Welcome to another edition of Wral Triangle and two. I'm Mark Bergen, joined today by WRL Sports and Panthers Playbook host, Chris Lee. He's filling in for Luis Fernandez. Chris. We're gonna get to talk to some Panthers uh after their loss to the Saints and talk some Duke football, Manny Diaz, the head honcho there now, but welcome in. Thanks for joining. I hope you are well on this Monday. Uh I'm doing the best I can right now. Um It seems like all the teams covering right now are, are losing. So, but uh but uh you know, hopefully everything will go well towards the end of the year. And as we're getting deeper into the basketball season, basketball is what we're hoping for. It's unbelievable because my brain is still on the gridiron and this Panthers game division opponent get absolutely blown out by the Saints 28 to 6 losers of six straight games. So where I want to take the conversation today, Chris, because both you and Dennis Cox do a tremendous job on Panthers playbook. Are the Panthers going to win another game this season? Uh You would think that they could win at least one more. Um, you have a divisional uh opponent left in the Atlanta Falcons coming up at home. Of course, you have uh the Tampa Bay Buccaneers coming up at home as well. So those two games out of those two, like have to at least get one to at least try to finish with something respectable. Um, and I guess if one and five in the division is respectable, then that's what it is. Um, and in both of those again, uh, at home. So I, I would think that you would pick up at least one. I think the Buccaneers game is the very last game of the season. So, um, you know, maybe that's a time where, uh, other teams are starting to pack things in, uh, maybe they take the Panthers a little bit too lightly and they can sneak in a win. But I, I think you don't want to be the first team ever, uh, in a 17 game format to go one and 16. That would look really horrible. So, I, I think you would like to at least try to get one more win. You know, I'm actually gonna agree with you. It doesn't always make for the greatest conversation, but the division opponents usually usually are pretty close games. So you've got Atlanta on week 15 against Green Bay at home in week 16 on the road against Jacksonville Duval County and then closing the season out at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It didn't look pretty though yesterday in, I'm looking for an identity with this team. I know we can talk plenty about Bryce Young, but I knew yesterday's game was an issue when I'll go to the special teams play in the punt block. Right. Chris Tabors, your interim coach, the former special teams coach, he knows your whole roster and that punt block was blocked by like a mile. So if that is an issue with your team, considering the person in charge was in charge of your special teams, it's just indicative of what has been a long, long season for the Carolina Panthers. Yeah, it's, uh, it's, um, yesterday's game was kind of like one of those head scratching, uh, games because, uh, there's been a few games this season where the Carolina Panthers have gone against teams that really aren't that much better than them. Um, but they are either coached better or they have better systems in place and they have less, uh, mental lapses on the field. Look at that game, the, the New Orleans Saints didn't seem like a really good team to. And if you look at a lot of, you know, stats don't always tell the full story, but if you look at all the offensive stats and you just compare them. The Panthers had a better offensive day than what the Saints had. They had more first downs, they had more overall yards that they had an amazing day, uh, rushing the ball. The only thing that they were lesser than at was, of course the turnovers and, uh, they had less passing, um, yardage, um, on, on the day. And so when you have, have, uh, a day like that and you still end up having, uh, the type of a loss that you had 28 to 6. And you look back at that play where you have the blocked punt and, you know, you have Ian Thomas and, uh, number 27 also both missing a block that ends up going for a touchdown. And then you have, uh, you know, the same thing that we've been talking about over and over again. Bryce Young is not getting any time, uh, to throw and that leads to, uh, his interception. Basically, he's getting hit as the ball is coming out, pops up, somebody catches it and then the Saints have the ball that leads to a score on their end. Um, without those two, you know, you hate to play this if game, but without those two that's 14 points taken away. Um, and it looks a little bit better on the Carolina Panthers defense who actually did a decent job, then if the Panthers score, uh, the three times they were in, uh, score, you know, touchdowns, the three times they were in the, uh, the red zone, that's a 2114 game and that shows you just how easy it is to, um, to put yourself out of the game just by bad coaching decisions, mental lapses and just having a, a bad system in place. Overall, I wanna go to when Miles Sanders ripped off the wrong long run almost scores a touchdown gets down to the one yard line first and goal on the one and they run the very next play, which was so predictable. Then Bryce Young takes a sack where you just can't take a sack in that situation third down in goal and long and he throws it away and you have to try to settle for a field goal that sequence right there. It's like where you have to take advantage where it's like everyone in the building knew that they were gonna hand the ball off again, maybe run an RPO, run someone in the flat, run a play action and then that gets to in third and short and fourth and short situations. And this is something that I want to give credit where credit is due. Clark Gerber pointed out at WRL Sports fan.com. The Panthers don't run quarterback sneaks given Bryce Young short stature. I get why. But that's an element that other offenses have. And it's not just the Eagles where in a short yarded situation you can convert and move the chains and there were several plays. And again, it was exemplified by first and goal from the one you've got to punch it in for a score and the Panthers weren't able to do that yesterday. Yes, because they have nothing uh, on offense that scares you and, and it's not even just a talent situation. It's also their, their play calling in their schemes, right. Like there's nothing um that they're gonna do to put any pressure on the defense. So when the, the field gets shorter, it actually becomes an advantage for the defense. You know what I'm saying? Like if, if the Panthers are able to get within that red zone and now the field becomes shorter and you know that there aren't a lot of great route runners or fast route runners who can immediately get open, you know, that the offensive line is not gonna hold up very well, which is why, I mean, I, I think Bryce Young is smart enough to win, know when to know not to take sacks, but that also like, what can you do when you have multiple 300 pounders coming at you with nobody to throw it to you also don't wanna, um, you know, take a risk of just lobbing it up and, and, and, you know, getting another interception. So it's like you can't even blame him for certain things that's going on because like everything is wrong uh with this team. So, um, when Miles Sanders did rip that off that long run, I was thinking he's got to score here or else it's gonna be a field goal and that's what ended up happening, even from the one yard line, even from the one yard line. Because, like, there's, again, there's nothing that they have that scares you and, and one of the things I've been saying, uh, this entire season, um, if you're gonna have a quarterback as small as Bryce Young, right. Which one, I, I think they should be able to use some type of RPO with Bryce Young because he's able to run and I know you don't want to put him in harm's way. Uh, but like he's got some legs on him. He got 40 yards himself in the game yesterday. But if you're gonna have a quarterback that small, you need to have a short yardage, uh, specialist. They don't have that on that, on that team. All of their running backs have the basic, basically the same, uh, athletic profile between 5 ft 9 6 ft tall, 210 to £220. Those aren't the guys that you're gonna think of when you know you're gonna, they're gonna get contacted and they could still drive somebody, uh, a yard or two to get that those hard yards. Uh, and that's not who they are. They don't have those guys. They did have that guy, they just decided not to sign him and Deontay Foreman and now he's with the Chicago Bears, uh, and that's just goes down to how bad this team is all around and that includes their front off. Yeah, and it's like, look Young has not been great. He still had more passing yards than Derek Carr yesterday. Uh, 137 Young was 13 to 36. Derek Carr only 100 and 19 yards yesterday, he can't throw the ball to himself. Now, you want to see the connection with Mingo only two catches on nine targets. Young just point blank period missed him before the end of the first half. It's hard for me to evaluate considering the coaching, the personnel. And when I say the personnel, they might have the worst skill position players in all of the NFL. So when you bring in a new head coach next year, it's how can he try to get Bryce Young? Right? Because whether you like it or not, he's going to be your quarterback next season. You don't have a first round pick. So that transitions the conversation to which coaching candidates should the Panthers target as their new head coach. I know there's four games left, but again, with only one win on the season, I'm trying to go glass half full Chris, it's been very hard to do that with this Panthers team this season. Let me go back to something that you said before and then I'll definitely answer the question and you're, you're absolutely right. There's no way that you can give a, a full evaluation on what Bryce Young has been able to do this year. When we evaluate quarterbacks, we make some assumptions that we don't often talk about. We assume that there is a system in place that works well for that particular quarterback. We assume that the coaching staff, um, is, uh, in, is a cohesive unit and they work together. We assume that the, that the, uh, weapons, the, the, you know, they're wide receivers, their running backs, tight ends, um, fullbacks are all pretty much serviceable. We assume that they're gonna get um great blocking from their offensive line and Bryce Young has none of that. Right. So, you know, I know some people had some um complaints about him and some overthrows and stuff yesterday. But one of the things I was kind of thinking about is like on one of the plays, one of the overthrows was when Tommy Trimble just slowed up and then realized, oh, the ball's coming my way, let me try to run and go get it. If he would have been going at full speed, that would have looked like a perfect throw or you have somebody like, um you know, your, your leading uh receiver who is Adam Thin and he's, he's a slow route runner. He's a great route runner, but he is slow and there's been some times where Bryce Young has missed him this season because he's throwing it at him like he's gonna go full speed like he's, you know, at a regular NFL speed and it's too far in front of him. So now I think that's impacting where Bryce Young is throwing it. He has to think, well, where, where will my receivers be in this situation? They're covered? How can I get it to? And so it looks like these horrible throws when, if we think back to Alabama, he never had these issues. Right. So now we have to like almost take this entire year and throw it away. That being said, the best coaching candidate will be whoever can come in and fix that and, and be able to tailor a system towards Bryce Young that will fit Bryce Young. I think one of the issues with the Carolina Panthers coaching staff this year on both sides of the ball is that they've tried too hard to fit their systems, uh, or, you know, into what they're doing without taking into consideration the players that they have. And if the players fit that system, one of the reasons why the offensive line looks as bad as it does is because all of those guys are good run blockers, all of them are subpar pass blockers and that shows up in their history, right? And you're, you're trying to put in a system that doesn't quite work for the, the personnel that you have. So, uh, you know, for me, of course, you're gonna go after, you know, the certain names like Ben Johnson, you know, maybe even, uh, you, you may take a look at, um, uh, Jim Harbaugh, uh, at Michigan, you know, but whoever ends up being the Panthers head coach needs to look at what's on the roster and, and bring in some new pieces, of course, but also just try to fit something around what they already have, which is what Steve Wilkes did last year, which is why he had success, uh, at the end of the season last year for the Carolina Panthers. Yeah, and it was, we're gonna ground and pound last year with Foreman and company and it works to an extent. Now, that style of play, you probably have a limit, a ceiling on how good you can be. But with how that roster was constructed, I'd argue that at least being in the playoff hunt, they probably maximize the talent that they had on that roster. You're trying to play a style of play where it's like you mentioned, Adam Thiele, he's been a fine receiver throughout his career. He's on the back half of his career and he's like your number one guy, Miles Sanders. Yeah, the playoff experience with Philly, but we're seeing what they're doing with other running backs plug and play with a stout offensive line and other weapons outside. It's, you know, it's, it's pretty easy to look good when AJ Brown and, uh, Devante Smith are your two receivers on the outside and if you want to take away the running game, then those guys are gonna eat you alive. The Panthers just don't have that personnel and it's not to make excuses for Bryce Young. It's not because it's almost like the Spiderman named Chris where it's like everyone's pointing at each other in terms of who should be accountable for what the problems are, but it's ownership on down, it's ownership that, that, you know, maybe even more importantly than which head coach you bring in is Gm Scott Fitter or back next year. That's probably the next conversation we're gonna have. So, um, Ben Johnson, I think is gonna be the hot name for a lot of teams wanting to figure out their offense of the style of football that's played in 2023 and beyond, I'm looking at the head coach, but really at the end of the season, does Scott Fitterer keep his job? That's probably the biggest thing I'm watching for these next four games. Can you win a game? Remember that pick goes to Chicago as we all know. Um, anything else you want to talk about Panthers and we'll move on to duke football? Anything else that you wanna discuss that? We haven't gotten to Chris? I think he wrapped it up beautifully. Um, I, I kind of thought that, you know, instead of Frank Reich being fired, uh Midea, I thought it should have been Scott Fitterer. You get a head start on looking for a GM knowing that you have a lame duck head coach. Um, and let that GM kind of start running the show. Um, and I, I think that would have been better for Bryce Young and his development as well because then you don't have so much change and so much flux in his, um, in his rookie season, he's had a, you know, it's been the same two guys. He's had a change of play caller three times. Right. That and now a fired head coach that can't be good for his development, that can't be good for his, his confidence. And so to me, it would have been a, a better move to just go ahead and get rid of Scott Federer and then wait till the end of the season and get rid of Frank Wright. But we'll see if, if Scott Federer ends up being around. But, you know, David Tepper doesn't always do the smart thing when it comes to football. Can't, can't look at him when it comes to finances. He, he's a guru with the finances when it comes to football. Hm makes, makes a lot of questionable decisions. I just wanna educate people listening or watching this. When a young quarterback struggles. The question you should ask is who, who are his coaches? What are his coaching? And that's if there's a lesson learned in all of this, even be outside, outside of this current Panthers team with Bryce Young. Ask yourself that question. Le let me bring up something else really quick and um, and before we move on one of the thing, like if you look at like the start of his career for Sam Arnold, not a very good start with the New York Jets. He comes to Carolina Panthers. Not a good start, then, you know, who got him, his, his job with the, uh San Francisco 49er. Lay it on Chris. It was Steve Wilkes simply saying run the ball and, and make smart passes. It was a defensive guy, right? It's, and, and all of a sudden now it looks like, um you know, Sam Arnold would be uh a serviceable backup uh for, you know, a, a team that wants to win the Super Bowl and, and now has, uh I wouldn't say maybe revived his career because I guess he'd rather be a starter, but now he doesn't have that stench on him that he had when he was with the New York Jets. And sometimes it just takes the right person to play around your strengths as we said before, doesn't have to be an offensive guru to fix bright. It could be just the right person who knows how to build something around his strengths. I, I am not a Sam Arnold stand, but I do think it's very telling that the 49er decided to trade Trey Lance and say, hey Arnold can be the backup behind Brock Purdy. So you might be on to something there and yeah, I mean that 49ers team though Chris, I think I could play quarterback and have some, we're gonna keep it on the grid iron. Uh Duke has introduced Manny Diaz as its head coach. The very first thing I thought of that came to mind when I heard this news that there were rumors he might be the guy to replace Mike Elko was the 2021 football game, Miami Alabama opening week of the season. And Jamison Williams, who's a star receiver for Alabama now plays for the Detroit Lions goes off and rips off a long touchdown. It's Diaz on the sideline going nuts and he's now the head coach at Duke. Now, it didn't work out at Miami goes and is the defensive coordinator at Penn State uh for two years with James Franklin. He has experience as the defensive coordinator previously at NC State, but where I'm at with this is Chris is this, I'm not saying he can't have success but he doesn't have success from 2019 through 2021 at Miami where he has more resources, better access to recruits and everything, how he's going to try to achieve that at Duke. I just, I don't know, I'm not saying it's impossible but to try to build on what Mike Elko has. Uh He's got his work cut out for him. So Duke hiring, uh Diaz made me think of three things. One. You just mentioned that Mike Elko, he laid out a nice template of what to do to have success at Duke. And honestly, I thought that anybody that took that job really didn't have much to change at Duke, right? Because a lot of times when, when there's a coaching change, you're trying to come in and put your stamp on things, you're trying to uh make sure that uh you changing the culture or whatever. Even right now with Mike Elko, not there, he built so much of a culture uh there at, at Duke. Uh as of right now as we're recording this, if you look between North Carolina and NC State and Duke, Duke has the least amount of players in the transfer portal right now. You'd think with a coaching change, it'd be like a free for all and that everybody is gonna go now that could still happen, of course, because uh you know, things can happen and, and Diaz can kind of maybe take the um the bowl game opportunity to, to evaluate and see who he wants and make the, you know, the nudge the people. But as of right now, there's not a lot of people who are just flocking and, and leaving. Uh right now it's, there's a lot of kids who are deciding to stick around. And so uh he can just one build off of what Mike Elko built two going to to a place like Penn State, right? And, and let's look at, you know, Miami, his time there uh you can also blame some COVID stuff or whatever if you want to. But going to a place like Penn State, it's not an easy place to get into academically, but yet they always have great uh football players. Well, maybe that's a, a place where, you know, that showed him a blueprint of the type of players to go after the, the type of players that maybe, uh just missed out on a Penn State uh scholarship offer, but maybe they'll go to Duke and they can get into Duke and all that. And so he was at a higher level institution that uh he could probably pull from the same players. And he also has experience with the AC C as you mentioned before in the recruiting cy cycle circles around here. So um I think he'll be fine in that respect and then it's not even about Diaz to me, it's really been about the hires that Nina King has made uh being at Duke as their uh uh athletics director. I mean, she's really hit a home run, she obviously hit a home run on Mike Elko. She's hit a home run so far on Kara Lawson and so far she's hit a home run on uh John Shire. So as of right now, I don't have any reason to doubt Nina King. If this was another school, then I might say like, mm I don't really know about this DS hire, but because this is Nina King's hire and what she's been able to do before whatever she's doing and the, the resources she has and the, and the process that she used, she's done an amazing job so far to turn things around for Duke football, hiring Mike Elko and of course, uh reviving Duke women's basketball, keeping Duke men's basketball on that same high level. I have nothing to do but to trust her right now. Now, Diaz can ruin all that. But right now I trust Nina King in her decisions. I think that's totally fair because then I also look at it. Well, who else could have Duke K? And I look at Ohio State defense coordinator, Jim Knowles. It's like, uh would that really be any better or worse than Manny Diaz time will tell, but that was at least another name rumored to be out there if you didn't wanna go, Diaz, like I, I'm always like, whether you wanna say hire or fire someone present an alternative that's tangibly better. And I know at least he was a name that was out there. I really don't know if I could say he would be better than Diaz. So given Duke too. So he coached at Duke. Sorry to interrupt you, but I can see why people would bring Knowles's name into it. But yeah, I mean, maybe it wasn't the right guy. Let me piggyback off this too. Uh I told this to Luis Fernandez last week. On the show before we knew who Duke would hire more important than winning the bowl game is with the transfer portal that opened up at the start of the month. How do you plug and play and fill your roster of? How do you retain the players that you have? I think you break a break point there, Chris. And then can you upgrade your roster? Because one of the things Duke left to figure out with Riley Leonard in the transfer portal now is who's your signal caller? Who's your quarterback for next season? And that's one of many different elements because this Duke senior class really did help turn the tide nine and four season where Mike Elko wins AC C coach of the year this year, you see seven and five but early on in the season when college game day comes to Durham, not for basketball, but for football, that's what we're talking about now, injuries ravage Duke season, but you still go to back to back bowl games for the first time since the 2017, 2018 seasons. And how do you build on that success? And how do you build on that success year after year after year after year? And it's not just one or two year blips of sustained success. And so that's what Manny Diaz is gonna be tasked with doing, you know, and I hope that he does one thing and that is swallow his pride and give Mike Elko, a call. Hey, how do I become successful here? Call David Cutcliffe. Hey, how do I become successful here? Call the all good ball coach. Hey, how do I become successful here? Because there are guys who have done it in the pa in the, in the past and most recently, of course, Mike Elko. And so again, you know, it's not like he's taking over this program, uh that's in, in the dumps like he's taken over a pretty good program with a lot of and looking like he's gonna retain uh a lot of guys as of right now. Um And now you can just uh use that to your advantage and, and kind of build off of the things you don't have to start from scratch, you can build off the things that other people build. So I think that's the advantage that he has uh for that. And then when it comes down to the transfer portal, like Wake Forest has had droves of guys leaving uh their school, that academic profile is very similar. So I see what you're doing, Chris, I see what you're doing. Hit them up, go hit them up. Hey, listen, you wanna come play. We've got Grayson Loftus, we've got Henry Bean. You've seen them play during a year. They did a great job taking over for Riley Leonard. Uh You know, if you, you wanna come catching passes from them, if you wanna come block for them you wanna come take some handoffs from them if you wanna be on the other side of the ball and make sure you can get the ball back in their hands. Hey, we've got a squad and we're gonna play, be playing in bowls for the next few years, so make sure you're joining us. That's all Manny Diaz really has to do honestly right now. Absolutely. And it's, you mentioned Elko and Cutcliffe. Cutcliffe towards the end, it was just time and he did a great job overall in his tenure. But I think what Elko did to fortify the program where he takes over a Duke team that had lost 13 consecutive AC C games and you got this program back on track. So we'll see where they go from here now that we get into bowl season this upcoming Saturday, Chris, I cannot wait for that. Uh I'll go ahead and tease to, I put together a bowl guide for WRL Sports fan.com reasons to watch each and every of all 43 bowl games. Uh I've got that to tease, but we're into the holiday season now, Chris, anything that you're working on, uh at WRL Sports or Panthers Playbook that you would like to tease before we close out here. Sure. Uh Myself and Dennis Cox, we're gonna be talking with Boomer and Sin uh for this week's episode of the Panthers Playbook podcast. Uh We talked to him a few weeks ago because uh one of his good friends is Frank Reich, since we last spoken to him. Of course, a lot has changed with the Carolina Panthers and his good friend is no longer the head coach there. But then also, um, you know, I want his true quarterback evaluation for, for Bryce Young. One of the things I'm going to ask him is one of the things I brought up earlier today in this episode. Um, when you have wide receivers who aren't reliable in their uh route running, does that impact the way you throw the ball and where you throw the ball? So does it sometimes look like maybe you're under or overthrowing somebody uh which has been, you know, the, um the, the, the I guess feedback or critique of, of Bryce Young as of late. So that's one of the things I I'm gonna wanna know uh we're gonna interview him this week and that episode. So should be out on Thursday. Uh Find Panthers playbook on youtube and uh wherever you get your podcast, Apple Spotify, all that good stuff. Yeah. Part of the 99 9, the fan youtube page. Uh Chris, both you and Dennis Cox do great stuff on the Panthers Play Playbook podcast. Uh Thank you for joining and filling in for Lewis. Uh We do this every Monday here on Wral Triangle and two usually have the episode out by five o'clock on Mondays. Uh I'll go ahead and wrap for the both of us for Chris Lee. I'm Mark Bergen. Thank you for watching Wral Triangle and Two. We'll see you next time until then take care and so long everybody.