TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:00
Speaker 1: Is al wallace former carolina panther joining us here on the mac and bone show al thank you so much for coming on man how you doing.
00:00:08
Speaker 2: I'm doing good, man.
00:00:09
Speaker 3: I appreciate you guys for having.
00:00:11
Speaker 4: Me back on. Appreciate you.
00:00:12
Speaker 1: Also appreciate your knowledge in the press box, Al, whenever we don't know what the hell's going on. Oh, that's his point you steal. We can turn to Al. Damn, Bone got my plan. We can turn to Al. Al, what did you make from a player's perspective on that sequence of the interception?
00:00:33
Speaker 4: Is that one that as a player would have ticked you off?
00:00:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, as a player, you're not going to be happy about that, man, because that was a pivotal point in the game that changed the temperature of everything that was happening on the field. So as a player, you don't care about when the flag was thrown, how it was thrown, the timing of it. All you know is. hey, we got the snap off, and from our perspective, we want to run that play, and it's too late, right? It's too late to go to the replay booth to the review. So that's how you're going to look at it. From our perspective up there in the back row of the media booth, I saw the flag go down. I didn't know when it was thrown. I didn't understand the timing of it, and all of that I think is a moot point Did they get it right when I wake up this morning? I think they got it right. That's just the bottom line. It is a tough, bitter pill to swallow. I also live by the philosophy, what would I feel if I were on the other side, boys? Man, I would want that flag to count. I would want that replay called, and I would want that call overturned, and I want that interception. So I think it all applies in the same way. But, yeah, that's a tough one as a player in the thick of it, in the battle right there. The Panthers players have to be sick this morning.
00:01:49
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: Al, there was some speculation late last week from Albert Breer about the Panthers maybe taking calls on Derrick Brown as the as the trade deadline approaches later today. What do you think about just that report about calls on Derrick Brown? And is there a world where that would make any sense to you at all?
00:02:09
Speaker 3: It does make sense. I mean, Derrick Brown is a cornerstone piece to this program, to the Carolina Panthers, this football team. He's your captain. He's your leader. I would not want to move off of Derrick Brown. But if you're Dan Morgan and Dave Canales, you have to always keep that phone line open. to try to get better. I don't know what a compensation would look like for one of the best interior defensive linemen in the NFL, but I know what this team is lacking, pass rush. Is Derrick Brown a pass rusher? He's probably not the guy you think about at defensive tackle. He's not Jeffrey Simmons, right? So yeah, I'd be open to conversations about what it would take, what it would look like, what my program with this team moving forward would look like minus Derrick Brown, especially with all the injuries. I'm not closing the door on that, even though, look, this dude is one of the all-time great Carolina Panthers, especially at that position. There are only a few guys that come to mind. It's Chris Jenkins, it's KK Short, and then I'm talking Derrick Brown. Those are my top three interior defensive linemen. Derrick Brown is a man, and I wouldn't want to move away from him.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. I also wouldn't like the message, Al. You're leading the South, albeit at 3-5, and you're getting rid of one of your best players. I would understand a huge offer, and it sounds like the Panthers shoot away some of those offers. You bring up a pass rush being what you see as being what this team needs. Obviously, they need healthy corners. But I was looking at a graphic last night, Al, that showed that the Panthers, when rushing four, the Panthers get less pressure percentage-wise than any team in the league rushing four. And when you think about that combination of we're not getting home with four and we're missing our best corners, you could speak to this like, It's there's only so much you can do, right?
00:04:08
Speaker 4: Like if you can't because you you.
00:04:10
Speaker 1: Don't want to maybe send a bunch of bodies, you know, with all those with those inexperienced corners back there.
00:04:16
Speaker 4: But we're not getting home. These guys are having to cover too long when you rush for.
00:04:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mac, I think you're right, man. It is the reason why so much of the attention is focused on the back end. The most important piece, it starts at the line of scrimmage. It's that pass rush, and it's why you went out and paid Jalen Phillips in the hopes that you can generate more pass rush, along with Nick Scorton, who got hurt, right, first practice of training camp. and Prince Lee, who made me Ellen and, and, and Pat Jones and all those guys, right? You don't have a pure pass rusher on this roster, not one that is consistent consistently getting after the quarterback. And when you're not able to do that quarterbacks like Bo Nix, like, you know, Deshaun Watson are able to stand in the pocket and pick you apart. They're going to find open receivers. They're just too good at the skill position you know, spots around the NFL. So you're going to put so much pressure on a young group and an experienced group on the back end. We went to the Super Bowl in 2003. And if you did a poll to your fans to start naming without Googling our cornerbacks, you would have trouble, right? It was Reggie Howard. Yep. out there, and it was Terry Cousins, two great football players. But you know what made their lives easier? That pass rush that we were able to get. It just makes it so much easier when quarterbacks don't have time to scan the field and go through a progression. Unless the Panthers
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can find a way to generate that, it's going to be a long remainder of the season until J.C. and Mike get back and man those cornerbacks. You've got to have either or. It's great when you have both, and I think the Panthers can have both. They've just got to get some bodies healthy.
00:05:59
Speaker 2: Al, what's your assessment so far of the season that Bryce Young has had? It seemed like a bounce back the other day. And what is the future looking like in terms of contract with Bryce at the helm here?
00:06:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bryce is going to bounce back. That's one thing we know, right? You have a bad performance. He's going to bounce back. But what I saw was a guy that looked like early season Bryce Young. The brace didn't appear to be on the knee. We saw him escape in the pocket. And when he wasn't escaping the pocket, we saw him maneuvering around the pass rush to to get the ball off and out of his hands and downfield. That's the excellence of Bryce Young. And I think what we've seen in particular this year tells me that Bryce Young is a $ 55 million a year quarterback, and he's going to get paid that money despite what the record looks like. no matter what some of the games look like when it's up and down and he's not able to do the things that we have become accustomed to. He's a good quarterback. He is a franchise quarterback for the Carolina Panthers and they're going to pay him accordingly in my opinion. So yeah, I like Bryce. I like what he can do for this offense. And now that he has the weapons, he feels comfortable and confident with, with Waller. and the wide receivers. You added a tight end to the mix this season. Tommy Trimbles had his best season as a pro. Yeah, Bryce Young could absolutely be the quarterback in the future for this team, but it's going to cost you about $ 55 million.
00:07:28
Speaker 4: It definitely is.
00:07:28
Speaker 1: We're talking with Al Wallace, former Panther D lineman, talking to us here about what he noticed on Sunday. Al, I want to talk about the pass protection. It did definitely seem like for much of the game, it was improved. But then you got down to a couple of those series late, and it definitely– Denver knows you're passing, right?
00:07:47
Speaker 4: You're trying to come back. You're trying to score.
00:07:50
Speaker 1: And they really got after Bryce, including the sack fumble at the end. Did you think– like, it's easy for me to sit here on the radio and say, man, why aren't we helping one of these tackles? I know Ross Tucker made the point on the broadcast. Chuba Hubbard on that sack fumble play. runs a route and he goes right past Benito and doesn't chip him. Like, should that be a chip? Should there have been a guy kept in to help one of these tackles? Is that fair or no?
00:08:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. That's fair. And from, you know, outside looking in, we don't know the protection. Neither does Ross Tucker. I played the game. We can make all kinds of assumptions, but I'll plug myself here. I do a segment on Queen City News pregame show, and I give three keys to the game. My first key to this game was pass defense. protection, communication. And I just don't know that this team is the greatest at communicating the protections. They seem like everyone's looking around like who's got the dude, who am I supposed to block? And you get free runners. Nick Benito is one of the top pass rushers in the NFL. If you're telling me you went into this game plan and you didn't know where number 15 was, and you didn't have a plan to block him, then it's just malpractice. You didn't do everything you could to be successful on Sunday. From what I saw, from my own personal football knowledge, I thought Chuba Hubbard should have stuck a shoulder in there. Even if he didn't make contact, he should have been a little bit tighter to Walker to give more body presence to slow down the pass rush of Benito, at least to make him think he's about to take a shot to the ribs. That didn't happen. Chuba is maybe in more of a rush than we would like as fans to get out in that route. It leaves Walker on an island one-on-one. He seems a little inside heavy, which is probably maybe what the protection called for with a running back. Coming to the outside, all those things being said, it's not good enough. Pass protection communication has been the breakdown with this offensive line. It's not a talent thing. Some of it may be talent, but it's not completely a talent thing. They just don't communicate well. They just don't look like they understand who they're supposed to be blocking on any given snap.
00:10:05
Speaker 1: Al, I just realized I didn't ask you the most important question to a former defensive player in the NFL. What did you see scheme-wise from Todd Walsh that was different? It did look like more four-man fronts and Merrick kind of was in a linebacker spot. It looked 4-3-ish and more press coverage. What did your trained eye see?
00:10:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, my trained eye is trained on that line of scrimmage. What I saw was less read and react defensive front play, you know, that front seven, more attacking, right? You look at all the guys that were in the backfield, Derrick Brown, you know, just penetrating, Turk Ward, and those guys are flying around because I think it frees them up in a four-man front to not play flat-footed, 3-4 kind of defense where they're just reacting to defense The blocking scheme. And now they're just attacking. We got this gap. This is what we're supposed to do. And we're just going to shoot across the line. Lee Hunter was one guy that stood out. He was all over the place making plays because he's allowed to play more aggressive. He's not waiting to see who the hell is going to block him. He is just simply in attack mode. And that's what I saw from Todd Walsh. It looks like the defense. I remember down in Jacksonville, that Saxonville pass rush attack, we're moving and changing the line of scrimmage. We're not sitting around reading, reacting in allowing the linebackers to flow. And I liked that. Those are the defenses that I played in. And it looked a little bit different.
00:11:34
Speaker 1: Dude, Lee Hunter flash so much that when I saw the snap count, I thought it was a misprint. He only played 13 snaps. He had two pressures and two run stops in 13 snaps. So, and Dave did mention yesterday, we got to play Lee more. So hopefully we see that.
00:11:50
Speaker 4: Al, great stuff. Reggie Howard and Terry Cousin were the DBs, right? Did Al tell us that already? Yeah, he told us. Oh, I've been thinking about it the whole time. I forgot Reggie. I was going to say Terry, but I forgot Reggie. Shame on me, man. How dare you? Al, appreciate you.
00:12:05
Speaker 1: And by the way, Al mentioned it, plays a great part and does great work on the QC News pregame show before Panther football games.
00:12:16
Speaker 4: Al, thank you, man. Appreciate it.
00:12:17
Speaker 3: All right. Appreciate you guys. Thanks as always. Thanks, Al.