A Look at the Locals and what they were doing in the NFL On Sunday:Fourth-and-16 in the Duke-Notre Dame with Sam Hartman getting it, is “Play of the Weekend”/Carolina Panthers are playing like Expansion Team/Never making it to the field, with Tim Wakefield

Posted on by Andy Durham

Here we go with our look at the Locals and what they were or were not doing in the NFL on Sunday…And for plays of the Weekend, we have to go to the college game, and give it up to Sam Hartman from Notre Dame, who got the necessary 17 yards, on Fourth-and-Sixteen(16), and his run has to be the “Play of the Weekend”…The Hartman get, led to the ND victory over Duke, in what was a great game to watch on TV 45/ABC TV….Duke was leading the Irish late in the contest, 14-13, and then after the Hartmann run for the first down, ND goes on to score the TD and they got the two-point conversion to win the game, 21-14…

Such a great run by Sam Hartman, and the run for touchdown on a punt return I think it was by Kordell Bartley from Dudley HS, vs. Smith on Friday night was a thing of beauty too, and Trent Cloud, from Northwest Guilford HS put up some big numbers and made some very key grabs from his QB Tanner Ballou, and one crazy catch from his fellow-wideout Ryan Hammock, in the NWG win at Page HS on Friday night…

And for everything good from Hartman, Bartley, and Cloud, the Carolina Panthers were filling in the Bad Blank on Sunday….To me, and maybe others are seeing it too, the Carolina Panthers are playing like an expansion team right now…In many ways though, they are playing worse than the Expansion Carolina Panthers team played back in 1995…The Panthers went (7-9) back in ’95, and the way they are playing these days, they will be lucky to win 5 games this season…And the Commissioner can run back the tape, with the First Pick in the NFL’s 2024 Draft the Carolina Panthers select____________________….Didn’t Roger Goodell just say something like with the First Pick in the NFL’s 2023 Draft the Carolina Panthers select Bryce Young, quarterback from Alabama….

Well, real quick before we hit on our local pro players from Sunday, we lost former Major League Baseball pitcher Tim Wakefield on Sunday…..Wakefield died from complications due to cancer…He was just 57 years old….Wakefield was a knuckleball pitcher who worked for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Red Sox among other teams…My local Tim Wakefield memory is when he was when he was with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he came to Zebulon, North Carolina to work a rehab assignment for the Pirates Double A team, the Carolina Mudcats….

It was a Thursday afternoon and Tim Wakefield, along with his catcher Mike LaValliere arrived at Five County Stadium, there in Zebulon about an half hour before game time, and they were riding in a Pittsburgh provided limousine…Wakefield got out of the limo, started signing autographs and he did that for around 30 minutes, and then he got back in the limousine, told the driver to hit it, and they were off to the Raleigh-Durham airport, and Tim Wakefield never made it to the field that night for the Carolina Mudcats…The crowd was ready for him, but Tim Wakefield felt like he had done enough that day at Double A, there in Zebulon, and Wakefield was ready to get back on the big league field up at the Three Rivers Stadium, there in Pittsburgh….

Well Tim is gone now, and he didn’t stick around here in North Carolina long that day back in the mid-1990’s, but Mike LaValliere may have spent more time in this state, since he was from Charlotte, N.C.

**********Now for our Locals on Sunday in the NFL and how their days went…**********
Keenan Allen(Northern Guilford HS/California) with 3 receptions for 32 yards and 1 TD for the LA Chargers in their win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday…
Brevin Allen(Northeast Guilford HS/Campbell) did not play for the LA Chargers on Sunday, vs. Las Vegas…

CB Emmanuel Moseley(Dudley HS/Tennessee) (knee injury) is still inactive for the Detroit Lions as of September 28, and did not play back on Thursday, vs. the Green Bay Packers….
QB Hendon Hooker(Dudley HS/Tennessee/VA Tech)….The Detroit Lions placed Hooker (knee) on the reserve/non-football injury on August 30…
Hendon Hooker with Grimsley HS QB Faizon Brandon, at the Tennessee-South Carolina game on Saturday….

LB Germaine Pratt(High Point Central HS/N.C. State) with 7 Total Tackles/6 Solo Tackles for the Cincinnati Bengals in their loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday…
DT D.J. Reader(Grimsley HS/Clemson) with no Stats showing for Bengals, in Sunday’s game vs. Tennessee…
LB Akeem Davis-Gaither(Thomasville HS/Appalachian State) (knee) is inactive and missed Sunday’s game for the Bengals…

Larry Ogunjobi(Ragsdale HS/Charlotte) with 4 Total Tackles/2 Solo Tackles for the Pittsburgh Steelers in their loss to the Houston Texans on Sunday…