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Patriots Catch-22 10/27: Self-Scouting the Patriots Through 7 Games · Patriots Catch-22

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is the Patriots Catch 22 podcast with Evan Lazar
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and Alex Barth.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Here is Evan Lazar and Alex Barth.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: I'm very curious to see holistically just how the Patriots
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: line up against the Bears defensively. This kind of takes
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: them a little bit out of their comfort zone. When
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: they play in three-quarter nickel, they're dynamite. Their base defense,
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: their three safety, which they've done a little bit of,
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: that hasn't been quite as effective. Like, Loveland's an interesting
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: matchup for them. I don't know what direction they go with. Well,
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the Loveland matchup maybe didn't go so hot.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It was a lot for them.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: It was a lot for them. So we're going to
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: talk about that. We're going to talk about the Bears game.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: But first of all, look who's back in studio.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I am back.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, you had to acknowledge it, right? We had to.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: We had to bully him a little bit about it.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: It's good to have you back in here though. This is,
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: this is the way the show should be.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It's good to be back.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Not me like squinting at a tablet, trying to try
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: to interact with you, uh, over zoom. So I cashed
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: only two back in studio, uh, this week and a
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: little bit of a lull here, a little three day weekend,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: if you will. Uh, mini by, uh, I like that, uh,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: phrasing as well. So, uh, the Patriots had a mini by, uh,
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Mike Rabel yesterday talking about doing a little bit of
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: self-scouting and seeing where things are at seven games into
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: the season.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: It's a nice sample size.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: So this show, we're going to break a little bit
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: from the good, the bad, the stuff that gets you beat.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: We're still going to talk plenty about this Bears game.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I just felt like it's been like four or five
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: days since the game. It's probably time to kind of
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: turn the page. So we're going to do our own
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: little Patriot self-scout on Catch-22 here today and talk about,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: some of the trends, both positive and negative, that the
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: Patriots have put together here through the first seven games
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: at four and three. So that'll be the plan for
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: today's show. I do want to open with each of
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: us giving a thought or two on the game on
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Thursday night, since this is our first episode since the
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: game last week. What were your thoughts on what was a,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: from a impartial unbiased standpoint, a very good football game,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: very exciting football game. I think the, the one solace
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: that you can find as a Patriots fan, even though
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: they lost this game, Alex was that they were kind
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: of watching the future of quarterback play with the Patriots
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: involved in it. You know, Drake may on one side,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Caleb Williams on the other side, it would not totally
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: shock me. Not maybe not even this year, but maybe
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: not this year. if these two played in the super
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: bowl someday, that would not totally shock me.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: So that's exciting.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it was, you know, it was funny. My
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: first take was, I don't know about you, Evan. I,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I get a little annoyed sometimes if there's a really
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: good game, but there's like Patriot, like I can't just
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: watch it neutrally. Either it's a Patriots game or maybe
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a game late in the year, like for the Patriots
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: for seating or whatever. Um, some of those games during
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the college games during the 23 season at the end,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: cause you're, you're trying to ride a draft agenda or whatever.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Like I hate missing out on being a neutral fan
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: for a good game for a neutral fan. That was
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a really good game for neutral fan.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: If you're tuning in on a Thursday night, just whoever
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: you just want to be entertained by some football.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: That's as good as Thursday night football gets probably shouldn't
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: have been.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: A Thursday night game. That's another conversation we can have, but,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And that's what, like I say a little facetiously, I
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: get annoyed, but that's what you want your team to be.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: That was a marquee matchup that lived up to the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: hype and your team was in it. Now, yes, they lost.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: The road team lost on a Thursday night when they
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: got a little sloppy. It was a close game. Like
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: that happens even to good teams. I'm not saying there
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: aren't things they have to clean up, but like that
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: was the kind of game that, moral victory feels a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: little strong because I do think the Patriots lost did
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: prevent themselves from winning games at times. Not to take
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: away from the Bears. The Bears played a very good game,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: but the Patriots were complicit, certainly, in that loss. But
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: it was a game that you feel like things were
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: on the right track. I know they went to the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl last year, but this year's also kind of
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a referendum on was last year a flash in the pan?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Was it a fluke? Or is this team the real deal?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Even with that loss, you look at the totality of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the first seven games, which it's kind of logical to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: do here with this break, and the way that game went.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I came away from that game saying they have individual
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: things they have to clean up. But big picture, I
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: still like the direction this team is heading.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: And even though they've lost both of the games, they
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: were in the game in Seattle. They had a lead
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: in the game in Seattle. They were in this game
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: in Chicago. Those are two tough spots, two road games,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: you know, in tough environments and short week this time
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: around opening night, you know, in the Seattle game. So
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: to your point about this ongoing referendum of are they
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: scheduled merchants? Are they, uh, are the real deal, that
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: sort of thing, even though they haven't quite won these
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: games yet, I do think that they're showing that they're
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: going toe to toe with the class of the NFL
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: in these big marquee games. So now they just got
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: to get over the hump. I think that that's the
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: most positive outlook of this game is that I thought
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Drake may was outstanding once again, For most of this game,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: obviously the interception notwithstanding, I thought the part that disappointed
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: me about this game, and maybe it shouldn't have because
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I have my guy Ben Johnson all the time. It's
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: a healthy Caleb Williams, and he looks like he is
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: right in that conversation right now as one of the
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: top five to ten quarterbacks in football. I was a
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: little bit disappointed, though, by the defensive performance. And again,
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I just meant it's a really good offense. It's a
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: really good system. It's a really good quarterback, but it's
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: the sloppiness. It's not necessarily that they got beat on
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: individual plays. Like it's not necessarily that Christian Ellis got
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: juked in the backfield by Caleb Williams, who's an extremely
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: elusive ball carrier pocket manager and made a play on
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: third down.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Cause we saw Drake may make half a dozen of
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: those himself. on the other side.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: So it's just sometimes good players make plays, but the
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: missed tackles, the busted zone coverages, you know, I, I
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: say plural is probably more like singular on that instance
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: with the big 58 yard or Duluth or burden. And
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: then some of this stuff too, formationally the matchups in
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: this game where you do get stuck with Marcus Jones
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: on Colson Loveland in the red zone, you know.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Like those types of things.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: I was a little bit disappointed because I think when
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: you look at it from holistically, Drake May right now
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: has no running game.
• 7:17
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: And in this game, not all season, but in this game,
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: the defense didn't play well.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So Patrick offensive line to for.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Drake May, he kind of has to be perfect in
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: a game like this. And he throws one pick in
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: the end zone.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: On a bad ball. No doubt about it. Like that's
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: on him. That's a stuff that gets you beat category.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: But he had to be perfect in this game to
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: carry that team to win. And I feel like that's,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: just in general, putting a lot on the quarterback. It's
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: putting a lot on the quarterback that in order to
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: beat a team like Chicago, and they have a couple
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: of those teams coming up. Like I think green Bay
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: is playing better.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: I think Detroit's offense is going to score. So you're,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: you're going to have to keep up with them. Obviously
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Buffalo down the line again, like those games where the
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: offense is going to have to produce points and is
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: going to have to score. It feels to me right now,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: a little too Drake may centric. And I don't want
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: them to be all on.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: No, this is the defensive parts. A little different. Maybe
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: we can get into that, but this is what did
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: them in down the stretch last year. Remember talking about this?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Like they had to throw the ball. They knew they
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: had to throw the ball. The opponent knew they had
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to throw the ball, especially in one dimensional.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And team started playing them like that. Specifically pass rushers
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: started playing them like that. There's very little respect for
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the run game. They still couldn't find ways to run
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the ball. And it's just, I don't care how good
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: your quarterback is. It's really hard. Even some of those
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Brady years, like the later years, remember they would make
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a point to get a run, the run game going
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: before they got in the playoffs, because it's really hard
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to play offense when the defense knows essentially what you're
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: going to do. So they went out this off season,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: they made a bunch of investments in it. We got
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: all excited.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: They're all hurt, right?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Julian Hill never made it. He didn't make it a
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: training camp.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: I had OTAs. I don't know.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: He must have had one practice. When did he get hurt?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Julian Hill?
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Julian Hill got hurt in the spring.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: No, he didn't. No, because he got in the spring,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: but he made it to the practice in the spring. Well,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: you said training camp. Right.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: He didn't make it to training camp.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: He did not make it to training camp.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Julian Hill didn't make it to training camp. Vera Tucker's
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: on IR. Reggie Gilliam's on IR. He didn't look great
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: before he got hurt to begin with.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: So those were the big investments in the run game
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: in 2019. And then Morgan Moses, I think, was supposed
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to be a big part of it, and he's banged up.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Michael Nguyen, who's banged up, he's on IR. He's probably
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: your best run blocker. So here we are again. They're
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: going to have to find a way to develop a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: run game in order to avoid being multidimensional. I know
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to get questions about it. I don't think
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: it's something you can just snap your fingers and do
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: with the trade deadline. Maybe there's a move or two
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: that can help, but you're not going to completely rebuild
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the offense. Right. So they're going to have to figure
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: out a way to put it together. And somebody like
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I mentioned the line, like you got to get more
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: out of Travion Henderson. I don't know how much more
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you can ask from Ramondre Stevenson. That was one of
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the best games I've ever seen him play on Thursday night.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe Corey Kiner's a nice find for them. We'll see.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: But like, here we are again, going in a, you know,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: approaching the second half of the year and it's, can
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: they develop a run game?
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: It's tough because you mentioned the investments they made in
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: the off season. I always go back to that quote
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: from Mike Vrabel at the owners meetings, league meetings last year,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: where he said, Our yards per carry was deceiving because we.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Had a bunch of big home runs.
• 10:41
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: You know, Travion Henderson hits a handful of 50 plus
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: yard touchdowns. That's going to inflate the number. They were
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: looking at the play to play efficiency, which was bottom
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: 10 in the league last year. And they knew that.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: And they went out.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Now you're not even getting those home runs.
• 10:55
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: And then they went out and they signed Vera Tucker.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: They signed Gilliam. They signed Julian Hill. They try to
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: make some concerted efforts to add just size and, and
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: blocking ability, even like, even though he's not a true
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: blocker by trade, like even adding a guy like Eli
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Reardon with that frame.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, in the draft, they tried to go
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: out and, and really upgrade their run game. And it
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: just hasn't taken hold for all the reasons, you know, injuries,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: various reasons. And so here we are without a run
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: game once again. And that is frustrating because again, And
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: this is one of the things I wanted to bring
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: out in the self-scout or break down, so I don't
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: want to.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: waste all of our bullets.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Here on this yet, but it's frustrating because it's not
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: just the fact that they're not balanced because they don't
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: have a run game. It also impacts your play action passing.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: So ultimately when you don't have a run game and
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: then your play action passing game as a result, isn't
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: very effective because the run game isn't a very effective,
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: then really you're just a drop back passing team, right?
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: And when you're a drop back passing team, a straight
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: drop back pass team, the quarterback has a lot on
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: his plate. Like it's a lot of it's third and seven.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: It's third and six. It's third and eight. Drake may
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: just do something right. Like make a throw, make a play,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: scramble for a first down, extend a play, like whatever
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: the case may be. And that goes back to Drake
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: may centric that that's where you get into those trouble. Uh,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: but I, I think, you know, let, let, let's get
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: through some of these points though. Uh, cause I, I
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: think the bears game is, uh, I don't want to
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: put too, too much stock in that game just because
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: of the spot. You know, it's a short week. you're
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: the road team on a Thursday night. Your team is
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: very banged up as it is. And we saw yesterday
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: out at the bonus practice, a handful of veteran players
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: did not even practice yesterday.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: As like rest days, you know, Robert Spillane, Kevin Byard,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Marcus Jones, Draymond Jones, you know, players like that. So
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: clearly they, they are a little bit banged up at
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: the moment.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Clearly.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, they have what, you know, 11, 12 guys
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: on in-season IR at this point. let's talk about some
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: of this self-scouting stuff. We were a little negative there,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: so I want to get back to positive, and then
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: we'll go back to some of the things we were
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: talking about with the run game. I've just been incredibly
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: impressed or extremely impressed with how Drake May has leveled
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: off here and steadied this ship. When after the Jacksonville game, specifically,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: I said something along the lines of, we were going
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: to learn a lot about Drake May today.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Mentally.
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: And whether or not he was going to bounce back
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: rough playoffs, rough Superbowl, rough start to the season. Was
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: he going to be able to bounce back and get
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: through the other side of it? If he did, I
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: thought that that was a really, really good sign that
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: they not only have a talented quarterback, but a guy
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: that's mentally pretty strong.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: He's done it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: The last month of the season, Drake may from an
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: EPA standpoint is the most efficient passer in football. through
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the last four games of the Patriots season so far going,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: you know, starting in week four against Buffalo. So he,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: despite the fact that he started poorly and really started
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: poorly in Jacksonville and in Seattle, he's now fifth in
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: EPA per drop back for the entire season.
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: So he's gone from being a guy that we all
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: were like, Ooh, this is not good. Maybe he's broken
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: to now back to being basically a top five quarterback
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: from efficiency standpoint and, even with the first three games
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: baked into that. So he is really recovered here and
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: then sub. And at this point, and I don't know
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: if you can, you know, people, if he is in
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: the conversation at the end of the year for MVP, again,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: people are going to point to the first three games
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: of the season.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: It's not going to be the schedule this time around.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: It's going to be like, yeah, but like, was it
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: a complete MVP season from start to finish?
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: You'll get, Is the MVP a recency award? What if
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: he had those games at the end of the, cause
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: that was staff. Remember Stafford had that horrible game in Atlanta.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: He threw, didn't he throw multiple picks? It sounds right.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And everybody was like, well, you know, if he had
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: that performance earlier in the year, you wouldn't hold it
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: against him as much, but no, I'm, I'm ready to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: write it off and look, put a pin in this
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: because we're going to have a big debate next summer
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: about how much Drake may should play in the preseason.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: because they're starting slow twice now right and there certainly
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: is something to be said for maybe he just needs
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to get that out of his system.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: He did he did play in the preseason last year though.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Not a ton with in yeah he also didn't start
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: that bad last season uh i did not start that bad.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know the opener against the raiders was pretty
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: bad he wasn't he was not that.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: It wasn't turning the ball over. I mean, they turned
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the ball over.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Remember the offense was weird. That was more McDaniels thing
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to me, but.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Well, them getting used to each other in general.
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So there'll be a big debate in the summer
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: about Drake may playing in the preseason.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: So put a pin in that because that's a fair
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: question to bring up. Can't do anything about that right now.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: For now, I'm willing to write off those first three
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: weeks is rust and they happen and it sucks. And
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: he clearly learned from them, which is good, but yeah,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: this is who Drake may is for the last four weeks,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the pros and the cons. Cause he hasn't been perfect.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: He's been very good. He hasn't been perfect. And I
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: think you're kind of seeing even when he's on where
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the errors are going to come, but he's on, he's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: top five quarterback in the league. So that's where I'm at.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Like we'll have a big discussion about him next summer
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: in terms of what to do about getting started better.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting question.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Like I'm willing to write the start off. Yeah.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: It's an interesting question because I, At the end of
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: the day, it's more important to be better at the
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: end of the year than it is at the beginning
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: of the year.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you don't want to be throwing games away.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not necessarily throwing games away, but you don't
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: want to be putting yourself into one and two holes.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Also, what if they play the Bills in the first
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: month of the season? Like a game like that, that's
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: going to have massive implications.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: You can't just count on beating the Bills in week
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: five every year.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: But Jacksonville could have massive implications.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And we're going to look back on it and be like,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: where was Drake May in that game? I just.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: My point is, is that when it comes to the
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: preseason stuff, is the risk worth the reward? Is starting
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: a little bit better in September because he played in
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: the preseason worth the risk of him getting hurt in
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: the preseason?
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Well, it's where's the. Yeah, and I'm with you on that.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: And it's not I'm just I think that's how again, this.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Is a this is a much bigger conversation that I
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: just we don't need to have right now. But I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: think it's interesting. It's very interesting, and I'm looking forward
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to it, but we only have an hour.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Well, don't worry about the only have the hour.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Like, no.
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: So we're going to do it like this. What I
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: said at the time, because people point to, well, this
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: team started their quarterback. okay, but he played two series,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: five of the six plays were handoffs. Right. That's not helping.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Well, but that's what Mike Rabel's point was in the summer,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: was like, if we're going to go out there, the
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: starting offense is going to run 10 base plays against
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: vanilla defenses, and that's going to make everybody feel so
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: much better about where they're at.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: But that's not the option. Like, that's not the only option.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: The other option is you go out there and you
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: run it. Like, run your offense.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: But they're not going to put their offense on field.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Not their full offense, but you actually, like, have Drake
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: May make some decisions.
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And maybe there's something to be said. Cause every team
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: you see, we used to watch Tom Brady play in
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the third quarter in August, a different time. I know
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: it was, but everybody kind of starts slow now and
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: everybody sucks. Right. Yeah. Is there something to be said
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: for the team that really ramps up and hits the
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: ground running is, I mean, and who knows some of this,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I'm going to wait to say definitively
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: how I feel about it because some of it depends
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: on what the schedule is the first month.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: If you have three NFC games in the first month,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I don't care. Well, I mean, the Jacksonville loss might
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: come back to Jacksonville.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: But the Seattle loss is one of those.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: That's my point. If you have Jacksonville, Buffalo, Denver, three,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: your first four games. Maybe there's an advantage to the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: team that takes the preseason seriously and you risk injury.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: But the upside of that is. these September games, the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: teams kind of throw away that do end up. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, it bit the Patriots last year, that Raiders
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: game bit them. That was for the one seat. We
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: didn't know it at the time and no clue, but
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: do you have an advantage? Maybe it makes your life
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: easier down the road of, Hey, we're coming ready in September.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: We're coming ready. Weeks one through four other teams aren't,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: but we are, that could be a significant advantage.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: I just, I lean more towards, I guess, Rabel side
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: of the street, given what he decided to do this
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: summer of, I don't think the juice is worth the
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: squeeze there. I don't think that the difference between starting
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: two and one or three, you know, at the beginning
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: of the season is.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Worth putting Drake may in harm's way. Preseason games.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: We'll see. Like, I'm not ready to form an opinion
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: on it yet. I still think we have too much.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: There's too much information. We do not.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It sounds like you kind of have a little bit
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: of an opinion.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Well, it depends on the, I'm laying out different scenarios.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: We don't know what the scenarios, but this was a
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: tough schedule to start with you this year.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: It was a tough schedule.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: It was a tough schedule.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: It wasn't. Yeah, it was. It was. And how big
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: would it be if they had that Jags game right
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: now or if they had that Seahawks game right now?
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say more Seattle that got blown out
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: by Jacksonville.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: We'll see. We'll see. But that's going to be a
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: big conversation. I'm telling you, that's going to be our
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: whole August next year is going to be debating how
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: much guys are playing.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Looking forward to it.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Um, next, next one item on my list here was, um,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: something that Kurt Warner I know has been big on
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: and I've gotten like a million questions. Uh, the lack
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: of a pressure plan for the Patriots in this game. Now,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: It really, to me, was only the first couple of drives.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: I thought they settled down after that from it. And
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: when I say pressure plan, like I'm not talking about
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: the five offensive linemen blocking the four pass rushers. I'm
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: talking about when they do those simulated pressures where they
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: have seven or eight guys up on the line of
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: scrimmage and they're dropping guys and they're blitzing others and
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: you have to sort it all out and all that
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff. Early on in this game, there's no
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: doubt that they got beat a couple times by Dennis
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Allen in some of those Blitz packages. It stalled out
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: both the first two drives of the game. I thought
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: that as the game wore on, their answers improved.
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: And.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: I think that their idea is to probably block it
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: over adjusting to it post-snap. Like I think that they
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: would rather have enough blockers in to be able to
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: sort it out like that and block it up. Then
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: we're going to leave this guy free and Drake may
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: is going to throw like a hot or a site
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: adjust or something like that. I know the site adjusts
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: are becoming a little bit of a topic.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I think they do have site adjustments in their offense and,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: I think that these defenses are good at popping out
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: those rushers underneath the hots or underneath the side adjustments.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: So maybe the Patriots need to be a little bit more.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: What's the word?
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Like multiple of how they're doing their site adjustments and
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: which receivers are hot in that sort of thing. There
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: was one particular one early on in the game where
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: there was a free runner came through the left-hand side
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: of the offensive line. And AJ Brown's running a vertical
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: on the left-hand side. Can that route convert to a
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: curl or a slant or something like that? When that
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: blitzer comes, the hots are like over on the three
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: receiver side. He's the one solo receiver on the other
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: side of the formation and I think that there's some
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: conversation to be had there.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: I will say, I love this split back stuff.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: I think the split back stuff is a really good
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: answer with Hunter Henry and Ramondre Stevenson, both in the backfield.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: And they have that ability to, you know, if you're
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: going to put seven up on the line of scrimmage,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: we now have seven blockers. So we can block this,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: you know, seven on seven, and then we can send
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: three into the pattern against single coverage all over the field.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: And if we can block it for long enough, it's
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: still not going to be when you blitz a bunch
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: of guys, it's still not going to be a great pocket,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: but if we can just block it for long enough,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: then you can really hit some big plays.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Down the field.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: You get pops Douglas one-on-one with room to run. Yeah.
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: And so they, I thought they got to some better
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: ones than late. They obviously got them late in the
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: game with another one. But this is now an it thing.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: And one of your favorites, Brian Flores really is the
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: one that started what a lot of people are calling
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: the seven or eight up fronts where there's just seven
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: or eight guys all up on the line of scrimmage linebackers, safeties,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: defensive linemen, uh, Nichols. And they just are going to
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: bring people from one side. They're going to drop people
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: out from other places. And there's really no way I
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: would say for the most part to, uh, read it post-snap.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Like you either have it blocked or you have a
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: hot answer.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: You can't know who's coming and who's not. There's no,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and sometimes they send everybody and sometimes they only send four.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: And that's like the, that's the science of this. And
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: the Patriots do the same thing on the defense side
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: of the ball. If you're going to run those eight
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: up pressures, you have to be willing to bring zero. Right.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: Because if you never bring zero, then there's no reason
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: to respect all eight of the guys.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: So like you had defensively, you have to at least
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: a couple of times a game be willing to bring zero.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: But I thought that their pressure answers improved as the
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: game went on. But it, you know, you go two
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: drives without scoring in the beginning of the game to
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: our point about the September mattering.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: The first quarter matters too.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And when you start slow and you start in a 10,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: nothing hole, it's, In a game like that, it's tough
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: to dig out of that.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: It's been a little bit of a trend with them.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I think the Seattle game was kind of the same way.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: They had some trouble with those blitzes early on, found answers.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: So some of that is just the cat and mouse
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: game of it. I do think there's something to defensive
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: coordinators having this tool at their disposal, the ones that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: run it, is a major advantage because you kind of
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: can't react to it until you see it.
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: So especially on a Thursday night where I think a
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: lot of those fronts, a lot of the pressures paths
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: that they were using were unscouted. Like, I don't think
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: they came into this game expecting some of the overloads
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: that they were running in the way that they were
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: getting to those overloads. So that all they were doing
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: was they were dropping rushers off of one side and
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: they were bringing too many on the other direction. So
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: the Patriots would have like Stevenson or Henry and, offset
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: and they would have an extra blocker but then that
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: extra rusher would be coming from the other side of the.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Right and credit to remander seems and he picked that
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: up once or twice he saw where he came across
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: an ear old the guy but um nice use of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: ear hole thank you i love that term it's just
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: uh it's one of those things i i love that
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: this is becoming in credit i think core run zero,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: probably at a higher percentage than some of these other
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: defense coordinators that do that.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I would agree.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Like we will get to the defense in a little bit.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: There's an interesting wrinkle there, but the cyclical of the,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the offense comes up with something and it's
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: really good for a little bit, but eventually the defense
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: finds the answer. They find the counter. Then the offense
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: finds the counter to that, or there's a new wrinkle
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: or a new something or whatever. And that's, what's fun
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: about football. It's the, the chase of it.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I think right now the defensive coordinators have
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit of an edge.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Especially with these pressure packages, like just talking to some
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: of the offensive guys, like they just want to avoid
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: it altogether.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: So that's ultimately now how you stay out of it
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: is you stay out of third and long, which the
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Patriots did not do in this game. I didn't realize
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: going in, the Patriots had the third shortest distance to
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: go on third down in the NFL this year. They
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: were averaging third and sixth. That game was third and
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: a tick under eight. It was like third and 7.8,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I think, something like that. So those two yards are huge.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: It is huge. I'll be interested to see– and this
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: is probably something that's not going to happen until the–
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: this is over time. This is something we're probably not
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: going to see until the offseason, what the eventual offensive
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: counter is. We've never seen– I think it's going to
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: be running the ball. Love it. We've never seen the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: wrinkle or the play call or the scheme– that doesn't
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: have a counter. The net, the next one that truly
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: can't be countered will be the first, even some of
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the whoopsie do offensive stuff that you love.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Fangio all has counters, right?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And then shut it down. Fangio got countered by some
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: of these quick hitting, you know, more dink and dunk offense.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And so now it's, we're not even going to give
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: you time to dink and dunk. We're going to put
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: eight guys on the line and come at you. And so,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, running like a heavy, so you're, are you
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: talking about not running against the eight up front, but
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: focusing a lot more on running on first and second downs.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: No, I'm talking about running against the eight up front.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: How's that going to work?
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Because they have mugged up linebackers, right? So the linebackers
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: are playing in the eight gaps. And then you also
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: have to remember that guys are dropping. So they're going
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: in the wrong direction. First of all, you have two
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: linebackers in the A gaps that are, what, 240, 235?
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: So if you can get guards and centers on those linebackers,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: then that's movement right there.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, so there's no true no's in these fronts, right?
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: The second thing is that if you've got guys bailing
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: or dropping, well, they're going in the wrong direction.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: So you look at the Jets.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Hit them with, like, a draw.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so last week the Jets got them on two
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: trap runs. out of the eight up front, the Patriots
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: are in the eight up front. Braylon Allen had two
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: explosives on trap runs right up the middle. The Patriots
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: tried to run one on the first drive of the game.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: They tried to run one on third and down third
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: down six. They just didn't, uh, they didn't block it
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: very well, but they, that those are the things that,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: you know, when I look at it, okay, you can't
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: do that in third and 10.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: But if it's third and four, third and five, And
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: they're showing eight up.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Like, running is going to be a lot more.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Can we hand it off?
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Even if we don't get all five yards, maybe it's
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: fourth and one, and now we can go for it.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: You know, so, like, I think those are the things
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: that just looking at teams.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Well, that makes it even more important that the Patriots
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: develop a run game.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Because these are, they're pass rush fronts.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: So just from a stylistic perspective from the defense, it's linebackers.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: It's pass rushing defensive tackles. It's nickels and safeties. It's not–
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: these are not, you know, 340-pound nose tackles that are
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: in these pass rush packages. So if you can move
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: you know those middle linebackers that are might mugged up
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: on the line of scrimmage in the a gaps like
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: that's a soft middle if you can get blockers on
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: there so I think that's going to be something you
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: know all these teams like all these often defenses excuse
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: me are expecting you to throw the screens yeah like
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: they all know you're going to throw the screen so
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: they're just dropping guys out and they're screaming into the
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: flats to stuff the screens. The Patriots tried to run
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: one to Demario Douglas. That got stuffed in this game.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: The screens are not effective because that's the obvious counter
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: is running a screen. But if it's third and six,
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: and you can pop a draw or a trap run,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: like a quick hitting run through the middle, that's not
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: exactly what you're expecting to see defensively on third and six.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing you can do is if
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: you can do that reliably enough, just building off what
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: you're saying, you can come out in third and five.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And now some of this is, and this is already,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: so this pairs in with another trend, which is teams
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: throwing out of heavy personnel. Yeah. You come, you can
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: come out and this sounds nuts, but come out in
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: third and five on 20 in 22 personnel and see
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: if they still put that package out there.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And if you can do that reliably, now you have
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to be willing to run the ball there or you.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Have to be, but if you have a 22 that
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: you can throw, right.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: If you can throw out a 22 and, the defense
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: probably isn't going to go eight up against 22 person,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: not with that personnel.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Most likely not.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: So they, the run game is back, baby. I love it.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: The run game is the answer to all their problems.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: I really feel that way. I want to hit a
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: quick break and then we're going to talk about that
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: run game here in a second.
• 31:16
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  Speaker 4: Mass General Brigham. If you're going to play the game, boy,
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  Speaker 6: 21 plus.
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  Speaker 3: Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. All right, can I
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: ask you one silly question before we get into this?
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: We were having a great conversation before the show started.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: And we were talking about, this is such a dude's
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: thing to talk about, planes versus boats.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: And the fact that you said that planes are cooler
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: than boats blew my mind.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Well, okay.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Boats are so much cooler than planes.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: You were approaching that from a very different perspective. Yes.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Angle than I want to be in Ibiza and on
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: a yacht. So you want to be on a plane
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: and like an uncomfortable seat.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Human experience is cooler on a boat. I was talking
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: about from like like engineering.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: OK.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Design like there's some like that thing.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: It's got to catch the wind.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: More impressive. technical technological achievement for humanity kind of thing.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: I would agree with that it is a more buying
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: a plane is.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: More right yeah oh no i'd much rather be on
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: like a yacht than like crammed in the middle row
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: or whatever but in terms of just the the the
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: feat of humanity yes planes are cooler.
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: Than boats also just efficiency and getting somewhere like a
• 34:33
  Speaker 7: plane is way more efficient than a boat.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: That is also true.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: But like I said, you know, my, my dream is
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: to like be on like below deck. Like, I just
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: want to be on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Well, there's planes that have two decks.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: With Jess and just, like, balling out.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Like, that sounds like the, no, I mean the TV
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: show Below Deck.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm just saying.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: That is, like, that's the peak vacation on my bucket
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: list is, like, yacht in the Mediterranean.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Well, because I forget how it, how did it come up?
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Cause you said, let's, let's get this
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: boat out of Florida or whatever.
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I said, let's get this plane up.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I'm a, I'm a boats guy.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I, if I'm hanging out, I'd rather hang out
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: on a boat than a plane. I'm with you on that.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: But airplanes is a vehicle or cooler than boats.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'll let you be like, I'd be the primary guest. Obviously.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Maybe you can like be my friend that gets to come.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: There you go. We'll bring Ace too. Yeah. There you go.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: All right. Back, back to football, back to football.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Um, let's talk about the run game or the lack thereof.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: I should say, I, I don't really feel much differently
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: watching it than I did after the Jacksonville game. I
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: think it's still a lot of the same issues that
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: we talked about that day, whether it's blocking, whether it's scheme,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: whether it's all the above, but you know, the stats
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: are what they are right now. They are, 27th in
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: rush EPA, 28th in success rate. So bottom six, bottom five,
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: no matter which way you slice it.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: 30th in yards before contact.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: So....
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: They're not running the ball effectively by any metric. Their
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: scheme is still, it's still a gap scheme. You know,
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: they're still running gap at the sixth highest rate. They're
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: running duo at the fifth highest rate. So that's still gonna,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: that is what they are is a downhill gap duo,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: get on the double teams, move the line of scrimmage
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: type of team. I think that they know that like
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: worries me more than just the fact that they are
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: not effective running the football is how ineffective they are
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: playing from under center in general, both the run game
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: and the play action passing game. So, you know, Josh McDaniels,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: I think it was last year, uh, gave a great
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: answer about the advantages of playing from under center, both schematically, uh,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: on your side of the street, a little bit more
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: weather wise, like when the weather gets bad, being able
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: to be a team that can play from under center
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: and turn around and hand the ball off in a
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: blizzard in January and a new England playoff game. Like
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: that is a big advantage. If you can do it effectively, uh,
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: right now the Patriots on under center plays are 26th
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: in the league and.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: EPA per play from under center.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: Uh, they on play action passes are, the only team
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: that has lost more EPA on under center play action
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: passes are the Tennessee Titans. They are 31st in the
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: league on play action passes from under center. You do
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: not want to be in the same category as the
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Tennessee Titans, right? Like that's a bad football team. So
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: it's not so much for me. It's not so much
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: just that their run game is not going anywhere. It's
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: also that their play action passes are not going anywhere,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: which is concerning because going back to what we started
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: the show with, when you can't run the ball and
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: then you can't play action pass off the run game,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: then the drop back passing game is your way of
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: moving the football. It puts all of it on the
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: drop back passing game, which ultimately puts it all on
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Drake may to move the offense. So running the football
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: and play action passes from under center. Those are the
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: easy buttons. Like play action passing is the easy button
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: for an offense. If you can do that effectively, you
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: can scheme guys open offensively.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Wide open. And make big plays happen. Easily. For the offense.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Without it.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: You are a drop back. Shotgun heavy offense. Which I
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: don't think they ever want to be. I never want
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: them to be that. But ultimately. if your run game
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: and you're under center plays are going nowhere, you're just
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: putting yourself in third and long anyways, by doing it
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: that way. So like maybe they do need to lean
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: more into where a spread team, we got a spread quarterback.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: He's one of the best deep ball throwers in the league.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: He's one of the best out of structure quarterbacks in
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: the NFL. Like maybe they just need to be the
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Cincinnati bangles and just spread the field, run the ball
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: from shotgun to, and go that direction. Cause this under
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: center stuff, clearly I just laid it all out. It
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: was just not working for them.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: It's tough because I actually thought they ran the ball
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: well against the jets. And it was like, okay, you know,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: trending up now.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Well enough.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Right now, some of it could be injuries, right? It's,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to run the ball when you
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: have all these moving pieces on the offensive line, especially
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: at guard. David Andrews did a great breakdown on our
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: podcast yesterday on some of the nuances of.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Blot.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Like, real week-to-week details. The chemistry of all the.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: He was telling me about him, Joe Tooney, and Shaq
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Mason would have going into a week, like, okay, here's...
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Because it's called, and there's block there's blocks called in
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the run game, like big picture that's designed, but they
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: would get into the details of like, okay, if the
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: defensive tackles off my shoulder here, here, like him and
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Tuna would be like, here's where I'm going to hit him. Like,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to hit him in the show. I'm going
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: to get his shoulder. You're not going to truly 50, 50,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: the guy, right. I'm going to get him at this angle.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to say, but if he's like three
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: inches this way, the whole thing changes and things like that.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: So when you have guys in and out of the lineup,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to do that. The other thing is like,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: they need to get Travion Henderson going. Now I do
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: wonder in running out of shotgun could help with this.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: He's been better at going to the outside than he
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: has been up the middle. I think some of that
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: is the line. I think some of that is him
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: getting in space, but running out of the shotgun is
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: going to make it a little easier for me to
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: get to the outside. So they got to figure out
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: some way to do it. Maybe that's it. The injuries
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: are really, I think it would be a lot easier
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to say, Well, they're going to get Ben Brown back.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: They're going to get Greg Van Roten back and they'll
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: be able to move people.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Like we don't know where those guys are at. So,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: so I, I.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Think the shotgun stuff and I just want to be like, I,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: I would not advocate for them being a shotgun offense, uh,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: as like a direction. Like I would not want to
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: do that as like identity or core of your offense.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: But one of the things that Mike Vrabel said yesterday
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: on Monday on EEI is that we need to figure
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: out the things we can get better at and the
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: things that we're just not going to get better at.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: And I am leaning towards the run game from under
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: center with the personnel that they have healthy currently right
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: now being something that they might just not get better at.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: And so how can you, how can you change it?
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: How can you adapt to it?
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: And I, I think the shotgun element of it is twofold. One,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: typically when you're in shotgun, you're running into lighter boxes.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: So there's just inherently more space. The second thing is
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: that you can RPO off of it. You can be
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: in pistol where you can run some play action, turn
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: the back to the defense kind of actions out of pistol,
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: which they've done a little bit of this year. So
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: there's ways that you can still put run past conflict
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: into the defense from Drake May not being under center,
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: whether it's pistol or shotgun.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: There's also... we know Josh McDaniels is willing to do that.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: They did it in reverse in 2018. They wanted to
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: be a high flying, throw the ball around the yard offense.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: And what were they by the time January rolled around?
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: It was Sony Michelle behind James Devlin, crack and skulls, right? Right.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Rob Gronkowski was essentially another tackle. So we know they
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: can reinvent like that. This is in reverse, obviously, but they,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: they need to do something because they can't go another
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: year of just not having, a sustainable run game. And
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not even talking about getting back to the Travion Henderson,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: 70 yard runs. If, if they can't get those, that's fine.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: You need to be able to run the ball for
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: four or five yards on first down. You have to
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: be able to do that in the modern NFL, or
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: it's just going to be too difficult and saying, well,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: just don't run the ball on first down. Well, now
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you're predictable.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: And that's what you have to try to avoid.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: So I just, and I want to move over to
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: the defense. I just feel like they're trying to, get
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: big people on big people and move people in the
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: run game. That's what duo is. That's what gap is.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: That's what downhill runs are is we're going to put
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: our big people on the field. We're going to put
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: multiple tight ends. We're going to put a double teams
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: on the line of scrimmage and we're just trying to
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: move bodies. And it's just, they're not generating that movement
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: with the current personnel that they have. So it just
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: would make sense to me to, okay, that's not working. Um,
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: when we're in a, you know, condensed area, that's not working. Well,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: let's try to spread it out and let's try to
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: run it that way. And let's try to run it
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: into lighter boxes and two high shells and that whole.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Sort of thing.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Um, maybe that would just at least break it open
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: just a tad. And to your point about Travion Henderson, um,
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Like maybe it gets him into some space. Like look
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: at that run he hit against Pittsburgh. It's a shotgun
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: run against a two high shell and a six man box.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: And he gets loose and he hits a big explosive touchdown.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: So I wonder if that, we see a little bit
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: more of that moving over to the defensive side of
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: the ball, the run game version of this for the defense.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Like what's the big Achilles heel right now for the
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: defense is their zone coverages. And we saw it a
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: bunch on Thursday night against Chicago. The numbers bear it
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: out for the season though. they're currently right now 30th
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: in the NFL and EPA in zone coverage 30th. They
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: are third when they play man coverage. So just like
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: the run game, you said, well, why don't you just
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: throw it all the time? I think a lot of
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: people would say, well, why don't you just play man
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: coverage all the time?
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: But just like anything in football, you can't just do
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: one thing in football and you can't just live in
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: one sort of coverage. You can't just live and just
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: the passing game. Like you have to be multiple. You
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: have to be able to, be game plan oriented to
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: an extent where you can switch it up. I think
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: all of this goes back to though with their zone
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: coverage struggles.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I think it all goes back to pass rush.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: I think their inability to generate pressure with four without
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: blitzing from a zone coverage standpoint hurts them because they're
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: pulling guys out of the zones to blitz. So now
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: instead of running, seven man zone structures. They're running five
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: or six man zone structures. And there's just too much
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: space all over the field, especially for good quarterbacks that
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: are going to find it and are going to find
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: the voids when they play man coverage, their blitz rate
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: increases significantly because they only need five guys to cover.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: Like everybody has a player, you know, you have three receivers,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: you have a tight end, you have a back, everybody's
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: covering somebody. So you can run five or six man
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: pressures out of man coverages. When you send five or
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: six guys in zone coverage, like a fire zone or
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: a blitz zone, now you're leaving a lot of space
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: and you're just hoping that the pass rush gets home.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: So looking at their splits, I think it's exactly what
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: we sort of anticipated coming into the year. Their lack
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: of a four-man pass rush makes it difficult for them
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: to be an effective zone coverage team. And so now
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: the question is, How do you make their, your zone
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: coverage is more effective. Just like, how do you strengthen
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: the weakness? Just like the run game offensively. What do
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: you do with the zone coverage?
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: And that's what's tricky because like we talked about earlier,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I kind of mentioned this. I think what Zach core
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: is done for the first six, seven weeks is great,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: but you're going to need a counter to that. And
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: they've been so blitz heavy. The logical counter is to
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: not blitz as heavily. Yeah. And doing that means getting
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: home with Ford. Now, Gabe Ackes, who I thought had a,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: ref and the passer aside, had a great game on
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Thursday night. He continues to trend upwards. Elijah Ponder's playing well.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: They still have Milton Williams. They still have Christian Barmore.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: I feel better about their ability to get home with
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Ford now than I did at the start of the year.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Doesn't mean I want them to live in it, but
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I feel better about it. but they're going to, I
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: think that's going to get tested because that is the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: like court, a great start. But again, it's now it's
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: on tape. Now it's out there. Now teams have seen
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that they've studied it. You can't just run the same
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: defense in December. You ran in September. He's going to
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: have to build counters off of what he started. And
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: some of that means blitzing less. And if you're going
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: to blitz less, you have to be able to get
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: home with four.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: So here, here are the numbers on the blitzing. So the,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Their pressure rate in zone coverage is just overall pressure
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: rate is 31st in the NFL. They have a 29.1%
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: pressure rate in zone coverage. The splits here are actually
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: kind of crazy. Their man coverage pressure rate is 50%,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: almost double. It's second in the NFL. So they're second
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: in pressure rate when they play man. They're 31st in
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: pressure rate when they play zone.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Because they can blitz in man, right? Here's their blitz rate.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Can you start designing some zone blitzes?
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: So you can, but it's a chicken or the egg thing, right?
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Sort of it's that's not the right phrase, but it's like,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: if you blitz, then you have less people in the zones.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: And so like, you have to get home.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: And so like there's zone blitz rate right now, and
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: this is next gen. So this is just rushing five
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: or more guys. It's not simulated and all that kind
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: of stuff. 26.6% of we're sending more people than four,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: you know, five plus rushers in blitz rate when they
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: play man, 70.2%. So all of this is stemming from
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: the fact that they need to blitz to get pressure.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: And when they do blitz to get pressure in zone. OK, well,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: now you're playing five or six man zone coverages behind
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: the blitzes. And so you're not covering as well.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: You know, and so like that's all this is, is
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: like this sort of they're kind of in the pickle
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: of like, OK, when we play zone with a four.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Man rush, we don't get pressure.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: So the quarterback's just sitting there with all day to throw.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: When we blitz in zone, we're getting shredded. So this
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: is kind of, this might be sort of like a
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: personnel sort of issue that they have to, to Rabel's point,
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: there are certain things that we're just going to have
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: to accept we're not going to be very good at.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: They kind of need to mask this weakness, I think,
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: with their four-man pressures. Now, can they get creative with
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: how they pressure the simulateds, all that kind of stuff?
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: And I don't think every quarterback is going to sit
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: there like, Caleb Williams did on Thursday night and throw
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: an absolute bullet to Roma doomsday through a tricky to
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: pass the fingertips of Kevin Bayard and fit it through
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: a keyhole. Like not every quarterback has that throw in
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: his bag, but the good ones do.
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: You know, and eventually going to have to be the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: good one.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Right. And so that, that I think is a tricky
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: part about this. I would love to sit here and say,
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: just play 50% man coverage. Just play a ton of man.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: I think that's in their back pocket, and they would
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: have the ability to do that. But there are certain quarterbacks,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: game plan-wise, that just isn't smart against. I think Caleb
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: is one of them. When you play man against Caleb
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: a ton, he's going to scramble. He's going to extend plays.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: It's going to be much harder to defend for five,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: six seconds in man coverage than than it would be
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: for three seconds or two and a half seconds. This week,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: if you look at the splits and you look at
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: the numbers, Malik Willis has been actually pretty good against
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: man coverage. He's been terrible against zone coverage. Four-man rush,
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: zone coverage, make him sit there, make him read it out.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: It's not rocket science. You don't need the numbers to
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: know that that's probably the best strategy against Malik Willis.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying they can't win this game on Sunday
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: because Miami is just talent poor. They could heat up
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Malik Willis and man coverage and probably win this game.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: But if you really wanted to devise a game plan
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: that was best suited for that style of quarterback, it
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: would be to play zone. So like, these are the
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: tricky things that you get into with these types of things.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: But those are the two big things to me to
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: just put a bow on this entire conversation. And I
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: have one more point. Hopefully we can sneak in zone
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: coverage on defense and, run game on offense. Like they
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: have to find ways to at least be average in
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: those two departments. It doesn't, it's not going to be great.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: It's not going to be.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: And like every team has its strengths and weaknesses.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: That's fine.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: But you gotta, like you said, just be serviceable there.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Last couple of minutes here, I want to talk about
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: the rookies. There's really only three rookies to discuss, if
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: we're being honest. Shout out Namby Obizor, though, for covering kicks.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's been excellent.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: Day three, you know, pick there. But those top three rookies, Lomu, Akis, Raritan,
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: let's grade them. Let's evaluate them through seven weeks here.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: I'll go B for Lomu. It's just limited sample size. Like,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: he's been solid, but.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: He's been great at tackle.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: But he's kind of, this year, supposed to be their
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: sixth offensive lineman. And for whatever reason, that's been different.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: When he's played as the extra offensive lineman or the
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: jumbo tight end, it hasn't gone as well for him.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: When he's played left or right tackle, he looks like
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: a future starter.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: It's kind of weird how that hasn't translated to the
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: 6-0 line stuff.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I'm more focused on the long-term projection with him, so...
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I'll go B. Just, again, limited sample size. Am I.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: You can give Ackes an A.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's been... Unbelievable. The summer, we were like,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: what's going on with this guy? You said something the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: first week that I think there's something to. Because we
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: heard how much of a film nut he is, among
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: other things. I think there's something to he just needed
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: an opponent to study. Because he was out there in
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the preseason. It looked like he was guessing... Because he
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: was guessing.
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Because you don't really scout in the preseason. Now that
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: he is an opponent.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: That, that wasn't, that was his words. That's what he
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: told me.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, was it? Okay. Yeah.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: He said that they, uh, that. Going into Seattle, they
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: had a ton of time to study the Seahawks. He
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: watches the tackles. They make, you know, cut-ups for him,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: but also he watches full games of the tackles.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: He studies them. He studies the scheme.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: He said he really likes to learn about, like, the
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: history of the scheme. Like, this week it's Bobby Sloan,
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: so it's a West Coast offense. It's Shanahan tree stuff. Like,
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: that's the type of thing that he loves it.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: He's a junkie.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a Belichick guy. Yeah.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's my favorite player on the team. already
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: he's unbelievable yeah i mean the guy is just an
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: absolute uh he's a hoss like He's strong at the
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: point of attack in the run game.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: He gets off box. He's quick. Uh, he's powerful obviously
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: with the bull rush, but.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: High motor, uh, you know, he's not quick in the
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: sense of like, he's going to win with pure speed
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: off the edge. He's sudden, like he's got these lateral
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: movements that are just, he can go inside out or
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: outside in and slip box. Uh, he's full tilt to
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: the football every single time. He punishes ball carriers when
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: he hits them. Uh, he is as exciting of a
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: rookie as they've had in, in, like at that position
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: since probably Chandler Jones.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Would you say he's as advertised?
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: I think he's better.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: I think I've been more impressed than I thought.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: I thought he would be like a sturdy edge setter
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: out of the gate.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I think he's more than that.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: How about the Judon comp? That was the big one
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: after the draft.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think his getoff isn't quite as good as Judon's,
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: but he's getting there.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Is it ballpark?
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Similar size, similar body type.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: So he's been really good. And then Eli Reardon, I
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: don't know. B minus B was a little slow to start.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: He's coming on here.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Good as a receiver.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Uh, so, so as a run block, I would say,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: I think the receiving upside, maybe a little bit more, uh,
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: statistically he's on pace right now for 400 plus yards
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: and six touchdowns as a rookie for a tight end.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: That's pretty good. That's good production.
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: Especially the second guy. So I think that he's been
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: a really solid addition. And when he gets matched up
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: against linebackers and seam runs and stuff like that, he's
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: a mismatch.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: They, they can't cover them down the field vertically, uh,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: a linebacker on tight end. So that's been an exciting, uh,
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: the run blocking has been streaky.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: It's been inconsistent.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: Uh, so I would say C plus B minus is fair.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: Cause run blocking is a big part of the game.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: It's a tight end. And that's, I mean, that's pretty good.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: They want to get in 12 personnel, but no, it's this,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: this class looks good.
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: It's cost looks pretty good.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Encouraging. All right. Uh, that's going to do it for
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: today's show. That was good.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: I was glad we were able to take a little
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: bit more of a big picture, uh, view on the
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: team through seven weeks. On Thursday, we will discuss the
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: Miami Dolphins going down to Miami once again.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: I know it looks like a.
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: Cupcake on paper, and I'm going to try my best
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: not to hype up Bobby Slowik and the Dolphins offense
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: too much on Thursday. But I do think that they're
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: trending in a somewhat positive direction offensively for Miami. So
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: we'll get into the Dolphins on Thursday. PU's up in
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: five minutes. Catch 22 will be back at 10 a.m.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: on Thursday morning. We'll see you then.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Bye. Hey, this is Deuce.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning into the show.
• 55:55
  Speaker 7: If you really want to help us, make sure you
• 55:57
  Speaker 7: like us wherever you get your podcasts, like Apple Podcasts
• 55:59
  Speaker 7: or Spotify.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Also, make sure you follow us on.
• 56:02
  Speaker 7: The New England Patriots YouTube channel to see this show
• 56:04
  Speaker 7: and everything else that we do here at the Patriots.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot.