00:00:00
Speaker 1: All right, let's bring in someone that knows himself some ball.
00:00:05
Speaker 2: We do have to change this, though.
00:00:06
Speaker 1: I just realized, Bowen, I've reached out to Buck after both losses, but not after the win.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Buck has to come in and do cleanup duty.
00:00:13
Speaker 1: Brinson Buckner, a legend in these parts, in the Carolinas, a stud D-lineman for Clemson, the same here with the Panthers. You can check out his podcast, Buck Naked Sports, and hear all Buck's takes here. But he's nice enough to join us here, talk a little Panther football, maybe a little college football, too.
00:00:30
Speaker 2: What's up, Buck? How you doing, man?
00:00:32
Speaker 3: How are you doing?
00:00:33
Speaker 4: Good.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: What's going on, my guy?
00:00:34
Speaker 5: What's up, Buck?
00:00:35
Speaker 2: What's happening? Appreciate you being here.
00:00:36
Speaker 1: And one day we will win a game and get you on when it's a happier conversation. Buck, this team right now, the offensive line, now Damian Lewis is hurt and sounds like he won't play at least this week. And I feel like he's our most reliable lineman. But the tackles have been having rough times. Of course, we're missing our two starters. Like what what can the Panthers do to kind of make the job easier of these tackles? Because we got Aiden Hutchinson coming in here. Like, or do you just think this until the tackles get healthy, we're in trouble?
00:01:09
Speaker 5: What do you think?
00:01:11
Speaker 3: Well, I think now you have to sort of scheme to help your tackles. No chip blocks, probably keeping guys in on protections, getting the ball out of the quarterback's hands fast, moving the ball, go to more timing routes. You're probably going to be limited with your shots you take downfield because you don't have the pocket timing there. because the offensive line struggles. There's different ways you can go by it, but the number one way that you help strengthen the offensive line is you generate a run game. You know, you got to generate a run game and you got to lean on that run game. You got to get those defensive linemen sitting back on their heels thinking that they got to take on run blocks. And then first down becomes more of a passing down because a lot of times a defensive mindset, first and 10, you think you run more run than pass. and then you want to take your dropbacks, take them on first down, you know, and catch the defense by surprise. There's different ways you can scheme to help your offensive line get better.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Got to do that.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: By the way, I hate to interrupt this interview, but you can laugh at me. You enjoy that over the years. Finnegan, get the mop out. I messed up. For some reason, I said Mike Houston. and not Blake Harrell as ECU's coach. Mike Houston is long gone. Blake Harrell is the one who had a good year and a half coming into this season and has himself some grace period.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: My bad, everybody.
00:02:36
Speaker 5: The way coach is Jake Dicker. Apparently, Max said Jamie Dicker.
00:02:39
Speaker 3: Oh, did I?
00:02:39
Speaker 2: Oh, did I screw up both?
00:02:43
Speaker 5: New name for you, Matt.
00:02:44
Speaker 1: We're going to call you Mop McClain because all you do is mess up.
00:02:47
Speaker 4: Hey, Buck, are you free out of the bullpen at some point here? We might need to sit back down.
00:02:51
Speaker 5: For a game or two.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: I'm not good with names, y'all. I'm getting too old for this name thing. Y'all just got to figure out who I'm talking about. Let's get back to Buck's breakdown. We get the news of, on the defensive side, J.C.
00:03:01
Speaker 4: Horn. being out for a long time. How, how much does this hurt? And is there a way to navigate life defensively without JC and still play relatively well?
00:03:15
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it hurts because, you know, I think J.C. was an ascending defensive back in his league. I like his, you know, his size, his athleticism. You know, he could match up versus number one wide receivers, you know, physical in the run game. And it sort of puts you in the hole. You know, now you got to go with the young guys. And once again, you know, as a defensive coordinator, you want to run your stuff. You want to run your stuff, but you can't. Are you going to be limited to some of the stuff you run because, The guy that's behind J.C. just is not as good as he is. But you go out there and you try to play your style of defense. We used to always say this. The most valuable players in the room are not the starters. It's the guys that sit behind the starters because at a blink of an eye, they got to come in and become the guy. And what you try to employ to your backups is we don't want to drop off. We don't want to drop off. We don't want to have to just– start to change and alter everything because one guy's missing here or there. No, your job is to come in and be ready. And a lot of times this is where stars are born, where they accept the responsibility, they're ready to perform, and they go out there and do their job. So this is a challenge for the backup guys. Now you got your chance because everybody sits in that locker room and wants to be a starter. If I get my chance, if I get my chance, I can do it. Well, now it's presented itself. Are you ready to take hold of that role and become a starter and keep the ship upright until the starter gets back?
00:04:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we're hoping for, man, and we will see. I mean, Mike Jack, good chance he doesn't go, too, and maybe Corey Thornton gets called back. I do think Lee and Caleb Evans were both pretty good last week. But this passing attack they go against this week is a bigger challenge. I wanted to ask you about a schematic question, Buck. I have noticed, looking at the numbers on Sumer Sports, I have noticed that the Panthers have blitzed more this season in a small three-game sample. They're up to seventh in blitz percentage from middle of the pack last year. And they're playing more man. Like last year, they hardly played any man. This year, I think they're like 17th in man percentage. So it's kind of a split. Do you think you have to change those things? Do you think you have to go back to zone coverage and less blitzing without JC Horn and maybe without Mike Jack, too?
00:05:41
Speaker 3: I don't because I think the reason you're seeing it more because I think that's the way they're built. So even the backups were brought in here because they're probably pretty good at playing man, so it fits your scheme. And I think the man part is also what you got at linebacker this year. I know that last year you did not want to leave those guys in man because it was just a mismatch for the offense. But when you get Devin Lloyd in here and you get– I don't want to say if I'm saying it right. Okurike? Is that right how you say his name?
00:06:11
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be asking back right now about names. Let's just go ahead and say you got it, Buck. Yeah, that's the way I would say it, Buck.
00:06:19
Speaker 3: I don't want to mess this guy's name up.
00:06:21
Speaker 5: Okurike, yeah.
00:06:22
Speaker 3: Okurike. You know, those guys are good in coverage. You know what I mean? They're better than what you have. And so you can be more free on defense to bliss a little bit more, to play a little bit more man. So I think that's the style that they're morphing into, and the playbook is open for the defensive coordinator because the talent has allowed him to open it up. So you don't want to stray away from too much for what you do, or you'll be back in the same boat. You know what I mean? So those guys, those backups, they're probably not the starters because that's really their backups, but you know this system, and you're here because you've fit this system. And so you just want to keep on running your system and running your system.
00:07:02
Speaker 4: Buck, Smitty was on with Kyle Bailey the other day in his weekly spot, and they were talking about not just the Panther injuries, but the league-wide injuries right now.
00:07:11
Speaker 5: It's running rampant, all teams. I mean, look at the Niners, for crying out loud.
00:07:16
Speaker 4: He had a theory that, you know, the surfaces that the players are growing up with now are so much different than they used to be and not just the natural grass. They're playing on turf as kids. They're playing on turf as kids. Do you buy into that? And what do you think is leading to just the– the rash of more injuries than ever before?
00:07:35
Speaker 3: I think the surface, of course, because, you know, grass is more forgiving. Grass is more healing towards your body. When you're playing on this turf, this synthetic turf, it adds more force into your joints. And if you do it time after time, because, you know, figure when I was coming up in high school, I never touched the turf. When I got to college, I touched it twice at Georgia Tech and at Virginia at the time. Both of them had turf fields. But then when I got to the NFL, everybody in the L.C. Central back at the time had turf itself for the Cleveland Browns. And your body just felt– my body felt different being on that turf. Another factor is I just think these guys– these guys grew up playing football year-round now. You know, you got fall ball, you got winter ball, you got spring ball. Some guys play for two and three teams during the season because they're playing travel ball. And then once you go off to college, you're practicing. But then in the offseason, they're training, they're job specific. They're not giving their body time to heal or sort of morph. to what they're trying to do. So I think it's wear and tear on the body from an early age, whereas when I was in middle school, you played football. Football, you went to basketball. Basketball, you went to track or baseball. And it was always through high school. And then your body got a chance to do different things. But when you're playing the same sport year in and year out, you know, you start to wear those joints out because you're doing the same movements too much.
00:09:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. It definitely makes sense. All right, Buck. Well, hey, you are the man.
00:09:10
Speaker 1: We appreciate you answering the questions that you know. Buck coached in the league, too, in addition to all those years playing. We appreciate you. Buck, next time you come on, maybe we'll make it after a win, and maybe I will clean my game up, all right? And we'll not distract from your segment with a bunch of mistakes.
00:09:30
Speaker 2: I'll be better, Buck.
00:09:31
Speaker 5: Did Mack lose his spot on the Buck Naked Truth podcast?
00:09:34
Speaker 1: No.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll probably sit you on the bench a little bit. We'll have to send you down to the D-League for a podcast.
00:09:43
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: I'll prove myself down there at the lower levels, Buck. All right, Buck, you the man, baby.
00:09:49
Speaker 3: All right, one love.
Speaker 1: All right, let's bring in someone that knows himself some ball.
00:00:05
Speaker 2: We do have to change this, though.
00:00:06
Speaker 1: I just realized, Bowen, I've reached out to Buck after both losses, but not after the win.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Buck has to come in and do cleanup duty.
00:00:13
Speaker 1: Brinson Buckner, a legend in these parts, in the Carolinas, a stud D-lineman for Clemson, the same here with the Panthers. You can check out his podcast, Buck Naked Sports, and hear all Buck's takes here. But he's nice enough to join us here, talk a little Panther football, maybe a little college football, too.
00:00:30
Speaker 2: What's up, Buck? How you doing, man?
00:00:32
Speaker 3: How are you doing?
00:00:33
Speaker 4: Good.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: What's going on, my guy?
00:00:34
Speaker 5: What's up, Buck?
00:00:35
Speaker 2: What's happening? Appreciate you being here.
00:00:36
Speaker 1: And one day we will win a game and get you on when it's a happier conversation. Buck, this team right now, the offensive line, now Damian Lewis is hurt and sounds like he won't play at least this week. And I feel like he's our most reliable lineman. But the tackles have been having rough times. Of course, we're missing our two starters. Like what what can the Panthers do to kind of make the job easier of these tackles? Because we got Aiden Hutchinson coming in here. Like, or do you just think this until the tackles get healthy, we're in trouble?
00:01:09
Speaker 5: What do you think?
00:01:11
Speaker 3: Well, I think now you have to sort of scheme to help your tackles. No chip blocks, probably keeping guys in on protections, getting the ball out of the quarterback's hands fast, moving the ball, go to more timing routes. You're probably going to be limited with your shots you take downfield because you don't have the pocket timing there. because the offensive line struggles. There's different ways you can go by it, but the number one way that you help strengthen the offensive line is you generate a run game. You know, you got to generate a run game and you got to lean on that run game. You got to get those defensive linemen sitting back on their heels thinking that they got to take on run blocks. And then first down becomes more of a passing down because a lot of times a defensive mindset, first and 10, you think you run more run than pass. and then you want to take your dropbacks, take them on first down, you know, and catch the defense by surprise. There's different ways you can scheme to help your offensive line get better.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Got to do that.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: By the way, I hate to interrupt this interview, but you can laugh at me. You enjoy that over the years. Finnegan, get the mop out. I messed up. For some reason, I said Mike Houston. and not Blake Harrell as ECU's coach. Mike Houston is long gone. Blake Harrell is the one who had a good year and a half coming into this season and has himself some grace period.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: My bad, everybody.
00:02:36
Speaker 5: The way coach is Jake Dicker. Apparently, Max said Jamie Dicker.
00:02:39
Speaker 3: Oh, did I?
00:02:39
Speaker 2: Oh, did I screw up both?
00:02:43
Speaker 5: New name for you, Matt.
00:02:44
Speaker 1: We're going to call you Mop McClain because all you do is mess up.
00:02:47
Speaker 4: Hey, Buck, are you free out of the bullpen at some point here? We might need to sit back down.
00:02:51
Speaker 5: For a game or two.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: I'm not good with names, y'all. I'm getting too old for this name thing. Y'all just got to figure out who I'm talking about. Let's get back to Buck's breakdown. We get the news of, on the defensive side, J.C.
00:03:01
Speaker 4: Horn. being out for a long time. How, how much does this hurt? And is there a way to navigate life defensively without JC and still play relatively well?
00:03:15
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it hurts because, you know, I think J.C. was an ascending defensive back in his league. I like his, you know, his size, his athleticism. You know, he could match up versus number one wide receivers, you know, physical in the run game. And it sort of puts you in the hole. You know, now you got to go with the young guys. And once again, you know, as a defensive coordinator, you want to run your stuff. You want to run your stuff, but you can't. Are you going to be limited to some of the stuff you run because, The guy that's behind J.C. just is not as good as he is. But you go out there and you try to play your style of defense. We used to always say this. The most valuable players in the room are not the starters. It's the guys that sit behind the starters because at a blink of an eye, they got to come in and become the guy. And what you try to employ to your backups is we don't want to drop off. We don't want to drop off. We don't want to have to just– start to change and alter everything because one guy's missing here or there. No, your job is to come in and be ready. And a lot of times this is where stars are born, where they accept the responsibility, they're ready to perform, and they go out there and do their job. So this is a challenge for the backup guys. Now you got your chance because everybody sits in that locker room and wants to be a starter. If I get my chance, if I get my chance, I can do it. Well, now it's presented itself. Are you ready to take hold of that role and become a starter and keep the ship upright until the starter gets back?
00:04:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we're hoping for, man, and we will see. I mean, Mike Jack, good chance he doesn't go, too, and maybe Corey Thornton gets called back. I do think Lee and Caleb Evans were both pretty good last week. But this passing attack they go against this week is a bigger challenge. I wanted to ask you about a schematic question, Buck. I have noticed, looking at the numbers on Sumer Sports, I have noticed that the Panthers have blitzed more this season in a small three-game sample. They're up to seventh in blitz percentage from middle of the pack last year. And they're playing more man. Like last year, they hardly played any man. This year, I think they're like 17th in man percentage. So it's kind of a split. Do you think you have to change those things? Do you think you have to go back to zone coverage and less blitzing without JC Horn and maybe without Mike Jack, too?
00:05:41
Speaker 3: I don't because I think the reason you're seeing it more because I think that's the way they're built. So even the backups were brought in here because they're probably pretty good at playing man, so it fits your scheme. And I think the man part is also what you got at linebacker this year. I know that last year you did not want to leave those guys in man because it was just a mismatch for the offense. But when you get Devin Lloyd in here and you get– I don't want to say if I'm saying it right. Okurike? Is that right how you say his name?
00:06:11
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be asking back right now about names. Let's just go ahead and say you got it, Buck. Yeah, that's the way I would say it, Buck.
00:06:19
Speaker 3: I don't want to mess this guy's name up.
00:06:21
Speaker 5: Okurike, yeah.
00:06:22
Speaker 3: Okurike. You know, those guys are good in coverage. You know what I mean? They're better than what you have. And so you can be more free on defense to bliss a little bit more, to play a little bit more man. So I think that's the style that they're morphing into, and the playbook is open for the defensive coordinator because the talent has allowed him to open it up. So you don't want to stray away from too much for what you do, or you'll be back in the same boat. You know what I mean? So those guys, those backups, they're probably not the starters because that's really their backups, but you know this system, and you're here because you've fit this system. And so you just want to keep on running your system and running your system.
00:07:02
Speaker 4: Buck, Smitty was on with Kyle Bailey the other day in his weekly spot, and they were talking about not just the Panther injuries, but the league-wide injuries right now.
00:07:11
Speaker 5: It's running rampant, all teams. I mean, look at the Niners, for crying out loud.
00:07:16
Speaker 4: He had a theory that, you know, the surfaces that the players are growing up with now are so much different than they used to be and not just the natural grass. They're playing on turf as kids. They're playing on turf as kids. Do you buy into that? And what do you think is leading to just the– the rash of more injuries than ever before?
00:07:35
Speaker 3: I think the surface, of course, because, you know, grass is more forgiving. Grass is more healing towards your body. When you're playing on this turf, this synthetic turf, it adds more force into your joints. And if you do it time after time, because, you know, figure when I was coming up in high school, I never touched the turf. When I got to college, I touched it twice at Georgia Tech and at Virginia at the time. Both of them had turf fields. But then when I got to the NFL, everybody in the L.C. Central back at the time had turf itself for the Cleveland Browns. And your body just felt– my body felt different being on that turf. Another factor is I just think these guys– these guys grew up playing football year-round now. You know, you got fall ball, you got winter ball, you got spring ball. Some guys play for two and three teams during the season because they're playing travel ball. And then once you go off to college, you're practicing. But then in the offseason, they're training, they're job specific. They're not giving their body time to heal or sort of morph. to what they're trying to do. So I think it's wear and tear on the body from an early age, whereas when I was in middle school, you played football. Football, you went to basketball. Basketball, you went to track or baseball. And it was always through high school. And then your body got a chance to do different things. But when you're playing the same sport year in and year out, you know, you start to wear those joints out because you're doing the same movements too much.
00:09:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. It definitely makes sense. All right, Buck. Well, hey, you are the man.
00:09:10
Speaker 1: We appreciate you answering the questions that you know. Buck coached in the league, too, in addition to all those years playing. We appreciate you. Buck, next time you come on, maybe we'll make it after a win, and maybe I will clean my game up, all right? And we'll not distract from your segment with a bunch of mistakes.
00:09:30
Speaker 2: I'll be better, Buck.
00:09:31
Speaker 5: Did Mack lose his spot on the Buck Naked Truth podcast?
00:09:34
Speaker 1: No.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll probably sit you on the bench a little bit. We'll have to send you down to the D-League for a podcast.
00:09:43
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: I'll prove myself down there at the lower levels, Buck. All right, Buck, you the man, baby.
00:09:49
Speaker 3: All right, one love.
