Hopefully the rod bearing is still good. My fear was that in trying to establish what the noise was you might increase the damage if the rod bearing was going out.

That may be a piece of bearing material in the pan you found. A close up picture of it posted might help if possible to do and keep it in focus. It of course could be something else. It is never a total waste of time to check out the condition of the number one rod bearing especially on the four cylinder engines in my opinion. Less so on the five cylinder blocks yet still relevant.