the next, the Rams would be the 30th, yeah, December 7th. Uh, so essentially, let’s say training camp starts somewhere around July 24th, July 24th to December 7th, without a week off, basically the week between the preseason, uh, the preseason and the regular season starting, you have that week, but other than that, like, That’s a that’s a long time for that team, honestly, for anybody. Yeah, it is. Uh, mostly, most of these games are one o’clock. Except for, you know, a couple of games where they got to go obviously out to Arizona is a 4 o’clock game. Later on in the season, they have a 4:25 game against the New Orleans Saints right after that bye week, but it’s mostly 1 o’clock outside of, you know, Monday Night Football. It’s mostly 1 o’clock Eastern games. You know, last year, everything was on Sunday either at 1 or 4 o’clock. That’s what we’re looking at this year. It’s, I think it’s interesting that the Panthers, Despite their success and the way they played late in the season and, and the swagger that we saw from Bryce Young at the end of the year. Only one scheduled primetime game. Now, I know the last couple of weeks of the season it could always be flex scheduling and all that stuff. So, to be determined, but It just kind of gives you an idea of, in my eyes, what the networks and what the NFL thinks of the Panthers and what they expect from them this upcoming season with only one primetime game. The expectations clearly aren’t that high for this team going into the year because if you look, I think that the, uh, the Washington Commanders, I think have 7 or 8 primetime games this upcoming year. With 2nd year quarterback Jane Daniels, I mean, that clearly the expectations are high. They’re gonna, I mean, the NFL also, you know, does this as well as anybody of, hey, we’ve got something hot running, let’s just beat it over the head because that’s just what, you know, networks and all that stuff want to do. But it looked like 8 primetime games for the Washington Commanders. Last time I checked, they didn’t win a Super Bowl last year, but that’s the way the league and the networks see these teams and project them going forward. The fact they only get one. Yeah, I know. I, I wanna know. I fully understand. But I would expect that from. The Chiefs will expect that from the Eagles. Again, these recent Super Bowl champions, but the fact the league only sees them as worthy of one primetime game. Clearly, they see them as another, probably just the middle of the pack team. But you know what though, uh, I’m fine with that for right now. I’m OK with that too. I’m fine with that for right now. You gotta earn that. You, you do have to earn it and, um, you know, just to be real, they haven’t earned it. Like, winning a few, you know, overtime games at the end of the season doesn’t necessarily, you know, mean that uh you’ve arrived or whatever just because Bryce Young looked amazing towards the end of the year last year, doesn’t mean that you’ve arrived, but I like the idea that one, if this team can look at that as a slight, now they can go out there and I know this isn’t what Dave Canalis or Bryce Young likes to do. They don’t like to be externally motivated. They like to be internally motivated. But to me, there are some things you gotta take externally to help fuel that internal fire. And Bryce Young, they looked at you and said, hm, we’ll give them one primetime game, right? Yeah, OK. Just use that as motivation. It doesn’t have to be all your motivation, use it as your motivation. Here’s one thing I think is very interesting too about the schedule, uh, now that I get a chance to really look at it and bring it in, uh, some. If you kind of break it up into into 3 segments of the schedule, you have your 1st 4 games, you have your middle games, and I’m stopping at the bye week and having the bye week as as the last third, not not equal thirds, but those are basically the parts right there. From week 5 to week 13, that’s 9 weeks, they have 5 home games. I like that stretch, right? Because, uh, now, by week 4, If, you know, most of the team is healthy, we know there are going to be some injuries, but if most of the team is healthy, You’re talking about everything should be starting to click at this point, right? Now you’re knocking off the rust. You have a lot of continuity from last year, as far as all the same coaching staff for the most part, few changes uh with the assistants, but all the same coaching staff, uh, you have uh some new players on defense, so maybe it’s gonna take them some time to really catch up. Offense, you’re just adding pieces to a machine that was already moving, right? You go against a Miami team that might be sliding a little bit, you go against the Dallas team that, you know, who knows what they’re gonna do under a new head coach. At the Jets, who knows what they’re gonna do on a new head coach at home versus the Bills, very tough, that’s gonna be very tough. Probably the toughest game uh I see uh uh on this schedule. At Green Bay, probably one of the toughest away games that you’re gonna have on this schedule, at home versus the Saints, at Falcons, where you know what you can do there. At 49ers, that’s gonna be tough, and then Rams, that’s gonna also be tough as well. Uh, that is a good, I think that stretch is gonna make or break with the Carolina Panthers, what we look at the 2025 season as, right? Uh, because if they can go here and win. 4 of those 5 home games and Maybe split those away games somehow or another, maybe at Jets and at Falcons, at least, right? That really changes what the outlook of your team is, uh, to the NFL and what you’re possibly capable, capable of when it comes down to maybe making the playoffs, right? I, I’m, I don’t see any other NFC South team making these huge strides to get better, right, uh, from the offseason. I think it feels like the Falcons might be around that same area, um, and it feels like, uh, like Tampa Bay could be around that same area. Saints You know, with Derek Carr, the Derek Carr news and everything like that, I don’t expect much from them. No, I don’t expect much of anything from the Saints, but I, I, I look at, I look at the Saints and say, Panthers, you got 2 wins. If you, if you show up, you should have 2 wins and also new coaching situation there as well. So, um. I, I, I, I look at that middle part of that schedule right there with all of those home games and some and a couple of favor favorable away games, and that stretch will really show us who this team really is. So Bryce Young, you have some big time games against some big time quarterbacks, big time programs. It’s up to you and the rest of the team to show us who you guys really are. Yeah. And You mentioned at the top, those 1st 4 games. You look at them and say, OK, that, these are all winnable. These 1st 4 games. I know 3 of them on the road, but They’re winnable. 100% winnable. Again, we knew these matchups going in, we just didn’t know when these games are gonna be played, and you’re like, I think the order does matter though. I absolutely, I think it does because, all right, what’s your travel situation like? Are you going on a short week against a certain team and wins your by week? So the, the order of stuff matters, but yeah, on the road at Jacksonville, that’s a winnable game. Like you said, first year head coach. You don’t know what their offense, you just don’t know, you know, uh, or they, they have a lot to figure out themselves, whereas Carolina doesn’t, you know, it all depends on how well, in my opinion, how well this defense shows up. Does this defense show up early in the year? That’s really it. That’s what I’m looking at, because I feel like the offense can carry over from last year, maybe not putting up 38 points a game like we saw them do against Atlanta, but should be able to carry themselves. Into this upcoming season, hopefully with some momentum, health and all that, obviously withstanding. But 1st 4 games are winnable. But if you were to tell me, Panthers are gonna go 1 and 3 in those 1st 4 games, I could see it too. Because I guarantee you, all those teams that are they’re going, Jacksonville’s really like, oh, we open with Carolina, we can win that game. Arizona is like, man, we went to overtime with that team last year. We know we can beat them. We get them on our home field. Atlanta is like, we beat them once last year. We know we can beat them. And then New England’s probably thinking, we guys saw these guys that we just signed this offseason. We got, you know, all the guys that we drafted. We should be able to beat this Panthers team. So again, that’s just kind of way things are going into the year. I’m excited. I’m ready to see what these young guys and stuff look like, and we’ll talk about that in a later episode, but the schedule is what it is, Chris, and, and you know what? I’m looking forward to it. We should we go to Jacksonville week one? Should we go to Jacksonville? See the Jaguars? Yeah. You want to see the Jaguars? Um, yeah, we can talk about that, possibly possibly a road trip. We’ll have to talk about that, see how that how that works out. I do have one question to toss your way before we end everything, OK? Hit me. Carolina Panthers averaged 20.1 points per game during the 2024 season. Uh, they were ranked 23rd in the NFL in doing so, right? Um, there’s a lot of factors and how that can happen, and defense is a part of that too, right? How often, how, how long you can have the ball, and the defense has has a big piece of that, and if the defense can score, defense has a big piece of that. For you to be like, are you, are you getting turnovers in short fields, those kinds of things, absolutely. For you to be comfortable with the Carolina Panthers or to notice some sort of uh improvement from them and their scoring ability, what, how many points per game do you think they should average in 2025? Um, I’m trying to look and think of the, the top scoring offenses. Uh, from last season in terms of Detroit’s 33 Detroit, Buffalo 30, Baltimore 30.1, and then Buffalo’s 30.6. Tampa Bay 29, Philadelphia 29, Washington 28.8, Cincinnati 27.8. Uh, Green Bay 26.1, Minnesota 24.5, Denver 24.0, that’s the top 10. Arizona, 23.5, Kansas City 23.1, Chargers, 23, uh San Francisco, 22.9, Atlanta 22.9, Indianapolis 22.2. That is the top half of the league if you’re gonna go top 16. I would like to see them get into that 23 range kind of like we said where Chargers were around 23 or so like that, that I think is attainable, especially when you’re playing a, a weaker schedule, you’re playing in a weak division, you should be able to to tack on a, I mean, you’re right, we’re talking a field goal better per game than what we saw last year. A field goal better. Like we can’t get one more field goal a game. That’s. And so I blow my mind. I was gonna say 23.5 and 23.5 for last year, right? of course it’s gonna be different for this year, was good enough for Arizona to be 11th in the league. Now, of course, Arizona didn’t make it to the playoffs thanks to the Panthers. Um, so that doesn’t necessarily guarantee you a playoff spot, but I think I’m with you, 23.5, I think is a good spot for them to try to land on to be just. smidge better uh than last year, and I think that’ll show some promise. Time will tell. Time will tell, Chris, certainly. Um, hopefully this offense, like you said, takes that leap. Hopefully the defense doesn’t give up over 30, you know, points per game. Um, up this upcoming season, if they can get a touchdown knocked off of that, then we’re looking at. Being in every single game, which is what we should expect, just being in every single game, week one at the Jags, Chris. Well, if we do do that, we have to make a video, uh uh uh a Matt Rhule video in front of their stadium, you saying Duvall, just saying. Just sit down. I’m down. I’m down. I just, I just hope that, you know, the, the fine folks out down there that listen to Kodak Black and all that stuff don’t, don’t come pouring out and. Say, you know, I want to make it back from Jacksonville. I’ll keep you as safe as I possibly can keep you. Thank you. I know I know some people. I may not know the right people, but I know some people. That’s all I need, Chris, that’s all I need. Alright, again, leave your thoughts in the comments. Who do you hate more, Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa? I feel like a lot of people are gonna say Atlanta. Now that I think about it though, Atlanta is Atlanta, you know what? Lemon pepper wings, overrated. I just, I don’t want Atlanta to win a Super Bowl before we do, because the other two teams have won a Super Bowl in the division. I don’t want Atlanta, so I was, man, when the Patriots came back, that’s the only time I cheered for the Patriots. God Oh my God. Anyway, one and only, I don’t know next week, Saint Falcon’s tide.
