00:00:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been great. It's an amazing city, Charlotte, the Carolinas as a whole.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: The support, we all feel it.
00:00:20
Speaker 1: We rally around that. Being able to play at the bank has become a special environment. We've had some special nights. Other nights, just the atmosphere, it's electric. But yeah, you definitely feel it throughout the city. And for us, it's our job to continue that, to keep building. And we rally around the city in the same way they rally around us.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: There you go, Bryce. That's sweet. We love you too, Bryce, except for about four dudes who wet their bed and live with their mamas that are all over social media right now.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: A bunch of bed-wetting mamas boys on there. He's still not good. Look at the defenses he faced. He's still not good.
00:00:55
Speaker 2: My God. Just enjoy it. Enjoy it, Charlotte. We got ourselves a quarterback playing the best quarterback since Cam Newton was in the city of Charlotte. Just enjoy it. Stop arguing. and stop trying to prove that you're right. Ah, quarterback's not good after all. I'd like to see him play against a good defense, because he played against Cleveland, and it wasn't as good as the other teams. Keep in mind, Cleveland had the fourth-ranked defense in the NFL last year. By the way, I said it yesterday. The Bears have given up 26 points in the three games since we played them. Hell, Atlanta's defense has been better. Bryce Young, absolutely. Bryce Young put up 37. That's 11 more points than all three other Bears opponents have scored combined. So anyway, but enough because I shouldn't do a show bone for the four bedwetting mama's boys. We should do the show for everybody else that is out there. And right now, the show that we're going to. Oh, my God. Bebop says he's been surprised by Bryce's play. There you go. He's talking contract for Bryce now. There you go, baby. Oh, my God. It's more like Gleebop than Bebop. Oh, what a world to live in. You know what? World peace is possible after all. World peace is possible. Finney's got a girlfriend and Bob's praising Bryce. Did you see the guy that said, rather be golfing? The guy that texted in and said about the miracle it is, Bone. Don't put nothing in the window, Tampa. You're 0-4. Get down the hallway. I can't believe Tampa Tammy can show her face around here. You should be armory crawling on the ground so we can't see you. You are the most embarrassing. When you embarrass the NFC South, you know you suck. Seriously.
00:02:30
Speaker 3: There's a last place meeting in the conference room right now.
00:02:33
Speaker 2: There you go. Big donut. Get her some Dunkin' Donuts to celebrate her team's zero wins. All right, anyway, what was I saying? Rather be golfing's text. Rather be golfing texted in to say, Bone, that it is basically hell is freezing over because all three of us have ladies at the same time in our life. Yeah. Are you distracted, Bone? Are you distracted? Right.
00:03:02
Speaker 3: No, I'm not distracted at all. I'm saying, yeah, and then he's laughing back there. So, yeah, no, miracles do exist. Panthers are playing well. We're all in love with each other. Not each other. We have people that love us. We go home together. We don't go home together.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: I'm very distracted. You're doing well with this right now, Bone. Someone remove Tampa, Tampa. Can we get security to get Tampa, Tampa out of here? They're afraid of it. Let's talk now about the topic that you tease, Bone. Let's talk about it. We're four games into the season, and we can start to draw some conclusions. It's certainly not perfect. I do want to remind all of us we're 2-2. That's NFC South good, but that's not good around the rest of the league. But there's been plenty of things, most of them on offense, that have been better than I think we expected. There's been things... some of them on defense, I would think, Bone, that had been worse than expected. Who is a player, coach, aspect of the team? What's the first thing you think of, Bone, in terms of being better than you thought it would be? Boy, this is high praise because we knew the guy was good. He was 27th.
00:04:08
Speaker 3: In the nfl top 100 he's an all pro but mac i there's another level of dominance that devin lloyd has that seeing him up close and how he impacts the game devin lloyd we knew was a big time signing but his presence and we saw when he's in there when he's not in there to me you talk about a guy well worth the money is devin lloyd no doubt are you distracted right now by what i'm saying I.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: Think I know what you're saying, Bone. How is she still out there with zero wins? All right, anyway. She's lasted longer than the bus season. It's like her college coach, Dabo Sweeney, but can't get rid of her. Anyway, yes, I think I know what you're saying about Devin Lloyd. You see the season he had last year. You hear all the accolades. You read all the different advanced metrics of what he was as a run defender, a pass rusher, and in coverage. But until you see it for yourself and watch it for a full game and he's playing for your team, you don't quite totally understand. And so I think I feel you. And that is good because I thought it was literally going to be all positives on offense and all negatives on defense. I'm just going to say the obvious. Bryce Young is playing at a level that I did not expect him to play at. First of all, he has the slow start trend. He and this team in general. So for him to get off to this kind of start, it bucks that trend. Secondly, Bone, it's just, I knew he was making a jump. This is not a jump. This is taking an elevator up like 10 floors.
00:05:38
Speaker 3: If we would have said Bryce will have MVP chatter four weeks in, people would have horse laughed at us.
00:05:43
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: We probably would have said, all right, we're being sarcastic. But that's legitimate conversation, not just here, but there's national stuff about it.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: It's amazing. I saw Josh Norris tweet. You know, Josh is still a Panther fan at heart, Boney. And he tweeted out one of those graphs. And it showed that Bryce Young has the lowest percentage of clean pockets of any quarterback in the NFL. And he said, how the heck does the quarterback with the lowest percentage of clean pockets lead the league in yards? It's what he is overcoming now. is remarkable. It really is. And then you go, the weapons being out, and obviously the O-line, and the run game has been some timey. A lot of times they haven't committed to it. They put it all on Bryce. I'll say another thing, because we're asking the question, through four weeks, if you're a Panther fan, what or who has been better than you expected, and what or who has been worse than expected? Brad Idzik. I mean, I love the move to go to him. I think you did. I think we all did, Bone. But to see him hit the ground running, and I don't think he's been perfect. I still don't understand why T-Mac wasn't moved into the slot more to get him away from Denzel Ward in Cleveland. But I'm not nitpicking that. The majority of what Brad Izzik has touched has turned to gold. I mean, for him and all the national people, Bone, I hear what they're saying. A lot of the national people only saw the Panthers on Sunday. They haven't seen the three previous Panther games. So they think Brad Itzik's been doing this, get it out fast, RPO thing all season. No, the brilliance of that game plan is he has not been doing that. They have been wanting to get it downfield more and more, but he did that specifically because of the issues on the offensive line and the Lions defensive front. He has just been off to a brilliant start.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: And I'll say because he's doing such a great job, can I throw an element, Mac, of Dave Kanellis in here? Think about we are now four games in, and think about how much we analyze each game and each moment and each play. If I'm wrong, let me know. Have we had that many discussions about Dave Canales this year in game management? Handling games, timeouts, situational football? I feel like for a month into the season, we haven't had too many coaching things. We say, why did he do that? What did that do?
00:07:54
Speaker 2: I feel like Canales has been in control of the game management stuff so far. Outside of Cleveland. The only thing I can think of is that fourth down from their own 40 against Cleveland.
00:08:02
Speaker 3: There's always going to be something, but there hasn't been... But that's just a decision we didn't like. There hasn't been some bungling of a half or the end of a game where we're like, oh, my God, what was that? They've been pretty tightened up here.
00:08:14
Speaker 4: You're right, Matt, because if they convert and they go down and score, how different is the narrative about double down day? We're coming up with a different nickname for them. But that's a good thing is that we're four games in. And there's only been one scenario that really comes to mind where, like, we didn't like how they didn't close the game out the other night. They'll learn from that. They'll grow from that. But, like, that wasn't on Dave Canales, I didn't think. We've seen the benefit of him no longer calling plays.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: Oh, no doubt about it. How about the story he told about being able to go to a Caleb Evans, now it didn't really help, and Princely during the game and talk to them personally, like, hey, man, you know, this is tough. You got to dig in. Like, he can't do that when he's not a head coach. It's two jobs. Like, I know many guys make it look easy to be a head coach and a coordinator, and they're special. But it's two jobs. And Dave Canales does one. Brad Idzik does the other. It's made both of those positions better for us. It really has. 7045, 709610, what do y'all or who are we not mentioning that has been better than you think? What has been worse than we thought? I'll just say it. I know the O-line has been obviously worse than we thought it would be. We knew, Bone, that we didn't have Moten, we didn't have Icky. Rasheed Walker's pass protection has been quite a bit worse than I thought it would be. He was 11th in pass block win rate last year. Bone, he has six pressures, six pressures, and seven pressures allowed in the last three games. I like that noise. That's been a bit appalling. I thought the pass protection was the strong part of his game. I was trying not to interrupt your point, so apparently I just It did. Can I go back to another offensive lineman? Can I go to another offensive lineman there with Fortner? I'm not saying I had... We know that Hecht is the future. I thought Fortner could hold it down. I called him Fortner Knox in the summertime. No one really acknowledged that I said that, thank God. But I'm now wondering how long until Hecht gets a look in there. Once he does.
00:10:21
Speaker 3: Much like Freeling on the left side, once he gets in there, it's going to be a long time until he's removed. But you just wonder how many bad outings until they say, hey, what the heck, let's put the— I didn't mean for the pun there, by the way. People are calling out Fortner right there.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: And it doesn't stop there. We have a Robert Hunt problem. Robert Hunt. Robert Hunt, I think, played his best game this past week, though. I think that is encouraging. I hope so, because— Although he did have the penalty. He didn't go too far downfield early. But yeah, Robert Hunt is being mentioned on the text line. You can't deny he is not playing as well as we would have all expected.
00:10:54
Speaker 3: How about this for a surprise? Nick Scott getting some love from Westside Randy and Merrick coming up as a negative so far this year from a texter. Yeah, Merrick has not made... Based off expectation of who he is.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what the question is, is who is performing better than you expected? What about this team is better than expected? And who or what is worse? And Merrick hasn't really made those difference-making plays at quite as much bone as we remember him doing. Hell, he had a chance to make a big difference-making play, sent on a blitz, gets cleaned through, and he can't take down Deshaun Watson.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: You know, that's an example of it right there. Mac, how about this for a point by Panthers 24-7? We'd have to ask the offensive line experts or Buckner, who knows obviously line play, how much is Fortner's play affecting Robert Hunt next to him right now? How much does Fortner not being good affecting the other guys?
00:11:50
Speaker 2: Robert Hunt is paid to not be affected by people next to him. And he said the penalties? He's paid to actually be great and have a good effect on people next to him. And there's been some times where he's just been straight beat. Tons of penalties. To me, he looks old. Is it just the injury? Is it the remnants of coming off the injury? Which would make a lot of sense.
00:12:09
Speaker 4: Like, Mac, that body's been, like his body and my body, been through a lot at the age of 30.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Your body doesn't move. You go sit and eat. How the hell's your body been through? High school sports? Church league ball?
00:12:22
Speaker 3: Someone says, ask Mac what's it like to work with guys that aren't doing their job next to you.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: Oh, that's cold. These boys bring it every day, baby.
00:12:31
Speaker 3: Don't talk about Phinney that way. These boys bring it every day. Guy's working his buns off back there.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: Now, what do you think about people bringing up Derrick Brown has been... Less than we expect him to be. First of all, he's got a very high standard. So even a lesser Derrick Brown is better than most. I didn't think he got off to his best start. He had the penalty against Chicago, which was a problem. Although I thought the other day... He had two against Chicago.
00:12:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, the other day I thought you started to see more of the old Derrick Brown. We haven't seen really... The dominance that we're used to, just like chucking guys like pro wrestlers. But eventually, it's going to come around there. I trust him fully. Has it been his best year?
00:13:11
Speaker 2: No.
00:13:12
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean he can't reach his potential still. I feel like his last two games, we've seen more of an impact. And listen, Derrick Brown's the type of guy, Bowen, that could be taking on two blockers, and that's what they wanted him to do on that play.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: So it's some of these positions for us.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: I guess football people would argue us talking about all these positions probably is not right.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: But like... You know, it does need to be said in the trenches about, you know, hey, he could be doing his job on assignments, on plays, and we're not smart enough to know it. I do think just in terms of impact on the game, I feel like the first two weeks were a little slow. I do feel like he's gotten it going more the last couple of weeks. Bone had five pressures against Cleveland, had the batted passes. against Detroit. I think we're starting to see a little more impact. People bringing up Jalen Phillips. Again, edge rusher watch. I don't, it's probably in all towns, not just this town, but unless, you know, this dude has, you know, Buku Sachs, I feel like there's always going to be people texting in saying he's not doing his job. He's a great run defender. He's immensely improved our setting of the edge and run defense. The pressure's bone. I think it's two sacks and how many pressures? 16 through four games? So that's a pace for, I don't know, what's 17 times four? Well, 17 times two is 34. 68. 68. 71? 51. I think it's 71. No, 72. I'm sorry. 72, right? And that'd be 18.
00:14:48
Speaker 4: 68.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: I thought 68 was 16. No.
00:14:50
Speaker 5: Oh, you're right.
00:14:51
Speaker 2: 17 times 4 is 68. Damn, he out-mathed me. God, he out-mathed me. Score one for 50. Someone says Willie P's cooking has been less seasoned than expected here in the 2026 season. Get out of here!
00:15:02
Speaker 5: Out of the.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: Kindness of his heart. You are out of your freaking mind. We're not doing that today. Why does it not matter what the topic is? Pete can catch a stray. We could be talking about the government balancing the budget. Not that we'd sound even more clueless then, obviously. But Willie P would catch a stray.
00:15:19
Speaker 3: Has anyone ever thought I should say something nice about Willie P today? Why didn't someone say something nice? Phinney, say something nice about Willie.
00:15:26
Speaker 5: That.
00:15:29
Speaker 2: He's got nothing. He's a hell of a play-by-play announcer. Inspired, passionate goal calls are amazing. How about that? He's always on time. Nice man. DeCathlete wants us to back up the criticism of Rob Hunt. He's just now getting back to football rhythm after the triceps injury. How many games did he get last year after coming back? from the injury plus four this season. He came back just for the playoff game. That was it. Um, yeah, that's, that's the thing. I think Fitty was the one going the hardest on Rob Hunt. I would just like to cite, I don't think he's looked his best. I thought he played his best game of the season the other day. I just, I don't want, you know, we're, we're simply having a conversation bone about dudes that are not or, or aspects of the team that are as good or not good. I don't believe Rob Hunt needs to be, you know, treated and, you know.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: Thrown out of town. Only one person's brought up Jalen Phillips' name on here. Oh, there's only one?
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe and Raleigh. I thought for sure there was more. Joe and Raleigh.
00:16:29
Speaker 3: Usually I thought there'd be more because I've seen more on Twitter about him, but only one texter so far. That's an interesting development there. Joe and Raleigh does say, though, Prince Lee had three sacks. It's a pleasant surprise so far. Yeah, he had the horrible first game with the contain. The lack of contain. It was a terrible game, I believe, for him. But there's no doubt you see it. You see the flashes. And we've always known Bone as a pass rusher. He has an ability. He is a ridiculous athlete with a quick get-off. and that spin move, and I mean, like, that bend. Like, we've all known the pass rusher that he is. Hell, just ask Jalen Phillips.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: He'll tell you. He says he's the best pure pass rusher we got on this team. The questions I think we've had about him, Bo, is maturity thing, right? You have that with a lot of young players. And then we've also questioned, can he hold up on rundowns? I still have questions about, can he hold up on rundowns? I still think against mobile quarterbacks, against Williams and Watson, he's got a little more of a controlled rush. But I said it last week. I said going into the game, he's going to have a big game because Jared Goff ain't going to move from him. And he's been getting pressure. And that damn statue ain't getting away from him. And I'll be damned if he didn't show up with six pressures. And they sacked. So I'm pretty happy with Prince Lee. There's still room to grow, too, but I'm happy with him.
00:17:47
Speaker 3: He's also got a lot more pressure on him than we thought entering the season because of the scoring loss. So there has to be, I do believe, a little more patience as he grows into that full-time gig there. Matt, we have shocking news. Willie P ended the segment upset with Fetty Marlowe. Because Fiddy did not say something nice about him. Now Willie's got his feelings hurt. How does this always happen back on Wednesdays right before Willie comes into the studio? It never fails, does it? I think you set Fiddy up for that, I feel like. Although Fiddy won't be here when Willie gets here. Fiddy's going to head over to ACC Timber.
00:18:18
Speaker 2: That's right. So there will not be a fist fight that we were hoping to see. A couple of texts coming in here. 704-570-9610 if you want to get in here. Likes the paycheck. Said I'm disappointed in JJ. He hasn't registered a tackle yet. But he's been explaining to Coach Canales all the different penalties, Bowen, that have been called.
00:18:38
Speaker 3: He's been doing that. JJ's got a lot of jobs to do. Let's just lay off him, all right? Snapping is just one of them.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: 704 number says, Mac just basically threw Fitty in front of the bus or in front of a pulling guard. Mac just basically said, Rob Hunt, if you're out there listening, Fitty is the one really bashing you. I want to clarify.
00:18:58
Speaker 4: I don't like feeling that way about Big Rob. Like, he's my favorite offensive lineman. We've got a chance to talk to him the past couple years out of training camp. You know how much that guy cares.
00:19:07
Speaker 2: You know how.
00:19:07
Speaker 4: Important he is to this offensive line. So I bet he's eager to get it corrected. Mac, I'm just worried and concerned because we've seen him look a different way.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: But.
00:19:19
Speaker 4: You know, that body. He's just been through a lot. So it makes a lot of sense. But with all the other injuries, we need him to be the Rob Hunt that we're paying him to be. But it's still amazing. And it's a testament to Bryce. With all the issues up front, what this offense is doing on a game-in, game-out basis.
00:19:38
Speaker 2: It defies logic.
00:19:39
Speaker 3: It's also a credit to Brad Inzik and how quickly they're operating and how much Bryce is moving the ball quick now compared to what he used to.
00:19:46
Speaker 2: This past week, it was a brilliant game plan.
00:19:49
Speaker 3: Old Bryce with his offensive line could have been a disaster.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: He has been slinging it. He still has the most deep completions in the NFL, despite this offensive line that has allowed the most pressure in the NFL. Those two stats don't add up. They don't compute. It's crazy. I also, I don't know if anybody did it on the text line. The tight ends deserve a shout out. This tight end group, this is the best a tight end group has been, Bone.
00:20:11
Speaker 3: Hell, since Greg Olson was the guy running the tight end group. Like, I honestly believe that. And a lot of it is Brad Itzik really embracing the bootleg stuff to the tight ends and Bryce doing that so well.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: But Darren Waller's been such a good addition. And I think Tremble's been good this year. And Mitchell Evans is solid. So I want to throw those guys some praise, man.
00:20:33
Speaker 3: When we come back, how is the college football playoff picture looking as we near the halfway point?
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Mac, we're at the halfway point already?
00:20:40
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:20:41
Speaker 2: How quickly does it come? We're near it, right? I wouldn't say there, but five games in for teams?
00:20:46
Speaker 3: But are we headed towards six SEC teams and one ACC team? We'll discuss it. Sports Radio 92.7 WFNZ.
00:21:19
Speaker 2: All right, y'all. Shout out to Smoke Ludwig, who is under fire at this radio station because the man lost our TV remote in the studio. Now, I guess Bone says he claims that he left it here Sunday night. So he is saying there's a mysterious remote control thief in our midst, Bone?
00:21:38
Speaker 3: Is that his theory? He's got it down to the minute that at 1.04 a.m. from Sunday night into Monday that it was right here and now it's gone. So that's also the night that Philly slept over. So there's a chance that Fitty has packed up this remote in his belongings? Think it's still wrapped up in his blankie? Also, Smoke, very upset that you have not figured out until right now that you can change the channel by hitting your finger on the TV.
00:22:00
Speaker 2: It just occurred to me. I said, how did they change the channel with no remote? Bone goes, you can just press it with your finger. And you would think my old ass can remember the non-remote days? Because there was a non-remote day in this world.
00:22:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker 2: And I'm old enough to have lived through it. But I completely have forgotten that was an option. But Smoke, don't change the subject, my man. You were the last man to touch that remote control from the WFNZ staff. This is on you, bro. This is on you, Smokey. You're the most likable guy here, Smokey, but this is not good to have on your resume, baby. He claimed it. I'm not going to throw a– I believe Smoke. The whole station was looking for it during the pregame show last night. Who would steal a remote here? Is it like WBT? Did they lose their remote at WBT and they need it to toggle between News Nation, Fox News, and whatever else they've got on over there?
00:22:51
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:22:51
Speaker 2: All right, anyway, let's get to– College football here. If anybody has seen our remote, please let us know. 7045709. Now we have to figure out who's going to buy a new one. This dude says, the fact that the old guy at the station didn't know that you could change the channel without a remote is classic. M-Dawg thinks Tampa Tammy came in here, bone to cause chaos.
00:23:18
Speaker 5: No.
00:23:19
Speaker 3: And distract from their 0-4 record. She doesn't want to see NFL Network's Buccaneers coverage.
00:23:24
Speaker 2: And we finally have a.
00:23:26
Speaker 3: Little bit of class and respectability back behind the board. Fitty out to ACC Media Days now. Schrappi has come in behind the board.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: Schrappi's in, baby. Schrappi, you're a team player coming in early, baby. Yeah, I appreciate it.
00:23:39
Speaker 6: I wish I felt better, sounded better, looked better. But, hey, at least you don't have. Hey, you're on the right show.
00:23:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, well.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: Hey, if there's ever a show, Schrappi, you can just kind of chill and not talk. It's on the magazine. There you go.
00:23:51
Speaker 3: I got you.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: I got your reps.
00:23:53
Speaker 6: The good thing is that the studio will probably smell a little bit better throughout the rest of the show here.
00:23:58
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. That is true. Although those chicken wings from this weekend still affected my tummy.
00:24:02
Speaker 5: No, Shrop.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: That's the bad news. All right, let's talk college football. So I was reading ESPN.com every week, Bone. They do a look at the playoff picture. And again, we are, you know, once teams play their sixth game here, some of them will play their sixth game this week, Bone. they'll be halfway through their season. So it is, this season goes faster than any in sport. It's the shortest in sports. It might be the best in sports and it's moving. So let's talk about the playoff situation and kind of how it looks right now and where maybe, Bone, we think it is headed. Now, the ESPN piece has six teams in the SEC in the playoff as of right now, Bone. Six teams.
00:24:45
Speaker 3: It's basically the SEC tournament.
00:24:48
Speaker 2: Where is this at? Did I erase that? I will have to look that up, who they've got in, because I thought I copied and pasted. I did not. The Big Ten, they have two teams from the Big Ten, Ohio State and Indiana. They have Oregon on the outside looking in right now, Bone. The Big 12.
00:25:04
Speaker 3: Which is a very unexpected development, what we thought the Big 10 was when the year began.
00:25:08
Speaker 2: And they have to be. That's part of the reason why the SEC's got so many in there. The way they played the first two, they have to be. Big 12 won. It's BYU right now over Texas Tech. Obviously, they'll settle that. ACC only won. It's Miami. They do put Duke and Pitt in the, quote, wrong side of the bubble. They do at least mention them. as being on the bubble. That's very nice of ESPN to acknowledge more than just Miami.
00:25:32
Speaker 3: And I fully admit, Duke playoff talk, they've still got a long way to go based off who they played and what they had. That's a long way off before I start touting that. Well, you don't have much room for error in the ACC. You just don't.
00:25:47
Speaker 2: The SEC, I firmly believe there's a chance a three-loss team, Bone, could make it in. In the ACC, you probably get one. Now, Notre Dame is in there, obviously. And Boise is the, you know, group of six, the highest ranked group of 16 will get a spot. Basically, we need to break this down. We start trying to figure out, OK, how many could the ACC get? Is the SEC really going to get six, five? You got to start with there's there's going to be 10 spots, Bone, for the four power conferences because Notre Dame is going to go. And if I jinx them, great. But I think everybody believes Notre Dame will be there. And then you're going to get one group of six teams there. Boise has the best resume right now. So then it's 10 spots, Bone, for the other four power conferences. What do you think the chances are at the ACC getting more than one?
00:26:40
Speaker 3: Not looking good right now. And part of that is because SMU is the ranked team, right?
00:26:46
Speaker 2: They're 24th.
00:26:47
Speaker 3: They have the close one over Florida State. They have the loss to Louisville, which, by the way, looks worse and worse. The 10-point loss is getting worse and worse. They beat Missouri State by 10. They beat BC by 9. They're stacking up some wins, but in terms of optics and how they're looking, SMU does not appear right now like they are a playoff team where they're going to make it. So they may end up with a lot of wins, but that resume might not be too impressive. And they've got Cal, they've got Stanford, they've got Syracuse. They've got some games coming up that aren't really going to be helping their resume too much.
00:27:22
Speaker 2: That's my takeaway for SMU is there are losses coming.
00:27:25
Speaker 3: Unless they pull off a miracle against Notre Dame at the end of the year, then maybe that's different.
00:27:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously, that's a game changer. And they play Wake also. That's a game changer. But just watching this team, Bone, I haven't been very impressed with them in any of their games. No, you're right. Any of their games. They were in a 10-point game.
00:27:44
Speaker 3: Did it end up 10, Missouri State, you said?
00:27:47
Speaker 2: Missouri State was 34-24. It was a one-point game early in the fourth against Missouri freaking State. They were down 10-0 early in the game to Missouri freaking State. The Boston College game, I know the weather was bad, but that wasn't necessarily pretty. I just don't think they're good enough. You know what I mean? I think there are losses coming for them. With one loss, they might be in trouble based off who they're playing. They don't have the SEC room for more losses. They're already in some trouble, I think. I think the obvious best chance for the ACC to get multiple teams is for Miami to beat Notre Dame, go into the title game, the ACC title game, with no losses, and then someone beat them.
00:28:32
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: I think that's the obvious bone best chance for the ACC, right? Is to have somebody go in there, knock off Miami, get a spot as a conference champ. But Miami, if they do beat Notre Dame, they're going to have enough to get in. Now, if Miami were to get, even if they lost close to Notre Dame, I still feel like they might have a chance to get in when an ACC conference title game loss.
00:28:56
Speaker 3: Do we need to, do we need to analyze the chances for Wake Forest? They have the only loss to Miami. They have road games coming up at State, at Cal, Virginia, and then Mary Mac at home, at SMU, at Georgia Tech, and Duke. They have a great chance, Matt, to really get a lot of wins there. I mean, if they play Miami again and their only two losses are to Miami, it's not the best resume, but would they be the best hope to keep on winning and play Miami again?
00:29:27
Speaker 2: The question is what will be their ranked wins, though. You know what I mean? They have to have SMU keep being ranked here. They need that. And I don't know if i bet on that now can they get duke ranked like that's that's the thing is more of these acc duke's ranked in one of the polls we'll see how the playoff poll in weeks plays out but we're going to need the playoff committee and don't laugh when i say this everybody don't wreck your cars dying laughing we're going to need the playoff committee to rank a few of these ACC teams outside Miami. And I know it sounds funny because we're going to need actual respect bone. And they may actually only be able to rank like eight or nine SEC teams if they do that. So I don't know. I think Duke, maybe you're being modest as a Duke fan. I think there's a lot of wins on that Duke schedule. There is, you know, you mentioned wake. I think there's a lot of wins on that Duke schedule.
00:30:14
Speaker 3: That Duke way game end of the year is that that could be a, have massive implications. Mac, it's also very ACC like Duke. that virginia tech loses on a what looked to be a screw job field goal situation so they have a loss but also in that win pittsburgh who's been very good loses their star quarterback it's a very acc thing star quarterback lost for the team that wins and the team that lost well they could have used that win because maybe they can gain some and they may have won it because the kick might have been good very very acc like uh ending hashtag go acc man seriously what can go wrong will go right I hate that Pittsburgh lost their quarterback because he, first of all, he's a stud quarterback.
00:30:52
Speaker 2: So good, man.
00:30:53
Speaker 3: And that's, I don't know what that's going to do for them. I mean, they can probably still win a number of games, but they were looking like they may go for a 9 or 10 win season with Heichel in there.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that really hurts, man. And we'll see. We're going to talk about it this week. The Tar Heels have a chance to pull an upset the next two weeks. They got Pitt and Duke the next two weeks. We got to have a conversation. Carolina's been much more competitive recently. And without Heinzel, I wonder if Carolina's got a shot, Bone, to pull the stunner against Pittsburgh. But we'll talk about that in the next couple of days. As far as I want to come back and clean up, Bone, on aisle two. Got minor spill, just a couple drops, though. Nothing major, Bone. Just a paper towel. We don't need to mop. Mop's out, mop's out, mop's out. I thought just a little bounty would have done no Shrop, but I, I got on the air and thought I had all the sec teams bone that the ESPN was putting in the playoff right now. And I completely blew it. I had nothing. So let me circle back to that would be in if the playoff were today, according to, I think this Heather Denich does this thing each week. Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida still, despite the route to Missouri, Ole Miss still, despite the route loss to Florida, and LSU, despite losing to Ole Miss. They have on the wrong side of the bubble Tennessee listed as wrong. But that's six right there. And could the SEC really get– I mean, five might be the number I would bet. Like if you gave me– bet on how many SEC teams in the playoff– Five. Because the Big Ten bone, I guess Oregon could always win out, you know, and get back in the picture. But there are teams in the Big Ten that were expected to contend for the playoff that have not looked great and have blemishes. Michigan, Southern Cal, Lord knows Penn State's garbage. It ain't a playoff team. Washington. Is the Big Ten going to end up, Bone, with less? And the SEC picks up an extra team than expected.
00:32:51
Speaker 3: Do they have a fly in the ointment, though, in UCLA who's starting to get some rave reviews? They play at Oregon this week in a huge game. But, Mac, after that, they play Wisconsin at home, Michigan State at home, Nevada at Minnesota, Illinois at Michigan, and UCLA to close out the season. If UCLA can somehow pull off the upset against Oregon... they're going to go on a run here for a lot of wins. They might end up in playoff contention.
00:33:19
Speaker 2: Don't forget about the fighting PJ Flex either. If you're trying to find a surprise Big Ten team, Minnesota's balling right now, man. PJ Flex, that dude's a lunatic, but that dude can coach, man. Like, he can flat-out coach. And they've got– Now, they got blown out by Mississippi State in the non-con, but in the conference play, the Michigan win opened your eyes.
00:33:41
Speaker 3: Minnesota has coming up. Iowa, Indiana, UCLA, all ranked opponents in a row. So that'll be– they got opportunity there. Then they play– a lesser team in the big 10 after that and in penn state.
00:33:53
Speaker 2: My guess is way lesser like i'm talking about maybe the worst in the conference i'm so down on penn state right now what an embarrassing pathetic performance that was again you let northwestern run for 413 on your heinies.
00:34:04
Speaker 3: That's another team that's balling too that's another team balling offensively at chip kelly though my my.
00:34:08
Speaker 2: Feeling like do you all these teams that we're saying watch them watch them i feel like they all maybe beat each other in the big 10 You know what I mean? Do they all beat each other? Yeah. So, anyway, I don't know, man. This dude says, just call it what it is, Mac. The damn sorry SEC invitational. Also, Nebraska. People trying to point out Nebraska bone with the fighting Matt rules. You know what I'm saying? We got the court here. We got all the wins. You know what I mean? We're excited. They get their first real test this week against Indiana. So we'll see. We'll see a little bit more about Matty Rule's boys. I'm worried about that a little bit. I don't want to see Matt Rule get the big winning. I can't have that happen. Husker Mike says about to beat Nebraska and be 6-0. Matt Rule's brought that swag back. Was it the appearance on Lanterns, the TV series? Is that what's got you off the order 5-0 record? Oh, man. Anyway, JMU, Matt, pumping up Bob Chesney at UCLA. Says they're going to go into Oregon and get the dub. If you need a coach, you can't go wrong with just hiring a guy at JMU. It's unbelievable. It's crazy. Signetti and him.
00:35:22
Speaker 3: When we come back, a new random crap is coming up. A new Bryce song has dropped and has another flair. Betrayed the Carolina Panthers. It's been a while since a flair heel turn happened. That is next. Sports Radio 92.7. Mack Bone and the Drop Dog.
00:35:45
Speaker 5: Random crap, random crap, Mac and Bone talk, random crap, random crap, random crap, Mac and Bone talk, random crap, random, random crap, random crap, random crap.
00:36:02
Speaker 3: What the deuce?
00:36:03
Speaker 1: Oh, crap.
00:36:04
Speaker 3: Oh, crap.
00:36:04
Speaker 2: We stink like a baby's blowout infested diaper.
00:36:08
Speaker 5: They talk about crap that is random.
00:36:11
Speaker 3: It's the Queen City's favorite born in tandem.
00:36:13
Speaker 2: Mack and Bone. Random crap. Mack and Bone. All right, it is time for Random Crap. The P-Man is in the building. He is doing his segment live coming up at 8 o'clock. A little Willie's World, ladies and gentlemen. Never heard anybody. And that's coming up at 8 o'clock. But let's get to Random Crap in the meantime. Have a little bit of fun here, or will we? People are already triggered about Charlotte Flair. We hadn't even gotten into it yet. Wait until you hear the audio clip from her. But anyway, let's start Panther Nation with this one. A brand-new Bryce song has dropped. I kind of like this ditty. Now, who has done this song? We've got to get proper credit. This is your guy, man, Richard Cannon, on Instagram. The cannon goes boom. All right. And he has dropped this Bryce song, and I see Grammys in this man's future. Listen to this.
00:37:06
Speaker 3: I'm Christopher Young.
00:37:13
Speaker 2: Oh, a Sunday night football was fire, 3-29 against the Lions, Panthers won! Rise, Christopher Young! Two touchdowns in all black and tire. It's the quickest thing I've ever done. Oh, Richard Cannon, you are a legend. God, he's hitting them high notes.
00:37:47
Speaker 3: My God, you know the Panthers are heading in the right direction when you start to see songs coming out about the team. We're going to have one tomorrow by the great Shaquan Bartle. There's a lot of Panthers song content coming out there.
00:38:02
Speaker 2: He's got, I don't know, do you think Shake can compete for a Grammy with our guy right there? That was amazing. Lyrics, high notes, everything, man. Not to mention, I never knew Bryce's middle name was Christopher. I learned something during that song. I didn't know either. I didn't know he had a fellow Chris there in Bryce Young. All right, now let's get to Charlotte. People are ripping our guy Richard Cannon for some reason. Why are people not liking that? Barron thought it was hilarious. Barron knows parody songs. All right, let's see. Ears are bleeding. I thought my man was nailing the high pitch. I liked it. I felt good about it. Saw his cannons went boom. I'd send him through to Hollywood, dog. I would. All right, let's get to this. If you don't like that, you really ain't going to like this, I don't think. So Charlotte Flair was out there, Bone, to pound the key pounding drum, the Charlotte native. to hit the key pounding drum before the first huge game, mammoth game, first Sunday night football game at home in 11 years. And then she did an interview, Bone, where she told everybody, I like the Panthers, but they're not my only favorite team.
00:39:04
Speaker 6: Born in Charlotte, raised high school, then graduated NC State.
00:39:08
Speaker 5: Wolfpack.
00:39:09
Speaker 3: I remember going to Panthers games when I was little.
00:39:11
Speaker 2: I actually cheered on the halftime shows when they had like, oh.
00:39:14
Speaker 3: The youth cheerleading teams come.
00:39:16
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:39:16
Speaker 4: But as I got older, then I became a Rams fan.
00:39:18
Speaker 1: Thank goodness it's West-South, but I feel like you can be, you know, proud of both teams.
00:39:25
Speaker 3: You don't have to pick, like Charlotte will always be home, but I love my Rams, but I will say, I feel like I was a good luck charm for the Panthers that night because Bryce Young just killed it.
00:39:36
Speaker 2: Well, if you keep showing up, they're going to end up playing the Rams in the NFC Championship, Charlotte. You're going to have to pick a side eventually.
00:39:42
Speaker 3: Dude, they played them twice last year, and I was like, I'm not going.
00:39:45
Speaker 2: I'm not picking sides. I can't go. Mac, I don't blame her for this. You know why? I blame us. We trusted a flare.
00:39:55
Speaker 3: Have we not learned something for the last 40 to 45 years? Her father is known as the dirtiest player in the game. That's on us for believing what we saw with Starwood Flare.
00:40:05
Speaker 2: That's on us. We trusted a flare. We got to own that one. But I don't know. It's not on us. It's on the Panthers.
00:40:09
Speaker 3: That's the only family with more teams than my own. It's on the Panthers.
00:40:12
Speaker 2: If they would have asked you probably on Friday, should we do this? You probably would have told them you can't trust a flare. Check her.
00:40:17
Speaker 3: Resume what your dad is or dad roots the entire NFC West yeah people uh texter says it is in her bloodline to be a turncoat.
00:40:27
Speaker 2: Another texter says, as long as it's not a division team, like when dad sold us out for the Falcons, I'm OK. But it's literally the team we played in the playoff game. And she said she didn't pick a rooting interest. Meanwhile, how can somebody that did not definitively root for us in the playoff game be a good choice to keep pounding drum?
00:40:45
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, she was at the game. Our truth was with her fellow wrestler, diehard Panther fan. He should have been still with here. He was up there with her watching the game. Not necessarily as big a name as Flair, but he should have done it there. Also, I didn't laugh when Mike Tirico said, here's Charlotte Flair on the key pounding drum. She's named for the city of Charlotte. Well, actually, Mike, she's named Ashley. Her wrestling name is named after the city of Charlotte. She wasn't actually bored, Charlotte, right? Get that straight there.
00:41:13
Speaker 2: Get that shocking that Mike Tirica might not have deep knowledge of wrestling names. People are now mad at me.
00:41:19
Speaker 1: Why?
00:41:20
Speaker 2: Bone, you're the Ric Flair of Charlotte currently. No, I'm not. You do, yeah. You and him probably got similar amount of squads. He's worse than I am. Willie's in studio counting them over there right now. He's still going.
00:41:31
Speaker 4: Stop.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: I don't have enough fingers. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Let's all celebrate that Finney's not here. Bone, did you hear this story about the jersey? Her motto is sometimes pounding. Sometimes! Did you hear the story about the under 10 or the 10 year old youth baseball team in New Jersey called the Jersey Hitmen? Have you heard this story? I haven't heard this one. I got interested. So a bunch of moms of these 10 year old baseball players on the Jersey Hitmen. What a name, by the way, for a kid's team, the Hitmen. Anyway, a bunch of moms went together and had all these jackets made with the team name on it and stuff. And they all showed up kind of like the Canes wags did at Stanley Cup final. They all showed up in their team gear, right? Their team mom gear. Well, the owner and I don't really understand how there's an owner of a 10 year old team, but the guy that owns the team. now wants a 15% royalty restitution because somebody produced jackets with the team name on it. And this dude is looking for a cut. And not only is he just looking for a cut, he has suspended every 10-year-old whose mom bought one of these jackets.
00:42:49
Speaker 1: What?
00:42:51
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? Oh, my gracious. What a U Sports in 2026 story this is.
00:42:56
Speaker 5: Oh, my.
00:42:57
Speaker 2: That'll be a TV show. Oh, are you kidding me?
00:43:00
Speaker 5: Oh, man.
00:43:00
Speaker 2: Last but not least. Also, enough about me. That was about Charlotte Flair. Now I'm under fire here.
00:43:06
Speaker 5: Jeez.
00:43:07
Speaker 2: Would you be? I wonder if they. Do you think they'd let you hit the key pounding drum, or do you have too many teams?
00:43:13
Speaker 3: Why are you jumping in? They probably learned their lesson. Support your guy here. I'm under fire now. Someone just called Willie P the dirtiest chef in the game.
00:43:19
Speaker 2: That's it.
00:43:20
Speaker 3: P-Man's in here, man, looking smooth, baby. Gosh, with a blue blazer on?
00:43:25
Speaker 2: Looking smooth. You can tell he's got to go on TV. He would not dress like this for us. There's just no way. Last but not least, Bone, I want to shout out Niners linebacker Dre Greenlaw. You see what he was up to during the game the other day, Bone? Oh, I loved it. He was living a dream for all of us. He is the latest person to MF Sean Payton all over the place. The other day told him to, he went Matt Ryan. He went Matt Ryan on him, told him, get the F off his field to Sean Payton. Um, he, he said he was asked what he was yelling at him. He said, I told him to get the F off the field. That's it. Get the F off the field. He's angry bone about the way Sean Payton treated him. Remember he signed that deal with Denver. It didn't work out. He got injured. He says, once I got injured, Sean Payton resented my presence because I couldn't help him and couldn't play. So he would ignore me and literally not talk to me once I was hurt. And he says, I will never forgive that man for it. So, Bone, we have now added, I think we're at one million people that hate Sean Payton. And that may be a conservative estimate. Hey, Smugly Do-Right, remember when you couldn't help your team when you were suspended for a year? Everybody ignore you and the Saints organization.
00:44:40
Speaker 3: Mac, if you lined up all the people that want to yell at Sean Payton, how long would that line go? Just one after the other. Just wrap the whole way around the earth, I believe. I think, Bone, it's hard to bring America together during these times. We all have our different opinions. People, unfortunately, choose sides all the time.
00:44:57
Speaker 2: I feel like if a candidate was to run on Sean Payton as a jackass, I think they could unify both parties. I really believe that. Except in Louisiana and Colorado. The other 48 states, I think you could unify the parties together.
00:45:13
Speaker 3: He's the anti-Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton was loved by so many, universally loved. He's universally hated, but Dolly Parton was loved. Except by Philly Marlowe, yeah. But, Mac, is he not the opposite of Dolly Parton? He is.
00:45:26
Speaker 2: She was loved. Sean Payton hated. He's the anti-Dolly. And there is no doubt about it. By the way, uniform Ned had to weigh in, Bone, apparently, on the moms, the 10-year-old baseball moms buying the jackets. Says, Mac, travel baseball teams are a business at their core. And someone or a few people own the brain. So clearly the dude wants to be able to sell baseball. merch and not have somebody else make it but god that's crazy 20 that's just we we are no we are in it i don't know boat have you ever noticed we're in a money money hungry world i have.
00:46:02
Speaker 3: Noticed that also someone sent us a link that drake may doesn't believe the moon landing was real i'm gonna look.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: Oh yeah that's the thing i'm gonna look into that story as well here that's the thing he's been talking to aaron rogers they've been sharing conspiracy.
00:46:12
Speaker 3: Theories When we come back, a man that is not fake, a man that is real, Willie P. of the Charlotte FC Radio Network and many of a WFNZ postgame show, all the shows here at WFNZ. Willie P. in studio next. Panthers and FC Talks, Sports Radio, 92.7 WFNZ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been great. It's an amazing city, Charlotte, the Carolinas as a whole.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: The support, we all feel it.
00:00:20
Speaker 1: We rally around that. Being able to play at the bank has become a special environment. We've had some special nights. Other nights, just the atmosphere, it's electric. But yeah, you definitely feel it throughout the city. And for us, it's our job to continue that, to keep building. And we rally around the city in the same way they rally around us.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: There you go, Bryce. That's sweet. We love you too, Bryce, except for about four dudes who wet their bed and live with their mamas that are all over social media right now.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: A bunch of bed-wetting mamas boys on there. He's still not good. Look at the defenses he faced. He's still not good.
00:00:55
Speaker 2: My God. Just enjoy it. Enjoy it, Charlotte. We got ourselves a quarterback playing the best quarterback since Cam Newton was in the city of Charlotte. Just enjoy it. Stop arguing. and stop trying to prove that you're right. Ah, quarterback's not good after all. I'd like to see him play against a good defense, because he played against Cleveland, and it wasn't as good as the other teams. Keep in mind, Cleveland had the fourth-ranked defense in the NFL last year. By the way, I said it yesterday. The Bears have given up 26 points in the three games since we played them. Hell, Atlanta's defense has been better. Bryce Young, absolutely. Bryce Young put up 37. That's 11 more points than all three other Bears opponents have scored combined. So anyway, but enough because I shouldn't do a show bone for the four bedwetting mama's boys. We should do the show for everybody else that is out there. And right now, the show that we're going to. Oh, my God. Bebop says he's been surprised by Bryce's play. There you go. He's talking contract for Bryce now. There you go, baby. Oh, my God. It's more like Gleebop than Bebop. Oh, what a world to live in. You know what? World peace is possible after all. World peace is possible. Finney's got a girlfriend and Bob's praising Bryce. Did you see the guy that said, rather be golfing? The guy that texted in and said about the miracle it is, Bone. Don't put nothing in the window, Tampa. You're 0-4. Get down the hallway. I can't believe Tampa Tammy can show her face around here. You should be armory crawling on the ground so we can't see you. You are the most embarrassing. When you embarrass the NFC South, you know you suck. Seriously.
00:02:30
Speaker 3: There's a last place meeting in the conference room right now.
00:02:33
Speaker 2: There you go. Big donut. Get her some Dunkin' Donuts to celebrate her team's zero wins. All right, anyway, what was I saying? Rather be golfing's text. Rather be golfing texted in to say, Bone, that it is basically hell is freezing over because all three of us have ladies at the same time in our life. Yeah. Are you distracted, Bone? Are you distracted? Right.
00:03:02
Speaker 3: No, I'm not distracted at all. I'm saying, yeah, and then he's laughing back there. So, yeah, no, miracles do exist. Panthers are playing well. We're all in love with each other. Not each other. We have people that love us. We go home together. We don't go home together.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: I'm very distracted. You're doing well with this right now, Bone. Someone remove Tampa, Tampa. Can we get security to get Tampa, Tampa out of here? They're afraid of it. Let's talk now about the topic that you tease, Bone. Let's talk about it. We're four games into the season, and we can start to draw some conclusions. It's certainly not perfect. I do want to remind all of us we're 2-2. That's NFC South good, but that's not good around the rest of the league. But there's been plenty of things, most of them on offense, that have been better than I think we expected. There's been things... some of them on defense, I would think, Bone, that had been worse than expected. Who is a player, coach, aspect of the team? What's the first thing you think of, Bone, in terms of being better than you thought it would be? Boy, this is high praise because we knew the guy was good. He was 27th.
00:04:08
Speaker 3: In the nfl top 100 he's an all pro but mac i there's another level of dominance that devin lloyd has that seeing him up close and how he impacts the game devin lloyd we knew was a big time signing but his presence and we saw when he's in there when he's not in there to me you talk about a guy well worth the money is devin lloyd no doubt are you distracted right now by what i'm saying I.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: Think I know what you're saying, Bone. How is she still out there with zero wins? All right, anyway. She's lasted longer than the bus season. It's like her college coach, Dabo Sweeney, but can't get rid of her. Anyway, yes, I think I know what you're saying about Devin Lloyd. You see the season he had last year. You hear all the accolades. You read all the different advanced metrics of what he was as a run defender, a pass rusher, and in coverage. But until you see it for yourself and watch it for a full game and he's playing for your team, you don't quite totally understand. And so I think I feel you. And that is good because I thought it was literally going to be all positives on offense and all negatives on defense. I'm just going to say the obvious. Bryce Young is playing at a level that I did not expect him to play at. First of all, he has the slow start trend. He and this team in general. So for him to get off to this kind of start, it bucks that trend. Secondly, Bone, it's just, I knew he was making a jump. This is not a jump. This is taking an elevator up like 10 floors.
00:05:38
Speaker 3: If we would have said Bryce will have MVP chatter four weeks in, people would have horse laughed at us.
00:05:43
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: We probably would have said, all right, we're being sarcastic. But that's legitimate conversation, not just here, but there's national stuff about it.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: It's amazing. I saw Josh Norris tweet. You know, Josh is still a Panther fan at heart, Boney. And he tweeted out one of those graphs. And it showed that Bryce Young has the lowest percentage of clean pockets of any quarterback in the NFL. And he said, how the heck does the quarterback with the lowest percentage of clean pockets lead the league in yards? It's what he is overcoming now. is remarkable. It really is. And then you go, the weapons being out, and obviously the O-line, and the run game has been some timey. A lot of times they haven't committed to it. They put it all on Bryce. I'll say another thing, because we're asking the question, through four weeks, if you're a Panther fan, what or who has been better than you expected, and what or who has been worse than expected? Brad Idzik. I mean, I love the move to go to him. I think you did. I think we all did, Bone. But to see him hit the ground running, and I don't think he's been perfect. I still don't understand why T-Mac wasn't moved into the slot more to get him away from Denzel Ward in Cleveland. But I'm not nitpicking that. The majority of what Brad Izzik has touched has turned to gold. I mean, for him and all the national people, Bone, I hear what they're saying. A lot of the national people only saw the Panthers on Sunday. They haven't seen the three previous Panther games. So they think Brad Itzik's been doing this, get it out fast, RPO thing all season. No, the brilliance of that game plan is he has not been doing that. They have been wanting to get it downfield more and more, but he did that specifically because of the issues on the offensive line and the Lions defensive front. He has just been off to a brilliant start.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: And I'll say because he's doing such a great job, can I throw an element, Mac, of Dave Kanellis in here? Think about we are now four games in, and think about how much we analyze each game and each moment and each play. If I'm wrong, let me know. Have we had that many discussions about Dave Canales this year in game management? Handling games, timeouts, situational football? I feel like for a month into the season, we haven't had too many coaching things. We say, why did he do that? What did that do?
00:07:54
Speaker 2: I feel like Canales has been in control of the game management stuff so far. Outside of Cleveland. The only thing I can think of is that fourth down from their own 40 against Cleveland.
00:08:02
Speaker 3: There's always going to be something, but there hasn't been... But that's just a decision we didn't like. There hasn't been some bungling of a half or the end of a game where we're like, oh, my God, what was that? They've been pretty tightened up here.
00:08:14
Speaker 4: You're right, Matt, because if they convert and they go down and score, how different is the narrative about double down day? We're coming up with a different nickname for them. But that's a good thing is that we're four games in. And there's only been one scenario that really comes to mind where, like, we didn't like how they didn't close the game out the other night. They'll learn from that. They'll grow from that. But, like, that wasn't on Dave Canales, I didn't think. We've seen the benefit of him no longer calling plays.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: Oh, no doubt about it. How about the story he told about being able to go to a Caleb Evans, now it didn't really help, and Princely during the game and talk to them personally, like, hey, man, you know, this is tough. You got to dig in. Like, he can't do that when he's not a head coach. It's two jobs. Like, I know many guys make it look easy to be a head coach and a coordinator, and they're special. But it's two jobs. And Dave Canales does one. Brad Idzik does the other. It's made both of those positions better for us. It really has. 7045, 709610, what do y'all or who are we not mentioning that has been better than you think? What has been worse than we thought? I'll just say it. I know the O-line has been obviously worse than we thought it would be. We knew, Bone, that we didn't have Moten, we didn't have Icky. Rasheed Walker's pass protection has been quite a bit worse than I thought it would be. He was 11th in pass block win rate last year. Bone, he has six pressures, six pressures, and seven pressures allowed in the last three games. I like that noise. That's been a bit appalling. I thought the pass protection was the strong part of his game. I was trying not to interrupt your point, so apparently I just It did. Can I go back to another offensive lineman? Can I go to another offensive lineman there with Fortner? I'm not saying I had... We know that Hecht is the future. I thought Fortner could hold it down. I called him Fortner Knox in the summertime. No one really acknowledged that I said that, thank God. But I'm now wondering how long until Hecht gets a look in there. Once he does.
00:10:21
Speaker 3: Much like Freeling on the left side, once he gets in there, it's going to be a long time until he's removed. But you just wonder how many bad outings until they say, hey, what the heck, let's put the— I didn't mean for the pun there, by the way. People are calling out Fortner right there.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: And it doesn't stop there. We have a Robert Hunt problem. Robert Hunt. Robert Hunt, I think, played his best game this past week, though. I think that is encouraging. I hope so, because— Although he did have the penalty. He didn't go too far downfield early. But yeah, Robert Hunt is being mentioned on the text line. You can't deny he is not playing as well as we would have all expected.
00:10:54
Speaker 3: How about this for a surprise? Nick Scott getting some love from Westside Randy and Merrick coming up as a negative so far this year from a texter. Yeah, Merrick has not made... Based off expectation of who he is.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what the question is, is who is performing better than you expected? What about this team is better than expected? And who or what is worse? And Merrick hasn't really made those difference-making plays at quite as much bone as we remember him doing. Hell, he had a chance to make a big difference-making play, sent on a blitz, gets cleaned through, and he can't take down Deshaun Watson.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: You know, that's an example of it right there. Mac, how about this for a point by Panthers 24-7? We'd have to ask the offensive line experts or Buckner, who knows obviously line play, how much is Fortner's play affecting Robert Hunt next to him right now? How much does Fortner not being good affecting the other guys?
00:11:50
Speaker 2: Robert Hunt is paid to not be affected by people next to him. And he said the penalties? He's paid to actually be great and have a good effect on people next to him. And there's been some times where he's just been straight beat. Tons of penalties. To me, he looks old. Is it just the injury? Is it the remnants of coming off the injury? Which would make a lot of sense.
00:12:09
Speaker 4: Like, Mac, that body's been, like his body and my body, been through a lot at the age of 30.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Your body doesn't move. You go sit and eat. How the hell's your body been through? High school sports? Church league ball?
00:12:22
Speaker 3: Someone says, ask Mac what's it like to work with guys that aren't doing their job next to you.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: Oh, that's cold. These boys bring it every day, baby.
00:12:31
Speaker 3: Don't talk about Phinney that way. These boys bring it every day. Guy's working his buns off back there.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: Now, what do you think about people bringing up Derrick Brown has been... Less than we expect him to be. First of all, he's got a very high standard. So even a lesser Derrick Brown is better than most. I didn't think he got off to his best start. He had the penalty against Chicago, which was a problem. Although I thought the other day... He had two against Chicago.
00:12:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, the other day I thought you started to see more of the old Derrick Brown. We haven't seen really... The dominance that we're used to, just like chucking guys like pro wrestlers. But eventually, it's going to come around there. I trust him fully. Has it been his best year?
00:13:11
Speaker 2: No.
00:13:12
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean he can't reach his potential still. I feel like his last two games, we've seen more of an impact. And listen, Derrick Brown's the type of guy, Bowen, that could be taking on two blockers, and that's what they wanted him to do on that play.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: So it's some of these positions for us.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: I guess football people would argue us talking about all these positions probably is not right.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: But like... You know, it does need to be said in the trenches about, you know, hey, he could be doing his job on assignments, on plays, and we're not smart enough to know it. I do think just in terms of impact on the game, I feel like the first two weeks were a little slow. I do feel like he's gotten it going more the last couple of weeks. Bone had five pressures against Cleveland, had the batted passes. against Detroit. I think we're starting to see a little more impact. People bringing up Jalen Phillips. Again, edge rusher watch. I don't, it's probably in all towns, not just this town, but unless, you know, this dude has, you know, Buku Sachs, I feel like there's always going to be people texting in saying he's not doing his job. He's a great run defender. He's immensely improved our setting of the edge and run defense. The pressure's bone. I think it's two sacks and how many pressures? 16 through four games? So that's a pace for, I don't know, what's 17 times four? Well, 17 times two is 34. 68. 68. 71? 51. I think it's 71. No, 72. I'm sorry. 72, right? And that'd be 18.
00:14:48
Speaker 4: 68.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: I thought 68 was 16. No.
00:14:50
Speaker 5: Oh, you're right.
00:14:51
Speaker 2: 17 times 4 is 68. Damn, he out-mathed me. God, he out-mathed me. Score one for 50. Someone says Willie P's cooking has been less seasoned than expected here in the 2026 season. Get out of here!
00:15:02
Speaker 5: Out of the.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: Kindness of his heart. You are out of your freaking mind. We're not doing that today. Why does it not matter what the topic is? Pete can catch a stray. We could be talking about the government balancing the budget. Not that we'd sound even more clueless then, obviously. But Willie P would catch a stray.
00:15:19
Speaker 3: Has anyone ever thought I should say something nice about Willie P today? Why didn't someone say something nice? Phinney, say something nice about Willie.
00:15:26
Speaker 5: That.
00:15:29
Speaker 2: He's got nothing. He's a hell of a play-by-play announcer. Inspired, passionate goal calls are amazing. How about that? He's always on time. Nice man. DeCathlete wants us to back up the criticism of Rob Hunt. He's just now getting back to football rhythm after the triceps injury. How many games did he get last year after coming back? from the injury plus four this season. He came back just for the playoff game. That was it. Um, yeah, that's, that's the thing. I think Fitty was the one going the hardest on Rob Hunt. I would just like to cite, I don't think he's looked his best. I thought he played his best game of the season the other day. I just, I don't want, you know, we're, we're simply having a conversation bone about dudes that are not or, or aspects of the team that are as good or not good. I don't believe Rob Hunt needs to be, you know, treated and, you know.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: Thrown out of town. Only one person's brought up Jalen Phillips' name on here. Oh, there's only one?
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe and Raleigh. I thought for sure there was more. Joe and Raleigh.
00:16:29
Speaker 3: Usually I thought there'd be more because I've seen more on Twitter about him, but only one texter so far. That's an interesting development there. Joe and Raleigh does say, though, Prince Lee had three sacks. It's a pleasant surprise so far. Yeah, he had the horrible first game with the contain. The lack of contain. It was a terrible game, I believe, for him. But there's no doubt you see it. You see the flashes. And we've always known Bone as a pass rusher. He has an ability. He is a ridiculous athlete with a quick get-off. and that spin move, and I mean, like, that bend. Like, we've all known the pass rusher that he is. Hell, just ask Jalen Phillips.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: He'll tell you. He says he's the best pure pass rusher we got on this team. The questions I think we've had about him, Bo, is maturity thing, right? You have that with a lot of young players. And then we've also questioned, can he hold up on rundowns? I still have questions about, can he hold up on rundowns? I still think against mobile quarterbacks, against Williams and Watson, he's got a little more of a controlled rush. But I said it last week. I said going into the game, he's going to have a big game because Jared Goff ain't going to move from him. And he's been getting pressure. And that damn statue ain't getting away from him. And I'll be damned if he didn't show up with six pressures. And they sacked. So I'm pretty happy with Prince Lee. There's still room to grow, too, but I'm happy with him.
00:17:47
Speaker 3: He's also got a lot more pressure on him than we thought entering the season because of the scoring loss. So there has to be, I do believe, a little more patience as he grows into that full-time gig there. Matt, we have shocking news. Willie P ended the segment upset with Fetty Marlowe. Because Fiddy did not say something nice about him. Now Willie's got his feelings hurt. How does this always happen back on Wednesdays right before Willie comes into the studio? It never fails, does it? I think you set Fiddy up for that, I feel like. Although Fiddy won't be here when Willie gets here. Fiddy's going to head over to ACC Timber.
00:18:18
Speaker 2: That's right. So there will not be a fist fight that we were hoping to see. A couple of texts coming in here. 704-570-9610 if you want to get in here. Likes the paycheck. Said I'm disappointed in JJ. He hasn't registered a tackle yet. But he's been explaining to Coach Canales all the different penalties, Bowen, that have been called.
00:18:38
Speaker 3: He's been doing that. JJ's got a lot of jobs to do. Let's just lay off him, all right? Snapping is just one of them.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: 704 number says, Mac just basically threw Fitty in front of the bus or in front of a pulling guard. Mac just basically said, Rob Hunt, if you're out there listening, Fitty is the one really bashing you. I want to clarify.
00:18:58
Speaker 4: I don't like feeling that way about Big Rob. Like, he's my favorite offensive lineman. We've got a chance to talk to him the past couple years out of training camp. You know how much that guy cares.
00:19:07
Speaker 2: You know how.
00:19:07
Speaker 4: Important he is to this offensive line. So I bet he's eager to get it corrected. Mac, I'm just worried and concerned because we've seen him look a different way.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: But.
00:19:19
Speaker 4: You know, that body. He's just been through a lot. So it makes a lot of sense. But with all the other injuries, we need him to be the Rob Hunt that we're paying him to be. But it's still amazing. And it's a testament to Bryce. With all the issues up front, what this offense is doing on a game-in, game-out basis.
00:19:38
Speaker 2: It defies logic.
00:19:39
Speaker 3: It's also a credit to Brad Inzik and how quickly they're operating and how much Bryce is moving the ball quick now compared to what he used to.
00:19:46
Speaker 2: This past week, it was a brilliant game plan.
00:19:49
Speaker 3: Old Bryce with his offensive line could have been a disaster.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: He has been slinging it. He still has the most deep completions in the NFL, despite this offensive line that has allowed the most pressure in the NFL. Those two stats don't add up. They don't compute. It's crazy. I also, I don't know if anybody did it on the text line. The tight ends deserve a shout out. This tight end group, this is the best a tight end group has been, Bone.
00:20:11
Speaker 3: Hell, since Greg Olson was the guy running the tight end group. Like, I honestly believe that. And a lot of it is Brad Itzik really embracing the bootleg stuff to the tight ends and Bryce doing that so well.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: But Darren Waller's been such a good addition. And I think Tremble's been good this year. And Mitchell Evans is solid. So I want to throw those guys some praise, man.
00:20:33
Speaker 3: When we come back, how is the college football playoff picture looking as we near the halfway point?
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Mac, we're at the halfway point already?
00:20:40
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:20:41
Speaker 2: How quickly does it come? We're near it, right? I wouldn't say there, but five games in for teams?
00:20:46
Speaker 3: But are we headed towards six SEC teams and one ACC team? We'll discuss it. Sports Radio 92.7 WFNZ.
00:21:19
Speaker 2: All right, y'all. Shout out to Smoke Ludwig, who is under fire at this radio station because the man lost our TV remote in the studio. Now, I guess Bone says he claims that he left it here Sunday night. So he is saying there's a mysterious remote control thief in our midst, Bone?
00:21:38
Speaker 3: Is that his theory? He's got it down to the minute that at 1.04 a.m. from Sunday night into Monday that it was right here and now it's gone. So that's also the night that Philly slept over. So there's a chance that Fitty has packed up this remote in his belongings? Think it's still wrapped up in his blankie? Also, Smoke, very upset that you have not figured out until right now that you can change the channel by hitting your finger on the TV.
00:22:00
Speaker 2: It just occurred to me. I said, how did they change the channel with no remote? Bone goes, you can just press it with your finger. And you would think my old ass can remember the non-remote days? Because there was a non-remote day in this world.
00:22:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker 2: And I'm old enough to have lived through it. But I completely have forgotten that was an option. But Smoke, don't change the subject, my man. You were the last man to touch that remote control from the WFNZ staff. This is on you, bro. This is on you, Smokey. You're the most likable guy here, Smokey, but this is not good to have on your resume, baby. He claimed it. I'm not going to throw a– I believe Smoke. The whole station was looking for it during the pregame show last night. Who would steal a remote here? Is it like WBT? Did they lose their remote at WBT and they need it to toggle between News Nation, Fox News, and whatever else they've got on over there?
00:22:51
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:22:51
Speaker 2: All right, anyway, let's get to– College football here. If anybody has seen our remote, please let us know. 7045709. Now we have to figure out who's going to buy a new one. This dude says, the fact that the old guy at the station didn't know that you could change the channel without a remote is classic. M-Dawg thinks Tampa Tammy came in here, bone to cause chaos.
00:23:18
Speaker 5: No.
00:23:19
Speaker 3: And distract from their 0-4 record. She doesn't want to see NFL Network's Buccaneers coverage.
00:23:24
Speaker 2: And we finally have a.
00:23:26
Speaker 3: Little bit of class and respectability back behind the board. Fitty out to ACC Media Days now. Schrappi has come in behind the board.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: Schrappi's in, baby. Schrappi, you're a team player coming in early, baby. Yeah, I appreciate it.
00:23:39
Speaker 6: I wish I felt better, sounded better, looked better. But, hey, at least you don't have. Hey, you're on the right show.
00:23:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, well.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: Hey, if there's ever a show, Schrappi, you can just kind of chill and not talk. It's on the magazine. There you go.
00:23:51
Speaker 3: I got you.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: I got your reps.
00:23:53
Speaker 6: The good thing is that the studio will probably smell a little bit better throughout the rest of the show here.
00:23:58
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. That is true. Although those chicken wings from this weekend still affected my tummy.
00:24:02
Speaker 5: No, Shrop.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: That's the bad news. All right, let's talk college football. So I was reading ESPN.com every week, Bone. They do a look at the playoff picture. And again, we are, you know, once teams play their sixth game here, some of them will play their sixth game this week, Bone. they'll be halfway through their season. So it is, this season goes faster than any in sport. It's the shortest in sports. It might be the best in sports and it's moving. So let's talk about the playoff situation and kind of how it looks right now and where maybe, Bone, we think it is headed. Now, the ESPN piece has six teams in the SEC in the playoff as of right now, Bone. Six teams.
00:24:45
Speaker 3: It's basically the SEC tournament.
00:24:48
Speaker 2: Where is this at? Did I erase that? I will have to look that up, who they've got in, because I thought I copied and pasted. I did not. The Big Ten, they have two teams from the Big Ten, Ohio State and Indiana. They have Oregon on the outside looking in right now, Bone. The Big 12.
00:25:04
Speaker 3: Which is a very unexpected development, what we thought the Big 10 was when the year began.
00:25:08
Speaker 2: And they have to be. That's part of the reason why the SEC's got so many in there. The way they played the first two, they have to be. Big 12 won. It's BYU right now over Texas Tech. Obviously, they'll settle that. ACC only won. It's Miami. They do put Duke and Pitt in the, quote, wrong side of the bubble. They do at least mention them. as being on the bubble. That's very nice of ESPN to acknowledge more than just Miami.
00:25:32
Speaker 3: And I fully admit, Duke playoff talk, they've still got a long way to go based off who they played and what they had. That's a long way off before I start touting that. Well, you don't have much room for error in the ACC. You just don't.
00:25:47
Speaker 2: The SEC, I firmly believe there's a chance a three-loss team, Bone, could make it in. In the ACC, you probably get one. Now, Notre Dame is in there, obviously. And Boise is the, you know, group of six, the highest ranked group of 16 will get a spot. Basically, we need to break this down. We start trying to figure out, OK, how many could the ACC get? Is the SEC really going to get six, five? You got to start with there's there's going to be 10 spots, Bone, for the four power conferences because Notre Dame is going to go. And if I jinx them, great. But I think everybody believes Notre Dame will be there. And then you're going to get one group of six teams there. Boise has the best resume right now. So then it's 10 spots, Bone, for the other four power conferences. What do you think the chances are at the ACC getting more than one?
00:26:40
Speaker 3: Not looking good right now. And part of that is because SMU is the ranked team, right?
00:26:46
Speaker 2: They're 24th.
00:26:47
Speaker 3: They have the close one over Florida State. They have the loss to Louisville, which, by the way, looks worse and worse. The 10-point loss is getting worse and worse. They beat Missouri State by 10. They beat BC by 9. They're stacking up some wins, but in terms of optics and how they're looking, SMU does not appear right now like they are a playoff team where they're going to make it. So they may end up with a lot of wins, but that resume might not be too impressive. And they've got Cal, they've got Stanford, they've got Syracuse. They've got some games coming up that aren't really going to be helping their resume too much.
00:27:22
Speaker 2: That's my takeaway for SMU is there are losses coming.
00:27:25
Speaker 3: Unless they pull off a miracle against Notre Dame at the end of the year, then maybe that's different.
00:27:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously, that's a game changer. And they play Wake also. That's a game changer. But just watching this team, Bone, I haven't been very impressed with them in any of their games. No, you're right. Any of their games. They were in a 10-point game.
00:27:44
Speaker 3: Did it end up 10, Missouri State, you said?
00:27:47
Speaker 2: Missouri State was 34-24. It was a one-point game early in the fourth against Missouri freaking State. They were down 10-0 early in the game to Missouri freaking State. The Boston College game, I know the weather was bad, but that wasn't necessarily pretty. I just don't think they're good enough. You know what I mean? I think there are losses coming for them. With one loss, they might be in trouble based off who they're playing. They don't have the SEC room for more losses. They're already in some trouble, I think. I think the obvious best chance for the ACC to get multiple teams is for Miami to beat Notre Dame, go into the title game, the ACC title game, with no losses, and then someone beat them.
00:28:32
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: I think that's the obvious bone best chance for the ACC, right? Is to have somebody go in there, knock off Miami, get a spot as a conference champ. But Miami, if they do beat Notre Dame, they're going to have enough to get in. Now, if Miami were to get, even if they lost close to Notre Dame, I still feel like they might have a chance to get in when an ACC conference title game loss.
00:28:56
Speaker 3: Do we need to, do we need to analyze the chances for Wake Forest? They have the only loss to Miami. They have road games coming up at State, at Cal, Virginia, and then Mary Mac at home, at SMU, at Georgia Tech, and Duke. They have a great chance, Matt, to really get a lot of wins there. I mean, if they play Miami again and their only two losses are to Miami, it's not the best resume, but would they be the best hope to keep on winning and play Miami again?
00:29:27
Speaker 2: The question is what will be their ranked wins, though. You know what I mean? They have to have SMU keep being ranked here. They need that. And I don't know if i bet on that now can they get duke ranked like that's that's the thing is more of these acc duke's ranked in one of the polls we'll see how the playoff poll in weeks plays out but we're going to need the playoff committee and don't laugh when i say this everybody don't wreck your cars dying laughing we're going to need the playoff committee to rank a few of these ACC teams outside Miami. And I know it sounds funny because we're going to need actual respect bone. And they may actually only be able to rank like eight or nine SEC teams if they do that. So I don't know. I think Duke, maybe you're being modest as a Duke fan. I think there's a lot of wins on that Duke schedule. There is, you know, you mentioned wake. I think there's a lot of wins on that Duke schedule.
00:30:14
Speaker 3: That Duke way game end of the year is that that could be a, have massive implications. Mac, it's also very ACC like Duke. that virginia tech loses on a what looked to be a screw job field goal situation so they have a loss but also in that win pittsburgh who's been very good loses their star quarterback it's a very acc thing star quarterback lost for the team that wins and the team that lost well they could have used that win because maybe they can gain some and they may have won it because the kick might have been good very very acc like uh ending hashtag go acc man seriously what can go wrong will go right I hate that Pittsburgh lost their quarterback because he, first of all, he's a stud quarterback.
00:30:52
Speaker 2: So good, man.
00:30:53
Speaker 3: And that's, I don't know what that's going to do for them. I mean, they can probably still win a number of games, but they were looking like they may go for a 9 or 10 win season with Heichel in there.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that really hurts, man. And we'll see. We're going to talk about it this week. The Tar Heels have a chance to pull an upset the next two weeks. They got Pitt and Duke the next two weeks. We got to have a conversation. Carolina's been much more competitive recently. And without Heinzel, I wonder if Carolina's got a shot, Bone, to pull the stunner against Pittsburgh. But we'll talk about that in the next couple of days. As far as I want to come back and clean up, Bone, on aisle two. Got minor spill, just a couple drops, though. Nothing major, Bone. Just a paper towel. We don't need to mop. Mop's out, mop's out, mop's out. I thought just a little bounty would have done no Shrop, but I, I got on the air and thought I had all the sec teams bone that the ESPN was putting in the playoff right now. And I completely blew it. I had nothing. So let me circle back to that would be in if the playoff were today, according to, I think this Heather Denich does this thing each week. Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida still, despite the route to Missouri, Ole Miss still, despite the route loss to Florida, and LSU, despite losing to Ole Miss. They have on the wrong side of the bubble Tennessee listed as wrong. But that's six right there. And could the SEC really get– I mean, five might be the number I would bet. Like if you gave me– bet on how many SEC teams in the playoff– Five. Because the Big Ten bone, I guess Oregon could always win out, you know, and get back in the picture. But there are teams in the Big Ten that were expected to contend for the playoff that have not looked great and have blemishes. Michigan, Southern Cal, Lord knows Penn State's garbage. It ain't a playoff team. Washington. Is the Big Ten going to end up, Bone, with less? And the SEC picks up an extra team than expected.
00:32:51
Speaker 3: Do they have a fly in the ointment, though, in UCLA who's starting to get some rave reviews? They play at Oregon this week in a huge game. But, Mac, after that, they play Wisconsin at home, Michigan State at home, Nevada at Minnesota, Illinois at Michigan, and UCLA to close out the season. If UCLA can somehow pull off the upset against Oregon... they're going to go on a run here for a lot of wins. They might end up in playoff contention.
00:33:19
Speaker 2: Don't forget about the fighting PJ Flex either. If you're trying to find a surprise Big Ten team, Minnesota's balling right now, man. PJ Flex, that dude's a lunatic, but that dude can coach, man. Like, he can flat-out coach. And they've got– Now, they got blown out by Mississippi State in the non-con, but in the conference play, the Michigan win opened your eyes.
00:33:41
Speaker 3: Minnesota has coming up. Iowa, Indiana, UCLA, all ranked opponents in a row. So that'll be– they got opportunity there. Then they play– a lesser team in the big 10 after that and in penn state.
00:33:53
Speaker 2: My guess is way lesser like i'm talking about maybe the worst in the conference i'm so down on penn state right now what an embarrassing pathetic performance that was again you let northwestern run for 413 on your heinies.
00:34:04
Speaker 3: That's another team that's balling too that's another team balling offensively at chip kelly though my my.
00:34:08
Speaker 2: Feeling like do you all these teams that we're saying watch them watch them i feel like they all maybe beat each other in the big 10 You know what I mean? Do they all beat each other? Yeah. So, anyway, I don't know, man. This dude says, just call it what it is, Mac. The damn sorry SEC invitational. Also, Nebraska. People trying to point out Nebraska bone with the fighting Matt rules. You know what I'm saying? We got the court here. We got all the wins. You know what I mean? We're excited. They get their first real test this week against Indiana. So we'll see. We'll see a little bit more about Matty Rule's boys. I'm worried about that a little bit. I don't want to see Matt Rule get the big winning. I can't have that happen. Husker Mike says about to beat Nebraska and be 6-0. Matt Rule's brought that swag back. Was it the appearance on Lanterns, the TV series? Is that what's got you off the order 5-0 record? Oh, man. Anyway, JMU, Matt, pumping up Bob Chesney at UCLA. Says they're going to go into Oregon and get the dub. If you need a coach, you can't go wrong with just hiring a guy at JMU. It's unbelievable. It's crazy. Signetti and him.
00:35:22
Speaker 3: When we come back, a new random crap is coming up. A new Bryce song has dropped and has another flair. Betrayed the Carolina Panthers. It's been a while since a flair heel turn happened. That is next. Sports Radio 92.7. Mack Bone and the Drop Dog.
00:35:45
Speaker 5: Random crap, random crap, Mac and Bone talk, random crap, random crap, random crap, Mac and Bone talk, random crap, random, random crap, random crap, random crap.
00:36:02
Speaker 3: What the deuce?
00:36:03
Speaker 1: Oh, crap.
00:36:04
Speaker 3: Oh, crap.
00:36:04
Speaker 2: We stink like a baby's blowout infested diaper.
00:36:08
Speaker 5: They talk about crap that is random.
00:36:11
Speaker 3: It's the Queen City's favorite born in tandem.
00:36:13
Speaker 2: Mack and Bone. Random crap. Mack and Bone. All right, it is time for Random Crap. The P-Man is in the building. He is doing his segment live coming up at 8 o'clock. A little Willie's World, ladies and gentlemen. Never heard anybody. And that's coming up at 8 o'clock. But let's get to Random Crap in the meantime. Have a little bit of fun here, or will we? People are already triggered about Charlotte Flair. We hadn't even gotten into it yet. Wait until you hear the audio clip from her. But anyway, let's start Panther Nation with this one. A brand-new Bryce song has dropped. I kind of like this ditty. Now, who has done this song? We've got to get proper credit. This is your guy, man, Richard Cannon, on Instagram. The cannon goes boom. All right. And he has dropped this Bryce song, and I see Grammys in this man's future. Listen to this.
00:37:06
Speaker 3: I'm Christopher Young.
00:37:13
Speaker 2: Oh, a Sunday night football was fire, 3-29 against the Lions, Panthers won! Rise, Christopher Young! Two touchdowns in all black and tire. It's the quickest thing I've ever done. Oh, Richard Cannon, you are a legend. God, he's hitting them high notes.
00:37:47
Speaker 3: My God, you know the Panthers are heading in the right direction when you start to see songs coming out about the team. We're going to have one tomorrow by the great Shaquan Bartle. There's a lot of Panthers song content coming out there.
00:38:02
Speaker 2: He's got, I don't know, do you think Shake can compete for a Grammy with our guy right there? That was amazing. Lyrics, high notes, everything, man. Not to mention, I never knew Bryce's middle name was Christopher. I learned something during that song. I didn't know either. I didn't know he had a fellow Chris there in Bryce Young. All right, now let's get to Charlotte. People are ripping our guy Richard Cannon for some reason. Why are people not liking that? Barron thought it was hilarious. Barron knows parody songs. All right, let's see. Ears are bleeding. I thought my man was nailing the high pitch. I liked it. I felt good about it. Saw his cannons went boom. I'd send him through to Hollywood, dog. I would. All right, let's get to this. If you don't like that, you really ain't going to like this, I don't think. So Charlotte Flair was out there, Bone, to pound the key pounding drum, the Charlotte native. to hit the key pounding drum before the first huge game, mammoth game, first Sunday night football game at home in 11 years. And then she did an interview, Bone, where she told everybody, I like the Panthers, but they're not my only favorite team.
00:39:04
Speaker 6: Born in Charlotte, raised high school, then graduated NC State.
00:39:08
Speaker 5: Wolfpack.
00:39:09
Speaker 3: I remember going to Panthers games when I was little.
00:39:11
Speaker 2: I actually cheered on the halftime shows when they had like, oh.
00:39:14
Speaker 3: The youth cheerleading teams come.
00:39:16
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:39:16
Speaker 4: But as I got older, then I became a Rams fan.
00:39:18
Speaker 1: Thank goodness it's West-South, but I feel like you can be, you know, proud of both teams.
00:39:25
Speaker 3: You don't have to pick, like Charlotte will always be home, but I love my Rams, but I will say, I feel like I was a good luck charm for the Panthers that night because Bryce Young just killed it.
00:39:36
Speaker 2: Well, if you keep showing up, they're going to end up playing the Rams in the NFC Championship, Charlotte. You're going to have to pick a side eventually.
00:39:42
Speaker 3: Dude, they played them twice last year, and I was like, I'm not going.
00:39:45
Speaker 2: I'm not picking sides. I can't go. Mac, I don't blame her for this. You know why? I blame us. We trusted a flare.
00:39:55
Speaker 3: Have we not learned something for the last 40 to 45 years? Her father is known as the dirtiest player in the game. That's on us for believing what we saw with Starwood Flare.
00:40:05
Speaker 2: That's on us. We trusted a flare. We got to own that one. But I don't know. It's not on us. It's on the Panthers.
00:40:09
Speaker 3: That's the only family with more teams than my own. It's on the Panthers.
00:40:12
Speaker 2: If they would have asked you probably on Friday, should we do this? You probably would have told them you can't trust a flare. Check her.
00:40:17
Speaker 3: Resume what your dad is or dad roots the entire NFC West yeah people uh texter says it is in her bloodline to be a turncoat.
00:40:27
Speaker 2: Another texter says, as long as it's not a division team, like when dad sold us out for the Falcons, I'm OK. But it's literally the team we played in the playoff game. And she said she didn't pick a rooting interest. Meanwhile, how can somebody that did not definitively root for us in the playoff game be a good choice to keep pounding drum?
00:40:45
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, she was at the game. Our truth was with her fellow wrestler, diehard Panther fan. He should have been still with here. He was up there with her watching the game. Not necessarily as big a name as Flair, but he should have done it there. Also, I didn't laugh when Mike Tirico said, here's Charlotte Flair on the key pounding drum. She's named for the city of Charlotte. Well, actually, Mike, she's named Ashley. Her wrestling name is named after the city of Charlotte. She wasn't actually bored, Charlotte, right? Get that straight there.
00:41:13
Speaker 2: Get that shocking that Mike Tirica might not have deep knowledge of wrestling names. People are now mad at me.
00:41:19
Speaker 1: Why?
00:41:20
Speaker 2: Bone, you're the Ric Flair of Charlotte currently. No, I'm not. You do, yeah. You and him probably got similar amount of squads. He's worse than I am. Willie's in studio counting them over there right now. He's still going.
00:41:31
Speaker 4: Stop.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: I don't have enough fingers. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Let's all celebrate that Finney's not here. Bone, did you hear this story about the jersey? Her motto is sometimes pounding. Sometimes! Did you hear the story about the under 10 or the 10 year old youth baseball team in New Jersey called the Jersey Hitmen? Have you heard this story? I haven't heard this one. I got interested. So a bunch of moms of these 10 year old baseball players on the Jersey Hitmen. What a name, by the way, for a kid's team, the Hitmen. Anyway, a bunch of moms went together and had all these jackets made with the team name on it and stuff. And they all showed up kind of like the Canes wags did at Stanley Cup final. They all showed up in their team gear, right? Their team mom gear. Well, the owner and I don't really understand how there's an owner of a 10 year old team, but the guy that owns the team. now wants a 15% royalty restitution because somebody produced jackets with the team name on it. And this dude is looking for a cut. And not only is he just looking for a cut, he has suspended every 10-year-old whose mom bought one of these jackets.
00:42:49
Speaker 1: What?
00:42:51
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? Oh, my gracious. What a U Sports in 2026 story this is.
00:42:56
Speaker 5: Oh, my.
00:42:57
Speaker 2: That'll be a TV show. Oh, are you kidding me?
00:43:00
Speaker 5: Oh, man.
00:43:00
Speaker 2: Last but not least. Also, enough about me. That was about Charlotte Flair. Now I'm under fire here.
00:43:06
Speaker 5: Jeez.
00:43:07
Speaker 2: Would you be? I wonder if they. Do you think they'd let you hit the key pounding drum, or do you have too many teams?
00:43:13
Speaker 3: Why are you jumping in? They probably learned their lesson. Support your guy here. I'm under fire now. Someone just called Willie P the dirtiest chef in the game.
00:43:19
Speaker 2: That's it.
00:43:20
Speaker 3: P-Man's in here, man, looking smooth, baby. Gosh, with a blue blazer on?
00:43:25
Speaker 2: Looking smooth. You can tell he's got to go on TV. He would not dress like this for us. There's just no way. Last but not least, Bone, I want to shout out Niners linebacker Dre Greenlaw. You see what he was up to during the game the other day, Bone? Oh, I loved it. He was living a dream for all of us. He is the latest person to MF Sean Payton all over the place. The other day told him to, he went Matt Ryan. He went Matt Ryan on him, told him, get the F off his field to Sean Payton. Um, he, he said he was asked what he was yelling at him. He said, I told him to get the F off the field. That's it. Get the F off the field. He's angry bone about the way Sean Payton treated him. Remember he signed that deal with Denver. It didn't work out. He got injured. He says, once I got injured, Sean Payton resented my presence because I couldn't help him and couldn't play. So he would ignore me and literally not talk to me once I was hurt. And he says, I will never forgive that man for it. So, Bone, we have now added, I think we're at one million people that hate Sean Payton. And that may be a conservative estimate. Hey, Smugly Do-Right, remember when you couldn't help your team when you were suspended for a year? Everybody ignore you and the Saints organization.
00:44:40
Speaker 3: Mac, if you lined up all the people that want to yell at Sean Payton, how long would that line go? Just one after the other. Just wrap the whole way around the earth, I believe. I think, Bone, it's hard to bring America together during these times. We all have our different opinions. People, unfortunately, choose sides all the time.
00:44:57
Speaker 2: I feel like if a candidate was to run on Sean Payton as a jackass, I think they could unify both parties. I really believe that. Except in Louisiana and Colorado. The other 48 states, I think you could unify the parties together.
00:45:13
Speaker 3: He's the anti-Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton was loved by so many, universally loved. He's universally hated, but Dolly Parton was loved. Except by Philly Marlowe, yeah. But, Mac, is he not the opposite of Dolly Parton? He is.
00:45:26
Speaker 2: She was loved. Sean Payton hated. He's the anti-Dolly. And there is no doubt about it. By the way, uniform Ned had to weigh in, Bone, apparently, on the moms, the 10-year-old baseball moms buying the jackets. Says, Mac, travel baseball teams are a business at their core. And someone or a few people own the brain. So clearly the dude wants to be able to sell baseball. merch and not have somebody else make it but god that's crazy 20 that's just we we are no we are in it i don't know boat have you ever noticed we're in a money money hungry world i have.
00:46:02
Speaker 3: Noticed that also someone sent us a link that drake may doesn't believe the moon landing was real i'm gonna look.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: Oh yeah that's the thing i'm gonna look into that story as well here that's the thing he's been talking to aaron rogers they've been sharing conspiracy.
00:46:12
Speaker 3: Theories When we come back, a man that is not fake, a man that is real, Willie P. of the Charlotte FC Radio Network and many of a WFNZ postgame show, all the shows here at WFNZ. Willie P. in studio next. Panthers and FC Talks, Sports Radio, 92.7 WFNZ.
