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Patriots Catch-22 9/22: Good/Bad vs. Steelers, Injury Updates, Offensive Concerns · Patriots Catch-22

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is the Patriots Catch 22 podcast with Evan Lazar
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and Alex Barth. I'm Evan Lazar. I'm Evan Lazar.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I'm Evan Lazar.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: Hello, everybody.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Nailed it.
• 0:12
  Speaker 4: Joined, as always, by our bar.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: That's a match.
• 0:15
  Speaker 4: No risk it. No risk it.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Here is Evan Lazar and Alex Barth. The results are there.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It's funny. He doesn't put up a lot of points
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: in a game. Oh, he doesn't score enough. And he
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: puts up a lot of points and you get the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: who you play. So I'm sorry he's not putting up
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: 50 burgers on the Seahawks and the Texans and the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Broncos and the elite defenses in the league. Is that
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the bar? He's going to have to keep looking. If
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that's the bar. You're going to have a new offense
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: coordinator every year if that's the bar. The offense shows
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: up when he's the coordinator every year. That's the reality
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: They have a solid floor with him as the offense coordinator.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Is it super new-agey? No. Now, some of that super
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: new-agey stuff sucks, too. How'd that Seahawks offense look?
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: 20-22.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: That's a good topic to start the show off with, Alex.
• 1:07
  Speaker 6: It's been an interesting couple of days since the Patriots
• 1:12
  Speaker 6: beat the Steelers to say the least, 20-3 on Sunday.
• 1:15
  Speaker 6: It was a lot more fun to break down this
• 1:18
  Speaker 6: tape from a win.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So you're telling me you didn't go right to the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Ben Johnson film because it's always great and he's so good.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: How did your boy Ben Johnson do this week?
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: Well, it was pouring and he lost his quarterback.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: He lost quarterback late.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, that's, that's a tough, that's
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: a tough one.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: He's so good.
• 1:35
  Speaker 6: I would, the way you talk about it on like the,
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: that one inch line going into the end zone, they,
• 1:41
  Speaker 6: they got a field goal blocked.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: I think on a, another one as well.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: He said the way you talk about him, I think
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: he'd be able to handle some rain. He's that good.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Anyways, uh, let's not get pogged down because we're, uh,
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: on for the hour. Uh, brand new.
• 1:54
  Speaker 6: Time, uh, still same cash 22 as you can tell. Uh,
• 1:59
  Speaker 6: but brand new time, uh, And I'm excited about this.
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: I think this will be a good change overall for
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: the show. So today we're going to be on for
• 2:08
  Speaker 6: the next hour before Patriots unfiltered on Thursday, the same thing,
• 2:12
  Speaker 6: 10 to 11. And we'll do our game recap today.
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: We'll do our game preview of the Jaguars game on Thursday,
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: a couple of housekeeping things, but I do really want
• 2:23
  Speaker 6: to get right into it. Uh, Just bear with us
• 2:26
  Speaker 6: in terms of the timing of everything as we get
• 2:29
  Speaker 6: used to this new format.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: So we like to talk. I specifically like to talk.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: I know that. I can be long-winded.
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: And we're going to try to take calls. We're going
• 2:39
  Speaker 6: to try to do emails and all that good stuff.
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: But we're probably going to be working on the timing
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: just a little bit in the beginning here. So just
• 2:48
  Speaker 6: bear with us on that. But we are going to
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: do the good, the bad, the stuff that gets you beat,
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: the return, of the good, the bad, the stuff that
• 2:54
  Speaker 6: gets you beat.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: And, uh, I'm excited for that. So it's ace behind
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: the glass. It's Barth.
• 2:59
  Speaker 6: It's Evan Lazar. Uh, let's get into this game. And, uh,
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: like we like usually like to do Alex, let's start
• 3:07
  Speaker 6: big picture and then we'll zoom in, uh, with the,
• 3:09
  Speaker 6: the good, the bad, the stuff that gets you beat. And,
• 3:11
  Speaker 6: and I think we have to start with Drake May.
• 3:13
  Speaker 6: And I think we have to start with the Patriots
• 3:15
  Speaker 6: offense now, uh, The last couple of days, just being
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: on social media, which is probably a mistake, listening to
• 3:23
  Speaker 6: some other people talk about this game as well. There's
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: a sea of negativity around the Patriots offense right now
• 3:30
  Speaker 6: and around the quarterback. And I think a lot of
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: those criticisms are fair. I think that it's a little premature.
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: I understand a lot of people are kind of. Going
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: off of the playoffs and kind of connecting the two
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: and it's like a six.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: Game rut instead of a two game rut.
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: I think a lot of people look at it that
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: way as well to go back to the start of
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: the playoffs last year. I do think there's some context
• 3:53
  Speaker 6: like I think it's notable that. His two top receivers
• 3:57
  Speaker 6: from last year, Stefan Diggs and Kayshaun Booty, are no
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: longer here. One of the biggest replacement for those guys, A.J. Brown,
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: also did not play in this game. So they're having
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: some turnover at the skill position. Some guys that are
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: stepping into bigger roles from last year. Also some new
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: guys like Romeo Dobbs, you know, Eli Reardon, you know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: players like that. But overall, where are you at right
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: now with the quarterback? Because there's a lot of just panic,
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: I would say. Not internally, externally from what's going on
• 4:33
  Speaker 6: with Drake May.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Obviously don't love where he's at. I don't think it's
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a five alarm fire or anything. I think the biggest
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: thing for me, and Josh talked about this, I think
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Vrabel actually talked about it a little bit last week too,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: You know, when you break out, you have a target
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: on your back. And that can be a player, that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: can be a unit, that can be a team. And
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: your opponents are going to spend all summer studying you.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: They're not going to just game plan for you in
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that one week. Or even if there's a new wrinkle,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: like when the Dolphins... Broke out the Wildcat. Remember, coaches
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: talked about the next year they spent all summer trying
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to figure out ways to counter the Wildcat, the tush-push.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Teams spent all summer. Now, ultimately, it took, well, the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: league has to officiate it correctly. That's another, so maybe
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: that's a bad example. But, like, Drake May is kind
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of a, I'm not a hunter. What's the term for, like,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a prize whatever, right?
• 5:34
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Prize fish, whatever. He's now that for defensive coordinators. If
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you're a defensive coordinator, that's a pretty impressive get if
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you can stop Drake May versus maybe stopping the average
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: quarterback on your schedule. You're going to spend some more
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: time on that. So it's not uncommon for a guy
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: or a team that has one of these breakouts because
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: nobody's perfect. You're never going to be perfect, right? to
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: have some of the weaknesses brought to the forefront. And
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: so I expected a little bit of that naturally coming
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: into the season. Okay, here's some stuff Drake may struggle
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: with last year. The cover six is one of them.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I see teams using that mush rush more against him now.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: You're not necessarily worried. We used to talk about this
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a lot when the Patriots would face the Holmes at
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the beginning of his career. You don't want to go
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: all out to sack Patrick Mahomes, right? That wasn't what
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: was best. It was just close the pocket around him,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: don't let him run away, and just knock him off
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: his spot a little bit, and that'll frustrate him. I
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: think that's kind of the book on Drake May. It
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: was at times last year. You just didn't see teams
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: do it as much because it's like a big-picture thing
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: you're putting in. Now you see... team's doing it. So
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to that extent, I was expecting it. Now the Patriots
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and may need to come up with a counter, but
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that's just kind of life in the NFL. You do something,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: other teams figured out, they find out how to counter it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Now you need to counter the counter and then they'll
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: have a counter to the counter to the counter and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: on and on and on. So that to me is
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: just kind of the growing pains. The one area where
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I'm like concerned and confused is the underthrows. Because as
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: long as we've watched Drake May going back to his
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: rookie year, going back to North Carolina, it was not
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: always the most accurate. But he never underthrew anybody. It
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: was sprays. It was overthrows. It was out in front.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Now he's throwing behind guys. He's underthrowing guys. That's not, hey,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: like here's a weakness he had last year that defenses
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: have found out to exploit. That's just new. So that
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: worries me a little bit more. Where's that coming from?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: I think some of it is mechanical. But not all
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of it, because we even saw last year at times
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: he would throw off balance and still get enough on
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the football. So I don't know exactly what that is,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: if he's maybe overthinking and it's making, you know, it's
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: affecting his ability to fully just let the ball rip
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: or whatever. But that's kind of my assessment of where
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I'm at. Some of it is just, hey, teams have
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: a much better picture of what he does. They know
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: how to counter it. And he's seeing those counters more
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: regularly now. And he's going to have to find out.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: It's not to make excuses. It's just what's happened. He
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: didn't just wake up and suck. Like, not that he's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: been that bad. He was that bad against Steelers. But, like,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes people go, oh, a player sucks.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And you explain why. And people act like it's excuses.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It's not. It's just this is why he's struggling. I
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: think some of it is fixable. I mean, still him
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and Josh and all of them have to put in
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the work to do it. And getting A.J. Brown back
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: will help. The underthrows are weird to me, though. The underthrows,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's up with that.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: So when you say underthrows, just to be more specific.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Not putting enough on the football.
• 8:40
  Speaker 6: Well, no, I know what an underthrow is, but which
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: one plays are you specifically talking about?
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I almost said Hail Mary. The flea flicker to Metcalf
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: in Seattle.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: Or to A.J.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Brown, yeah. Yeah, to A.J. Brown in Seattle. The first interception.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: The third interception's an underthrow, but it's also a lot
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of other things. You can put that in whatever.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: Okay, so we're going back to Seattle.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, no, but then against Pittsburgh, the one to Rairdon,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I thought he could have gotten more on. Rairdon bails
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: him out, makes a great catch. I don't know.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, they're bearing down on him, and he's throwing
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: off his back. Okay.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: The one to Henry. I don't think it was tipped.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I know some people saying it was tipped. I have not.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: The one up the seam to Henry?
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: The interception. Oh, no. Okay. Yep. That was underthrown.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: No, not tipped.
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: So underthrown to me speaks to an issue with arm strength.
• 9:31
  Speaker 6: Like you're underthrowing deep balls, right? Things like that. What
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: I'm seeing with Drake May, though, is like I don't
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: think he's very confident in the pocket right now. And
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: I don't think that he's... The word that I would
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: use to describe some of this is I feel like
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: he's lost his mojo, like he's lost his mojo. And
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: I think that this is where it relates to the
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: playoffs last year. He got knocked down last year in
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: the playoffs for a straight game. Uh, we've talked ad
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: nauseum about the gauntlet of defenses and this, that the
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: other thing, but he was playing in the regular season
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: last year with such supreme confidence in his ability that
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: he was playing with a, a looseness.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: And I don't mean a looseness with the football. Cause
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: I know that's how it's going to come out with,
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: you know, The issues he had at the end of
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: the year with turnovers.
• 10:22
  Speaker 6: But I just mean with like this freedom where the
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: rush wasn't impacting him. The muddied pockets he was throwing
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: with strong, sturdy bases, even from muddy pockets. The pocket mobility,
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: the ability to, you know, we used to talk all about,
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: you know, remember the skip and rips where he dipped
• 10:41
  Speaker 6: the ball and skip up in the pocket around a
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: pass rusher. And does fire the ball down the field.
• 10:46
  Speaker 6: Like how many of those, you know, I go back
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: to just going all the way back to the beginning
• 10:50
  Speaker 6: of last season. Remember the throw that he made to
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: remand Ray Stevenson down in Miami, where he skips around
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: the defender and hits remand Ray in stride. I'm like
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: a running back seam, like 40 yards down the field,
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: like those types of plays, that type of confidence. I
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: don't see with him right now. I see somebody that
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: is playing kind of robotic and, in the pocket and
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: playing a little bit like his feet are in, in
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: like have cinder blocks on him. And I don't think
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: that that's because he's hurt or anything physical. I think
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: it's all mental. I, I, one of the things, so
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: like when you say under throws, I, I, are you
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: saying that you do feel like it's physical or do
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: you feel like.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know what he, I like, it shouldn't be physical.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Cause I know how strong his arm is.
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: The only reason why I'm asking you to clarify is
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: because I think when people hear under throw, they think physical,
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: like physical, I understand that.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: He's got a pea shooter.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: There are, there are when he misses. Remember like last year,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: we used to talk a lot about the sprays with him.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: It would be 10 feet over the receiver's head or,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: you know, that was where he missed and it's not ideal,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: but remember how many times you said, well, it's better
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: doing that than not putting enough on it. Yeah. And
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: so maybe it is more ball placement, but where his
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: misses used to be, there was too much on the ball.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Now there's not enough on the ball. Now I, again,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I don't, it's a good ask by you. I don't
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: think it's about physical arm strength because he's 24 years
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: old and that shouldn't be a problem, right? If he
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: was in his mid to late thirties, like drew breeze
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: at the end, then maybe it would be physical, but
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: he's way too young for that. So is he actively
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: putting less on the ball? Some of it could be.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And I mean the throw to Henry, even if he
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: puts enough on it, would you agree that there's not
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: enough on that ball for whatever reason?
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would agree with that.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Even if he puts enough.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: I dislike the decision more than I dislike the throw. Like,
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: I'm not as cut up on the throw.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so fair. So even if he puts enough on it,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: it's a tight window throw.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Is that because as he was throwing it, he realized
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that and maybe hesitated, so he didn't fully get zip
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: on it?
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: I think he's hesitating all over the place. Like, I
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: think that that's what this is stemming from.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: So that answers my whole question was, my concern is
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: he's never been one to not get enough on the,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: all right, so let me get rid of the term underthrow.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: He's never been enough to not get... He's never been
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: one to not get enough on the ball. That's never
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: been an issue for him. Some of the other things
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: where he's having some issues, we've seen from him before.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: He's cleaned up. You're not going to play a perfect
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: game every game. He's seen some new things from some defenses. Like, fine,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I can wrap my head around those. They need to
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: be fixed. But it's like, okay, I can see why
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: this is happening. The not getting enough on the ball
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: is new. And that's what makes it a concern to me.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Because year three... you shouldn't really be finding out new problems.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You should kind of have that picture by now.
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: So the reason why I harp more on the decision,
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: and we'll get to the turnovers and stuff in the
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: game recap, but the reason why I harp more on
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: the decision than the.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Actual throw is because.
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: he's throwing off his back foot with Jack Sawyer right
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: in his face.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: And earlier in the game, I think it's a very,
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: it's a different route. He's coming from the backside on
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: the crossing route versus just a high seven or high
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: corner route. But it was similar to the rare and
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: throw where I think he's just trying to balloon it
• 14:09
  Speaker 6: and put as much air under it and try to
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: drop it into Henry.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: So he's trying to like loft it.
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: You know, I don't think he's trying to drive the
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: ball into that window.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: So that's why I don't really.
• 14:20
  Speaker 6: The short-arm throw on that one, I think, speaks more
• 14:23
  Speaker 6: to the fact that Sawyer ended up coming free in
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: the pass rush and was right in his face. And
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: he's kind of fallen off the back of the platform there.
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: I guess the decision to me is just... It's just
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: never open. Like, Patrick Queen's underneath it. The safety's over
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: the top. Like, the throw, the decision, the read is
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: just never there.
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: Now.
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: I think we're kind of saying the same thing in
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: a different way. The two biggest concerns that I had
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: watching this, and this was... regular season the only game
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: that i thought was worse in terms of like film
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: grading yeah drake may was the opener last year against
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: the raiders i i.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Actually thought he played better against seattle and he did.
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: Well because for three quarters in seattle i thought he
• 15:02
  Speaker 6: was fine that's true so yes the interceptions in seattle
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: were worse just because they were catastrophic errors late in
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: the game uh that lose you football games right but
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: the totality of the play-to-play breakdown the two concerns that
• 15:17
  Speaker 6: i have are some of the things that you're talking
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: about which is I just don't see a guy that's
• 15:21
  Speaker 6: very confident in what he's looking at right now to
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: really just let it rip. Like he's trying to be
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: too precise, guide the ball, see guys open, like things
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: like that. And you just want him to just step
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: into a throw and just rip it. You know, that's
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: what you just keep hearing yourself saying in your head
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: when you're watching it.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: The second thing.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Drew Bledsoe, just go out there and sling it.
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the second thing that has me, you know, small
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: C concern is he feels a little bit sped up
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: to me. And what I mean by that is that
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: he's just not letting plays develop. So then he's kind
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: of running into pressure or vacating the pocket or bailing
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: on plays a little bit early. So there was a
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: play early on where he checks the ball down to
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: Ramondre Stevenson. Ramondre Stevenson fumbles on the check down. Obviously
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: not his fault that he fumbled, but that's leak, right?
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: So they're trying to get the tight end on the
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: leak route back across the formation. It's Eli Raritan. I
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: put it on. And after further review, if you want
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: to watch the play yourself, where it is open, like
• 16:21
  Speaker 6: he's going to be wide open for a touchdown and
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: he just kind of bypasses it. Like he just goes
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: one instead of going one to two to check down.
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: He just goes one to check down. He just immediately
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: looks over to Stevenson and checks the ball down.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: Maybe there's some things going on there in terms of
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: he saw it this way and he thought it wasn't
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: going to be open. but you would like to see
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: him kind of process it a little bit longer and
• 16:47
  Speaker 6: just give the play a beat to see he's, he's protected.
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: Like it's not like there's a rusher in his face.
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: You know, there, there was another one with Romeo Dobbs, right?
• 16:55
  Speaker 6: Romeo Dobbs. And this one, I think more people highlighted
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: in real time where he runs into the TJ Watt
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: sack and Romeo Dobbs is coming across the field on
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: the crossing route, the double posts, clear it out. He
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: comes over on the crossing route. And if he just
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: slides up in the pocket, and just kind of buys
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: himself an extra beat, then Dobbs is going to pop
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: open and he can just layer it into Dobbs for
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: a big, a big game.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: If he catches the ball, right.
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: So for a big game, it's the same play that
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: they ran in Seattle. So I, that part to me
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: is also a little bit concerning, uh, that my, I
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: think he's trying to make quicker decisions. That's my end
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: thesis to all of this. I think he's trying to
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: make quicker decisions, uh, in the pocket. And to me,
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: that relates to the fumbling and the playoffs last year.
• 17:42
  Speaker 6: I think he's trying to be less, uh, laissez in
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: the pocket with the football. And, you know, remember it
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: was at the chargers got a defender that said he's
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: like too cool in the pocket sometimes, uh, So that's
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: where I'm at with Drake May. I think there needs
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: to be more of a happy medium between quick decision-making
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: to maybe cut down on some of the fumbling and
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: some of the sacks and being.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: Able to let plays develop. You know, he had.
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: the safety's in the middle of the field. Henry's coming across.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: He just kind of slides into a sack. You know, like,
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: is Henry going to be open if he doesn't step
• 18:18
  Speaker 6: up in the pocket?
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: Maybe that safety jumps Henry and attaches to Henry on
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: the crossing route and ends up taking out Henry. But
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: if the safety jumps Henry and vacates the middle of
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: the field, then Matt Collins is running the back of
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: the end zone. He's the one-on-one, right? Like, so there's
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: an option there to throw the football. And before any
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: of that happens, Drake Mays already sliding down and taking
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: a sack. So he, it feels like he's almost predetermining
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: things where like pre like pre snapper in his drop,
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: he's reading the coverage cell and.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Saying, this isn't going to be open. He's just kind
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: of giving up on the play.
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: And I, I think that that's something that isn't like
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: you're saying the under throws isn't characteristic of him, not
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: wanting to look downfield and try to make big plays
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: also isn't very characteristic of him. Now, as we get into,
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: you know, the breakdown here, they did hit six explosive
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: plays in this game.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: Offensively, uh, four passes, two runs, uh, that went for chunks,
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: you know, 20 plus yard plays. Uh, I, I didn't
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: check what the Rams, uh, you know, had a big
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: night offensively last night. They might've passed, uh, the Patriots,
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: but as of going into Monday night football, only the
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: bills had more in week two, they had seven. The
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: Patriots had six 20 plus yard plays. The most encouraging
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: play of the entire day to me for Drake may, uh,
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: was the 29-yard completion to Romeo Dobbs on the broken play.
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: Not because of the scramble drill, and we all love
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: the out-of-structure stuff, but watch the pocket movement on that play.
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: He goes up through the middle of the pocket. Instead
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: of trying to go out the back of the pocket
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: like he did on the Dobbs play. We were just
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: talking about, he steps up through the middle of the
• 19:53
  Speaker 6: pocket and then out, you know? And so you see
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: that movement up the field to transition up in the pocket.
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: I just would so much rather him do that than
• 20:02
  Speaker 6: try to escape out the back of the pocket. But,
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: you know, Henderson comes back, hits the 39 yard touchdown.
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: Stevenson had a 24 yard run. Both tight ends had explosives.
• 20:11
  Speaker 6: Dobbs had two explosives. So some of that fresh air
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: might be good for this offense to like not play
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: the Seahawks.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: Be suffocated for four quarters.
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: So I was overall encouraged, you know, those are the
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: plays that people, you know, dorks like me can clip and,
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: you know, put on Twitter and say, you know, big
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: play by the Patriots, nice explosive, uh, well-designed play. Uh, I,
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: I think that that's something that, uh, it was encouraging
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: overall from this game.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. And, and we can get to why
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: it didn't result in more points. It's kind of one
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of my big takeaways, but, um, to have that much
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: explosiveness without AJ Brown first game without AJ Brown. And I,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I still think the Steelers defense, a good defense. They're
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: not Seattle, but I would say it's at least top
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: half of the league, especially that front. I know they
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: didn't have Joey Porter. So yeah. Encouraging sign.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: So, um, I think it's a good defense, you know,
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: not Seattle good, but I think it's pretty good. The
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: Henry Henderson touchdown is just blocked perfectly.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: I don't really, I mean, it's dark.
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: It's a tackle pole, basically power, but instead of the
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: backside guard pulling the tackle poles, but everybody box. across
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: the board plus blocks, you know, down block by Vera Tucker,
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: down block by on when you pull by Moses up
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: to the second level for Jared Wilson, really nice block.
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: And then obviously pop gets a huge block down the
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: field to spring it just all around.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: I hope that.
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: Seeing it's almost like a three-point shooter like seeing some
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: of those big plays come back a little bit against
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: a little bit of a weaker defense compared to seattle
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: uh hopefully that's something for them to grow on you
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: know certainly things that you can put up on uh
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: on the whole board and say hey look we we
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: did this you know good stuff uh all right uh
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: going to the patriots defense here in the goods lots
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: of things uh good about the patriots defense in this
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: game I thought Mike Vrabel said the quiet part out
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: loud about the Steelers' offense on Monday. Let's keep it
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: in perspective, as he said. But the thing that I
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: find most encouraging, or I guess the two things, the Patriots'
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: defense playing man-to-man coverage and more man-to-man coverage and their
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: blitz package, both of those things for two weeks. So
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: the numbers on the man coverage, right now they're giving
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: up a 36.3 passer rating in man-to-man coverage.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: That's best in the NFL.
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: If you spike the ball into the ground, 21 times.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: It's 39.6. Yeah.
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: So throwing against the Patriots defense right now is worse
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: than basically just throwing the ball away when they're in
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: man-to-man coverage. And that was in this game without Carlton Davis.
• 22:46
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: So Charles Wood steps up, has a nice game, but
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: their ability to put Gonzalez on JSN or Metcalf and
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: then basically have even matchups across the board in man-to-man,
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: they've been terrific through two weeks in that, in all
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: man coverages, basically.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is what we knew was going
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: to be a strength of theirs going in, having a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: hold up in the back end. The pass rush has
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: been a little better than we expected, too. But, yeah,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: good stuff from the coverage unit. Blitzes.
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: A couple of numbers on the Blitzes. So right now
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: they're sixth in the league in Blitz rate. They're exactly
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: what we kind of expected.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: This is a man. This is a man Blitz defense.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: That's exactly what they are. They're playing more man to man.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Real quick. Did you see the chart of like Blitz
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: rates over the last 10 years and where the Vikings are?
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: And where Brian Flores is.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: They broke the chart. Yeah.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: They're like over 50%.
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: They're 80%. I think next gen has them at like
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: 52 something.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I saw something had them at 80.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: I think that was week one. Uh, maybe.
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: So there are man blitz defense, which I think is
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: what we saw in the playoffs and what we kind
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: of wanted to see. Zach, uh, core has been very, uh,
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: close to the vest about this. I would say when
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: people ask them about that being their identity defensively, he's like, well,
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: it's a game plan thing.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: It's going to change week to week. Not, not so much.
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: Like, I think this is who they are over 40%
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: blitz rate. They're also hitting at about a 50% clip
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: when they blitz, they are getting pressure.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: When they blitz.
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: So Rogers against the blitz last week, uh, seven of
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: 1643 yards, the pick two sacks. That's 2.7 yards per pass.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: And that he's usually pretty good against the blitz.
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so they're just kind of been dominant. Now it's
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: Aaron Rodgers and Drew Locke, but they've been pretty dominant
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: when they blitz, when they play man behind it. Their
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: blitz schemes have worked. Christian Ellis, I think, almost ended
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: Aaron Rodgers' career three months early on Sunday on one
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: of those.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: And that brings us to Christian Gonzalez, who.
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: Really, this was probably the most shadowy of shadows that
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: Christian Gonzalez has ever had. 34 coverage matchups against DK Metcalf.
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: Basically every drop back he was covering or over the
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: top of DK. Seven targets, two catches, eight yards.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: One of them was a screen.
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: So really one catch on six targets for about nine
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: yards past breakup. Now there's been a little bit of,
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: you know, grousing on social media about Gonzalez's PFF grade.
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: And I'm not defending anybody at PFF because we all
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: watched the game and saw him shut down DK Metcalf
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: for four quarters.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: My guess is though, and I'm, again, this is not
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: a defense. It's just a defense.
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: My guess is that the two drops that DK had
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: are minus coverage reps for Gonzalez. If he catches especially
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: that third down crossing route, then that's a first down
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: on a third down that moves the chains. That does
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: change how the box score looks just a tad. But still,
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: I thought Gonzalez was in his hip pocket pretty much
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: the entire game.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought Arkansas was really good. Once again, one
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: of the drops was a drop. The other drop, I thought,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I forget who it is. I think it's
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: a safety coming over.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Ellis kind of collided.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Isn't that kind of just the design of the coverage? Yeah,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I thought Gonzalez was really good.
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, especially what I love so much about Gonzalez in
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: this game was the off coverage reps. Like we talked
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: so much about Christian Gonzalez being this great man to
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: man corner in this great press corner, which he is.
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: I think his development in off man and off zone
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: has really improved. He was bailing a lot bail technique
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: in this game. So you kind of go up on
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: the line of scrimmage. You show like you're going to press.
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: And then when the ball is snapped, you just bail
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: out and you drop into like the quarter or the
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: deep third. And he knew that Metcalf was just going
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: to try to run by him. Like he knew that
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: it's a big physical vertical threat. So rather than trying
• 26:41
  Speaker 6: to get in his face and fight, you know, fire
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: with fire by pressing him. He played offline a scrimmage
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: against Metcalf, and I thought that his off technique has
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: just really improved compared to what it was like two
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: years ago, rookie season, Christian Gonzalez.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: So he had a couple.
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: One of them was a double move, a little stutter
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: and go on Ponder's touchdown on the fumble, the scoop
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: and score. they're trying to hit Metcalf on a little
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: double move down the sideline and Christian Gonzalez just stays
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: on top of the double move. Doesn't bite on the fake.
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: And Aaron Rogers has got to pull the ball down
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: and look to, you know, pass his first read. And
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: then Barmore comes home and knocks the ball loose and
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: the chain reaction starts. So just a dominant showing all around.
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: I thought from Christian Gonzalez really good in this game
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: and a credit to where credit's due to Chuckie trees.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: I thought he was solid. Filled the role.
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: Four catches, 24 yards on seven targets.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: Also stuffed three runs.
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: Was pretty impactful stuffing the run as well. If this
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: is the type of play that they get from Charles
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: Woods on the third receiver, they're fine.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Just to go back real quick, I want to go
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: back to something on the blitz. Yeah. I do want
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to give credit to as well the front. I thought
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the front played well.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: I don't want to get to some of those guys,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: but yeah.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, I don't have to. All right, we'll get to
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: them then.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no. What did you think of Charles Woods?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Uh, he was good. Now, you know, he was against
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a rookie third receiver. So, you know, couch that for
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: it is, but when he's their third corner, that's who
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: he's going to be facing. I, I was after rough camp.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised.
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I, I agree. I, I wonder if some
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: of that rough camp, like they were playing him a
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: lot in the slot. I think they were trying to
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: cross-train him in the slot. And I wonder if maybe...
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: He's just not a slot corner. Yeah, he's just not
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: a slot corner.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe.
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: There's something to be said for knowing that you have
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: the sideline. It's kind of like another help defender with
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: the sideline. And some guys are just more comfortable playing
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: on the boundary.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: And having that.
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: Less space, you know, playing in the slot, there's a
• 28:41
  Speaker 6: lot of space like you guys can they can run vertical.
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: They basically have a three way go. They can run vertical.
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: They can run across. They can break out when you
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: play on the outside. You kind of are constricted to
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: just basically the vertical route tree. And that helps a
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: lot of guys kind of simplify. You mentioned the front.
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: I just think that, you know, for two young guys,
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: Elijah Ponder and Gabe Ackes, I think have just had
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: a really strong start to the season. I'm not going
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: to go crazy about it. I think there's still stuff
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: for Ackes as a pass rusher. You know, I think
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: he's still pretty raw in that regard, like as a
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: one-on-one pass rusher. But I had him would combine now
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: with Ponder and Ackes. And remember, this is after Draymond
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: Jones goes out of this game. They have to play
• 29:22
  Speaker 6: it quite a bit. Seven total pressures, three stuffed runs.
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: a fumble recovery for a touchdown and an interception. I mean,
• 29:29
  Speaker 6: that's a pretty good, you call it what you want
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: about the interception kind of tip drill, you know, going
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: right into Accus sort of thing.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: But I thought they were disruptive. I thought they did
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: the job well.
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: And I think that Accus has really shown two weeks
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: in a row that he's at least serviceable. He's somebody
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: that they can play and feel pretty good about when
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: he's out there.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: No, he's been, it's been a big turnaround for him.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So the clock is like now they're on an hour.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Like this would be the middle. We're at the middle
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of the show.
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Yes. So I'm trying to concise my thoughts. That's okay.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: Don't concise your thoughts.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Yes or no answers. That's it.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: It's my job to pace the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm worried.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: It's your job to analyze things.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: You're in the second chair.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Technically, even though I don't really rank the chairs, I
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: don't like that. I don't look down on your second chair.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Unlike other places.
• 30:22
  Speaker 6: Uh, last one here on the defense and then we'll
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: get to this, get to the negative stuff, which I
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: know it's what everybody really wants us to talk about. Uh,
• 30:32
  Speaker 6: the two linebackers, Robert's Christian Ellis. I didn't really feel
• 30:36
  Speaker 6: it like other than Ellis's hit, everybody felt that, but
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: I didn't really like put enough stock in it. I
• 30:42
  Speaker 6: don't think, uh, when, uh, watching the game live and
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: in game observations, I watched the film back and I
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: was like, wow, this was really an impressive performance by
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: both of those guys.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Uh, Blitzing, they're both really highly effective blitzers.
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: Coverage drops, I thought that Robert Splane had a couple
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: really high-level coverage drops in the middle of cover two
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: as the pole runner running down the seam. He was
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: targeted on one of them with Friar Muth. Combined, they
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: had five or six run stuffs as well. Christian Ellis
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: alone in this game had four stuffed runs. He's really
• 31:14
  Speaker 6: come into his own in this defense. I think it
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: allows him to play faster and a little bit more free,
• 31:18
  Speaker 6: having the four guys or the five-man fronts in front
• 31:21
  Speaker 6: of him. Both those guys, though, I thought were just
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: highly impactful in this game, especially as interior blitzers. I mean,
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: they were absolutely running over some of the running backs
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: for the Steelers in blitz pickup.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: It was impressive.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: I want to give some credit to the defensive line, too.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And I thought a key sequence in this game that
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: didn't get talked about a lot First three plays of
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the fourth quarter. Christian Barmore gets in the backfield, blows
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: up a run. He doesn't make the tackle, but he
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: gets in the backfield. He forces the running back to redirect.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I forget who cleaned it. I think it might have
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: been Ellis. Somebody comes in and cleans it up. It's
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: like a short loss. The next play, he draws a hold.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Then you get to the end long situation. He's able
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to pin his ears back. That's when he forces the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: fumble on Aaron Rodgers that Elijah Ponder recovers and scores with.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, just a dominant, dominant sequence from him. And
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: that is what they are going to need. And I
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: still think they're a little short on the pass rush,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: as good as Akis and Ponder have been. I mean, look,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: they're just short numbers. Especially if Tremont Jones is going
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: to miss time. They're going to have to add somebody.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I looked this up yesterday. Only four players played more
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: than 80% of the snaps on the edge last year.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Only 13 players played more than 70%. That is a
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: rotational position you cannot get by with what is essentially
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the two healthy players they have on the roster right now.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Three if you want to count Hutchins, but he's really
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: just a special teams player. So they're going to need
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: more from that interior. I thought Christian Barmore had an
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: awesome game. That was like classic Christian Barmore. Milton Williams,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I know the stats aren't there, but if you just
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: watch him, he's impacting the game. He's probably getting more
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: of the attention from the offensive line, which is why
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Barmore is making some of these plays. Could just as
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: easily go the other way. I think Barmore said it
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: last year, right? You know, they got to double one
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of us. Whoever they want to pick, the other guy
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: is going to show up.
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: They slid to Milton Williams on the strip sack and
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: Barmore gets the one-on-one.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So really encouraging to see the defensive tackle duo
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: starting out like that.
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I thought that Durden was good in this game too.
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: There was a handful of plays, and if you watch
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: the plays back where Durden... is taking the center, Zach Frazier,
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: and he's just walking him back into the backfield off
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: the snap. And they're trying to, like, block guys, bring
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: guys across the formation. They call it a sift or
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: a sift motion or block. And he gets so much
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: penetration that the center bumps the sift blocker and it
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: just kind of detonates the entire play, right? Because they're
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: not getting the blocking scheme the way they wanted to get.
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: They also had a boot where... Metcalf was trying to
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: come across on the little slide route, same kind of motion. And, uh,
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: and Durden just took the center and threw him into Metcalf,
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: you know? And so it just kind of blows up
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: the entire play. Milton Williams resetting the line of scrimmage,
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: using his power to, uh, you know, widen runs and, uh.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: Blow up double teams.
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: It doesn't show up on the stat sheet, uh, but
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: it does when you watch the film and you, and you, uh,
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: you know, are really watching the defensive line. So I
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: think no Williams is probably getting Tuesday attention. As we
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: like to say on this show, you know, he's the
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: guy they're circling first on the front on Tuesday mornings
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: and saying, we can't let 97 beat us, but he's
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: finding other ways.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: I would say to impact the game.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: It did.
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: The thought did cross my mind. And then we got
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: to take a quick break that, um, they signed Daquan Jones.
• 34:33
  Speaker 6: And I wonder if that was a little bit to
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: light a fire under Corey Durden because I didn't think
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: Corey Durden was great in the opener. And he came
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: out this game and was much better, much more impactful
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: in this game. And I thought did a nice job.
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: So maybe that worked. If that was the goal was
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: to light a fire under his butt, then I think
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: they successfully did that, at least for this week. All right,
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: we got to pay the bills. We're going to take
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: a quick break. When we come back, we'll finish this up.
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  Speaker 4: All right, let's turn it over to the bad and
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: the stuff that gets you beat. Here were the bad things, Alex.
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: So I think we got to start, and we're 40
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: minutes in the show, and I haven't talked about the
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: injuries yet.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: This was the start of the season, and.
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: I meant to mention this when we were talking about
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: Drake May. Drake May's deep ball regression was inevitable. He
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: was not going to throw the deep ball with that
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: efficiency like he did last year for an entire another season.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: It just wasn't going to happen. The Patriots regression of
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: injury luck was also felt inevitable.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: And we're two weeks into the season.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: A.J.
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: Brown is down. Mike Onwenu is down. Draymond Jones is down.
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: Craig Woodson, Eli Raritan, and Del Pettis all leave this game.
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: I'm a little bit more optimistic that those guys avoided
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: major injuries.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: It's 20-3 when they rule those guys out in the
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: fourth quarter.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Woodson, Chris Price reported was in a sling after the game.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: So that's not great. the big one is big Mike. Uh, that,
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: that one looks like that could be season ending. That's speculation,
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: but could be season ending. Just his foot was pointed
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: in the wrong direction.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: So I'm just going to assume that it's going to
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: be out.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: For a long time. If it's not season ending, we're
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: not going to see him probably till there's snow on
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the ground.
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: So I think the biggest question here out of this
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: list is first of all, just mentioning the fact that
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: they had great injury luck last year, right?
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: It's not going so hot. Two games.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I said this, uh, A lot going into the season,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: as much as people made last year about the easy
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: schedule being an anomaly and something that propped up that
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Patriots team. There's some truth to that. The bigger thing
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: was the injury luck. Yeah, they had. unbelievable injury luck
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: and it, you know, credit to the, I hate using
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the term walk. Cause that's some of it, but some
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: of it is also, they had, you know, they have
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a program for guys, right? They have a workout plan
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: for guys, you know, the strength and conditioning staff and
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the training staff deserves credit in it. But guys get hurt.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: It's the national football league. They didn't really lose a starter.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Until November.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: Will Campbell.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Will Campbell and Millen Williams got hurt at the end
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: of the year, but.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: They came back. And they came back. Harold Landry was
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: playing hurt. That was really the only thing they were
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: dealing with. They probably lost more guys in that game
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: than they did all year last year. Yeah. So it's just...
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: And that's the reality of national football. You're seeing it
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: all around the league right now. Yeah. So that's just
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: something that they're going to have to learn to deal with.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: So with Unwenu....
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: I've always liked on one. I think is a really
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: good lineman. A little bit of a story here. I
• 40:23
  Speaker 6: was at the Patriots draft party back in, I want
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: to say early April. Yeah, we did a panel of
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: me and Deuce and Jenny Dell, a couple other people.
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: And Dante Skarniecki was there. And, uh, you know how
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: much I love scar.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: So Jess was there too.
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: And she got to see how I look at scar.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: And I think she's a little jealous.
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: Uh, but, uh, he, we were talking about on when he,
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: when he did, he just really thinks that, you know,
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: on when he was just a great player, you know,
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: just really solid, powerful stout kind of player. Now, sometimes
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: I wish that on when he, for how strong he is,
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: has had a little bit more nasty to him, you know,
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: a to his run blocking. Uh, but I think he's
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: been easily their best offensive lineman for like two to
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: three years now. I think that's without question. And I
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: just a really big loss and Morgan Moses, I thought.
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: put a spotlight on something that maybe we don't talk
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: enough about with on when you, which is like leadership
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: and just, you know, being around and playing through stuff and,
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: you know, being a veteran guy now that's been in
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: this system and been in this building for a very,
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: very long time.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: So this is a big loss.
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: And we were talking before the show with Deuce and
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: Paul about how, where do you go from here?
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: On the offensive line.
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: I would say in the immediate, you give Greg Van
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: Roe in a leash, you know, you give.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Him a couple of weeks.
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: He was solid last year with the giants, you know,
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: solid starter at guard last year. You give him a
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: little bit of runway here to ramp up and knock
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: some of the rust off. And hopefully he is like
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: your answer at that spot. There's a world where he isn't.
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: Then maybe Ben Brown comes into the conversation. Maybe Caleb
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: Lomu comes into the conversation. But I think in the
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: immediate future, the easiest thing to do always is just
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: a one-for-one replacement and not get caught up.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: In moving guys all around. And Van Roon in at
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: right guard seems like the logical answer there.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. See what you got in him. Maybe they go
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: to Ben Brown if he struggles. I think you just try.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I know there was some question yesterday about Caleb Lomu.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I think you try the natural guards first and let
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Lomo continue to develop a tackle. You know, not a
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: great game for Van Rood when he came in, but
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: he'll have a full week now to kind of get
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: his legs under him and get going. And they can
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: adjust it.
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: You know, like on Wenu, they probably give on Wenu
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: more one-on-ones. They probably give on Wenu more point-of-attack blocks
• 42:46
  Speaker 6: in the run game than the average lineman because he
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: is one of their best guys. So now you adjust
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: the scheme and you adjust the play-calling. So that you
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: have a backup in there right now at right guard
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: instead of a starter. The other possibility long-term, if this
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: is truly season ending, which is what it kind of
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: feels like, you know, there is the Caleb Lomu question,
• 43:07
  Speaker 6: but we were talking about this off the air. I
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: think the first step though, with Lomu is that that
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: probably means moving in my opinion, uh, AVT Vera Tucker
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: from left guard to right guard and putting Lomo in
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: at left guard, which now you're moving to different spots, right?
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: Which I don't love.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Uh, the second, now you have that really young left side. Yeah.
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: So that I, I'm not a huge fan of, uh,
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: but if he's going to play, I do like him
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: better on the left side, which is usually the more
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: like athletic side of the line, the pass blocking side
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: of the line, the right side of the line is,
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: you know, Moses on when you're right, you want your
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: bulldozers over there. So I think that that to me
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: feels a little bit better. I know you have different
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: thoughts on this in terms of the tackle stuff.
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I just think, and Mike Vrabel said something along these
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: lines at the end of camp, the long-term plan for
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: him is to be the starting right tackle.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: And if he's playing guard and, He's not getting his
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: work at tackle, and I think he needs that work
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: at tackle based off what we saw in the preseason.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: So having him plug in at guard this season, if
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: it hurts his long-term projection, I'm not a fan of
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: unless you absolutely have to do it to save this season.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: So that would be like a break glass in case
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: of emergency option. Even then, I'd leave him on the
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: right side, get him used to playing on that side.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I know you mentioned the athletic side of the line
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and all that. I also think there's something to just
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: let him play next to Morgan Moses. let him play
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: next to the veteran. It's going to be easier to
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: help him out. So I, I, I would not rush
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: to put him at guard by any means. And even
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: if I did, I'd probably put him on the right side.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I, I, that's just like an old school rule
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: of thumb. Like I always go back to, cause this
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: is my, you know, kind of our sweet spot, Nate soldier,
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: Joe Tooney, right? Shaq Mason, Marcus cannon on the right side.
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: Like I think that for McDaniels, that feels like the
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: ideal group, right? You know, obviously David Andrews at center, but,
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: hell of an offensive line, but that, that feels like
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: the kind of ideal group for a McDaniels offense.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: But, uh, I can be.
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: Talked into to either way, but I, I feel like
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: Van Roe and I should be able to do the job.
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: One more thing on the offensive line, uh, Jared Wilson,
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: not his best game for pressures allowed in this game,
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: the same swim move by Keanu Benton beat him three times,
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: three separate times with the arm over just, you know,
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: getting over his skis right over his head.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: And right through to the backfield.
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: This whole thing that Jared Wilson's going to his natural position,
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: he's going to be better at center.
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: I'll give him kudos. The second level blocks are great.
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: He gets out in space and connects the guys on
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: the second level with ease. He's there at the point
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: of attack on the Henderson run at the second level
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: getting to the linebacker. Those are impressive blocks, and I
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: think he deserves credit for that, but that's right now
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: That's the one thing that's kind of standing out to
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: me as a positive for Jared Wilson. There's a lot
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: of stuff that I think needs to improve for Jared
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: Wilson other than that. So that was a little bit
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: of a step back for him there in this game.
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: I thought he was better in Seattle against a better front.
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: So I was a little surprised by that. A couple
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: more things on just the bads, and then we'll get
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: to the turnovers and the stuff that gets you beat.
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: The Drake May stuff that I was talking about in
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: terms of the pocket movement and the confidence, I don't
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: think that that gets you beat.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: I just don't think that it's great.
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: I don't think they're losing football games because Drake May
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: isn't ripping the ball all over the field, but I
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: think it does.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: Belong in the bads. I don't think it's costing them, though.
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: It's preventing them from scoring 30-plus points a game, but
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: I don't think it's costing them the reason why they
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: lost these two games, if that makes sense.
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: McDaniels.
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: A couple gripes with McDaniels in this game. One, the
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: second and one run followed by the blown up scream
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: to F and Chisholm. Just a bad play calling sequence.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that screen was telegraphed. You could see that come
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: from a mile away.
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: So you gain yards on two positive runs.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: I think I have this right. That's the 24-yard run
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: and then a nine-yard run right after.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I have a bigger picture thing on this. Continue. But yeah,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: it's 33 yards from Ramondre.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: So it's second and one from like the 30.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: Like that's a play action shot, right? That you just
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: gained 30 plus yards on two consecutive runs. It's second
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: and one. So you still have third and one. If,
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: if second and one play action doesn't work, you throw
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: the ball away, you play third and one, you can
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: run the ball. Then I don't know what the obsession
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: is with turning second and one into first and 10
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: like that. Those are usually shot play opportunities for the offense,
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: but especially on the other side of the field. When
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: you're on the Pittsburgh side of the field, I didn't
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: think that we had any like, Oh, we ran the
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: ball too much on first down or anything like that
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: out of this game with McDaniels. But that one sequence
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: I think was killer. And then they missed the field
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: goal to just like add insult to injury.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: So to me, they had a couple of sequences like this,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and this was my biggest concern from this game. It was,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, they had more explosive plays, which was good,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: but they didn't, do anything around the explosive plays, which
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: is worrying, which is why maybe the performance didn't feel
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: as good. That's why they didn't score as you highlight. Right.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: Points.
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going to run through some things for you.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: First quarter, 29 yard pass Hunter Henry immediately followed by
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the remand race teams and fumble. Yep. First quarter, 30
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: yard pass to Eli Reardon immediately followed by a false
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: start on Morgan Moses. Then a sack Patriots end up
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: settling for a field goal. Third quarter, 29 yard completion,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Romeo Dobbs, Then you get the May, I called it
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: an underthrow, whatever you want to call it, bad decision.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Intercepted by Patrick Queen the next play.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: The one you just mentioned, 33 yards on two plays
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: by Ramondre Stevenson. Stopped run, blown up screen, missed field goal.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: And then later in the third quarter, 67-yard completion to
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Romeo Dobbs.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: 63, yep.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I wrote 67. That's okay. Followed
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: by a delay of game. And then the Patriots end
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: up settling for a field goal, which they make.
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: The amount of, that's five explosive plays that were immediately,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: like the next play, followed by a negative.
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And obviously the sixth explosive play is the Henderson touchdown,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: which got in the end zone. Right. They didn't have
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: a choice but to capitalize on that. Not every explosive
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: play is going to end in the end zone. zone.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: You have to be able to... You have the defense
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: on their heels. Like, the delay game, especially after that
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: big gain, is so bad because.
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: Were they, like, super hyped up from the play?
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it was, but, like, the defense
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: is rattled. You've got to keep them on their heels.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: You've got to keep them off balance. And this isn't
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: to say they need to go hurry up and do
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: all that, but, like... That was a concerning trend. That
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: was the most concerning trend to me was that every
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: time they had literally outside of Henderson run, there are
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: five biggest plays. And you can add, by the way,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: complimentary football. They get that stop. The Steelers are the
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: fourth and 43. Right. Steelers have to punt major momentum play.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: They go three and out.
• 50:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Their inability to capitalize on the momentum of the big
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: plays and build on it. You know, it's funny.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: It's why they only scored 13 points on offense.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: With the Travion Henderson run and then the rest of
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: his game, a lot of people pointed to this is
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: kind of who he is and what he was as
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: a rookie.
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: You get the one explosive play and then there's not
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: much around it. That was their offense as a team.
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Was these explosive plays and then nothing. So that's where
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: they're going to need to be better moving forward. Like
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: they got more of the explosive plays, which is good.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: what are you doing the snap after the explosive play? Yeah.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Because you have to build on it. And they really
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: struggled to do that in this game. So that one
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: sequence you mentioned with me, and some of that's on McDaniels.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: It's on a lot of different people. Like I know
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: you were specifically highlighting McDaniels, but to me, the point
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: is like, that was their biggest miscue on offense. If
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: we want to go to the big picture, it wasn't
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: anything Drake may did. It was the collective. And some
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of those are because of Drake may, but I'm saying
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: it's the collective. You have a big play. you have
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: to keep the pedal to the metal.
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I, I, I just, the second and one runs,
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: I just harp on because to me, those are like,
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: especially when you're in scoring territory, like, like take a shot.
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: Like those are automatic shot places. And you just had
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: two successful run plays. The other thing with McDaniels and I,
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: I want to unpack this more on Thursday when we
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: have a little bit more time to let it breathe. Uh, the, uh,
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: they're calling a pretty conservative offense. And I don't mean that,
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: but they're calling a lot of runs, like a lot
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: of the past protection stuff. I feel like they're doing
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: a lot of stuff to protect the offensive line, moving pockets,
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: a three man route combinations when they're keeping guys into block, uh,
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: cut blocking, you know, a lot on quick game, uh,
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: sometimes unsuccessfully, frankly, I, it just feels like they're kind
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: of doing a lot of schematic things. And I think
• 51:49
  Speaker 6: it's to protect the offensive line, like as good as
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: Campbell has played. And I'm not trying to poo poo
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: what he's done. They haven't asked him to do a
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: lot of heavy lifting either. And I wonder if, you know,
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: in the super bowl, they basically just went five band
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: pass pro and, and just said, our guys are going
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: to block your guys.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: And they got killed, right? They just got beat.
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: And so I wonder, you know, coming into this season,
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: if they were like, we're going to protect the offensive
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: line more schematically, it just feels a little bit conservative
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: in the sense that, when you're only setting two, three
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: guys into the route, like you're really not giving the
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: quarterback a whole lot of options to stress the defense,
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: you know, like, and some of this stuff is good.
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: Like I've been a big, big fan of the dash passes,
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: like the design rollout passes, the one he hit Dobbs
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: on for the 63 yarder. That's a great play. I
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: love that concept. But there's a lot of that. There's
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: a lot of right. And there's not a lot of,
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: you know, full field. We're going to put five in
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: the route and we're going to really read.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Defense, you know? So I wonder what that, the real,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: you know, sort of impetus of that is.
• 52:53
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: My guess is, is this the.
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: Offensive line and trying to protect the offensive line, but
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: do they, do they get to the point in the
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: season where, where maybe they don't need to protect the
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: offensive line this much. Like maybe Campbell's just better in
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: his second season. Maybe Vera Tucker, I thought had a
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: nice bounce back game. I left guard this week. Maybe
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: he's better than, you know, than what they had last year.
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: Maybe Jared Wilson settles in at center. You know, obviously
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: you lose on Wenu.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: That's big.
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: But I wonder if they're almost babying or holding the
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: hand of the offensive line a little bit too much.
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: And as we go across the season, hopefully that, you know,
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: alleviates a little bit and they open it up a
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: little bit more. I hate using the word conservative because
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: I know people harp on that word and it's not
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: run pass ratio. It's more just the type of pass
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: plays they're calling seem a little bit like they're protecting something.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: I don't know what. protecting the offensive lines.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: I'll just say this to look ahead. And I've been
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: pretty defensive McDaniels and game plan coach and all that.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: And I understand having a more conservative approach against defenses
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: like the Steelers and the Seahawks, especially with lesser than
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: a quarterback. You can win those games scoring 20 points. Yeah.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the case against Jacksonville. This
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: is a game where you got to be ready to
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: win it and shoot out. This is the first big
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: test to me coming up for Josh McDaniels. Okay.
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: A couple more things and we got to wrap it
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: up quickly. Your kicker missed another field goal. 47-yard field goal.
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: Inside 50s, it's.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Got to be a make. The one he made was wonky,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: so I don't know what's going on there. We'll have
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: to watch that.
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: Anything inside of 50 nowadays has got to be a
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: make in the league. Everyone's making them from 60-plus.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Especially you had the 57-yarder. They botched the end of
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: the first half. They punted with four seconds left on
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the play clock, which they could have run down and
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: called a timeout. They had to delay a game on defense,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: which gave the Steelers five yards. They ended up hitting
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: a 57-yarder with one second left.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: Okay, the stuff that gets you beat.
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: I knew the pacing the first time out on the
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: one-hour show is going to be a little off. Stuff
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: that gets you beat were just the two turnovers, right?
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: You know, May throws the pick. Stevenson fumbles. I don't
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: really know if I have much to add about Stevenson fumbling.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: The Steelers have his number.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: It's got to stop, though. Like, it's got to stop.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: It was his first one in, like, 150 touches.
• 55:06
  Speaker 6: I know, but it's just too many times the ball
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: is on the ground. I think it's when he tries
• 55:11
  Speaker 6: to break tackles.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the ball gets a little weight for his body.
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: Right, and then the May interception never opened through into
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: two guys.
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: Can't happen.
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: All right, sorry we didn't get to more detail on
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: the stuff that gets you beat, but two turnovers, can't
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: have it.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Nope.
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: Can't have it. We'll get better at this as we go, though.
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: We'll get quicker as we go along, and we'll be back.
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: on Thursday to discuss the really fun Jaguars team. I'm
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: looking forward to this game. I think that the Jaguars
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: are a sneaky, good, sneaky, good coaching staff on both
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: sides of the ball down in Jacksonville right now. So
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: Patriots unfiltered is coming up in a few minutes. We'll
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: be back on Thursday, same time, 10 a.m. for the
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: hour to discuss the Jacksonville Jaguars. We'll see you guys then.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Deuce. Thanks for tuning into the show.
• 55:58
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• 55:59
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• 56:02
  Speaker 8: or Spotify.
• 56:03
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• 56:05
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• 56:06
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• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.