TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:00
Speaker 1: Let's talk to Jake DeLome, Panthers legend, Panther Radio Network. The QB is playing damn good, and I would love to hear Jake's thoughts on it. And Jake is with us here on the Mac and Bone Show. Jake, what's going on, man? How you doing?
00:00:13
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, man. I think I'm like everyone else. Still living the high from Sunday night and knowing that we have a bye, even though it's early, that's okay. But kind of like what we've seen, especially from our quarterback, my buddy. Definitely.
00:00:25
Speaker 3: Jake, how great is it, though, when you have the player perspective and you have the broadcasting perspective now, but to go into the bye on a high, that's.
00:00:33
Speaker 1: A huge deal, right?
00:00:36
Speaker 2: It always is. It's just that, I don't know, it's just that sense of you never want to go on that bad taste because you have to wait so long to be able to play again. But going in and how the atmosphere was Sunday night, the environment, down two starting corners, we're missing the starting offensive lineman. We got some guys kind of nicked during the game. And the way we did it, I thought, was fantastic. I don't know. The crowd affected Detroit's offense, I thought. I thought T-Mac showed exactly what he is. I think Bryce is continuing to show how he's playing. And just defensively, the Devin Lloyd addition, it's been remarkable, to be very honest. And Derrick Brown, you can look at the stat sheet all you want, but I think he affects the game so much more than the stat sheet. But it's just good to go off of a win like that, try to get some guys back. We'll see how that plays out. And then hopefully Philadelphia can kind of keep that the turmoil, I guess you could say that always seems to surround them. And then they're playing in London against a very good Jaguars team. So, you know, keep that momentum going and see what we can do after.
00:01:36
Speaker 1: I know, man, I know I'm ready, but this bye week did come at a good time. All right. So Jake, you're sitting there, you're, you're commentating on these games and you're watching Bryce young play at such an amazing level and doing it while being the most pressured quarterback in the league, which is amazing to me. What are you noticing from Bryce, uh, that maybe he's improved at, or maybe you're seeing things that are different than the past years?
00:02:05
Speaker 2: I think it's just ownership of the offense. I think that's the biggest thing. I just... there's complete ownership and it's, he's never too high. He's never too low. And you, I'm a big believer in watching the quarterback's eyes. And it's never like this panic, this frightened look in his eyes. And we have all these field mics and we can hear the, the checks that he makes with the line of scrimmage. There's never, it's never frantic. It's never rushed. It's like, no, no, no, we're good. We're good. We're good. No, go here, go here. It's, it's constantly constant communication.
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There's never panic. It's never frantic. And he's just kind of just in total control. And yes, he's getting pressured a lot, but he's just dealing the football. I think the biggest thing to me that I'm so impressed with, he's so compact. And what I mean by that, when he catches the snap, it's like, he catches it. He's compact and the ball's out immediately. And some of those RPO games are, I don't even know if it was RPO. I think it was PRO. It might've been fast read options first, you know, he would take it and T Mac. It just, he would just settle right away. He just knew, okay, let me just peek and look and boom, the ball's on him. But even like over the middle, some of the, the, the crossing routes, we had a big third down on the game and Anish had said, okay, what are we thinking here? I said, well, we're thinking two people, number four and number 88. And he hit Waller coming across the middle, but it's just the accuracy of the passes. He threw one to Tremaine coming left to right. Tremaine split out on the left and coming in on the in route and he layered the throw and he stuck it on him. And that's the biggest thing. You want to be a passer, not a thrower of the football. A thrower is someone who just kind of throws it and hope they catch it. A passer, he kind of talks to the player with the football, and I think he's doing that. But it's just ownership. That's what I just go back to. The receivers are kind of getting on his level, and what I mean by that, we got rid of his security blanket. I always say it. Adam Thielen, after the 24th season, it was during the Super Bowl in New Orleans. We were there, when I say we, the Panthers or Jonathan Stewart and I, we did shows weekly. We were hoping both Steve and Luke would maybe get in the Hall of Fame, right? Yeah. And so we did a ton of interviews. Well, Bryce came to sit down with us one day. And I just noticed a different person. There was a confidence because he finished 24 playing pretty well. And I just kind of asked him off air about, hey, with feeling like, were you just going to throw to him? Like, what was the deal? He goes, man, he goes, I just had that trust with him. And I just knew. And that just kind of tells me it takes time for a quarterback to trust some receivers. Right. And so you saw the coker situation. play out before our eyes last year. There's a trust factor there. And TMAC was making really good plays, but I think TMAC even knew I can make so many more because you saw it last year, physically guys would really try to get in his chest and things like that. When he said so much of a bigger player this year, thickness wise and strength wise, and the game's slowing down to me and it's going to continue to slow down. But those two are starting to kind of get on a page and it takes time, man. It just, I keep saying that to people. I think we grew together because we were both my first year in Carolina was year three for him. But initially, in essence, his first year starting as a receiver, but we, we grew together. We just like, for whatever reason we clicked, we just, we learned each other's body language and things like that. And then the next year, Steve gets hers. We've won. And so, yeah, certainly Moose was good, but you start to develop a different rapport with Moose, knowing exactly, okay, hey, Jake, I really like this. Hey, if I have this, make sure you throw it here. I just think that takes time. And you're starting to see Bryce kind of get that development with his young receivers.
00:05:50
Speaker 3: Jake, we had a quarterback question from a texter early in the show, Panther Cliff, and we said we'd ask you about it because it's more about something that we couldn't answer about padding.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: I'll give Jake the advantage on quarterback now. Slight advantage.
00:06:05
Speaker 3: He noticed or asked, is he padding the ball less, and how much does that make a difference when Bryce has the ball before he throws?
00:06:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. The padding of the ball thing. I think certain quarterbacks have certain ticks that they do. Joe Montana padded it every time he threw.
00:06:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: Some guys kind of do that. I think Bryce is doing a great job and I'll go back to the Atlanta game. He maneuvered the defense with his shoulders. And what I mean by that, we'd have some play action faking. I don't know if you remember the Atlanta game. We hit some deep corner outs, like wide open. And the corner would kind of– he'd come up and there was this huge void. Well, Bryce was manipulating the defense with his shoulders. He'd fake, he'd get his head around, and he'd kind of like give that shoulder kind of turn, thinking– and the DB's reading that. They're going off first movement. And they're going to drive that he's– okay, I'm going to the flat with the football. And Bryce would just kind of maneuver that way. And that's just starting to get that quarterback play where you can kind of control– or somewhat control what the defense is doing. It doesn't happen every week, obviously, but you just, I just think it's a rhythm, but he does such a great job, even when he's stepping up in the pocket about the two hands on the ball and he hasn't run a ton this year. As we've seen before, he's such a really good runner and he doesn't take these massive hits. Certain people know how to just not get hit and he knows how to kind of just slide off and When he steps up in the pocket, the eyes are downfield. They're not, okay, it's running. Let me just see what I can get. The eyes are downfield, and the ball comes out immediately most of the time. So, listen, just love the overall play, but how old is Bryce? I should have known this. 25. Okay, so he just turned 25.
00:07:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: He's still, like someone I heard this week, the narrative about, man, it's like his arm's gotten stronger. It's supposed to get stronger. He's 25. It wasn't like he's this
big, mature kid. I told someone the other day, I weighed 195 pounds as a senior in college. Within two years, I was up to 228 pounds. It wasn't due to the lifting and things like that. It was, I shaved more than once every two weeks. I started to grow up. Like you just, you grow up. And I think he's, and I don't know what his weight is. Certainly he's never going to be a big person, but he's getting stronger. Your body's getting stronger. That throw he made the TMAC on the sideline with about three minutes left or two and a half. That's just different. I mean, that's just, to step up in the pocket, like he did really outside the pocket and to throw it in that location and that catch. But I just think that's time. It comes with time. Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:38
Speaker 1: No doubt. No doubt. And then we all want to rush these guys, especially when they're number one, overall picks, you know, we're.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: I get it. I understand it, but like, don't you think what the Raiders are doing this year? I like, I don't know what's going to happen with Mendoza down the line, but is that not the perfect situation? I mean, just think of John Kitten in Cincinnati, Carson Palmer, who was, if you want to draw up what a quarterback should look like, it's Carson Palmer. Well, he sat the whole year. You think of Patrick Mahomes and Patrick would say the same thing. I would made me great was watching Alex Smith. I learned how to prepare. So when it was my time, I took over. And I understand I heard Peyton say it many times. Peyton was like, no, I needed to play. And maybe so. But I just think given some guys' time, sometimes it takes a little bit.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. Jake DeLome hanging out with us. We're talking obviously a lot about Bryce because this is Jake's area of expertise. I want to ask you about Brad Idzik because I certainly see that Bryce is getting the ball downfield more. I mean, number one in deep completions. Um, his, his intermediate passing. I mean, he's hitting, he's doubling more than doubling Jake, the amount of completions per game from 10 yards on. Um, do you think that's Brett is Brad? It's expressing that. Is that something that it's a canalis and bevel got together on during the, like, is this intentional or is that just the growth of Bryce? He's more comfortable letting it rip downfield.
00:10:04
Speaker 2: I think, I think it all, it all factors in. I think Dave, well, he has talked about that last year, but I'll go back to this. I think it's smart enough that Dave knew that He talks about it. Brad and Coach Goodwin and Dave, they developed this offense, right? So they were at the beginning when they were constructing, you know, they were getting the foundation of this offense that they run. Well, it got to a point where, you know what, Brad needs to take over. I got to be more of the head coach. And just think about it. If you're the head coach and you're constantly trying to think and call, and then the trainer comes tap you on the shoulder. Hey, so-and-so's down. Hey, so-and-so's questionable. Hey, what are you thinking here? You know, special teams coach Dave, what you want to do here? What yard line you want to kick? Like, can you totally concentrate? And I understand a lot of guys can do it, but for me personally, how smart of it he would like, let, let, let Brad call it. He's with Bryce all the time. I'm in there a lot, but then I have to go do injury meetings and I have to go do a personnel meeting and I have a coach's show. And I have like, I'm telling you guys, that's a lot. And just, I just think the comfort level that Bryce has, um, With Izzik, you're seeing it, right? I think you saw it in the preseason. Everything built off everything else in the preseason. We ran a good play, like a stretch to the right, a nice run. We came with the boot back the other way. Things like that. It was just kind of we tried to build off of it each and every play. That's a credit to Canales for seeing it, but a credit to the players for performing those plays, but Izzik for also calling it.
00:11:34
Speaker 3: Jake, we were going down memory lane the other day because TMAC was nine yards shy of tying Smitty for the single game Panther receiving record the other day. Smitty had 209 in the Fred Smoot rowboat game.
00:11:49
Speaker 2: Speaker 4 0 5 0. I couldn't remember what game they talked about it the other night. And I meant to go back and I couldn't, I couldn't remember what he had in the playoff game against Chicago. I knew it was a good amount, but yes, I figured it was the, the, both the row, both.
00:12:06
Speaker 3: The bears was the post-season record, but single season was all right. Regular season was 201. Jake, do you have either a favorite Smitty celebration that he did, or do you have a favorite memory of what he just got in some guy's head that he completely wrecked that guy's day? Like, either one of those.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: .
00:12:45
Speaker 1: .
00:12:48
Speaker 2: It was just... That team just... They just melted. And Smitty... And that celebration to me was just one that only Smitty, only Smitty.
00:13:04
Speaker 1: I was going to say, one of one, dude. I don't need to tell you. I mean, damn.
00:13:08
Speaker 3: You gave up 201 and got rowboated.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: I mean, that's crazy. That's beautiful. Jake, before we let you go, I want you to know that you are having influence over me. I'm starting to think like you. After the TMAC– He doesn't want to hear that. I'm becoming a Jake disciple, baby. After the TMAC– two-catch game where he ran into Denzel Ward a lot, and I kind of thought, man, they should have moved him into Slotmore to get him away from Ward and all this stuff. But I conjured up your Dan Henning theory on Smitty. feed the stud right and and i and i said last week i have a feeling it'll be a feed the stud game with t-mac i didn't realize it'd be 14 for 192 but so.
00:13:53
Speaker 2: So we do like keys to the game before we do the radio right and um i always either do offense and luke will do the defense well luke wasn't calling this game so i had a couple of them well my number one was like get team back involved early. That was always our game plan. Get submitted the ball in the first drop, hopefully the first play it just cause it made our team better. But I just finished watching CD lamb catch 17 passes. And the more you think about it and I have this in gray, it just, it's engraved in my brain from Mike McCarthy when he was the quarterback coach for the Kansas city chiefs, when Joe Montana was there, They asked Joe, Joe, what do you want to call here? It was in a red zone and a crucial time playoff game. And Joe was like, you call it. I'll do it. But just don't forget, play. We got to feature the players. Don't worry about the play. It's the players. And that's what you give your players a chance. I mean, that's. I don't know. That's why some of these guys are just better than others. You just give them a chance to make a play, and usually they do.
00:14:56
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that. Jake, always fun catching up with you, man. Be good. Keep enjoying this season, and thanks for coming on.
00:15:03
Speaker 2: Anytime, guys. Have a great weekend.
00:15:05
Speaker 1: You too. There you go. That is Jake DeLome.