Latest / Patriots Catch-22 / Patriots Catch-22 11/21: 3 Up/Down vs. Rams, Dolphins Preview, Maye's Development

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Patriots Catch-22 11/21: 3 Up/Down vs. Rams, Dolphins Preview, Maye's Development · Patriots Catch-22

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Speaker 1: Patriots Unfiltered the world's original podcast. Patriots Unfiltered brings you
0:34
Speaker 1: inside Jillette Stadium for rousing conversations on everything New England, Patriots,
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Speaker 1: and NFL. Join host Fred Kersh alongside Patriots dot COM's
0:42
Speaker 1: Paul Parillo, Mike Desso, Evan Lazar, Tamara Brown, and Alex
0:46
Speaker 1: Francisco as they bring you in depth coverage of the team.
0:49
Speaker 2: He's a red shirt rookie at that point, so it's
0:51
Speaker 2: really that's his rookie season essentially too. So now we're
0:54
Speaker 2: really not talking about them, really knowing.
0:57
Speaker 1: Search for Patriots Unfiltered anywhere you get your podcasts. This
1:05
Speaker 1: is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar
1:08
Speaker 1: and Alex Barth.
1:11
Speaker 2: Blazar and Lazarre. Hello, everybody nailed it. He joined as
1:13
Speaker 2: always by our bar Gack gack risk Jo.
1:18
Speaker 1: Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars.
1:21
Speaker 2: And it says Debreeze n Foles p Manning. I did
1:25
Speaker 2: not know.
1:26
Speaker 3: I knew there was a Jay Capp. I forget if
1:28
Speaker 3: it was Joe Capp or Jim Kapp, so I said
1:29
Speaker 3: some guy. Then I clicked on the link and it loaded,
1:33
Speaker 3: and then I saw Sid Luckman, George Blanda y A Tittle,
1:37
Speaker 3: Joe Cap and Adrian Burke.
1:39
Speaker 2: You have some respect on why Tittle's name? All right,
1:43
Speaker 2: that's so true. Why A Tittle was ahead of his time?
1:45
Speaker 2: I respect Sid Luckman also way ahead of his time,
1:48
Speaker 2: like Sid M. Luckman was actually throwing the ball down
1:51
Speaker 2: the field.
1:52
Speaker 3: See this is weird because this comes from the guy
1:54
Speaker 3: who like refuses to acknowledge errors when you talk about
1:56
Speaker 3: who the best player is.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no, this, I'm dead set on that tape.
2:00
Speaker 2: So then, how is Sid Luckman one of the best
2:02
Speaker 2: of all times? I did say he was one of
2:03
Speaker 2: the best of all times? No, I did not. No,
2:06
Speaker 2: I did not. I said he was ahead of his time.
2:10
Speaker 2: I did not say he was one of the best
2:12
Speaker 2: of all time. I said he was ahead. When host
2:14
Speaker 2: don't listen, I said ahead, not best. But I am
2:18
Speaker 2: very dead set on that. You cannot have a conversation
2:22
Speaker 2: about the greatest players in any respective sport of all
2:26
Speaker 2: time without like everybody says, well, it's a different era. Okay,
2:30
Speaker 2: But if I'm putting a basketball team together, am I
2:33
Speaker 2: gonna take Lebron James Or am I gonna take the
2:36
Speaker 2: great great Bill Russell. I'm taking Lebron James like I
2:40
Speaker 2: just it's not even.
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Speaker 3: Russell's a bad example there because he beat played a
2:44
Speaker 3: different style, but he's probably a guy that would have
2:46
Speaker 3: been good.
2:46
Speaker 2: And he would have been like a rim running five.
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Speaker 3: You're talking about your your ear, talking more about a
2:53
Speaker 3: guy like.
2:56
Speaker 1: Other.
2:56
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll give you a better example, Okay, Don Hudson, Yeah,
3:01
Speaker 2: you cannot tell me careful now you don't want Bill here. Now,
3:04
Speaker 2: you cannot tell me Don Hudson that Don Hudson and
3:08
Speaker 2: Randy Moss are the same, are the same species obviously,
3:12
Speaker 2: like they're they're not even they're not. One is a
3:15
Speaker 2: cyborg and one is very human.
3:17
Speaker 3: Because one guy played in an error where they understood that,
3:20
Speaker 3: you know, drinking a beer and smoking a pack of
3:23
Speaker 3: cigarettes at halftime probably wasn't the best idea.
3:25
Speaker 2: Okay, but I offense to people that then go ahead
3:28
Speaker 2: and say that Don Hudson and is somehow better than
3:33
Speaker 2: Randy Moss, Terrell Owens or you know, name another like
3:38
Speaker 2: Calvin Johnson. Like no, no, and I don't I don't
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Speaker 2: adjust for era, like I clearly am taking Calvin Johnson
3:45
Speaker 2: over God. I u's think that that is implied.
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Speaker 3: But the guy, it's like the thing when you do
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Speaker 3: strength to schedule, you can only play the team on
3:53
Speaker 3: your schedule, right, How good Mike don Hudson have been
3:56
Speaker 3: if he had these diets and these weight training regimens
4:01
Speaker 3: and this and that was.
4:02
Speaker 2: Like one hundred and eighty pounds soaking wet. They didn't
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Speaker 2: like work out back. Oh my god. Also, there's some
4:08
Speaker 2: great receivers. Now we're gonna talk about Jalen wall How
4:10
Speaker 2: much of Jalen wall Away? You know, I don't know
4:14
Speaker 2: one hundred eighty pounds soaking wet? How much Devonte Smith Way?
4:18
Speaker 2: You love Damante? How much Devonte Smith so like I
4:21
Speaker 2: It's it's insane.
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Speaker 3: Obviously, obviously we know that guys from the sixties were
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Speaker 3: are different athletes, are different raw athletes than modern players
4:31
Speaker 3: because they have a complete from the time they are born.
4:34
Speaker 3: There's a completely different regimen to get them ready. Have
4:37
Speaker 3: you ever seen I think you just acknowledged that and
4:39
Speaker 3: move on. There are a handful of guys I think
4:42
Speaker 3: Transcenderra Moss is one.
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Speaker 2: Have you have you ever seen like old old footage
4:47
Speaker 2: of like Babe Ruth swinging a baseball bat? Yeah? Yeah,
4:50
Speaker 2: he like that would not work. That would not work, obviously,
4:54
Speaker 2: but literally obviously everybody because it's like a running joke
4:58
Speaker 2: now for so many reasons that Bayberth wouldn't be good
5:00
Speaker 2: in the modern modern big leagues, but he still found
5:04
Speaker 2: a way and managed to be better than so much
5:08
Speaker 2: better than everybody else at the same time who had
5:11
Speaker 2: the same resources he had. That doesn't count for anything.
5:14
Speaker 2: I didn't say it doesn't count for anything. I just
5:16
Speaker 2: don't want to hear of these guys ranked ahead of
5:20
Speaker 2: modern guys category.
5:22
Speaker 3: So okay, So who's a better baseball player, Babe Ruth
5:24
Speaker 3: or Bobby Dolbeck.
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Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's not what we're talking about. If
5:28
Speaker 2: we're gonna do, if we're going to do, we're talking
5:31
Speaker 2: about machine. You put him on the same the Bobby
5:34
Speaker 2: Dollbacks of the world. We're talking about like Babe Ruth
5:37
Speaker 2: versus like, so, then where's one might as well be
5:42
Speaker 2: an alien like show heyo Tani. If you told Babe
5:45
Speaker 2: Ruth that that because both of them played both ways, right,
5:49
Speaker 2: both of them pitch dan hit. If you told Babe
5:51
Speaker 2: Ruth that, showe heyo Tani would come along, like eighty
5:53
Speaker 2: years ninety years later, he'd be like, that person is
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Speaker 2: not real, That is a fictional character. Okay, But then
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Speaker 2: all right, if we're just going to default that this
6:01
Speaker 2: guy who has more resources to be better at the sport,
6:05
Speaker 2: we've learned a lot about the sport over the last
6:07
Speaker 2: year year. That's what it is. But that's what you're saying. No,
6:11
Speaker 2: it's an evolution, is what I'm saying. It was Ruth
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Speaker 2: not Otani to his era. Yeah, and an evolution happened,
6:17
Speaker 2: and now Shoo Tani happened. Okay, but Ruth didn't have
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Speaker 2: the benefit of the evolution. So who's to say, what
6:23
Speaker 2: do you mean, who's to say he's not gonna magically
6:25
Speaker 2: get evolution? Like he's Babe Ruth and this is Shoo.
6:28
Speaker 2: He's not his fault. He played what he did. I'm
6:30
Speaker 2: not blaming him for it. I was saying he's not
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Speaker 2: better than the people that are playing now, that's all
6:34
Speaker 2: I'm saying, but better like on what relative to what?
6:39
Speaker 2: To them? If you said, who's a better baseball player,
6:42
Speaker 2: showy toy, baby, I'm taking to show who's a better
6:45
Speaker 2: baseball player, Babe Ruth bald the dollback. Hey, Patriots fans,
6:49
Speaker 2: if you're gonna want to see Toyota's best offers, including
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Speaker 2: those not seen on TV. Go to buy Toyota dot
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Speaker 2: Com is Tyota's official website for deals from the official
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Speaker 2: vehicle of the New England Patriots, Toyota. Let's go places.
7:00
Speaker 2: And after that conversation, I'm going to need one of
7:03
Speaker 2: these easy to drink, easy to enjoy bud Light, the
7:06
Speaker 2: official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots. I'm not
7:09
Speaker 2: allowing us to debate that any longer. We could have
7:11
Speaker 2: gone on for another twenty minutes. And uh, and it's
7:15
Speaker 2: just not worth it. You know, you're You're just not
7:18
Speaker 2: It's not worth arguing with you over that. H Let's
7:20
Speaker 2: talk a little bit of Patriots football and uh, I
7:24
Speaker 2: gotta calm down after you got me all riled up
7:28
Speaker 2: coming out of the gate. Yeah, very good. Here's here's
7:32
Speaker 2: where I'm at right now, or where I wanted to start.
7:35
Speaker 2: And of course I wanted to start here before this morning,
7:41
Speaker 2: and I wanted to give Alex van Pelt his flowers.
7:44
Speaker 2: I still want to give Alex van Pelt his flowers.
7:46
Speaker 2: I understand there's a lot if you missed it. This
7:49
Speaker 2: morning at his press conference, he was talking about Marcus Jones.
7:53
Speaker 2: Marcus Jones reached out to Alex van Pelt said I
7:56
Speaker 2: want to help on offense. Alex van Pelt claimed that
7:59
Speaker 2: he did not know that Marcus Jones had previously previously
8:02
Speaker 2: played on offense for the Patriots. Objectively not a great look, right,
8:07
Speaker 2: not a great look that he didn't know that, But
8:10
Speaker 2: I'm still not going to say that that supersedes the
8:13
Speaker 2: good things that Alex van Pelt has been doing. And
8:17
Speaker 2: my whole take with this is there was a lot
8:20
Speaker 2: of questions, not for myself, because you know, Alex, you
8:23
Speaker 2: can vouch I had said Drake May was going to
8:26
Speaker 2: be would you tell me last week I said he
8:28
Speaker 2: was going to be an MVP candidate as a rookie
8:30
Speaker 2: or whatever. That's what. Yeah, yeah, prob. I don't understand
8:34
Speaker 2: why you're so upset. I brought that up. Pro bowler
8:36
Speaker 2: as a rookie. Anyways, Alex Van Pelt, in my opinion,
8:42
Speaker 2: has done a really great job with this offense. We're
8:45
Speaker 2: at that point now the season where I feel pretty
8:48
Speaker 2: comfortable saying that unless the wheels completely fall off in
8:53
Speaker 2: the last six games of the season for Drake May,
8:56
Speaker 2: I want Alex van Pelt back next year as the
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Speaker 2: offensive coordinator of the Patriots. The big things to me
9:02
Speaker 2: that that are in Van Pelt's favor right now. He
9:05
Speaker 2: has Drake May playing on time, in rhythm from the
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Speaker 2: pocket and seeing the field extremely well prepared. His mechanics
9:16
Speaker 2: are improving, his footwork has improved. Basically, the footwork conversation
9:20
Speaker 2: that we spent six months having about this player was
9:23
Speaker 2: all waste of time. Like he's completely fixed it within
9:26
Speaker 2: the span of a couple of months of working with
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Speaker 2: Alex Van Pelt. And I would be really, really weary
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Speaker 2: if I were the Patriots of the year one to
9:39
Speaker 2: year two jump for Drake May and switching coordinators on
9:44
Speaker 2: him from year one to year two. They talk a
9:47
Speaker 2: lot about how they don't want to be error repeaters
9:50
Speaker 2: with the quarterback development. That would be repeating one of
9:53
Speaker 2: the most egregious errors they made of the mac Jones
9:56
Speaker 2: era was going from Josh McDaniels to Matt Patricia. Well,
9:59
Speaker 2: let me ask you this, are you at all worried
10:02
Speaker 2: that it could go? I don't want to phrases. I
10:05
Speaker 2: don't know that too well is the phrase, But like,
10:09
Speaker 2: when do we get to the tipping point of just
10:12
Speaker 2: do other teams start looking at Alex van Pelt to
10:14
Speaker 2: poach him, not yet that they end up in that
10:18
Speaker 2: sweet spot where the development's there and it's enough, but
10:22
Speaker 2: it's not to the point where he's going to get
10:23
Speaker 2: head coaching offers. Yeah, I don't think we're there yet
10:27
Speaker 2: for him. But what I'm seeing from Van Pelt first
10:31
Speaker 2: of all, is I hear what you're saying, because calling
10:36
Speaker 2: him a quarterback whisper is probably a little bit strong.
10:39
Speaker 2: Like it's six games, right, Like, let's see what it
10:43
Speaker 2: looks like over a long larger sample. But for Drake May,
10:47
Speaker 2: he has done a fantastic job developing Drake. He just
10:50
Speaker 2: has you know, like from the very beginning, he stuck
10:54
Speaker 2: to his plan, He stuck to his process. He didn't
10:57
Speaker 2: rush it, he didn't drag his feet. He did it perfectly.
11:02
Speaker 2: He did, and they have him playing fantastic football. On
11:07
Speaker 2: top of that, I feel like there are other things
11:10
Speaker 2: that are happening with this offense where we are seeing
11:15
Speaker 2: marginal improvements bols from execution and from scheme that have
11:19
Speaker 2: me excited about where this thing could head with some
11:21
Speaker 2: better players next year. You know, if you have a
11:25
Speaker 2: true number one receiver, if you have t Higgins on
11:28
Speaker 2: this team next year, if you upgrade the offensive line
11:31
Speaker 2: next year, there are bones to this offense where you're
11:34
Speaker 2: starting to see it now that Drake is playing, and
11:36
Speaker 2: you have a better quarterback play that I really have liked,
11:40
Speaker 2: and I think we're making progress there. But more importantly,
11:45
Speaker 2: the most important asset that the Patriots have right now
11:48
Speaker 2: is Drake May he you know, speaking to a player
11:51
Speaker 2: in the locker room earlier today and he said that
11:55
Speaker 2: the future is bright because of Drake, like we have
11:57
Speaker 2: hope and we want to work harder now because of him.
12:01
Speaker 2: It would just be a really big mistake and something
12:06
Speaker 2: that I believe bad organizations do is react to external
12:13
Speaker 2: criticism first of all, and react to maybe the fact
12:18
Speaker 2: that they're not ranked very highly offensively and you know,
12:22
Speaker 2: points and DVOA and all that stuff, and just the
12:25
Speaker 2: results of it, and not see the bigger picture of
12:30
Speaker 2: the progress that they have made from start to finish.
12:33
Speaker 2: And bad organizations ruin quarterbacks by moving on from coordinators
12:37
Speaker 2: too quickly, and I think moving on from Alex van
12:40
Speaker 2: pel in the off season would be doing that. And
12:42
Speaker 2: you don't want to be one of those teams Yeah,
12:44
Speaker 2: I was talking to somebody about this the other day,
12:47
Speaker 2: and it was it actually wasn't in the context of
12:49
Speaker 2: Drake may it was in what quarterback we're talking about.
12:52
Speaker 2: It might have been Bryce Young. Uh.
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Speaker 3: The biggest problem in the NFL right now is teams
12:57
Speaker 3: are impatient, right right, like they just expect it to work.
13:02
Speaker 3: And and Bill Bill Belichick has actually talked about this,
13:06
Speaker 3: I think on I think it was on McAfee about
13:09
Speaker 3: you're seeing guys like Sam Darnold and you know your
13:13
Speaker 3: Baker Baker Mayfield, right, guys like you get these second
13:17
Speaker 3: opportunities and maybe they're not hitting that total ceiling that
13:22
Speaker 3: was expected in the draft, but you know they're they're competent,
13:25
Speaker 3: they're legitimate starting quarterbacks because, yeah, it turns out it
13:28
Speaker 3: takes more than a year to develop quarterback. It's a
13:31
Speaker 3: multi year process and there's gonna be ups and downs.
13:34
Speaker 3: It's not gonna look great at first. Oh, it was
13:37
Speaker 3: Anthony Richardson.
13:38
Speaker 2: That's what I was talking about. It is Anthony Richardson.
13:41
Speaker 3: A big part of the reason the NFL is struggling
13:44
Speaker 3: so much right now developed quarterbacks is in patience. And look,
13:48
Speaker 3: there's give and take there. You can't wait forever. Some
13:50
Speaker 3: guys are just bad, and you do need to recognize
13:53
Speaker 3: when to move on. I think the difference between is
13:56
Speaker 3: this guy not ready or is he a bust? So
13:59
Speaker 3: remember that thing from like ten years ago, the dress.
14:01
Speaker 3: Is it black and blue? Is it white and gold? Right,
14:04
Speaker 3: it's tough to tell. It can be really tough to tell.
14:07
Speaker 3: It's easy for me to sit here and we could
14:09
Speaker 3: go through these quarterbacks. We could play bust or not ready,
14:13
Speaker 3: and we could do with Bryce Young, we could do
14:14
Speaker 3: with Anthony Richardson, we could do with.
14:15
Speaker 2: All these guys.
14:17
Speaker 3: It's a lot easier to just spew that than actually
14:20
Speaker 3: figure it out. But yeah, to your point, if the
14:23
Speaker 3: Patriots are patient, I think Drake may have shown you
14:26
Speaker 3: enough at this point that if they're patient, they'll be rewarded.
14:28
Speaker 3: But they have to be patient. And when I say patient,
14:32
Speaker 3: because some people will hear that and roll their eyes
14:36
Speaker 3: and say, oh great, so you know another year of
14:39
Speaker 3: kind of doing nothing and waiting, I don't mean it
14:41
Speaker 3: in that sense. In that sense, they need to be aggressive.
14:44
Speaker 3: What I mean by patient is like, this is not
14:48
Speaker 3: what it's going to look. You need to understand this
14:50
Speaker 3: is not what it's gonna look like with Drake May
14:52
Speaker 3: long term, what he is a rookie. His rookie year
14:55
Speaker 3: should not be his best year.
14:56
Speaker 2: That's a bad thing. If his rookie year is his
14:58
Speaker 2: best what happened to mac Jones?
15:00
Speaker 4: Right?
15:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ideally you want him to keep getting better and
15:02
Speaker 3: better and better. And some of that's natural growth, and
15:04
Speaker 3: some of that is you're gonna put hopefully more peace
15:07
Speaker 3: around him. You're gonna get him a real left tackle,
15:09
Speaker 3: you're gonna go out, You're gonna get him that Tuesday
15:10
Speaker 3: morning wide receiver, and that's going to increase the level.
15:15
Speaker 3: So that's where the patience comes in. Right, don't overreact
15:17
Speaker 3: to what it was this year. Instead, you need to
15:20
Speaker 3: look at this year and say, all right, and this
15:21
Speaker 3: is the first step. How do we continue to build
15:23
Speaker 3: on this instead of a new offensive coordinator.
15:26
Speaker 2: It's not a full reset button, but it's close. There's
15:29
Speaker 2: just so many things that come with changing coordinators. And
15:33
Speaker 2: in theory, they could change coordinators and still be in
15:36
Speaker 2: the same family of offense. Right, they could go get
15:39
Speaker 2: another West Coast guy to run a similar system. But
15:43
Speaker 2: even still, you're still changing languages to an extent. The
15:47
Speaker 2: comparison I always use with that is like there's different
15:51
Speaker 2: dialects in different areas of countries, right, Like you might
15:55
Speaker 2: speak different type of Italian in southern Italy than you
15:58
Speaker 2: do in Northern Italy, right, and still Italian, and you
16:00
Speaker 2: can still understand each other, but there's little nuances that
16:04
Speaker 2: are are a little bit different. Right now, the last
16:07
Speaker 2: thing that I.
16:07
Speaker 3: Want, sorry, it just had and not just in verbiage.
16:10
Speaker 3: That could be right Van Peltz the footwork guy, right,
16:13
Speaker 3: and maybe you got to tweak the footwork again, or
16:15
Speaker 3: maybe you know there's certain players the teams invest in
16:18
Speaker 3: that we want to see less of or more of
16:19
Speaker 3: or whatever.
16:20
Speaker 2: Like you you're changing the path. You maybe aren't changing
16:23
Speaker 2: it as much as totally going to a new offensive coordinator.
16:25
Speaker 2: But they're on a good path. They should try to
16:28
Speaker 2: stay on it. Yeah, that's that's exactly what I'm saying
16:31
Speaker 2: when you talk about the footwork stuff, Like Alex Van
16:34
Speaker 2: pelt is a big believer in left foot forward. Right,
16:37
Speaker 2: when Drake may is in shotgun, his left foot is
16:40
Speaker 2: going to be forward to the timing and the rhythm
16:44
Speaker 2: of the drop. It helps them with that. Right in
16:46
Speaker 2: terms of the steps of you know, three step drop,
16:49
Speaker 2: left foot forward, that times up with the routes that
16:52
Speaker 2: they're running off of the three step drop. So those
16:55
Speaker 2: types of things, those little nuances. He could get an
16:58
Speaker 2: offensive coordinator next year that says that I'm a right
17:01
Speaker 2: foot forward guy, or I'm a square stance sky like
17:03
Speaker 2: Peyton Manning used to do right or whatever, and now
17:06
Speaker 2: all of a sudden everything's thrown out the door. Right,
17:09
Speaker 2: So I'm just looking at this from a Drake prism,
17:12
Speaker 2: and then I also want to talk about some things
17:14
Speaker 2: that I've liked or I've been impressed with from a
17:17
Speaker 2: scheme perspective. But you have Drake May. You have a
17:21
Speaker 2: coach that has Drake May playing well, and don't let
17:25
Speaker 2: all the other stuff supersede the most important thing. And
17:28
Speaker 2: the most important thing is that Drake May keeps playing well.
17:31
Speaker 2: And we talk about this every week. I feel like
17:33
Speaker 2: and I know, I feel like I'm repleating myself. But
17:36
Speaker 2: eventually down the line, if you want to tell me
17:39
Speaker 2: that three years from now, they need to move on
17:41
Speaker 2: from Van Pelt for more a shinier new toy. You know,
17:44
Speaker 2: someone that's a little bit more innovative and who has
17:47
Speaker 2: a little bit more creativity with his play design and
17:49
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. Then I'll be on board
17:52
Speaker 2: if we get to that point. But right now, the
17:54
Speaker 2: most important thing is that Drake May is mechanically tied together.
17:58
Speaker 2: His eyes are in the right places, his feet are
18:00
Speaker 2: in time and online, his mechanics are cleaned up. His
18:05
Speaker 2: release looks a lot better and quicker. He's decisive, he's
18:08
Speaker 2: playing confident like. Those are the things that you want
18:11
Speaker 2: to see. And I really worry about getting a new
18:14
Speaker 2: coordinator in here next year that he's going to revert
18:16
Speaker 2: back to some of the bad habits he developed at
18:19
Speaker 2: North Carolina, which is the last thing that the Patriots
18:22
Speaker 2: need or want. The other couple of things from a
18:25
Speaker 2: schematic perspective that I've been impressed with. Do you know
18:28
Speaker 2: the Patriots tight ends right now are fourth in the
18:30
Speaker 2: lead league in receiving yards tight ends there are seventy
18:34
Speaker 2: catches for seven hundred and twenty eight yards. Both those
18:37
Speaker 2: numbers are fourth in the league. The only teams that
18:40
Speaker 2: are ahead of their tight ends are Baltimore with Mark Andrews,
18:44
Speaker 2: Vegas with Brock Bauers is having an incredible year, and
18:48
Speaker 2: Travis Kelcey and the Kansas City Chiefs. So you're talking
18:50
Speaker 2: about probably the three best tight ends in football right now.
18:54
Speaker 2: I just named and then Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper
18:57
Speaker 2: are the next group. They're fourth in the league. So
19:00
Speaker 2: this offense has always done a nice job with tight ends,
19:03
Speaker 2: going back to Cleveland within Djoku and Hooper the first
19:06
Speaker 2: time when he was there in Cleveland, and those guys
19:08
Speaker 2: have always done a nice job producing, but they've really
19:11
Speaker 2: used the tight ends well. Henry's having his best year
19:14
Speaker 2: as a Patriot right now, on track for the most
19:17
Speaker 2: yards and catches in his Patriots career. So you look
19:20
Speaker 2: at that just in you know, there's a couple of
19:23
Speaker 2: other things, but just looking at the tight ends, they've
19:25
Speaker 2: done a really nice job with that position group. And
19:27
Speaker 2: I would also just say it really helps a young
19:30
Speaker 2: quarter back when you have two six foot five tight
19:33
Speaker 2: ends that would like to work in the middle of
19:35
Speaker 2: the field. It's a nice safety blanket for Drake May
19:37
Speaker 2: to have those two guys.
19:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you said, we knew this is probably gonna
19:40
Speaker 3: be a tight end heavy year, just based off what
19:42
Speaker 3: Van Pelton in Cleveland and that that like seven to
19:45
Speaker 3: eight yard you know, get to the sticks and turn
19:48
Speaker 3: and just sit down. That's been there for them really
19:50
Speaker 3: since Drake May came in, and I'm kind of waiting
19:52
Speaker 3: to see when teams put more emphasis on taking that away,
19:56
Speaker 3: because that's going to open up more opportunities up the
19:59
Speaker 3: scene for guys like Pop Douglas, for guys like Kendrick Born.
20:01
Speaker 3: But they've been giving that to Drake May, he's been
20:04
Speaker 3: taking it. Hunter Henry just does such a I make
20:07
Speaker 3: that sound easy, right, run of the sticks, find a spot,
20:09
Speaker 3: sit down.
20:11
Speaker 2: It's not as easy as it sounds.
20:12
Speaker 3: This was something not a tight end, but like that's
20:14
Speaker 3: Jacoby Myers was able to be as successful as he
20:17
Speaker 3: was so quickly because he had a great knack for this.
20:19
Speaker 3: Now he was a quarterback, so he's pretty good at
20:21
Speaker 3: kind of knowing what the defense was going to do
20:22
Speaker 3: and being able to react. But safety blank's a great
20:25
Speaker 3: we're a great way to put it. They've they've they've
20:28
Speaker 3: given Drake May kind of an easy answer when he
20:30
Speaker 3: needs to easy answer, and they've done with consistency. And
20:33
Speaker 3: it's been a long time since the tight end position
20:36
Speaker 3: was something you were pumping up with the New England Patriots.
20:39
Speaker 3: So it's just another sign that again, are they there?
20:42
Speaker 3: Are they done? No, not by any means, but they're
20:45
Speaker 3: making progress with the offense.
20:47
Speaker 2: So I remember Dante Scarnecia did an interview at some
20:49
Speaker 2: point and we're talking about mac Jones and he mentioned
20:53
Speaker 2: the quarterback's binky, Right, every quarterback needs one of those guys.
20:58
Speaker 2: That's just his safety blanket, his binky, whatever you want
21:01
Speaker 2: to call it. For Brady, you know, Troy Brown, Dion
21:05
Speaker 2: obviously than Edelman, Welker Edelman. I guess I should say
21:08
Speaker 2: in order, right, Like, all those guys at one in
21:11
Speaker 2: the middle of the field were often the guys at
21:13
Speaker 2: Brady third and five, Like you're going six yards to
21:17
Speaker 2: Julian Edelman, right, Like that's those were the guys that
21:19
Speaker 2: he really relied on. It feels like we're trending in
21:21
Speaker 2: a direction where Hunter Henry is in that category for
21:24
Speaker 2: Drake mank like he seems to be that person for Drake.
21:27
Speaker 2: So there's the tight end usage, which has been really good.
21:31
Speaker 2: You mentioned Pop Douglas. I think that they've figured out,
21:34
Speaker 2: for the most part, how to use Pop Douglas to
21:38
Speaker 2: the best of his abilities, whether it's throwing him design touches,
21:42
Speaker 2: scheme touches in the screen game, you know, RPO screens,
21:46
Speaker 2: those types of things, Slants over the middle of the fields.
21:49
Speaker 2: Caught another one last week, and just in general, just
21:52
Speaker 2: getting the football in his hands and letting him run
21:55
Speaker 2: with it. Crossing routes. You know, another one of those
21:57
Speaker 2: last week on the twenty eight yard or the great
21:59
Speaker 2: throw by Drake that everybody keeps pumping up rightfully, So
22:03
Speaker 2: Pop Douglas, I've really enjoyed what they've done with him.
22:06
Speaker 2: I think that they've figured out how to use that player.
22:09
Speaker 2: He's not a big player, he's not a big target
22:12
Speaker 2: down the field, but he's a useful player, especially if
22:15
Speaker 2: you can get him and hit him on the move,
22:16
Speaker 2: and they've been able to find different ways to go
22:19
Speaker 2: ahead and do that. He had, you know, the eighteen
22:21
Speaker 2: yarder on the screen, or it might have been fourteen, fourteen,
22:24
Speaker 2: eighteen whatever, a nice chunk play on the screen. The
22:27
Speaker 2: twenty eight yarder on the crossing route, had another big
22:30
Speaker 2: play on a slant like those are the types of
22:32
Speaker 2: things that they need to use a player like that with. Yeah,
22:36
Speaker 2: he might not be a high volume guy. He's probably
22:38
Speaker 2: not going to be targeted ten to fifteen times a
22:40
Speaker 2: game like a Welker or an Edelman would out of
22:42
Speaker 2: the slot. But they've done a nice job of finding
22:44
Speaker 2: ways to let his speed and let his jitterbug ability
22:49
Speaker 2: really impact the game. So I really liked what they've
22:51
Speaker 2: done with him as well. Yeah, next one, offensive line,
22:55
Speaker 2: I feel like it's improving. You know, now, how much
22:58
Speaker 2: you give that to Drake and how much you give
23:01
Speaker 2: that to the line and to Van Pelton, to Peters, like,
23:03
Speaker 2: that's up to you. A lot of it is up
23:05
Speaker 2: is on Drake, Like he's doing a great job of
23:08
Speaker 2: getting the ball out, evading pressure, avoiding sacks, using his
23:12
Speaker 2: legs when he needs to. But their pressure rate has
23:15
Speaker 2: gone from forty eight percent with Jakobe Brissett to thirty
23:18
Speaker 2: six percent with Drake may much more functional, much more,
23:22
Speaker 2: you know, functional really is the best word for it.
23:24
Speaker 2: So some of that to me is continuity as well.
23:27
Speaker 2: But I give them credit. And this is something that
23:29
Speaker 2: I was trying to ask him today, but you know,
23:32
Speaker 2: good luck getting the question in on that press conference.
23:35
Speaker 2: But one of the things I've noticed is that they've
23:38
Speaker 2: basically scrapped all of the seven steppers and long delayed
23:44
Speaker 2: play actions. And you know, the as much as I
23:47
Speaker 2: love leak, like leak, and like all these like plays
23:50
Speaker 2: that just take forever in the backfield to get going.
23:53
Speaker 2: In theory, great scheme if you can block it. The
23:56
Speaker 2: Patriots couldn't block it. So the Patriots now a lot
24:00
Speaker 2: of what Drake may is doing is five three step
24:03
Speaker 2: three and five step drop, whether he's under center or
24:06
Speaker 2: out of the gun, and it's a lot of quick
24:09
Speaker 2: hitting stuff. It's get the ball out of his hands.
24:11
Speaker 2: Their RPO game has increased, their gun play action game
24:16
Speaker 2: has increased. They are not asking him to turn his
24:19
Speaker 2: back to the defense a whole lot. They're not asking
24:21
Speaker 2: him to, you know, elongate those fakes and end around
24:25
Speaker 2: and then hand off and then now we're backed up
24:28
Speaker 2: field and we're trying to hit a delay route out
24:30
Speaker 2: of the back. No, we're not doing any of that
24:32
Speaker 2: stuff anymore that we were seeing earlier on in the
24:34
Speaker 2: season when Jacoby was getting killed, because it was taking
24:37
Speaker 2: three seconds, three and a half seconds just to get
24:40
Speaker 2: his eyes back up the field. So I think they've
24:42
Speaker 2: done a nice job of just throwing some of those
24:45
Speaker 2: bad plays for them in the trash can, and I
24:48
Speaker 2: think that has helped a lot with the line as well.
24:50
Speaker 3: I think you have to give some credit to continuity though,
24:52
Speaker 3: and the other thing you mentioned. All right, well, this
24:54
Speaker 3: is what they've done since Shrake May came in. How
24:56
Speaker 3: does that sync up with when they moved Mike when
24:58
Speaker 3: Winnu in the right guard?
24:59
Speaker 2: Yeah?
24:59
Speaker 3: Right's about the same time, wouldn't you know it? You
25:02
Speaker 3: put your best offensive lineman in his best position and
25:04
Speaker 3: suddenly things look a lot better.
25:06
Speaker 2: I like this group.
25:07
Speaker 3: We'll see where Cole strange factors in. I understand working
25:10
Speaker 3: him at center and left guard. I didn't love them
25:12
Speaker 3: saying that they were going to work him at right
25:14
Speaker 3: guard as well. I understand they want to cross train guys,
25:16
Speaker 3: they want to get guys ready, but let's not go
25:18
Speaker 3: back to Mike when win right tackle.
25:20
Speaker 2: Please.
25:21
Speaker 3: But I think finally sticking with the group helped. And
25:25
Speaker 3: who knows what would happen if they've done it soon.
25:26
Speaker 3: If they were able to do it sooner, I understand
25:28
Speaker 3: there'd be injuries. I honestly think you talk about the
25:31
Speaker 3: offensive coaching staff. If there's one guy I'm really high
25:35
Speaker 3: on at this point, it's Scott Peters.
25:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, because taking a very little and made a lot
25:40
Speaker 2: out of it.
25:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it hasn't been good this year, but
25:44
Speaker 3: how many times if we come out of games and
25:47
Speaker 3: been like, well, it wasn't great, but it's better than
25:48
Speaker 3: we thought. Or just with individual players, you look at
25:51
Speaker 3: what they've gotten out of a Darian low And I'm
25:53
Speaker 3: not saying Vederien low has been like a Pro Bowl
25:55
Speaker 3: or anything, but compared to expectations, what they've got out
25:58
Speaker 3: of a Darian Lowe, what they've gotten out of Michael Jordan,
26:01
Speaker 3: what they've gotten out Demontre Jacobs, who showed up after
26:04
Speaker 3: final roster cuts and is now you're starting right tackle.
26:07
Speaker 2: Is functional.
26:08
Speaker 3: It's not great, but he's functional. So I look at
26:10
Speaker 3: that and I say, all right, if this is what
26:14
Speaker 3: he's doing with the bare minimum, if this is what
26:16
Speaker 3: he's doing with the revolving door of guys who are
26:19
Speaker 3: you know, borderline NFL caliber players, what's gonna happen when
26:22
Speaker 3: you actually get him? You know, players with the with
26:26
Speaker 3: the with the ceiling. What's gonna happen when you get him?
26:28
Speaker 3: And not just that are alright? What's gonna happen when
26:31
Speaker 3: you give him the same five guys to work with
26:33
Speaker 3: weekend and week out and they can actually build to something.
26:35
Speaker 3: So I you know, it took them longer than I
26:37
Speaker 3: think it should have taken them to get to this point.
26:41
Speaker 3: I think they should have had more continuity earlier. I
26:43
Speaker 3: think Drake may may have played earlier if they had
26:45
Speaker 3: more continuity earlier. Again, some of that's due to injuries,
26:48
Speaker 3: so I don't entirely blame them for that, like it's
26:50
Speaker 3: outside of their control. But I overall I like what
26:54
Speaker 3: I've seen because they've made enough at of so little
26:57
Speaker 3: that that I'm at the point where it's like, all right,
26:58
Speaker 3: like let's give them something real to work. And then
27:00
Speaker 3: it goes back to the point you said with the
27:02
Speaker 3: Alex VNN Pelton keeping that continuity, like if you move
27:05
Speaker 3: on from Alex band Pelt, new coach is gonna want
27:08
Speaker 3: his staff, Yeah, and that you know, now you're moving
27:11
Speaker 3: on from Scott Peters and TC. McCartney's another guy that's
27:14
Speaker 3: gotten a ton of credit, and I he was on
27:15
Speaker 3: some of those lists about up and coming coaches, Like
27:18
Speaker 3: you move on from alexand pell you're probably moving on
27:19
Speaker 3: from those guys too.
27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I really do feel that they've done a
27:25
Speaker 2: much better job with their play calling in certain spots.
27:29
Speaker 2: Now I think They're time of their plays could be
27:32
Speaker 2: a little bit better at times still, you know, marrying
27:35
Speaker 2: it up to when they are expecting different coverage from
27:38
Speaker 2: the defense. Right, But even still, I feel like some
27:41
Speaker 2: of the stuff that they've done has had more answers
27:43
Speaker 2: within each probably call of you know, okay, if we
27:47
Speaker 2: have a man beater on here, but they drop into zone,
27:50
Speaker 2: it helps when they drop into his zone, your quarterback
27:52
Speaker 2: can run for twenty five yards, right Like that obviously helps.
27:56
Speaker 2: But it's something that I've noticed that as it has improved.
27:59
Speaker 2: And one of the other criticisms that I hear a
28:01
Speaker 2: lot about Alex Van Pelt is that they run the
28:04
Speaker 2: ball too much on first down, and the numbers do
28:07
Speaker 2: not back that up. They just don't support it. So
28:10
Speaker 2: since Drake May has been in the lineup and been
28:12
Speaker 2: the starter, the Patriots are fifth in the league in
28:16
Speaker 2: early down pass frequency. They're fifth in the league. They're
28:19
Speaker 2: passing the ball almost sixty percent of the time on
28:22
Speaker 2: first and second down since Drake May took over, and
28:24
Speaker 2: that's adjusted for situation. Right, So we're not talking about
28:28
Speaker 2: like blowouts and two minutes and staf for talking about
28:31
Speaker 2: actual football, like first and ten from the twenty five
28:35
Speaker 2: the very first play of the game, right like those
28:37
Speaker 2: types of situations, they're throwing the ball quite a bit,
28:40
Speaker 2: and I think some of that is a response to
28:42
Speaker 2: the fact that they haven't run the ball very well,
28:44
Speaker 2: and he's not just running into a brick wall, right Like,
28:47
Speaker 2: he's not just continuingly calling run after run after run
28:51
Speaker 2: even though it's not working. So they are a very
28:53
Speaker 2: aggressive early down passing offense. I know it might not
28:56
Speaker 2: feel like that all the time, but right now they're
29:00
Speaker 2: right up there with Kansas City Buffalo. You know, the
29:05
Speaker 2: teams that do this every year. You know that are
29:07
Speaker 2: like that every year because they put the ball in
29:09
Speaker 2: the quarterback's hands. So I've really thought that he's gotten
29:13
Speaker 2: better in that regard in terms of his play calling
29:16
Speaker 2: and the runs. In the run game, they're getting downhill
29:20
Speaker 2: a lot more. Like you don't see quite as much
29:22
Speaker 2: outside zone. It's still in there. They still will run it,
29:25
Speaker 2: but they're getting downhill a little bit more. They haven't
29:28
Speaker 2: had a ton of success with it, but I like
29:30
Speaker 2: the City so at full back element, Like, I think
29:32
Speaker 2: that that's something that they needed to just do and
29:35
Speaker 2: figure out. Do you think adding a fullback is in
29:38
Speaker 2: play this offseason. I think for this group it is
29:42
Speaker 2: because well, first of all, maybe not if they improve
29:46
Speaker 2: the offensive line. But the biggest thing for a full
29:49
Speaker 2: back is that he can be a fixer, right Like,
29:51
Speaker 2: if you lose a block on the line of scrimmage,
29:53
Speaker 2: now you have like another layer before you get to
29:56
Speaker 2: the ball carrier. So it's almost like the players on
29:59
Speaker 2: the line of scrimmage have to go through two guys
30:01
Speaker 2: to get to the football instead of just one. So
30:03
Speaker 2: that was the big reason why I thought that they
30:05
Speaker 2: needed to maybe look at a big whether it's a
30:09
Speaker 2: you know, they call it muscle tight end, full back, whatever.
30:12
Speaker 2: Getting a big full back in there in this offense
30:15
Speaker 2: was because they couldn't execute the blocks on the line
30:18
Speaker 2: of scrimmage consistently. So it gives you almost a It
30:21
Speaker 2: gives you like a safety net right in case you
30:24
Speaker 2: screw up on the line of scrimmage. So maybe, like
30:27
Speaker 2: somebody that is a little bit different than a than
30:30
Speaker 2: an offensive lineman, being eligible could be useful. But in
30:33
Speaker 2: Cleveland they use they used the center actually that as
30:37
Speaker 2: an eligible man, forget the guy's name, but they typically
30:41
Speaker 2: used it out of a jumbo package and not like
30:43
Speaker 2: a traditional fullback. So I could see them sticking with that.
30:47
Speaker 2: But the offensive line play, the tight ends, uh, the
30:51
Speaker 2: wide receivers, I would say usage has gotten a little
30:55
Speaker 2: bit better. And then obviously they have Drake May playing great.
30:58
Speaker 2: So your point about let's give van uh excuse me,
31:01
Speaker 2: Scott Peters some better linemen. Maybe if they give him
31:05
Speaker 2: some better linemen and they give a VP some better
31:08
Speaker 2: wide receiver talent, now we really could be cooking here,
31:12
Speaker 2: you know, especially if Drake May keeps playing.
31:14
Speaker 3: So in the end, we're back where we started in January,
31:18
Speaker 3: which was let's make the roster better team. We're all
31:22
Speaker 3: the way back. Took us what eleven months, ten months,
31:26
Speaker 3: eleven months, and we're paid and it's look, it's not
31:28
Speaker 3: a bad place to be because you can add talent
31:31
Speaker 3: to the roster. Like that's not when I say it's
31:34
Speaker 3: not a hard thing to do. You got to identify
31:36
Speaker 3: the talent, you gotta make sure it fits. But you
31:38
Speaker 3: have draft picks, you have cap space, you can add talent.
31:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, So this is a compliment, Sandwich. That
31:47
Speaker 2: was my goal here. So I just gave a lot
31:50
Speaker 2: of praise to the offensive staff. I wish you hadn't
31:53
Speaker 2: said that about Marcus Jones. Just you killed the momentum
31:57
Speaker 2: here a little bit a VP. That was the compliment.
32:01
Speaker 2: Here comes the the the insult of the compliment, sandwich.
32:06
Speaker 2: Everything that I just said about all the progress the
32:09
Speaker 2: offense is making and how I'm actually coming around to
32:12
Speaker 2: Alex van Pelt, the opposite is true on the defensive
32:15
Speaker 2: side of the football, and on this show, I can't
32:20
Speaker 2: I couldn't remember the exact show that we talked about this, Alex,
32:23
Speaker 2: but I know we talked about it. Maybe you can
32:25
Speaker 2: help me because my memory stinks for reasons that can
32:28
Speaker 2: stay off the air. The show that we did where
32:33
Speaker 2: we said that Girod needed to be more involved on
32:35
Speaker 2: the defensive side of the ball Ago maybe San Francisco
32:39
Speaker 2: issues that. Yeah, I've been on this for a while.
32:42
Speaker 2: I believe you've brought up a couple times. I think
32:45
Speaker 2: we did it once post Drake may starting. We're at
32:51
Speaker 2: the point now where call it for what it is.
32:56
Speaker 2: I don't think that they've been super well coached, well
33:00
Speaker 2: coordinated on the defensive side of the football, and the
33:03
Speaker 2: stats are with me. They're thirtieth in the league in DVOA.
33:06
Speaker 2: They're twenty eighth in the league and EPA per play,
33:09
Speaker 2: they're eighteenth in points per game. I know, I got
33:11
Speaker 2: to get that one in there for you, but that
33:13
Speaker 2: doesn't even do a justice to me. Like the eighteenth
33:15
Speaker 2: doesn't sound that bad, Like that's like middle of the pack, right,
33:18
Speaker 2: Like they're they're defensively. You know, if I told you
33:21
Speaker 2: that all they gave up to the Rams was twenty
33:23
Speaker 2: eight points, like on the service, it's not great, but
33:26
Speaker 2: it's not fifty, right, it doesn't sound terrible. But when
33:29
Speaker 2: you look at the numbers in the efficiency in which
33:31
Speaker 2: the Rams scored in they scored twenty eight points in
33:34
Speaker 2: twenty two minutes of game time. They averaged seven point
33:37
Speaker 2: nine yards per play, you know, like they they could
33:41
Speaker 2: not stop the Rams. They did not stop the Rams.
33:43
Speaker 2: I would say the same thing is true if I
33:45
Speaker 2: told you in Week three, on that Thursday night game
33:48
Speaker 2: that they gave up twenty four points to the Jets.
33:51
Speaker 2: On the surface, that doesn't sound that terrible. Twenty four
33:54
Speaker 2: points in the league now is like average, right for
33:56
Speaker 2: a team every week. Did they play good defense that
33:59
Speaker 2: night in the Meadowlands? Absolutely not. They could not stop
34:02
Speaker 2: Aaron Rodgers at all, So defensively. This has been going
34:06
Speaker 2: on all year that they haven't been coached very well.
34:08
Speaker 2: There's some specific things that I want to get into,
34:12
Speaker 2: but before we do, like what is your where? What's
34:15
Speaker 2: your temperature at right now? With DeMarcus Cumington and the
34:18
Speaker 2: defensive setup, we.
34:20
Speaker 3: Had talked about this. Now we gotta go back again.
34:23
Speaker 3: We had talked about this that they were just like
34:26
Speaker 3: it was too much on defense. They're getting too cute.
34:28
Speaker 3: There was too much of the rotation coverages and disguising
34:32
Speaker 3: this and disguising that. That was like two or three
34:35
Speaker 3: weeks into the season. I think we talked about that. Yeah,
34:37
Speaker 3: and then I felt like it had settled down and
34:39
Speaker 3: they had done more to get back to basics. Yeah,
34:42
Speaker 3: and maybe that's because they were down a bunch of players.
34:44
Speaker 3: It feels like that's ramped back up. Where I know
34:47
Speaker 3: you say, I asked you about the staff for the game.
34:49
Speaker 3: I know he said, like Anthony Jennings only played four
34:51
Speaker 3: coverage snaps or whatever. It was a corner of PFF.
34:53
Speaker 3: But I noticed a handful of times where like he
34:56
Speaker 3: wasn't setting the edges aggressively as he was.
35:00
Speaker 2: He did not have a good game right or.
35:02
Speaker 3: But it didn't look like he was handling his assignment different,
35:05
Speaker 3: not just that he was playing.
35:07
Speaker 2: I just thought that his run force was nowhere near
35:10
Speaker 2: as good as it usually is. So so whatever was.
35:12
Speaker 3: Behind that, yeah, but it just he looked so part
35:16
Speaker 3: of it too, was I guess what I what I
35:18
Speaker 3: noticed like he was lining up a little further out
35:22
Speaker 3: and he was lining up more upright. And they're putting
35:25
Speaker 3: Yannick and Gockway handing the dirt or Christian Barmore at
35:28
Speaker 3: defensive end.
35:29
Speaker 2: And I get it.
35:29
Speaker 3: You want to get those guys involved, but you want
35:32
Speaker 3: to get them involved, like I wouldn't change Anthony Jennings's role.
35:35
Speaker 3: Is there a way that you can get both of
35:37
Speaker 3: those things right in like that? Uh, some of the
35:40
Speaker 3: coverage stuff. I know we disagree exactly on their usage
35:44
Speaker 3: of Christian Gonzalz.
35:45
Speaker 2: But I would say, yeah, I wanted to get into that,
35:47
Speaker 2: so let's unpack it.
35:48
Speaker 3: It just it it felt like they were doing a
35:51
Speaker 3: little too much of time. They're running these zones and
35:54
Speaker 3: like Pukku is running the wide open spaces. Yeah, and
35:56
Speaker 3: it's happening into the second half of the game. So
35:59
Speaker 3: too cute, not enough adjustments. It just feels like it
36:02
Speaker 3: did back at the beginning of the season.
36:04
Speaker 2: So there are a couple of things I want to
36:05
Speaker 2: unpack here with the defense specifically. So I don't want
36:09
Speaker 2: to start with Gonzo because I'm gonna probably get fired
36:11
Speaker 2: up and we can let's let's end with Gonzo. Okay.
36:14
Speaker 2: The biggest thing that I want to start with on
36:16
Speaker 2: the defensive side of the ball is something that I
36:19
Speaker 2: have been harping on since I know this for a fact.
36:22
Speaker 2: I brought this up for the first time when they
36:24
Speaker 2: played San Francisco. So all teams are doing, especially these
36:28
Speaker 2: Shanahan Tree teams, and we're gonna face another one on
36:31
Speaker 2: Sunday in Miami, and I guarantee you Mike McDaniel is
36:34
Speaker 2: gonna do the same exact thing. Teams are putting heavy
36:37
Speaker 2: personnel on the field. The Rams played a ton of
36:40
Speaker 2: two tight ends in this game. They played heavy personnel
36:43
Speaker 2: on the field. They know the Patriots are gonna match
36:46
Speaker 2: it in base defense, and then they're just putting the
36:48
Speaker 2: Patriots linebackers at the point of attack and throwing at
36:51
Speaker 2: the Patriots linebackers. We know the Patriots linebackers are not
36:54
Speaker 2: good in space. We know they're not good in coverage.
36:56
Speaker 2: It's just not their strong suit, right there. Jelani Tavai,
37:00
Speaker 2: Anthony Jennings dropping off the line of scrimmage. Christianellis is
37:04
Speaker 2: really a special teamer that's been asked to play a
37:06
Speaker 2: whole lot more because of injuries and poor roster construction.
37:10
Speaker 2: So they're they're asking they're trying to play a lot
37:15
Speaker 2: in base defense to physically match the opponent and not
37:20
Speaker 2: give up the yards on the ground. And first of all,
37:23
Speaker 2: I just think that's that's backwards thinking. Like if I'm
37:27
Speaker 2: the Patriots, I'm thinking to myself, I'm gonna play Nickel.
37:31
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll play big Nickel with three safety, but I'm
37:33
Speaker 2: gonna play Nickel. Run it, run it because my offense,
37:37
Speaker 2: you know, we're not gonna score thirty five on offense,
37:39
Speaker 2: all right, We're not there yet. So if the other
37:41
Speaker 2: team runs the ball and they take up time and
37:45
Speaker 2: they have to march ten twelve plays to score touchdowns,
37:48
Speaker 2: you're shortening the game. So then you're keeping the game
37:51
Speaker 2: lower scoring, right, Like, you're keeping the game in the
37:53
Speaker 2: twenties by doing that. So invite the run, like, don't
37:57
Speaker 2: give up. I'm not saying to give up eight yards
37:58
Speaker 2: a carry, but like, don't panic about the yards on
38:02
Speaker 2: the ground. This coaching staff seems more concerned about stopping
38:06
Speaker 2: the run than stopping the pass. And that's backwards, like that,
38:09
Speaker 2: that's not how you should be coaching. This thing.
38:11
Speaker 3: Is some of it just because they've been so bad
38:13
Speaker 3: against the run, because because like you said, don't give
38:15
Speaker 3: up eight yards of carry, and weren't giving up eight.
38:17
Speaker 3: But you look at that that Jacksonville game, and you know,
38:21
Speaker 3: as we get to this Rams game itself, and I
38:23
Speaker 3: don't think the Rams and Jags are similar teams, but
38:26
Speaker 3: it felt like a very similar game. You had that
38:28
Speaker 3: hot start and then it just fell apart and it
38:31
Speaker 3: started attacking you. And I wonder if some of that's
38:34
Speaker 3: just an overcorrection to what had happened.
38:36
Speaker 2: So here's some stats for you about their base defense,
38:38
Speaker 2: because this is just alarming, right, So let's stick to
38:42
Speaker 2: the Rams game specifically, and then I'll give you the
38:44
Speaker 2: season stats. Here in a second, in the Rams game
38:47
Speaker 2: against Los Angeles, and I texted one of these numbers
38:50
Speaker 2: to you last night. They were in base defense the
38:53
Speaker 2: Patriots twenty five times twenty five snaps in base defense
38:57
Speaker 2: out of fifty one plays, the Rams averaged ten point
39:00
Speaker 2: three yards per play when the Patriots were in base defense.
39:05
Speaker 2: When the Rams passed in base defense, there's twelve passes.
39:09
Speaker 2: Twelve passes to thirteen runs, eighteen point one yards per
39:15
Speaker 2: pass play. It's too many eighteen in base defense. So
39:19
Speaker 2: what's happening in all these games and the Patriots are
39:23
Speaker 2: just letting it happen like they're just they're just continuing
39:27
Speaker 2: to do it over and over again, is to are
39:30
Speaker 2: getting them into their base with heavy personnel offensively, and
39:34
Speaker 2: they're throwing at their base defense and they do not
39:38
Speaker 2: have the horses at the second level the defense to
39:40
Speaker 2: play base coverage. They just don't. So eighteen point one
39:44
Speaker 2: yards per play on the season, the Patriots now have
39:46
Speaker 2: the second highest base rate in the league. On the season,
39:50
Speaker 2: they are giving up six point three yards per play
39:53
Speaker 2: in base defense. That's thirtieth in the NFL. So they
39:57
Speaker 2: are playing the second highest rate of base and they're
39:59
Speaker 2: giving up the third most yards in base So this
40:02
Speaker 2: has been going on all year. Like we've talked about
40:04
Speaker 2: this multiple times. In this game against the Rams, that
40:07
Speaker 2: happened again, Mike McDaniel. In the Miami Dolphins, they only
40:12
Speaker 2: play eleven personnel three wide receivers like twenty eight percent
40:16
Speaker 2: of the time. They are not a three wide receiver team.
40:19
Speaker 2: They're a Shanahan team. They're a twelve personnel team or
40:21
Speaker 2: a twenty one personnel team. So Mike McDaniel is gonna
40:24
Speaker 2: put two tight ends on the field, Johnny Smith and
40:27
Speaker 2: the other dude that they play like blanking on right now,
40:30
Speaker 2: Irik Killing Jalen Waddle will be on the outside, Davon
40:33
Speaker 2: hn is going to be in the backfield, and their
40:36
Speaker 2: speed is going to be against Jolanie Devai and Christian
40:39
Speaker 2: Ellis and Anthony Jennings coming across the field. And I
40:43
Speaker 2: just don't see how that could possibly be a good
40:45
Speaker 2: game plan. Like that's just not going to work. So
40:49
Speaker 2: they've been doing this all year long with the base defense.
40:51
Speaker 2: That's item number one. They got to get out of base.
40:54
Speaker 3: Do you think some of that is just and I'm
40:56
Speaker 3: not saying that looks if it's not working, you got
40:58
Speaker 3: to adjust out of it. And this goes back to
41:00
Speaker 3: what my thought on Covington in this game. Regardless of
41:03
Speaker 3: what you think of the game play and going in,
41:05
Speaker 3: it didn't work and they needed to adjust out of it.
41:10
Speaker 3: Do you think some of it is lack of availability.
41:13
Speaker 3: They've been banged up at corner, they've been banged up
41:15
Speaker 3: at safety. Does it go to roster construction and just yeah,
41:18
Speaker 3: you know, the best way to get you know, your
41:21
Speaker 3: most trusted players on the field might be in base,
41:24
Speaker 3: even if base doesn't make sense.
41:25
Speaker 2: Again, I'm not saying it's right. My read on it
41:27
Speaker 2: is what you said earlier. They don't feel like they
41:30
Speaker 2: can stop the run in nickel and the first time
41:33
Speaker 2: that they played the Dolphins, they played a lot of
41:35
Speaker 2: big three safety nickel and the Dolphins. Remember in Week
41:38
Speaker 2: five they ran all over the Patriots. I think it
41:40
Speaker 2: was like one hundred and ninety yards or something like that.
41:43
Speaker 2: But again, my rebuttal to that is that, Okay, you
41:47
Speaker 2: gave up one hundred and ninety yards. How many points
41:49
Speaker 2: did you give up? You only gave up fifteen and
41:53
Speaker 2: you were a heel away from winning the game, right, So, like,
41:57
Speaker 2: even though you are struggling to stop the run in
42:02
Speaker 2: nickel defense, it's keeping the game close. Like and now
42:06
Speaker 2: they have Drake May at quarterback, you have to think
42:09
Speaker 2: that they're gonna win a game in the teens maybe
42:12
Speaker 2: a little bit easier than they would have five weeks ago,
42:16
Speaker 2: six weeks ago. So that's item number one. Got to
42:19
Speaker 2: get out of base defense item number two, And this,
42:22
Speaker 2: to me is out of anything that they did on Sunday.
42:26
Speaker 2: I still can't wrap my head around the fact that
42:28
Speaker 2: they blitzed Matthew Stafford eighteen times like that, to me
42:32
Speaker 2: is just really just not understanding the situation. Like you're
42:37
Speaker 2: going up against his sixteen year veteran in the league,
42:40
Speaker 2: and I think Stafford's elite. I think he's one of
42:42
Speaker 2: the best quarterbacks in the league. When you play really
42:45
Speaker 2: good quarterbacks that are veteran guys in this league, anybody
42:49
Speaker 2: would tell you you don't blitz those types of guys.
42:51
Speaker 2: You never. You don't blitz Brady, right, You don't take
42:53
Speaker 2: guys out of coverage and blitz Brady. What was the
42:56
Speaker 2: plan for Brady? It was used four to get after him,
42:59
Speaker 2: drop seven into coverage and try to tighten up those windows.
43:03
Speaker 2: If you blitz Matthew Stafford eighteen times, he's gonna do
43:06
Speaker 2: exactly what he did in this game. It's like two
43:09
Speaker 2: and twenty yards and three touchdowns against the blitz. It
43:11
Speaker 2: wasn't just the sixty nine yard touchdown to Cooper Cup
43:15
Speaker 2: Like he was shredding them in five and six man
43:17
Speaker 2: coverage all the time. So you talked about the motion
43:21
Speaker 2: and then Pokin Nakua was just these like wide open voids.
43:24
Speaker 2: All they were doing is they were motioning Pokin Nakua
43:26
Speaker 2: across the field and they were opening voids right. They
43:30
Speaker 2: were just stretching out the Patriots zone coverage. And since
43:33
Speaker 2: the Patriots are rushing five guys and dropping six into coverage,
43:37
Speaker 2: they just didn't have enough bodies in the secondary to
43:40
Speaker 2: cover all the grass on the field, and with emotion
43:44
Speaker 2: in the formations, were stretching them out so much and
43:46
Speaker 2: now all of a sudden, there's these gaping holes in
43:49
Speaker 2: these zone coverages. So a lot of what happened on Sunday,
43:53
Speaker 2: especially a lot of the Nikua yards. I would say
43:56
Speaker 2: he had one play where they were in drop eight
43:58
Speaker 2: that was a big play on Marco Wilson. But a
44:00
Speaker 2: lot of the plays that Nikua had in this game
44:03
Speaker 2: that were big chunks of yardage were because they were
44:06
Speaker 2: dropping six guys into coverage and trying to cover them
44:10
Speaker 2: with six instead of seven, and it just burned them
44:13
Speaker 2: time and time again.
44:14
Speaker 3: I mean, is that a product of Again, you're in base,
44:17
Speaker 3: you know to fly. It's not a guy you're gonna
44:18
Speaker 3: put in coverage, all right, but we need him out
44:20
Speaker 3: there to stop the runs.
44:21
Speaker 2: So when they throw lish, just blitz them. Is it
44:23
Speaker 2: a product to that? And the ones probably the one
44:25
Speaker 2: that stood out to me, And obviously, I mean I'm
44:28
Speaker 2: not alone.
44:29
Speaker 3: In saying that this was a big play. The Cooper
44:32
Speaker 3: Cup touchdown on the zero blitz. Yeah, where they bring
44:35
Speaker 3: seven and don't get home. And I think a lot
44:38
Speaker 3: of people maybe misunderstand what happened there, Like that's I'm
44:42
Speaker 3: not gonna say Jonathan Jones played that perfectly.
44:44
Speaker 2: He didn't.
44:44
Speaker 3: But the idea of a cover blitz, especially when you
44:47
Speaker 3: bring seven, think about it. Seven, you're leaving four in coverage,
44:50
Speaker 3: so your default leaving somebody open. Yeah, Like not like
44:54
Speaker 3: all right, we're gonna be in zone with no open
44:57
Speaker 3: you have four to cover five. What you're trying to
45:00
Speaker 3: do in that play is when you rush seven, you're
45:03
Speaker 3: trying to get in the quarterback's lap and he may
45:06
Speaker 3: throw it. He may have somebody open, but he's gonna
45:08
Speaker 3: have to throw it off his back foot or through
45:10
Speaker 3: contact or whatever. The Patriots bring seven. Not only does
45:14
Speaker 3: Stafford able to throw that clean, he has a pocket
45:18
Speaker 3: to step up into. And I go back to the
45:20
Speaker 3: play I've used to explain it super Bowl fifty three. Yeah,
45:25
Speaker 3: the zero blitz where Brandon Cooks is in a sense
45:29
Speaker 3: open if Jared Goff can get enough on that ball,
45:33
Speaker 3: but Kylevin Nooy's right in his face, he has to
45:35
Speaker 3: throw out fading away.
45:36
Speaker 2: It's a duck.
45:36
Speaker 3: It's fifteen yard short. Steff On Gilmour's right there. So
45:39
Speaker 3: you look at where Jonathan Jones is. If they actually
45:42
Speaker 3: get to Stafford, he has to throw that off his
45:44
Speaker 3: back foot. Jonathan Jones probably, if he even gets that far,
45:46
Speaker 3: Jonathan Jones probably knocks it down like he's in a
45:48
Speaker 3: decent enough position.
45:49
Speaker 2: To play that. You to say that, well, you know
45:55
Speaker 2: Stafford had well they Stafford had times he hit a
45:58
Speaker 2: pocket on a plane, which he's not supposed to have
46:00
Speaker 2: a pocket.
46:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, based on the defensive call. So it's not just
46:02
Speaker 3: how much they're blitzing, it's how much they're blitzing and
46:05
Speaker 3: not getting any impact from the blitz. It would be
46:08
Speaker 3: one thing like you talk about, don't blitz Stafford that much? Sure, Well,
46:11
Speaker 3: if you're getting a ton of pressure and he's uncomfortable
46:13
Speaker 3: and you're knocking him around, you're moving him off his spot.
46:15
Speaker 3: That's one thing, you know, to blitz that heavy. And
46:17
Speaker 3: it's like, all right, well he beat us a couple
46:19
Speaker 3: times when we were getting to him and we were
46:21
Speaker 3: trying to wear him down. They had six pressures, three
46:24
Speaker 3: quarterback hits. So it's not so much to me just
46:28
Speaker 3: how much they blitzed. It's how much they blitzed without success.
46:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, how ineffective the blitzer are. It's a really good point.
46:35
Speaker 2: And I remember in twenty nineteen, first half of twenty nineteen,
46:40
Speaker 2: Remember how much Cover zero they were running that year. Yeah,
46:43
Speaker 2: it was like the whole thing. It was the whole thing,
46:44
Speaker 2: the Boogeyman. It was insane. And they had to find
46:47
Speaker 2: Gilmore to take number ones one on one so they
46:49
Speaker 2: didn't necessarily need to give him help and all that.
46:52
Speaker 2: And I remember talking into the in the locker room
46:55
Speaker 2: with the McCarty's actually, and I don't remember if it
46:59
Speaker 2: was Devin or Jason, but one of them said to me,
47:02
Speaker 2: if we're gonna run Cover zero, we better get home, right.
47:05
Speaker 2: It was like that's the thing with Cover zero, Like
47:08
Speaker 2: if you are going to run it like us and
47:09
Speaker 2: the like. You know, we always say to the guys
47:12
Speaker 2: up front when we're in the back, like if we're
47:14
Speaker 2: gonna run cover zero, then you guys better get pressure
47:18
Speaker 2: on the quarterback. Otherwise it's gonna be a big play. Yeah,
47:20
Speaker 2: And that play right there is a perfect example. I
47:24
Speaker 2: thought Jonathan Jones's leverage was poor, you know, like he
47:27
Speaker 2: set up outside of Cooper Cup when he really should
47:30
Speaker 2: have said up inside. Because when you play cover zero,
47:33
Speaker 2: you think that in breakers, slants things like that are
47:36
Speaker 2: gonna be the beater to that. Or you're trying to
47:38
Speaker 2: play the hot round, right, So you're trying to play
47:40
Speaker 2: exactly you're trying to play the hot and by taking
47:42
Speaker 2: away the middle of the field and try to force
47:45
Speaker 2: him to throw like a fade or something down the
47:46
Speaker 2: sideline to beat you inside, get more arm. Yeah, but
47:51
Speaker 2: say your point about them not getting home is the
47:53
Speaker 2: more important. Yeah. Again, it's not.
47:55
Speaker 3: Actually Jonathan Jones did not play well. He had that
47:57
Speaker 3: one pass break up late, So it's not excuses.
48:00
Speaker 2: But like I saw a lot.
48:01
Speaker 3: Of people be like, why is Jonathan Jones on the
48:03
Speaker 3: field in that spot? The issue on that play is
48:05
Speaker 3: not where Jonathan Jones was or his assignment whether or
48:09
Speaker 3: not you should call cover zero there. I mean, we
48:11
Speaker 3: can debate the call itself, but if you're gonna call
48:15
Speaker 3: cover zero, the quarterback should not be standing at the
48:19
Speaker 3: end of the play.
48:19
Speaker 2: Maybe he gets a throw off, but you you need
48:22
Speaker 2: to be in his face right away.
48:23
Speaker 3: You need to be knocking him down. The fact that
48:25
Speaker 3: he didn't just throw a clean but a pocket to
48:27
Speaker 3: step up into is very damning.
48:29
Speaker 2: Okay, So last point on the d because I do
48:31
Speaker 2: understand the criticism of the usage of Christian Gonzales, I
48:35
Speaker 2: might not fully. It's not that I disagree. I just
48:38
Speaker 2: I this one. I understand the logic. I don't understand
48:41
Speaker 2: the logic of butch and blitzing Matthew Stafford eighteen times
48:45
Speaker 2: like that to me is illogical, Like that doesn't There's
48:48
Speaker 2: certain things I always look at it and say, Okay,
48:51
Speaker 2: these guys are head coaches, are coordinators in the NFL.
48:54
Speaker 2: I am not okay. They know more about football than
48:57
Speaker 2: I do, full stop, right, So let's ask ourselves what
49:00
Speaker 2: are they doing and is there a football reason for
49:04
Speaker 2: them doing that. I can understand what they were trying
49:08
Speaker 2: to accomplish with Gonzales. I can understand what they were
49:11
Speaker 2: trying to accomplish with blitzing Stafford eighteen times or playing
49:14
Speaker 2: as much base defense as they did. To me, there's
49:16
Speaker 2: no football explanation for that, the Gonzales stuff. The biggest
49:21
Speaker 2: thing that I reason why I can understand what they
49:24
Speaker 2: are trying to accomplish is that the Rams use a
49:29
Speaker 2: lot of motion, and they use a lot of ugly
49:31
Speaker 2: or nasty bunches, which means that they're in tight to
49:34
Speaker 2: the formation. Right. So what they're trying to do with
49:37
Speaker 2: all of that is play is caused traffic, tru cause chaos,
49:43
Speaker 2: try to pick man coverage defenders off, like all that
49:46
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. When you play teams that do that,
49:51
Speaker 2: like the Rams, and do it at a high level,
49:53
Speaker 2: it's very very difficult to shadow and it's very very
49:57
Speaker 2: difficult to play conventional man coverage. I'll give you an
50:00
Speaker 2: example beyond just Gonzales. If you watch the film of
50:03
Speaker 2: this game, back when the Rams are in their bunches,
50:06
Speaker 2: the Patriots played box rules out of the bunch, right,
50:09
Speaker 2: there'd be four Patriots and it's just first in first out,
50:12
Speaker 2: second in second out. Right, That's how you sort of
50:14
Speaker 2: sort it out of the box. When the Patriots play
50:17
Speaker 2: other teams in box or in a bunch coverage, they
50:21
Speaker 2: a lot of the times they play lock and level,
50:23
Speaker 2: which instead is is I'm locked into my man, but
50:26
Speaker 2: I'm at different levels so that we don't get picked off. Right.
50:29
Speaker 2: So you have one guy on the line a scrimmage,
50:31
Speaker 2: another guy's like two or three yards behind him, and
50:33
Speaker 2: another guy's like two to three yards behind him. But
50:36
Speaker 2: I have this guy, you have that guy, you have
50:38
Speaker 2: that guy. Against the Rams, they made a very concerted
50:41
Speaker 2: effort to zone off bunches because they knew that that
50:44
Speaker 2: McVeigh was just gonna switch release and cause all sorts
50:47
Speaker 2: of chaos to their man coverage. So in theory, I
50:50
Speaker 2: understood what they were going for by let's just play sides.
50:54
Speaker 2: Whoever comes out your side is who you cover. The
50:56
Speaker 2: problem is, as the course of the game went on,
50:59
Speaker 2: McVeigh caught on to what they were doing, and then
51:01
Speaker 2: he was just motioning Nikua away from Christian Gonzales, and
51:05
Speaker 2: that's when they started to get themselves into trump or
51:07
Speaker 2: just even setting up.
51:08
Speaker 3: I mean, there were a couple of times, the big
51:10
Speaker 3: one in the red zone where it's two tight ends
51:12
Speaker 3: to one side, three receivers.
51:14
Speaker 2: The other tight ends are on the Gonzales side. Yeah,
51:16
Speaker 2: the red zone stuff wasn't great in between the twenties.
51:18
Speaker 2: I am okay with what they did. The red zone
51:21
Speaker 2: stuff was a little bit more.
51:22
Speaker 3: So this is and this goes back to my point,
51:24
Speaker 3: and again it's about adjustments. I understand the thought process
51:28
Speaker 3: behind it. But like you said, McVeigh caught on yeah
51:30
Speaker 3: and answered right, okay, so now what's your counter to
51:33
Speaker 3: his counter? And it didn't feel like the Patriots had one, right,
51:36
Speaker 3: It felt like they just totally stuck with us. So,
51:38
Speaker 3: you know, especially a team like this, you want to
51:41
Speaker 3: come out, try something new. Find you know, you're three
51:44
Speaker 3: and seven, right right, sure, try something new. This is
51:47
Speaker 3: how we think we.
51:47
Speaker 2: Have to play him.
51:48
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna jump on them too much for that,
51:51
Speaker 3: but when it's clearly not working, you need to change it.
51:55
Speaker 2: And that's what stood out to me.
51:57
Speaker 3: Like Dard Mayo said, I don't remember if it was
52:00
Speaker 3: after the game or Monday morning, one of his postgame
52:02
Speaker 3: press conferences, said like, you know, we have plans, and
52:04
Speaker 3: we're always open to changing plans. I didn't outside of
52:08
Speaker 3: a handful of snaps in the second half. I didn't
52:11
Speaker 3: there was no big picture adjustment. Let me put it
52:13
Speaker 3: that way. There was no big picture. This isn't working.
52:16
Speaker 3: We need to do something about it. Because you can
52:19
Speaker 3: have a guy you know you can have and again
52:21
Speaker 3: the terminology you probably know better than me. You can
52:24
Speaker 3: shadow a guy just in terms of where he's lining
52:27
Speaker 3: up and then play zone from there, like you know,
52:29
Speaker 3: all right, Well, in the Kuza this side Gonzalez is
52:31
Speaker 3: gonna go. There have adjustments, right if emotions is what
52:33
Speaker 3: we're gonna do to try to keep Gonzalez on at
52:36
Speaker 3: least the side of one of the wide receivers. Yeah,
52:38
Speaker 3: once it got to a certain point in that game
52:39
Speaker 3: where Naku and Cup, through motion or not, we're both
52:43
Speaker 3: on the same side of the formation, Gonzalez was on
52:46
Speaker 3: the other side.
52:46
Speaker 2: Defensively, that should not have happened. Yeah, they had a
52:50
Speaker 2: lot of times when Gonzalz ended up basically on DeMarcus Robinson,
52:54
Speaker 2: who like isn't a bad player by the way, I
52:56
Speaker 2: should say, he's not Cooper Cupp or Puka Nikua, but
52:58
Speaker 2: he's not. He's a decent receiver in this league. I mean,
53:02
Speaker 2: I mean it's hit a while off touchdown against them.
53:04
Speaker 3: It's the old BILLI ism. If to go ahead and
53:07
Speaker 3: beat us with DeMarcus Robinson, yeah, go ahead. If the
53:10
Speaker 3: Marcus Robinson goes for six and one hundred, you played
53:13
Speaker 3: a good game, We'll put our hands up and give
53:15
Speaker 3: you credit back. I get paid paid too. You're not
53:17
Speaker 3: beating us with Cooper Cup. You're not beating us with Pukukua.
53:19
Speaker 3: That should have been the approach.
53:21
Speaker 2: I totally hear that, And although I hear the point
53:24
Speaker 2: too that in theory, like the other thing that you
53:28
Speaker 2: hear a lot of wolve is just double one of
53:29
Speaker 2: them out and put Zalez on the other guy, that
53:32
Speaker 2: type of stuff doesn't happen as much as you would think,
53:34
Speaker 2: like true dedicated doubles. The only game plans that I
53:38
Speaker 2: remember over the last couple of years handful of years
53:41
Speaker 2: where Bill actually double the guy consistently was when they
53:45
Speaker 2: played Minnesota on Thanksgiving. They get it to Justin Jefferson
53:50
Speaker 2: half a dozen at least, maybe even more with Jonathan
53:53
Speaker 2: Jones and a safety over the top, and then Tyreek
53:56
Speaker 2: Hill in the AFC Championship game in twenty eighteen or
53:59
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen year or twenty a Seasoney eighteen season. Yep,
54:03
Speaker 2: those were the only two times in the last since
54:05
Speaker 2: I've been covering the team where I remember distinctly that
54:10
Speaker 2: game plan was, we're doubling this guy out of this game.
54:13
Speaker 2: So it doesn't happen as frequently as you think. And
54:16
Speaker 2: just to go back to the McVeigh thing. The other
54:18
Speaker 2: issue with doubling or bracketing coverage when you played teams
54:23
Speaker 2: a motion as much as the Rams do, that causes
54:26
Speaker 2: all sorts of chaos about the double teams, right, Like
54:29
Speaker 2: if they're going to motion the at the snap on
54:31
Speaker 2: like a missile motion, and he's gonna come across the formation,
54:34
Speaker 2: do both guys go with him? Do you try to
54:36
Speaker 2: switch it off? Right? You know? Does that the safety
54:38
Speaker 2: on the left side of the field pass it to
54:40
Speaker 2: the right side of the field? Like how are you
54:42
Speaker 2: handling all those different types of things? Look, it's a
54:45
Speaker 2: really good scheme that they played against. And this is why, right,
54:50
Speaker 2: Like these types of pretzels that they put you in
54:52
Speaker 2: defensively is why McVeigh is McVeigh. Where does this come from?
54:56
Speaker 3: By the way, because Bill used that defensive strategy of
54:59
Speaker 3: ason two double one, Yeah, for years and years and
55:02
Speaker 3: years and coaches figure how to figure out way to count.
55:05
Speaker 2: It and that's kind of what they saw. So last
55:07
Speaker 2: thing on the defense, then I know we want to
55:09
Speaker 2: move along here. Well it's a compliment, Sandwich, So you
55:11
Speaker 2: got to come back around, Tom. So here's sort of
55:13
Speaker 2: my compliment. All right. It's not a compliment, but it's
55:15
Speaker 2: more of like a this is an open face compliment Sandwich. Yes,
55:19
Speaker 2: speaking of sandwiches, we need you to address something a
55:22
Speaker 2: little bit. But okay, that's fair. It's not a compliment, sandwich.
55:25
Speaker 2: Person address it on people. But this is no okay,
55:27
Speaker 2: but this is my this is my patience right now
55:32
Speaker 2: trying to come in. DeMarcus Covington is a first year,
55:37
Speaker 2: first time NFL defensive coordinator in play caller. For my money,
55:43
Speaker 2: he might have just went up against the best offensive
55:46
Speaker 2: play caller in the NFL and he got taken behind
55:48
Speaker 2: the woodshed. It's a learning experience, like it happens right,
55:53
Speaker 2: Like McVeigh is McVeigh for a reason. He's tremendous, Like
55:56
Speaker 2: he does this to a lot of people. This is
55:59
Speaker 2: DeMarcus Covington's the West Coast coach. Sure, this is DeMarcus
56:03
Speaker 2: Covington's first time doing this, so I'm willing to give
56:08
Speaker 2: him some grace. But with that being said, these are
56:12
Speaker 2: trends that I've been talking about all year long, and
56:16
Speaker 2: I do really start to worry about the chops on
56:19
Speaker 2: the defensive side of the football, and I would like
56:22
Speaker 2: to think that Gerrod Mayo could take more ownership and
56:27
Speaker 2: fix some of these things. Like, for example, at halftime,
56:32
Speaker 2: how do they how don't you call off the dogs? Right?
56:35
Speaker 1: Like?
56:36
Speaker 2: How do you not say to DeMarcus Comington at halftime, Hey, DeMarcus,
56:39
Speaker 2: let's not blitz. Matthew Stafford, he's shredding us. Every time
56:43
Speaker 2: we blitz, it's backfiring the first or second player. The
56:47
Speaker 2: third quarter is a sixty nine yard touchdown on an
56:50
Speaker 2: all out blitz, right Like? How is that not a conversation? Hey, DeMarcus,
56:55
Speaker 2: Puka Nikua has six for one hundred and seventeen at halftime, Like,
57:00
Speaker 2: maybe we should put Christian Gonzalez on Puka Nikua, right, Like,
57:04
Speaker 2: these are the sort of adjustments that I don't see happening.
57:07
Speaker 2: And I put that on the head coach. It's not
57:09
Speaker 2: on the coordinator. It can be on the coordinator. Like
57:12
Speaker 2: if you have a really if Steve Spagnolo was defensive
57:15
Speaker 2: coordinator for the Patriots, I would expect him to do
57:17
Speaker 2: it on his bit. But it's you know, jerd me
57:19
Speaker 2: is a defensive mind head coach, so no, I think it's.
57:22
Speaker 3: Totally fair to put that on him and just projecting ahead.
57:26
Speaker 3: I think this game against Miami super education when it
57:30
Speaker 3: comes to where DeMarcus Comington's at, because this is you
57:33
Speaker 3: just got killed by motion. Yeah, you just got killed
57:36
Speaker 3: by motion and over blitzing. And now you are facing
57:39
Speaker 3: a team that motions, and now that the philosophy behind
57:42
Speaker 3: the motion is different, it's a different sort of motion.
57:43
Speaker 3: But yeah, you're facing a team that motions as much
57:46
Speaker 3: more with where they ranks the Dolphins.
57:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Dolphins are one in la Is too,
57:51
Speaker 2: it's by a couplets.
57:53
Speaker 3: So you're facing a team that motions more than anybody else. Yeah,
57:55
Speaker 3: you're facing a quarterback into it. Do you know what
57:59
Speaker 3: his passer rating is against So his passerating outside the
58:02
Speaker 3: pocket this year is perfect?
58:03
Speaker 5: I know.
58:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been really good. Extend his play. His passerating
58:06
Speaker 2: against pressure is one twenty six point two. Uh, and
58:09
Speaker 2: he's just got such a quick rule. He's been just
58:11
Speaker 2: unreal against pressure. So a guy that you you don't
58:14
Speaker 2: want to blitz because blitzing him isn't really gonna matter.
58:17
Speaker 3: Right, So here you have the two things you got
58:20
Speaker 3: wrong the most last week, handling motion and over blitzing.
58:23
Speaker 3: Ye and those two things are going to be at
58:26
Speaker 3: the forefront of game planning for Miami. Yep, great opportun
58:30
Speaker 3: tunity for DeMarcus Covington to show, all right, last week,
58:36
Speaker 3: I was a rookie, I got my You know, he's
58:38
Speaker 3: not new to the NFL, but you know what I'm saying,
58:40
Speaker 3: welcome to the NFL coordinator. Moment I learned I fixed it.
58:44
Speaker 3: Great opportunity for him to show that. Or do we
58:46
Speaker 3: come on here next week and say, wow, he learned
58:49
Speaker 3: nothing against the Rams.
58:50
Speaker 2: It may not be it. Yeah, it's a great point,
58:52
Speaker 2: and that's what I'm willing to allow for some grace.
58:54
Speaker 3: But well, I think I guess to that, like sometime
58:57
Speaker 3: we've been doing this with Drake may about the turnovers, right,
58:59
Speaker 3: or just in general the team growing the receivers. It's
59:03
Speaker 3: you're not gonna get immediate answers to some of this stuff.
59:05
Speaker 3: It's gonna take a little longer. This is a unique
59:07
Speaker 3: one where I'm not saying that this game is make
59:09
Speaker 3: or break for DeMarcus Covington, but you're gonna get a
59:12
Speaker 3: pretty i mediate answer on how well he adjusts after
59:16
Speaker 3: getting his lunch handed to him.
59:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great point. And today, earlier today, oz
59:20
Speaker 2: Vann Pelt was asked about the Patriots rookie receivers Jalen
59:23
Speaker 2: Polk and jay Von Baker and said, we're not really
59:25
Speaker 2: rookies anymore. I would say the same thing about the coaches,
59:27
Speaker 2: Like you've coached eleven games now at some point in
59:31
Speaker 2: time where you have to start to see some of
59:33
Speaker 2: these rookie mistakes on the coaching staff as well, Like
59:36
Speaker 2: those things have to get out of their system too,
59:39
Speaker 2: and you got to get these guys ready to play.
59:41
Speaker 2: Like we said it in Chicago, we gave them their
59:43
Speaker 2: flowers after the Bears game because they were ready to play.
59:46
Speaker 2: They had a good plan, they were ready to play
59:48
Speaker 2: on both sides of the football. They won a football game.
59:51
Speaker 2: It went backwards this week on the defensive side at least,
59:54
Speaker 2: where we I feel like we came out of this
59:57
Speaker 2: game and said the coaches lost them a game. You
1:00:00
Speaker 2: win games with the players, you lose games with the coaches, right,
1:00:03
Speaker 2: and this week against the Rams, it felt like the
1:00:05
Speaker 2: coaches lost them the game on the defensive side of
1:00:07
Speaker 2: the ball. One other thing I'll give DeMarcus Covington, and
1:00:10
Speaker 2: then we got to wrap this. One of the bigger
1:00:14
Speaker 2: guys that was responsible for all of the breakdowns in
1:00:18
Speaker 2: the first half especially is no longer on the team,
1:00:21
Speaker 2: and that's Marco Wilson. Marco Wilson and I wanted to
1:00:24
Speaker 2: segue into three up, three down. Anyways, I had Marco
1:00:27
Speaker 2: Wilson as my number one down. But then they the
1:00:31
Speaker 2: team it was it was bad, like I was as bad.
1:00:34
Speaker 2: Like he looked like he was out of the line
1:00:35
Speaker 2: I was.
1:00:37
Speaker 3: And you kind of saw it coming in like they
1:00:39
Speaker 3: were gonna need a bigger corner, right, So all right, Gonzales.
1:00:41
Speaker 3: We didn't think Gonzal's gonna be covering Robinson, but yeah,
1:00:44
Speaker 3: Gonzals take one of those guys.
1:00:46
Speaker 2: Jonathan Jones has looked like he's maybe lost a step.
1:00:49
Speaker 3: Marcus Jones I actually thought had like a sneaky, decent
1:00:52
Speaker 3: game for what it was, but five eight against these
1:00:56
Speaker 3: receivers in tough, tough ask. Yeah, and then Yeah, Marc
1:00:59
Speaker 3: Wilson had been great. I was surprised didn't activate Alex
1:01:01
Speaker 3: Austin before the game. Yeah, and I wonder if they
1:01:04
Speaker 3: regretted not doing so after all right.
1:01:07
Speaker 2: Three up, three down? Yep? Good segue is who's your
1:01:10
Speaker 2: number one up in this game? All right? Victory lap
1:01:12
Speaker 2: time Kendrick Bourne. Yeah, there you go. I can't believe
1:01:17
Speaker 2: we've done this. Stop.
1:01:19
Speaker 3: I can't believe we've done this three years in a row.
1:01:23
Speaker 3: Where Kendrick Bourne, yeah, shows he's a good football player.
1:01:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:01:27
Speaker 3: The Patriots coaching staff, for whatever usually petty reason, disagrees
1:01:32
Speaker 3: Kendrick Bourne gets benched. They roll through the rest of
1:01:34
Speaker 3: their receivers, none of whom show anything close to what
1:01:37
Speaker 3: Kendrick Born can do. Eventually they're forced to go back
1:01:39
Speaker 3: to Kendrick Bourne. And wouldn't you know it, He's an
1:01:42
Speaker 3: electric playmaker and the offense as a whole looks better
1:01:45
Speaker 3: with Kendrick Bourne on the field. I understand the if
1:01:49
Speaker 3: you have the best bad story about every roommate you've
1:01:52
Speaker 3: ever had, you're probably the bad roommate.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: I get that.
1:01:54
Speaker 3: I think Kendrick Bourne is the exception. People point out, like,
1:01:58
Speaker 3: all right, you know three coaching staffs. He got benched
1:02:00
Speaker 3: all three times. I think Kendrick Borrn's the exception in
1:02:02
Speaker 3: that rule. I actually think the promise coaching staffs because
1:02:05
Speaker 3: is Kendrick Born perfect.
1:02:07
Speaker 2: No, he's not.
1:02:08
Speaker 3: He runs some bad routes, he takes some bad penalties.
1:02:10
Speaker 3: But one, how exactly has these have these last three
1:02:14
Speaker 3: coaching staffs, and I acknowledge their different staffs, how have they
1:02:16
Speaker 3: done with evaluating wide receiver talent as a whole y?
1:02:19
Speaker 2: That's fair?
1:02:19
Speaker 3: And two, they can't exactly be picky when it comes
1:02:23
Speaker 3: to who they're putting on the field at receiver. For
1:02:25
Speaker 3: the bumps in the road that exists with Kendrick Bourne,
1:02:29
Speaker 3: every time he's out, he looks like they're best receiver.
1:02:32
Speaker 3: He's on a thousand yard pace in twenty one before
1:02:34
Speaker 3: he got COVID. We saw remember in twenty twenty two,
1:02:37
Speaker 3: we got benched in the opener. We played two plays,
1:02:39
Speaker 3: they were both like twenty plus yard completions, and then
1:02:41
Speaker 3: we didn't see him again for a month. Last year,
1:02:43
Speaker 3: same thing. Now here we go again this year. He's
1:02:46
Speaker 3: their leading receiver in his return and you know what,
1:02:49
Speaker 3: at this point, he's closer to thirty he's coming off
1:02:51
Speaker 3: of torn acl so maybe they just totally burned the
1:02:55
Speaker 3: upside that he had and that would suck. But Kendrick Bourne,
1:02:58
Speaker 3: I still want them gonna go ge Dk Metcalf. But
1:03:00
Speaker 3: Kendrick Bourne is a damn good player. He's a good receiver.
1:03:03
Speaker 3: He should be on the field. He proved it on
1:03:06
Speaker 3: Sunday and I truly believe he'll continue to prove it
1:03:08
Speaker 3: the rest of the year.
1:03:09
Speaker 2: I got Doso's a good ram. Yeah. I just can't
1:03:12
Speaker 2: believe this is the third time. So Kendrick Borne is
1:03:15
Speaker 2: my number two UK. So I'll just jump the shark
1:03:19
Speaker 2: hair on that it saw it jumps sharkans. God damn,
1:03:21
Speaker 2: don't jump the shark jump don't do you know what
1:03:23
Speaker 2: Jump Felger did this last week? Do you know what
1:03:25
Speaker 2: jumped the shark one?
1:03:26
Speaker 3: Okay, no, because you used it there in like a
1:03:28
Speaker 3: really bad way to use it.
1:03:29
Speaker 2: Oh no, you didn't offend anybody. It's it's more just
1:03:34
Speaker 2: like a jinx Oh no, sorry KB. So no, no,
1:03:37
Speaker 2: you didn't chinx KB you jinxed us?
1:03:39
Speaker 3: Oh no, so jump the shark is Happy Days is
1:03:43
Speaker 3: a very popular TV show in the seventies, right, But
1:03:46
Speaker 3: you know as most TV shows do, even if you
1:03:48
Speaker 3: have a good run, you kind of run out of ideas.
1:03:50
Speaker 3: So at one point later in the run, they had
1:03:53
Speaker 3: an episode a plot point where the main character jumps
1:03:56
Speaker 3: the shark on skis, and it was so.
1:03:59
Speaker 2: Was it the fawns?
1:04:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember, So it's so like, not in the
1:04:03
Speaker 3: character of the show.
1:04:04
Speaker 2: It's just out of nowhere.
1:04:05
Speaker 3: So that's when everybody was like, happy Days was over
1:04:08
Speaker 3: when he jumped the shark. So when you say something
1:04:11
Speaker 3: jumps the shark, it's mainly about TV shows, it means
1:04:14
Speaker 3: it's not good anymore.
1:04:15
Speaker 2: It's forcing it, it's over. No, right, we do not
1:04:20
Speaker 2: do not You should not jump the shark. We do
1:04:22
Speaker 2: not want to jump the shark. That is a horrible
1:04:24
Speaker 2: thing to say about a show, or a person or anybody.
1:04:28
Speaker 2: We do not want to be You meant they jumped
1:04:30
Speaker 2: the gun. Jump the gun, thank you. We should not
1:04:33
Speaker 2: be jumping the shark. If Catch twenty two jumps the shark,
1:04:36
Speaker 2: you listeners need to let us know because I do
1:04:38
Speaker 2: not want that to happen. And look, we've been at this,
1:04:40
Speaker 2: going back to the CLNS days for close to ten
1:04:43
Speaker 2: years now, so it's something we need to be aware
1:04:46
Speaker 2: of let's not jump the shark please. For ten years now,
1:04:50
Speaker 2: you've probably been correcting me on my use of idioms
1:04:52
Speaker 2: because I'm terrible at it. Okay, I don't know that one.
1:04:55
Speaker 2: That one is like you understand why I had to
1:04:57
Speaker 2: stop at that. I mean, jump the gun. Please, please
1:05:00
Speaker 2: do not jump. Okay. It's so weird because that we
1:05:04
Speaker 2: did a whole They were with Felder last week on
1:05:07
Speaker 2: idioms because of jump the shark. Anyways, you know where
1:05:11
Speaker 2: you know where? Give somebody the cold shoulder comes from?
1:05:13
Speaker 2: No back in like old timey England. Yeah, they would.
1:05:18
Speaker 3: If you had a guess at your house he wanted
1:05:19
Speaker 3: them to leave. A polite way to ask them to
1:05:21
Speaker 3: leave was to give them a cold cut of shoulder meat.
1:05:24
Speaker 2: It was how you told him to leave. So give
1:05:26
Speaker 2: somebody the cold shoulder.
1:05:27
Speaker 3: That's disgusting, it's it's fascinating, it's fascinating stuff.
1:05:31
Speaker 2: So anyways, Kennrick Borden was my number two up, so
1:05:34
Speaker 2: I'll just talk about him now since you brought him
1:05:37
Speaker 2: up first. I talked to KB today in the locker
1:05:40
Speaker 2: room actually, and he just said that you know, first
1:05:44
Speaker 2: of all, he got benched, and when you get bench.
1:05:47
Speaker 2: That definitely snaps you into focus, right like that, that'll
1:05:51
Speaker 2: do it. So he responded really well to that. I
1:05:55
Speaker 2: just thought he was so much more precise and detailed
1:05:58
Speaker 2: this week with his routes, with his timing, like where
1:06:01
Speaker 2: he was supposed to be on the field, his conversions,
1:06:05
Speaker 2: like all of that stuff was just so much better
1:06:07
Speaker 2: than it was. You know, the even on the back
1:06:10
Speaker 2: shoulder throw in the two minute. I know it didn't
1:06:12
Speaker 2: end the way they wanted it to, but like that's
1:06:15
Speaker 2: a play with the chemistry and the timing with Drake
1:06:17
Speaker 2: that I just don't know would have been there a
1:06:19
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago. It wasn't. In Tennessee, they threw
1:06:21
Speaker 2: a really similar play and was almost intercepted. The couple
1:06:24
Speaker 2: of those spot routes that he ran. Out of those
1:06:27
Speaker 2: concepts in the bunch, like just catch the ball on
1:06:30
Speaker 2: him up the field. Yards after catch, like I believe
1:06:34
Speaker 2: he had twenty six yards after the catch in this
1:06:36
Speaker 2: game felt like more. But that's what PFF had to
1:06:39
Speaker 2: say about it. So just much more detailed, much more
1:06:43
Speaker 2: crisp with his routes. I thought he was awesome in
1:06:46
Speaker 2: this game. And if they get that version of Kendrick Bourne.
1:06:49
Speaker 2: Moving forward, They're in good shape. Who's number two?
1:06:52
Speaker 3: Number two for me was sticking with the pass catchers.
1:06:56
Speaker 2: Hunter Henry.
1:06:57
Speaker 3: Kind of talked about him already just in that safety
1:06:59
Speaker 3: blanket roll. All of minor pass catchers, by the way,
1:07:01
Speaker 3: all my ups pretty much everything I said before.
1:07:03
Speaker 2: About Hunter Henry. He was good in this game. Yeah.
1:07:06
Speaker 2: I almost had him too. I had him in Pop
1:07:09
Speaker 2: Douglass honorable mentions on this list. I just thought Hunter
1:07:13
Speaker 2: Henry he missed one key block and the third and
1:07:17
Speaker 2: one play that they almost went for it on fourth down,
1:07:21
Speaker 2: and then Polk jumps off side to play before that
1:07:24
Speaker 2: he missed the block, and then Douglas obviously was in
1:07:27
Speaker 2: on the interception that end of the game. So I
1:07:29
Speaker 2: couldn't completely put them on the ups, but I thought
1:07:32
Speaker 2: both of them were on the whole. We're really good
1:07:34
Speaker 2: in this game. My number one up though, to go
1:07:37
Speaker 2: back to that was I'm gonna do I'm gonna pull
1:07:39
Speaker 2: you ready for this, Yeah, I'm gonna pull you right now.
1:07:44
Speaker 2: Drake May for the first fifty eight minutes of the game. Okay,
1:07:47
Speaker 2: so fair enough, So Drake May for the first fifty
1:07:50
Speaker 2: eight minutes of the game, was what was the best
1:07:53
Speaker 2: game that I have charted for Patriots quarterback since Mac Jones'
1:07:56
Speaker 2: rookie season against Cleveland, which was just a hell of
1:07:58
Speaker 2: a game that Mac played that that day. Drake May
1:08:03
Speaker 2: had fifteen plus plays to three minus plays. That's a
1:08:06
Speaker 2: plus twelve net if you don't if you're not good
1:08:09
Speaker 2: at math. For me, through the first fifty eight minutes,
1:08:12
Speaker 2: just excellent, like on time in rhythm, instructure, playmaking from
1:08:16
Speaker 2: the pocket, I manipulation, hot concepts, seeing blitzes, getting the
1:08:22
Speaker 2: football out on time accurately to the first two levels
1:08:25
Speaker 2: of the field like that, I think is the one
1:08:27
Speaker 2: thing that has really really improved in his game. From
1:08:32
Speaker 2: the Houston game to now Houston game. He had some sprays,
1:08:35
Speaker 2: remember like you know, just throwing behind guys or throwing
1:08:38
Speaker 2: high over the middle of the Pop Douglas. In this game,
1:08:41
Speaker 2: he was His accuracy at the first two levels of
1:08:44
Speaker 2: the defense was excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent, really come a
1:08:48
Speaker 2: long way in that regard as a passer, and that
1:08:52
Speaker 2: to me tells me that he's really on his way.
1:08:55
Speaker 2: Once they get guys on the outside that can win
1:08:58
Speaker 2: down the field for him, the deep ball will come like,
1:09:00
Speaker 2: I don't think that that's Drake May forgetting how to
1:09:03
Speaker 2: throw the deep ball. We know we can throw it deep.
1:09:05
Speaker 2: What we didn't know is if he could operate on
1:09:07
Speaker 2: schedule in the short and intermediate passing game consistently enough
1:09:11
Speaker 2: to move an offense. He did that at an extremely
1:09:14
Speaker 2: high level. On Sunday. You still see some of the
1:09:17
Speaker 2: off script stuff, you know, sixteen yards scramble, the one
1:09:20
Speaker 2: to Henry that gets negated. Even though that got wiped
1:09:23
Speaker 2: out by penalty, I still count that as a plus
1:09:25
Speaker 2: play for Drake May. It still happened. It just didn't happen,
1:09:28
Speaker 2: and it didn't count some of the he made in
1:09:31
Speaker 2: this game to just throw the ball away or check
1:09:34
Speaker 2: it down. I thought he was really patient throughout the
1:09:37
Speaker 2: entire game as well, and didn't put the ball in
1:09:39
Speaker 2: harm's way often other than the strip sack, which I
1:09:43
Speaker 2: kind of put on him. But at the same time,
1:09:45
Speaker 2: I thought that was really his only turnover worthy play
1:09:48
Speaker 2: in this game. Just in general, I thought for the
1:09:50
Speaker 2: first fifty eight minutes he was electric. I thought he
1:09:53
Speaker 2: was excellent for that start. So Drake May for the
1:09:56
Speaker 2: first fifty eight minutes, and I think you can see
1:09:59
Speaker 2: where I'm going with this, but it was your last.
1:10:01
Speaker 3: I think he was pretty good similar Pop Douglas minus
1:10:03
Speaker 3: the last play. Yeah, I thought Pop Douglass was did
1:10:06
Speaker 3: a really good job in this game, creating after the catch,
1:10:09
Speaker 3: finding holes and coverage things like that. I just thought
1:10:12
Speaker 3: you got a really complete effort from the Patriots pass
1:10:16
Speaker 3: catchers in this game.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I know I did a lot of waxing
1:10:21
Speaker 2: poetic about AVP, but he was my last up on
1:10:23
Speaker 2: the list. I think the biggest thing that I didn't
1:10:26
Speaker 2: mention I mentioned the rest of this but the biggest
1:10:28
Speaker 2: thing that I didn't mention off the top or I
1:10:29
Speaker 2: kind of did, But uh, the game plan in this
1:10:32
Speaker 2: game to use the short and intermediate passing game against
1:10:37
Speaker 2: that Rams pass rush. That's what we've been talking about
1:10:39
Speaker 2: when we say you can scheme around weaknesses. That is
1:10:43
Speaker 2: scheming around a mismatch, so and protecting your offense against
1:10:48
Speaker 2: a mismatch.
1:10:48
Speaker 3: Drake may had his lowest a DOT in this game,
1:10:51
Speaker 3: but then he of us starts so far.
1:10:52
Speaker 2: So is five point six yards per attempt in the air?
1:10:57
Speaker 2: Air yards per pass attempt a dot? Right, But it's
1:10:59
Speaker 2: like seven to six, No, five point six, I thought
1:11:01
Speaker 2: PFF had like seven. No, where'd you find it? No?
1:11:05
Speaker 2: Five point six? Next gen? Okay, anyways, I finally get
1:11:11
Speaker 2: into using PFF and now you're like, no, you're wrong. No,
1:11:13
Speaker 2: I just that number is definitely not right. Uh five
1:11:16
Speaker 2: point six?
1:11:17
Speaker 3: So then wait, so if if it's that much lower
1:11:19
Speaker 3: PFF had bo Nix's a dot is four?
1:11:21
Speaker 2: What was bo Nix's Actually Okay, maybe you just were
1:11:24
Speaker 2: looking in their own place? Is that? Is that possible?
1:11:28
Speaker 2: I love how this is what we get bogged down by.
1:11:30
Speaker 3: No, because like I've been talking about this all week,
1:11:33
Speaker 3: and now I want to make sure I got a ring.
1:11:34
Speaker 2: I think he might have been looking at the wrong
1:11:36
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep going while you while.
1:11:38
Speaker 3: You Oh, no, I I'm remembering wrong. They have five
1:11:41
Speaker 3: point seven? It was five point seven.
1:11:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had the seven in my mind. Yeah. So
1:11:44
Speaker 2: we we've talked about this a bunch though. It's knowing
1:11:47
Speaker 2: where your weaknesses are and covering up and scheming around
1:11:50
Speaker 2: your weaknesses. Coming into this game with a lot of
1:11:54
Speaker 2: short and intermediate passing concepts and just understanding that Drake
1:11:58
Speaker 2: may just couldn't hold the ball in this game. I
1:12:01
Speaker 2: thought was really really smart. By the uh, the OC
1:12:04
Speaker 2: and and really good game planning and play calling around
1:12:07
Speaker 2: your deficiencies. So I had Van Pelt as my third up,
1:12:10
Speaker 2: and then I had honorable mentions for Hunter Henry and
1:12:12
Speaker 2: for Pop Douglas as well. So let's move over to
1:12:15
Speaker 2: the other side of the Ohix's adult last week was
1:12:17
Speaker 2: for oh and last honorable mention, I thought the only
1:12:20
Speaker 2: good player on defense in this entire game, knock Onzo's fault.
1:12:24
Speaker 2: His usage was why he wasn't necessarily Kean White was
1:12:28
Speaker 2: the only good player in this game for the Patriots
1:12:30
Speaker 2: defense in the front seven. He was disruptive, he had
1:12:32
Speaker 2: a good game. Let's go to the downs.
1:12:35
Speaker 3: I mean, we already did an hour on this, DeMarcus
1:12:37
Speaker 3: coming to number one, Yeah, we sure.
1:12:39
Speaker 2: I don't know how much more were we have to
1:12:40
Speaker 2: say about that at the point, as pretty self explanatory. Yep.
1:12:44
Speaker 2: My number one down was Marco Wilson. He's no longer
1:12:47
Speaker 2: on the team. I took I had four, but I
1:12:49
Speaker 2: took him off. Yeah, I had four too. I mean,
1:12:50
Speaker 2: when you get cut it kind of yeah, but I
1:12:53
Speaker 2: replaced him with Jonathan Jones. It wasn't that Jonathan Jones
1:12:56
Speaker 2: was awful in terms of where he was on every
1:12:59
Speaker 2: single play. They were tough, good plays by the offense,
1:13:02
Speaker 2: But you give up three touchdowns, you give up three toudies, right, like, yeah,
1:13:05
Speaker 2: that's gonna go on the downs Like it just wasn't
1:13:07
Speaker 2: very good. It wasn't good enough, Like he just wasn't
1:13:10
Speaker 2: quite good enough in certain spots. And then I obviously
1:13:13
Speaker 2: explained earlier I didn't think he played the cup touchdown.
1:13:17
Speaker 2: I didn't think he played a great technique on that
1:13:20
Speaker 2: play either in that cover zero. So I had Jonathan
1:13:23
Speaker 2: Jones number one.
1:13:24
Speaker 3: I so coming to his number one, number two, I
1:13:27
Speaker 3: don't put him in order, I guess. But Kyle Dugger,
1:13:29
Speaker 3: I just thought rough game for him, first game back
1:13:32
Speaker 3: for that ankle injury. He missed a couple tackles early,
1:13:35
Speaker 3: little slow to the spot at times. I just wonder
1:13:37
Speaker 3: how much that ankle injury still bothering him. He didn't
1:13:40
Speaker 3: look like he was one hundred.
1:13:41
Speaker 2: Per Yeah, yeah, that's fair. My number two downs were
1:13:47
Speaker 2: I combined two guys, Daniel Aqualay and Krishan Ellis combined
1:13:53
Speaker 2: just got absolutely gashed in the run game. Like it's
1:13:56
Speaker 2: just a game. And I always use this reference for
1:13:59
Speaker 2: corners usually, but like now the Patriots have Waldo's in
1:14:03
Speaker 2: the front seven, where it's just like, wherever those two
1:14:06
Speaker 2: guys are, we're just gonna run it right at those
1:14:09
Speaker 2: two guys. We're gonna run away from Godshaw, We're gonna
1:14:12
Speaker 2: run away from Farms, We're gonna run away from Jennings,
1:14:14
Speaker 2: We're gonna run away from Tavai, and we're gonna put
1:14:17
Speaker 2: Ellis and we're gonna put a quality at the point
1:14:19
Speaker 2: of attack and we're gonna come right at him. And
1:14:22
Speaker 2: they just could not stop the run. Daniel Aqualay is
1:14:26
Speaker 2: a really fine rotational pass rusher, Like if you're playing
1:14:31
Speaker 2: him situationally, you can get by with him on the
1:14:34
Speaker 2: field and he can actually be disruptive on the pass rush.
1:14:38
Speaker 2: But they have to hope it doesn't look like Dietrich
1:14:40
Speaker 2: Wise is coming back. He hasn't practiced the last two days.
1:14:44
Speaker 2: Whether it's Jacquelin Roy, it's a bigger role for Christian
1:14:47
Speaker 2: Barmore on early downs now that he's getting back in
1:14:49
Speaker 2: the fold. Either way, they have to figure out a
1:14:52
Speaker 2: way to get Daniel Qualley off the field on rundowns.
1:14:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, next left side of the offensive line. So Darian
1:14:59
Speaker 3: Lowe had two very costly penalties. One of those penalties
1:15:02
Speaker 3: the illegal formation one. Michael He's lining up based on
1:15:06
Speaker 3: where Michael Jordan is, and Michael Jordan's not lined up correctly.
1:15:09
Speaker 3: So right, on one hand, you look at low and say,
1:15:12
Speaker 3: look down the line, realize he's not lined up, give
1:15:14
Speaker 3: me a tablet him.
1:15:15
Speaker 6: No.
1:15:15
Speaker 3: On the other hand, you know he shouldn't have to
1:15:17
Speaker 3: worry about where other guys are lined up. This is
1:15:19
Speaker 3: the NFL. You should just be able to trust that
1:15:20
Speaker 3: guy's lined up correctly. Not Jordan's worst game in the
1:15:23
Speaker 3: last few weeks, but certainly not one of his best.
1:15:27
Speaker 3: And Darian Low two just got beat a few times,
1:15:29
Speaker 3: so not a great day for either of those two.
1:15:33
Speaker 2: So I had Michael Jordan as my last one. I
1:15:36
Speaker 2: am with you on this. This has been trending, I
1:15:39
Speaker 2: would say, with Michael Jordan, and we're now at the
1:15:41
Speaker 2: point where we're talking about Cole strange Citiso has also
1:15:46
Speaker 2: not been good when they've given him opportunities to play
1:15:49
Speaker 2: guard so far, so maybe he's not the answer. But
1:15:53
Speaker 2: they pretty much can't run behind Michael Jordan like they
1:15:56
Speaker 2: just every time they run behind him, he's given up
1:15:58
Speaker 2: stuffs left and right. I had him with five run
1:16:01
Speaker 2: stuffs allowed in this game, just getting bodied, like upper
1:16:05
Speaker 2: body strain just not there, right, They just can't really
1:16:07
Speaker 2: sustain blocks. It's not so much that I think that
1:16:10
Speaker 2: he's bad in the initial setup of the block. I
1:16:12
Speaker 2: actually think that he gets on the guy pretty well.
1:16:15
Speaker 2: He just can't sustain it, Like he just gets thrown
1:16:17
Speaker 2: off blocks too much. So I had him as a down.
1:16:21
Speaker 2: I didn't think Ben Brown was great in this game either,
1:16:23
Speaker 2: but I give him some leeway because he's a practice
1:16:25
Speaker 2: squad guy that's being forced to start.
1:16:27
Speaker 3: At this point, I think it's game on between Michael
1:16:29
Speaker 3: Jordan Ben who's gonna play well enough to save their
1:16:32
Speaker 3: job because Cole Strange's coming from one of those two spots.
1:16:34
Speaker 2: Agreed, Agreed. I believe that they're trying, and this coaching
1:16:39
Speaker 2: staff said it earlier with Van Pelt. I believe that
1:16:42
Speaker 2: they want Strange to play center. That's where his main
1:16:46
Speaker 2: focus is been in practice now. He said that that's
1:16:50
Speaker 2: mostly because he knows guard so well that he doesn't
1:16:52
Speaker 2: really need to care or focus as much on guard mentally, right,
1:16:56
Speaker 2: Like he kind of knows what he's doing there. But
1:16:59
Speaker 2: I'm with you. As soon as Cole Strange is healthy,
1:17:01
Speaker 2: as soon as he's ready to go and is ramped
1:17:03
Speaker 2: up enough to play, I think he's going in. I
1:17:06
Speaker 2: don't know if it's gonna be at Garter Center, but
1:17:08
Speaker 2: he's gonna play.
1:17:08
Speaker 3: Well, and I think that's gonna be dictated by you know,
1:17:10
Speaker 3: however long it is the next week or two. What
1:17:12
Speaker 3: Michael Jordan shows you and what Cole Strange shows.
1:17:14
Speaker 2: You fair enough. So you had four two you said
1:17:17
Speaker 2: I had. The fourth one was Marco Wilson, but I
1:17:19
Speaker 2: took him off because he got cut. So my last
1:17:21
Speaker 2: one is Drake May for the last two plays of
1:17:23
Speaker 2: the game. Okay, So I had fifty eight minutes of
1:17:26
Speaker 2: awesome for Drake May. I had two minutes of not
1:17:28
Speaker 2: so good from Drake May. The sack before the interception
1:17:32
Speaker 2: might have been worse than the interception from his point
1:17:35
Speaker 2: of view, I agree with that he took a really
1:17:37
Speaker 2: bad sack. He had Kishan Boody on the outside dig route.
1:17:41
Speaker 2: It's like double dig right inside dig outside dig, and
1:17:44
Speaker 2: you're just reading the safety in the middle of the field.
1:17:46
Speaker 2: If the safety jumps the inside, you throw the outside.
1:17:49
Speaker 2: If the safety stays deep, you throw the inside, like
1:17:51
Speaker 2: it's just reading that one player in the middle of
1:17:53
Speaker 2: the field. They buzzed it so they closed it right,
1:17:56
Speaker 2: it was two and then they closed the field and
1:17:59
Speaker 2: he had Kaishan Boody coming out of the break on
1:18:02
Speaker 2: the dig. If he hits that, it's probably like a
1:18:05
Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty yard game and they're right around the
1:18:07
Speaker 2: fifty at that point if he hits that throw. So
1:18:10
Speaker 2: that was a bad sack. And then the interception. I
1:18:14
Speaker 2: heard AVP today he kind of put it more on
1:18:16
Speaker 2: Pop Douglas. It sounded like for not knowing when to
1:18:19
Speaker 2: sit in the void and look for the football. But
1:18:22
Speaker 2: I thought the throw was high anyways, Like he's a
1:18:24
Speaker 2: five foot hit receiver, so in order for Pop Douglas,
1:18:27
Speaker 2: Like maybe if Pop Douglas gets his head around in time,
1:18:30
Speaker 2: he saves an interception by just getting a hand on
1:18:32
Speaker 2: the ball, maybe for him to catch it. Like I
1:18:36
Speaker 2: if it was Hunter Henry, I would say, okay, six
1:18:38
Speaker 2: foot five, like he probably would have caught it five
1:18:40
Speaker 2: foot eight Pop Douglas, Like that's a floor. I'm not
1:18:43
Speaker 2: sure Pop Douglas can climb to. So I put half
1:18:47
Speaker 2: in half. I split the baby just along the lines
1:18:49
Speaker 2: with Drake May that was the right one, right, I
1:18:51
Speaker 2: split the baby split the difference, but anyways, no, not
1:18:56
Speaker 2: split what Yeah, I don't think he used that correctly.
1:18:59
Speaker 2: I think I did.
1:19:00
Speaker 3: But along the lines with Drake Man Alex van Pell
1:19:03
Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting today because I've talked a
1:19:06
Speaker 3: lot about limiting the interceptions, right, what does that look like?
1:19:09
Speaker 7: Is it?
1:19:09
Speaker 2: You find it interesting today?
1:19:10
Speaker 3: Alex van Pelt actually gave us a number, and I
1:19:13
Speaker 3: don't think it's a bad number. Ten if finished the
1:19:16
Speaker 3: year with less than ten interceptions, So he's gonna make
1:19:19
Speaker 3: what is it gonna be? Thirteen starts right, yeah, sixteen, seventeen, No,
1:19:24
Speaker 3: let's eleven starts, eleven, twelve starts, twelve eleven, foll starts
1:19:27
Speaker 3: not gludeing Jets game, so math ten in orce and
1:19:30
Speaker 3: eleven starts.
1:19:32
Speaker 2: He's at six right now? Yeah?
1:19:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, if that's a good number, If he
1:19:38
Speaker 3: can finish there, I'd feel really good.
1:19:39
Speaker 2: I just thought it was interesting.
1:19:40
Speaker 3: I had kind of said, you know, six games left
1:19:44
Speaker 3: six or few I think I said it on the
1:19:45
Speaker 3: show last week, six games left six or fewer interceptions
1:19:47
Speaker 3: for Drake May and all feel really good about where
1:19:49
Speaker 3: he's at turnover wise ten interceptions. That's the number now,
1:19:52
Speaker 3: I thought was interesting. Glex main Pelt gave like a
1:19:54
Speaker 3: specific number for that.
1:19:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the strip sack I've also put. I put
1:20:00
Speaker 2: like half of each turnover on on Drake. So the
1:20:03
Speaker 2: strip sack, he's trying to hit kish On Boody as
1:20:07
Speaker 2: like the ISO receiver on the play on the three
1:20:10
Speaker 2: by one, and like he's expecting Kaishan Boody to run
1:20:13
Speaker 2: like a stop route. He probably had nine steps and
1:20:16
Speaker 2: then just kind of break out of it and he's
1:20:17
Speaker 2: just gonna hit him right out of the break, and
1:20:20
Speaker 2: he just hesitates. I think Booty wasn't really winning on
1:20:24
Speaker 2: the route and wasn't giving him a whole lot of
1:20:26
Speaker 2: confidence to make that throw. But that's one of those
1:20:29
Speaker 2: throws on third day that you probably just try to
1:20:32
Speaker 2: throw like a back shoulder where it's like Booty or
1:20:34
Speaker 2: nobody right like and just kind of live with the
1:20:37
Speaker 2: incompletion on that play just to avoid the disaster of
1:20:40
Speaker 2: a turnover. So I put half of that on him,
1:20:43
Speaker 2: even though Booty wasn't really open. You have to just
1:20:46
Speaker 2: throw the ball somewhere right like, you can't just and
1:20:48
Speaker 2: it was a really really fast sack. But you have
1:20:50
Speaker 2: to throw the ball to Booty, just throw it outside
1:20:53
Speaker 2: of his outside shoulder, on the back shoulder, and if
1:20:56
Speaker 2: it goes out, it sails out of bounds. It sails
1:20:58
Speaker 2: out of bounds, right like, and you put the ball
1:21:00
Speaker 2: and you play field position and whatever. So that turnover
1:21:04
Speaker 2: I put half on Drake and then I mentioned the interception.
1:21:07
Speaker 2: But outside of that, there was really only one other
1:21:09
Speaker 2: play that I had like a really big ripe with.
1:21:11
Speaker 2: It was a zero, all out blitz by the Rams
1:21:15
Speaker 2: in the red zone. They just sent the house on
1:21:18
Speaker 2: a third down in the red zone and Drake May
1:21:20
Speaker 2: just kind of panic threw it out of the back
1:21:22
Speaker 2: of the end zone a little bit, and if he
1:21:24
Speaker 2: had just stayed with the play and stayed a little
1:21:28
Speaker 2: bit more poised, he had Pop Douglas on the slant
1:21:31
Speaker 2: for a walking touchdown, right like, Pop just separates the
1:21:35
Speaker 2: out of the bunch and he's he's gonna walk in
1:21:38
Speaker 2: for a touchdown. So that was just one of those
1:21:40
Speaker 2: plays where it was one of the few times where
1:21:42
Speaker 2: he didn't really see the blitz coming and was taken
1:21:45
Speaker 2: by surprise. Might have been the first zero he's ever
1:21:48
Speaker 2: seen in the NFL. Yeah, so that might have been
1:21:50
Speaker 2: part of it. And it goes to again the youth
1:21:53
Speaker 2: and growing, like next time he sees it, how does
1:21:54
Speaker 2: he react. That's the one thing I would say, you know,
1:21:57
Speaker 2: for him outside of the turnovers is red area offense.
1:22:02
Speaker 2: And oftentimes in the red zone everything happens a lot
1:22:06
Speaker 2: faster and the reds have to be a lot quicker
1:22:08
Speaker 2: because the space is so confined, so you have to
1:22:11
Speaker 2: speed up your process even more as a quarterback, So
1:22:15
Speaker 2: it's hard for rookie quarterbacks in the red zone. They
1:22:18
Speaker 2: haven't been as good in the red zone. I like that.
1:22:21
Speaker 2: A lot of the offensive players said that they felt
1:22:23
Speaker 2: like that cost them this game, Like if they get
1:22:25
Speaker 2: touchdowns in a lot of those situations instead of field goals,
1:22:28
Speaker 2: they might win this game on Sunday against the Rams,
1:22:31
Speaker 2: and I agree with them. There was a couple of
1:22:33
Speaker 2: instances where I thought that Drake may should have pulled
1:22:35
Speaker 2: the trigger and just didn't. Whether it was throw away,
1:22:39
Speaker 2: you know, scramble slash check down, really checked down with
1:22:43
Speaker 2: him as a scrambler and those types of situations like
1:22:47
Speaker 2: he's just got to be a little bit faster with
1:22:48
Speaker 2: it in the red zone with his decision making that
1:22:51
Speaker 2: will come. I also think they can help him down
1:22:53
Speaker 2: there by finding more ways to use his legs and
1:22:56
Speaker 2: incorporate his mobility, because that really eliminates a lot of
1:23:00
Speaker 2: that challenge. Like if you cut off half the field
1:23:03
Speaker 2: because you roll him out of the pocket, that's a
1:23:06
Speaker 2: much easier read than asking him to go through an
1:23:08
Speaker 2: entire progression in the red zone. Right, So just roll
1:23:11
Speaker 2: him out, read option, whatever you have to do to
1:23:14
Speaker 2: get the ball in. I think I think that type
1:23:16
Speaker 2: of stuff is coming. Mayo said it earlier this week
1:23:19
Speaker 2: that they didn't want to overload him with information now
1:23:22
Speaker 2: that they feel like he's doing a better job with
1:23:24
Speaker 2: some of the traditional stuff. I do think some of
1:23:27
Speaker 2: the quarterback runs are coming. We talked about this last week.
1:23:30
Speaker 3: It this is gonna be a big test for AVP, Like,
1:23:34
Speaker 3: all right, you're not running the full offense right away. Fine,
1:23:38
Speaker 3: you want to ease the kid in, but you need
1:23:39
Speaker 3: to see it continue because there's AVP the quarterback developer
1:23:43
Speaker 3: and AVP the play caller, and for him to stay here,
1:23:45
Speaker 3: you need to see the offense come a little more
1:23:47
Speaker 3: complex and a little more intricate. And I get and
1:23:50
Speaker 3: I want to do that right away. But all right,
1:23:51
Speaker 3: let's go chat ramping it up.
1:23:53
Speaker 2: All right, we'll get it to you guys. I know
1:23:55
Speaker 2: all of you been waiting on ho for a really
1:23:56
Speaker 2: long time. We really appreciate it. And then we're gonna
1:23:59
Speaker 2: talk some dolphins here for the last half an hour
1:24:02
Speaker 2: as well. But before we do that, I want to
1:24:04
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Speaker 2: com to find a location near you. All right, let's
1:24:43
Speaker 2: get to the phones. I know you guys have been waiting,
1:24:45
Speaker 2: so I appreciate it. H Patty is an aga. What's up, Patty?
1:24:51
Speaker 5: What's going on? Gentlemen?
1:24:52
Speaker 2: How are we doing?
1:24:53
Speaker 8: He am?
1:24:55
Speaker 5: I'm doing all right. So I just want to say, like,
1:24:58
Speaker 5: I know you guys have been talking about a VP
1:25:01
Speaker 5: and you know, just fans, these ignorant fairweather fans, need
1:25:05
Speaker 5: to get it through their head that this is a
1:25:08
Speaker 5: first year regime, like across the board, minus the owner,
1:25:11
Speaker 5: you know, quarterback, coach, coordinators included. All you really have
1:25:16
Speaker 5: to do is just lo'll get out far Drake has
1:25:18
Speaker 5: progressed since training camp until now, and anyone that's listened
1:25:21
Speaker 5: to you guys that's listened to Patriots dot Com knows
1:25:23
Speaker 5: that it's night and day. So I just wanted to
1:25:26
Speaker 5: throw that out there. First second. This will be the
1:25:29
Speaker 5: last time I promise I look into the future. But
1:25:33
Speaker 5: the more time goes on, if we're there, like if
1:25:35
Speaker 5: he's there when we're picking, I'm the needle is moving
1:25:39
Speaker 5: very far towards just picking Ted McMillan, or if he's
1:25:43
Speaker 5: not there, Abdul Carter and you know what this may
1:25:46
Speaker 5: sound crazy, like let the Darian mo play, maybe get
1:25:49
Speaker 5: Josh him and let him rehab and train him, you know,
1:25:53
Speaker 5: to be the left tackle of the future. That's kind
1:25:55
Speaker 5: of where I am with that, and I have I
1:25:58
Speaker 5: have to ask this question, are you guys doing a
1:26:00
Speaker 5: show next week?
1:26:01
Speaker 2: We are doing a show next week. We're gonna do
1:26:03
Speaker 2: it on Tuesday after afternoon. I think probably Round four
1:26:10
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, so we're gonna just move it up on
1:26:13
Speaker 2: Tuesday and then well, we will also have a show
1:26:15
Speaker 2: during the bye week as well, which is coming up too,
1:26:17
Speaker 2: so we'll have shows both of those weeks.
1:26:22
Speaker 5: Cool, all right. I'll throw some thanksgiving them questions out
1:26:25
Speaker 5: at you guys next week. But I really want to
1:26:29
Speaker 5: win this game, Evan and Alex. I want you guys
1:26:33
Speaker 5: to tell me what is the biggest variable for us
1:26:36
Speaker 5: to win this game? Because I fregain hate the Dolphins.
1:26:40
Speaker 5: I've always hatted the Dolphins since the Shoe La Marino days.
1:26:44
Speaker 5: They are my Yankees of the NFL. And I know
1:26:48
Speaker 5: the Jets screw up every year and that's great because
1:26:51
Speaker 5: I can't stand them either. But like I just I
1:26:55
Speaker 5: want to spin tell us how we do it. I'll
1:26:56
Speaker 5: take it off here, guys.
1:26:57
Speaker 2: Thanks bag, thanks for the call, and yeah, thanks for
1:27:00
Speaker 2: prompting me to tell you guys that the next next
1:27:02
Speaker 2: Tuesday at four is when our show is gonna be all.
1:27:05
Speaker 2: We'll both tweet and everything and make sure you guys
1:27:08
Speaker 2: are are as weare as you can be. But that's
1:27:10
Speaker 2: a good shout. In terms of this game against Miami,
1:27:12
Speaker 2: I also appreciate a little segue into the Dolphins here
1:27:16
Speaker 2: a little bit. I'll just be short because I know
1:27:19
Speaker 2: we have people that have been on hold, and then
1:27:21
Speaker 2: we'll get into it a little bit more in a minute.
1:27:23
Speaker 2: But the biggest thing to me is going back to
1:27:25
Speaker 2: what we were talking about with the base defense versus Nickel
1:27:29
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuf. If I'm the Patriots,
1:27:32
Speaker 2: I am begging the Dolphins to run the ball in
1:27:35
Speaker 2: this game. Like run it, run it, run it, like
1:27:37
Speaker 2: go ahead, Like go ahead and run the ball. Try
1:27:40
Speaker 2: try to possess it yourself. Try to elongate there, short
1:27:44
Speaker 2: and excuse me this game and try to get this
1:27:47
Speaker 2: game in the twenties. Like if the Patriots are in
1:27:50
Speaker 2: the twenties against the Dolphins, then I think they're gonna
1:27:52
Speaker 2: have a puncher's chance, just like they did last week
1:27:54
Speaker 2: against the Rams. It's when it gets you know, into
1:27:57
Speaker 2: the thirties because Tyreek Hill is hit in seventy five
1:27:59
Speaker 2: yard bombs from Tua. Like, that's when I get worried
1:28:02
Speaker 2: about this game. I don't they don't have the talent
1:28:05
Speaker 2: yet on offense to win a track meet against the Dolphins.
1:28:07
Speaker 2: So you have to make it an ugly game. Force
1:28:09
Speaker 2: the Dolphins be disciplined, force them to go on long
1:28:11
Speaker 2: drives and win the turnover battle, something they haven't been
1:28:14
Speaker 2: able to do. I'll say on his draft take two
1:28:15
Speaker 2: real quick, yep, the whole Josh Simmons thinks. Patriots fans
1:28:20
Speaker 2: are starting to learn about Josh Simmons and really sink
1:28:22
Speaker 2: their teeth in. So, Josh Simmons was left tackle Ohio State. Yeah,
1:28:26
Speaker 2: was having a really good year, trending towards being, you know,
1:28:28
Speaker 2: a top fifteen pick of left tackle, and tore his
1:28:31
Speaker 2: knee up. I don't remember exactly what the injury was
1:28:33
Speaker 2: or if that's even out there, but he's done for
1:28:35
Speaker 2: the season. So now Patriots fans look at that and say,
1:28:38
Speaker 2: there's your starting caliber left tackle you can get later. Yeah,
1:28:41
Speaker 2: it's a half measure.
1:28:42
Speaker 3: And maybe Josh Simmons ends up being good, but it's
1:28:44
Speaker 3: a half measure. You don't know that he's gonna be
1:28:46
Speaker 3: available next year. They can't do They've been doing half
1:28:50
Speaker 3: measures at left tackle for like seven or eight years now.
1:28:53
Speaker 3: They can't keep doing it. And the other thing about
1:28:56
Speaker 3: you know, letting Vederian Low continue to play again. He's
1:28:58
Speaker 3: been better than expected, but he hasn't been great. He's
1:29:01
Speaker 3: also been hurt a lot. And you know, we missed
1:29:04
Speaker 3: practice yesterday. We'll see what happened, what it looks like
1:29:07
Speaker 3: on the injury report today. He's not exactly a big
1:29:11
Speaker 3: body at tackle, and I think there's legitimate durability questions
1:29:15
Speaker 3: with him. So if you're playing to go into the
1:29:17
Speaker 3: season is a fringe level starter who can't stay healthy
1:29:21
Speaker 3: and a guy who maybe has upside but won't be
1:29:23
Speaker 3: ready to go right away because he's coming off torn acl.
1:29:26
Speaker 2: You didn't fix the position.
1:29:27
Speaker 3: Maybe you think you did, and if you know, you're
1:29:29
Speaker 3: talking yourself into that being a fix in order to
1:29:32
Speaker 3: draft a.
1:29:32
Speaker 2: Guy like Teed McMillan. You didn't fix it. Like you didn't.
1:29:35
Speaker 3: You're just trying to find a way to draft tech McMillan.
1:29:38
Speaker 3: If that's what you want to do, it to me,
1:29:39
Speaker 3: it's still getting aggressive taking Tech McMillan towards the top,
1:29:44
Speaker 3: maybe you trade down a pick or two if you can,
1:29:46
Speaker 3: if some of these quarterbacks show up, and then moving
1:29:48
Speaker 3: up and taking.
1:29:49
Speaker 2: A guy like Arion to Ursere I the We're gonna
1:29:53
Speaker 2: hear a lot, a lot a lot about Josh Simmons
1:29:56
Speaker 2: and Evan. You might even like him. It might be good.
1:29:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, taking a guy five months removed from a torn
1:30:01
Speaker 3: ACL if he enters the draft at all, and I
1:30:05
Speaker 3: don't know if he's a junior senior, so he may
1:30:07
Speaker 3: not have that option. But taking a guy coming off
1:30:08
Speaker 3: of torn acl if he enters the draft at all,
1:30:11
Speaker 3: that's not solving the left tackle problem. I'm not saying
1:30:13
Speaker 3: they won't do it, but to me, that is not
1:30:16
Speaker 3: addressing the left tackle position. It's kicking the can down
1:30:18
Speaker 3: the road again.
1:30:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we have some good questions about the draft
1:30:22
Speaker 2: that we can get to here too in a second.
1:30:25
Speaker 2: But I want to Simmons a senior so he can't
1:30:27
Speaker 2: go back to school. But point stance, Yeah, I'm gonna
1:30:29
Speaker 2: take Christian in La here. What's up, Christian? Hey you guys,
1:30:33
Speaker 2: how you doing today?
1:30:36
Speaker 7: Yeah? No words, Nord. I love to talk to you guys.
1:30:38
Speaker 7: I love the X and os as opposed to what
1:30:40
Speaker 7: we do more on what you guys do, more on
1:30:42
Speaker 7: uh Patriots and Filter. So this always gives us callers
1:30:46
Speaker 7: a chance to talk some actual football with the guys.
1:30:49
Speaker 7: So with that, with that said, I kind of wanted
1:30:53
Speaker 7: to in some way echo what what Patty said in
1:30:57
Speaker 7: terms of, hey, this is a new regime. Everyone's basically new,
1:31:01
Speaker 7: and you could tell that they're just experimenting. I mean,
1:31:05
Speaker 7: you have Alex Vampel's who gets this quarterback with superpowers,
1:31:09
Speaker 7: and he's sort of been increasingly nerving Drake Made's superpowers
1:31:13
Speaker 7: by having him throw shorter and shorter, sort of more
1:31:16
Speaker 7: controlled stuff, and that just reached to me like Vampel's
1:31:19
Speaker 7: is unsure of, you know, the receivers that he's got,
1:31:22
Speaker 7: all the schemes that he's got set up for Drake
1:31:25
Speaker 7: to throw down the field. So I was definitely you
1:31:29
Speaker 7: guys just for that or if it's something to truly
1:31:33
Speaker 7: jumped the Shark, you guys left out one crucial component,
1:31:37
Speaker 7: and that is the appearance of Ted McGinley. You remember
1:31:41
Speaker 7: whenever Ted McGinley showed up, that's the show that jumped
1:31:44
Speaker 7: the Shark from Happy Days to married with children in
1:31:48
Speaker 7: the show that he showed up on. So back to
1:31:51
Speaker 7: the Drake maysup. What do you guys think about that
1:31:53
Speaker 7: Van help butt of being just a little bit getty
1:31:56
Speaker 7: sort of nurfing Drake May.
1:31:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for the call, Christian. And this is something
1:32:00
Speaker 2: that I actually wrote about in after further review, I
1:32:04
Speaker 2: guess maybe I'm just like a glass half full kind
1:32:07
Speaker 2: of guy. But the way that I looked at the
1:32:09
Speaker 2: game plan and the fact that Drake May isn't throwing
1:32:12
Speaker 2: the ball down the field quite as much as maybe
1:32:14
Speaker 2: his skill set would suggest, I actually think it's really
1:32:18
Speaker 2: smart by the coaching staff because they don't have the
1:32:22
Speaker 2: horses offensively to play that kind of football, Like, they
1:32:25
Speaker 2: don't have ball winners on the outside, they don't have
1:32:27
Speaker 2: a great offensive line to scheme up the deep shots.
1:32:30
Speaker 2: So what are they doing. They're having Drake May play
1:32:33
Speaker 2: on schedule Like they're not going backwards, they're going forwards.
1:32:36
Speaker 2: He's hitting the short and intermediate stuff. What I've been
1:32:39
Speaker 2: really impressed about is how good he's doing at it
1:32:42
Speaker 2: right And now what my feeling is is that he's
1:32:44
Speaker 2: really developed the short game. Like to use a golf analogy,
1:32:48
Speaker 2: like he's really developed his ability to put and now
1:32:54
Speaker 2: just wait a second until they have somebody on the
1:32:57
Speaker 2: outside that can win down the field. Now you're starting
1:32:59
Speaker 2: to see the driver too, right, Like and now here's
1:33:01
Speaker 2: a complete guy. Like now you can hit fairways and
1:33:04
Speaker 2: you can hit your putts, and all of a sudden,
1:33:06
Speaker 2: you've got this complete player. That, to me, is what
1:33:08
Speaker 2: the goal is here. This is what we're good at
1:33:10
Speaker 2: right now, is the short and intermediate passing game. Because
1:33:14
Speaker 2: of who's around him, we're gonna nurture this part of
1:33:16
Speaker 2: his game or develop this part of his game. And
1:33:19
Speaker 2: then once we get it t Higgins, once we get
1:33:21
Speaker 2: at Ted McMillan, once we get a Travis Hunter, once
1:33:23
Speaker 2: we get a left tackle, then we can start pushing
1:33:26
Speaker 2: the ball down the field a little bit more because
1:33:28
Speaker 2: we already know he's good at that stuff. So I
1:33:30
Speaker 2: don't look at it as like they're trying to force
1:33:33
Speaker 2: Drake to play out of character or out of you know,
1:33:36
Speaker 2: out of his nature. I actually think that they're trying
1:33:39
Speaker 2: to teach him how to play quarterback and how to
1:33:41
Speaker 2: win in this league. Like some weeks are it's gonna take.
1:33:44
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to win by death by a thousand
1:33:46
Speaker 2: paper cuts. Other weeks, you're gonna want to throw the
1:33:48
Speaker 2: ball down the field. It's all just about matchups, and
1:33:51
Speaker 2: that was something that you know, Brady was so good at.
1:33:53
Speaker 2: Mahomes has become excellent at it as well. Where it's
1:33:57
Speaker 2: not every week is gonna be four hundred yards for
1:33:59
Speaker 2: Patty Mahomes, right, Like some weeks, he's gonna have to
1:34:01
Speaker 2: play a different kind of game for them to win.
1:34:04
Speaker 2: And I think that's what they're trying to get through
1:34:06
Speaker 2: to Drake right now.
1:34:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, we talked about this with the with the Bears game, right,
1:34:09
Speaker 3: being able to just point coard it. Yeah, I don't
1:34:12
Speaker 3: know that they're like nerving the things he does best.
1:34:14
Speaker 3: I just think that's been the matchups. I'm sure we'll
1:34:15
Speaker 3: see him get back to some of the more explosive stuff.
1:34:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. All right, I Riley is in California?
1:34:22
Speaker 2: What's up? Riley? Riley? He loop going once?
1:34:29
Speaker 5: Hello?
1:34:30
Speaker 2: Hey? Is it gone? Hey?
1:34:32
Speaker 4: Yeah?
1:34:32
Speaker 5: I'm sorry about that. I was on mute.
1:34:35
Speaker 4: So the things here.
1:34:38
Speaker 6: First of all, I just want to say, I think
1:34:41
Speaker 6: it's pretty funny that every single show I watch, you're
1:34:44
Speaker 6: always apologizing to us listeners.
1:34:47
Speaker 5: For keeping us on hold.
1:34:49
Speaker 2: Evan, it's it's what we do. Still there, Hello, I
1:35:02
Speaker 2: think he might have needed himself again.
1:35:04
Speaker 4: That's been a pretty hot topic of dis.
1:35:09
Speaker 2: Or just still.
1:35:11
Speaker 9: Yesterday cat Sports or something like that, and uh mentioned
1:35:18
Speaker 9: how Ron Mayo is very very.
1:35:22
Speaker 6: Contradictory whatever he discusses von Baker in the sense that
1:35:34
Speaker 6: he kind of goes back and forth on his words.
1:35:37
Speaker 6: Like a few weeks ago, he was saying that Davon
1:35:39
Speaker 6: Baker is the explosive player with the ball in his hands,
1:35:43
Speaker 6: and they've.
1:35:44
Speaker 4: Got to find him ways to get the ball.
1:35:46
Speaker 5: And so we've obviously.
1:35:47
Speaker 4: Seen him implement it on you know, kick.
1:35:50
Speaker 9: Returns, and then last week he had that.
1:35:53
Speaker 4: Great forty six yard return and then obviously muffed the
1:35:56
Speaker 4: second hunt and tried to turtle of the Rams defender
1:36:00
Speaker 4: and only got sixteen yards and then was obviously pulled
1:36:04
Speaker 4: out of the game and benched. And then Girod Mayo
1:36:08
Speaker 4: following the game says, you know, he just he wasn't
1:36:11
Speaker 4: doing he wasn't doing it right.
1:36:15
Speaker 9: We just need him to do things more right.
1:36:18
Speaker 4: So I guess where I'm going with that is, you
1:36:21
Speaker 4: guys think it's actually a Keavon Baker issue, like he's
1:36:25
Speaker 4: just not you know, doing exit and O was right,
1:36:28
Speaker 4: like not running the proper route, not knowing his assignments,
1:36:32
Speaker 4: things like that.
1:36:33
Speaker 9: Or do you think that it's.
1:36:35
Speaker 4: Just a Girod Mayo issue with Javon Baker derister then
1:36:42
Speaker 4: at the beginning when we drafted him, Mayo didn't really
1:36:46
Speaker 4: seem too too fond of him and had some you know,
1:36:50
Speaker 4: comments early on about him. So yeah, that's that's my question.
1:36:55
Speaker 7: Guys.
1:36:56
Speaker 2: Thanks for the call, Riley appreciated. Look, I think the
1:36:58
Speaker 2: biggest thing for this coaching staff right now, and we've
1:37:01
Speaker 2: asked them all three guys, you know, both coordinators and
1:37:04
Speaker 2: and Girodd about this, Oh, this season is just weighing
1:37:09
Speaker 2: the pros and cons of the young guys playing. Right,
1:37:11
Speaker 2: You're when you play young guys, there's gonna be mistakes,
1:37:14
Speaker 2: but you're also trying to develop those players. And as
1:37:16
Speaker 2: a rebuilding team, you want to develop guys like Javanne Baker,
1:37:19
Speaker 2: like Jalen Polk, like jaheiem Bell, like Drake may and
1:37:23
Speaker 2: you want to get them out there and there's gonna
1:37:25
Speaker 2: be mistakes, there's gonna be turnovers, there's gonna be bad routes,
1:37:28
Speaker 2: there's gonna be mishandlings of football's on kick offs, all
1:37:31
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. So it's a very fine line
1:37:35
Speaker 2: to walk between letting the kids play, but also those
1:37:41
Speaker 2: mistakes lose you football games, right, So it's it's definitely difficult.
1:37:45
Speaker 2: It's hard to sort of say which way to go
1:37:49
Speaker 2: with that. I hear both sides of it. I hear
1:37:51
Speaker 2: the size of say you're three and eight and you
1:37:52
Speaker 2: should just live with the kids and let it go.
1:37:55
Speaker 2: And my guess is that down let's say the last
1:37:58
Speaker 2: month of the season, last couple games of the season
1:38:02
Speaker 2: and January, I do think that you'll see the kids
1:38:05
Speaker 2: play a lot like I think they will sort of
1:38:07
Speaker 2: let that happen. But right now, as crazy as it
1:38:12
Speaker 2: as it may be on the outside looking in, there's
1:38:16
Speaker 2: not really a path. But you have to coach like
1:38:18
Speaker 2: there's a path, right and if they're actively hurting the team,
1:38:23
Speaker 2: then you have to pull those players off the field. Yeah,
1:38:26
Speaker 2: And we've talked about what's best for Drake may versus
1:38:29
Speaker 2: what's best for some of the other rooks and doing
1:38:32
Speaker 2: all that.
1:38:32
Speaker 3: I just think with Baker could he's not picking it up. Yeah,
1:38:35
Speaker 3: whatever it is, he's not picking up. They talked about
1:38:37
Speaker 3: maybe not liking what he was doing on the kickoff return, so.
1:38:41
Speaker 2: You got to put the guy players. It helps them
1:38:44
Speaker 2: to develop to play.
1:38:45
Speaker 3: But if the guy doesn't know what he's doing, I'm
1:38:48
Speaker 3: not going to do much for his development, and then
1:38:50
Speaker 3: you're just hurting everybody else.
1:38:51
Speaker 2: So I don't I don't love him on kickoffs. I
1:38:55
Speaker 2: don't really see him as maybe I'm just have which
1:38:58
Speaker 2: I know is bad like logic to some extent. It
1:39:02
Speaker 2: just maybe it's just a forty time that's in my head.
1:39:04
Speaker 2: But I think he's an explosive mover, but I don't
1:39:07
Speaker 2: think that he's an explosive, straight line speed kind of guy,
1:39:11
Speaker 2: if that makes sense. Like I think he's twitchy, but
1:39:13
Speaker 2: I don't think that he is like a burner that's
1:39:16
Speaker 2: gonna run by people. The guy that I don't understand
1:39:19
Speaker 2: why doesn't they don't try him on kickoffs is Isaiah Boulden,
1:39:22
Speaker 2: Like I don't understand. I'm still waiting for that.
1:39:24
Speaker 3: Well, my my take at the beginning of the year
1:39:26
Speaker 3: was Kai Shan Boudi being the kick returner that he
1:39:27
Speaker 3: became the number one receiver.
1:39:29
Speaker 2: Right like I get Marcus Zones is also a name
1:39:31
Speaker 2: that people have thrown around, but you know Springer's explanation
1:39:35
Speaker 2: of like he's a smaller guy and they're trying to
1:39:37
Speaker 2: keep him healthy. Like if you put him on kickoffs, punts, defense,
1:39:41
Speaker 2: now offense, like it's spreading Marcus Jones really thin. I
1:39:45
Speaker 2: still think if you were in a situation where you
1:39:48
Speaker 2: could return a kickoff that maybe wins a game, that
1:39:52
Speaker 2: maybe they would put Marcus Jones back there to have that.
1:39:55
Speaker 2: You know, the Dolphins do that with Tyreek Hill all
1:39:58
Speaker 2: the time, right like, if this is a game winning situation,
1:40:01
Speaker 2: then we're gonna we'll put him back there. So I
1:40:03
Speaker 2: could see that with Marcus Jones, But I do wonder
1:40:06
Speaker 2: if it was active on game day. He's playing on
1:40:08
Speaker 2: special teams, Like why, I don't know why Isaiah Bolden
1:40:11
Speaker 2: doesn't get a chance. He was great at it in college.
1:40:13
Speaker 2: So that's the one guy I scratched my head on
1:40:15
Speaker 2: kickoffs with Kendall is in North Carolina. What's up, Kendall?
1:40:20
Speaker 2: Call us back Kendall and we'll get you on the air.
1:40:22
Speaker 2: A couple of emails. Want to go through the emails?
1:40:24
Speaker 2: Do the do rapid fire through the emails? Probably not
1:40:27
Speaker 2: gonna work. Let's see what the questions are. Sometimes you
1:40:30
Speaker 2: gotta get a little bit of nuanced okay. So here
1:40:33
Speaker 2: is an email from Floyd in Michigan. He says, good afternoon,
1:40:38
Speaker 2: Evan and Alex. A number of recent mock drafts have
1:40:41
Speaker 2: the Patriots selecting ot Will Campbell at pick number six,
1:40:45
Speaker 2: which is frustrating, says Kendall, because he thinks, and he
1:40:50
Speaker 2: has read that Will Campbell is a guard, and he
1:40:54
Speaker 2: is not drafting a guard with the sixth overall picks.
1:40:57
Speaker 2: So we are gonna hear about this for the next
1:41:01
Speaker 2: six to eight months. But how long is it till
1:41:02
Speaker 2: the draft? Six months April four? It's crazy, it's six months,
1:41:10
Speaker 2: let's call it six. We're gonna hear about this until
1:41:14
Speaker 2: February when he measures his arms at the combine that
1:41:18
Speaker 2: Will Campbell is a guard. I am not ready to
1:41:21
Speaker 2: say that Will Campbell's guard until I see the measurement
1:41:23
Speaker 2: of his arms right like that. That's really where I'm at.
1:41:26
Speaker 2: He plays, he plays perfectly fine at tackle. He's got feet,
1:41:31
Speaker 2: he's got a tackle movement ability. If his arms are
1:41:35
Speaker 2: too short, then we'll have that conversation when we have it,
1:41:38
Speaker 2: But for right now, I'm operating under the impression that
1:41:42
Speaker 2: he is still a tackle. But if he's at thirty
1:41:45
Speaker 2: two inches, then he's going to be a guard.
1:41:46
Speaker 3: Or is he you know, like Rashaun Slater, is he
1:41:49
Speaker 3: the guy that resets the numbers?
1:41:50
Speaker 2: He just that good? Yep?
1:41:51
Speaker 10: Uh?
1:41:52
Speaker 3: Do you take that chance? And then there's also Kevin Banks.
1:41:54
Speaker 3: Don't look, I'm the mock draft guy, right, I love
1:41:57
Speaker 3: doing all these mock drafts.
1:41:58
Speaker 2: That's true.
1:41:59
Speaker 3: There's a reason I don't do Monck drafts till the
1:42:01
Speaker 3: season is over. The season being excuse me, college and
1:42:04
Speaker 3: NFL still ball up to play, So I wouldn't read
1:42:08
Speaker 3: too much into these Monck drafts at this point one
1:42:10
Speaker 3: way or the other. To me, if you see Will Campbell,
1:42:13
Speaker 3: that person basically tells you they think the Patriots are
1:42:15
Speaker 3: taking a tackle. Yeah, it's one hundred and fifty four days,
1:42:17
Speaker 3: four hours, eleven minutes, forty five seconds until the draft.
1:42:21
Speaker 2: Nice. I found a website that counts it down. Yeah,
1:42:23
Speaker 2: it's mighty my new homepage. Well it's it's it's like,
1:42:27
Speaker 2: what's the website. It's draftcountdown dot com. Oh really, there's
1:42:30
Speaker 2: like a website that I use all the time. It's
1:42:32
Speaker 2: like a day to date calcul.
1:42:33
Speaker 3: No, this is specifically for the draft, like this website
1:42:36
Speaker 3: is draft countdown dot com.
1:42:37
Speaker 2: The fact that you didn't know this already is kind
1:42:39
Speaker 2: of astonishing. I'm surprised by that. All Right, we have
1:42:42
Speaker 2: Kendall back. Kendall is in North Carolina. What's up, Kendall?
1:42:46
Speaker 10: Hey, sorry about that? How you doing good? I got
1:42:50
Speaker 10: two questions, one for you, Evan and one for you Alex.
1:42:54
Speaker 10: The first one, Evan, what are you seeing from this
1:42:56
Speaker 10: Dolphins defense? And how how do you what is the
1:42:59
Speaker 10: best way for the Patriots to attack on Sunday? And
1:43:02
Speaker 10: but Alex, I want to ask uh if we address
1:43:05
Speaker 10: while Steven Offski. So let's just say we go out
1:43:07
Speaker 10: to sign t Higgins and then in the in the
1:43:10
Speaker 10: first round, could you see us still taking a Tampman
1:43:12
Speaker 10: Millon or did you see us probably getting another guy
1:43:15
Speaker 10: probably let on a draft and who would be the
1:43:17
Speaker 10: odd man out the receiver room?
1:43:18
Speaker 2: Appreciate it, Thanks Kendall, Thanks for the call as always.
1:43:21
Speaker 2: So starting with the Dolphins, Uh, I think the biggest
1:43:23
Speaker 2: thing to me with this Dolphins defense is, uh, they
1:43:26
Speaker 2: have given up quite a few yards in the same
1:43:28
Speaker 2: type of game plans that the Patriot it's used last week,
1:43:31
Speaker 2: Like those short and intermediate yards are there. They are
1:43:35
Speaker 2: a pretty exotic in terms of how they scheme up pressure.
1:43:39
Speaker 2: Like it's pretty similar. We're getting to the point now
1:43:43
Speaker 2: and this is probably a longer conversation for a different time,
1:43:45
Speaker 2: but we're getting to the point now where like this,
1:43:48
Speaker 2: like Mike McDonald vic Fangio fused together defense is like
1:43:53
Speaker 2: the Kyle is like the Shanahan Tree right offense where
1:43:56
Speaker 2: it's like half the league is running the same defense.
1:43:59
Speaker 2: So the defense that the Dolphins are running under Anthony Weaver,
1:44:04
Speaker 2: who was with Baltimore for the last three seasons, is
1:44:06
Speaker 2: really similar to the defense that they played against the
1:44:09
Speaker 2: Rams where they're going on third down, they're exotics, like
1:44:13
Speaker 2: they're gonna bring pressure from different places and it's gonna
1:44:16
Speaker 2: be up to the quarterback to sort it out post nap.
1:44:19
Speaker 2: So I look at this game plan again and say,
1:44:22
Speaker 2: just continue to do what you do. Because Gardner Minshew
1:44:26
Speaker 2: averaged three point seven air yards per attempt to go
1:44:29
Speaker 2: back to a dot and we had the same two
1:44:31
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty two yards and two touchdowns as Drake
1:44:33
Speaker 2: made did right. Really almost the exact same stat line
1:44:37
Speaker 2: for Gardner, Minshew so brought Bowers had a huge game.
1:44:41
Speaker 2: Patriots have a couple of capable tight ends. So I
1:44:43
Speaker 2: expect the Patriots to try to, you know, do the
1:44:47
Speaker 2: same exact thing, and hopefully they like they did last week,
1:44:50
Speaker 2: you break off some of those short and intermediate routes
1:44:53
Speaker 2: for longer plays on explosives. Yeah.
1:44:56
Speaker 3: Draft draft, I would say if they added veteran receiver,
1:45:01
Speaker 3: even if they added t Higgins, right, if they want
1:45:03
Speaker 3: to go back to back with receivers, him and McMillan
1:45:06
Speaker 3: are pretty redundant.
1:45:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. At that point, we're probably talking more about Luther
1:45:09
Speaker 2: Burden or even Nick me Buka. Yeah, who's coming on?
1:45:12
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, yeah, he's starting to play better. Yeah.
1:45:15
Speaker 3: He just set the like Ohio State all time receiving
1:45:18
Speaker 3: yards or receptions record, which when you think about the
1:45:21
Speaker 3: is that career yeah, yeah, which is now a lot
1:45:24
Speaker 3: of those guys are only there for three years.
1:45:26
Speaker 2: Ye who has been there or like still half a century.
1:45:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would be really surprised if they did that,
1:45:33
Speaker 3: even if they you know, went out and got a
1:45:35
Speaker 3: different receiver and I don't Metcalf or not Metcalf Higgins
1:45:39
Speaker 3: and McMillan don't make sense together. Like those you guys
1:45:42
Speaker 3: played the exact same position, same role. That would be
1:45:46
Speaker 3: a bad pick in that specific Not that McMillan is
1:45:49
Speaker 3: a bad pick, but in the specific circumstance. If they
1:45:52
Speaker 3: were to do something like that, who's the odd man out?
1:45:55
Speaker 3: So you'd have Higgins, you'd have the draft pick, you'd
1:45:57
Speaker 3: have a booty still being a part of it. Douglas
1:46:00
Speaker 3: is still going to be a part of it. I
1:46:01
Speaker 3: would keep Kendrick Bourne in, Jalen Polk the odd man out,
1:46:04
Speaker 3: it's probably Javon Baker unless they keep seven again. But
1:46:07
Speaker 3: if they make their premium veteran offseason addition or a receiver,
1:46:12
Speaker 3: which I'm on the record saying they should do, No,
1:46:16
Speaker 3: I don't think a first round receiver is worth it.
1:46:17
Speaker 3: I don't think a first round receiver is a smart
1:46:19
Speaker 3: pick at that.
1:46:20
Speaker 2: Don't think it's necessary, Like it's not necessary. No, they
1:46:22
Speaker 2: have depth at that point.
1:46:24
Speaker 3: If if you don't want to take a tackle, if
1:46:26
Speaker 3: you're worried about the tackles, now we start talking about
1:46:29
Speaker 3: I don't think the first overall picks.
1:46:31
Speaker 2: So Travis Hunter's probably off the table. He's gonna be
1:46:33
Speaker 2: a Jaguar. I think.
1:46:34
Speaker 3: Now you're talking about will Johnson. Now you're talking about
1:46:38
Speaker 3: Michael Williams. Now you're talking about James Pearce, Abdul Carter,
1:46:41
Speaker 3: who got asked about earlier. If it's not a tackle, honestly,
1:46:46
Speaker 3: and at the point where you're probably looking at a
1:46:48
Speaker 3: defensive player.
1:46:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is a question from David in Madrid,
1:46:52
Speaker 2: who emails into the show all the time. And this
1:46:55
Speaker 2: is something along those same lines that you were just
1:46:57
Speaker 2: talking about that I've been thinking about quite a bit,
1:46:59
Speaker 2: and that is, you know, at the top of the
1:47:01
Speaker 2: draft this year, are we trending towards this just being
1:47:05
Speaker 2: a best player available draft for the Patriots. And I'm
1:47:08
Speaker 2: not saying that I drafted safety like he mentioned Malchi Starks.
1:47:12
Speaker 2: You look sorry. Continue. Yeah, I'm not saying that. I'm
1:47:16
Speaker 2: not totally throwing out positional value when I say that.
1:47:20
Speaker 2: But if you told me that the best course of
1:47:23
Speaker 2: action was to take the best player available at a
1:47:27
Speaker 2: premium position, receiver, attack, pass rusher, cornerback, right, they already
1:47:32
Speaker 2: have the quarterback, so they don't need to do that.
1:47:35
Speaker 2: If it's on the defensive side of the ball, then
1:47:36
Speaker 2: I'm I'm game, like, does give me the best player
1:47:39
Speaker 2: at that point?
1:47:39
Speaker 3: You know, I think best player available is a myth.
1:47:43
Speaker 3: I think the concept of drafting the best player available
1:47:45
Speaker 3: is a myth because evan Travis Hunter goes first overall,
1:47:47
Speaker 3: who's the best player left on the board. Who is
1:47:49
Speaker 3: the best football player at their position on the board?
1:47:52
Speaker 3: Please give me the correct answer. I know you don't
1:47:54
Speaker 3: want to say it, but give me the correct answer.
1:47:55
Speaker 2: Wait. So, if Travis Hunter is off the board.
1:47:57
Speaker 3: Who's the most talented football player at his position left?
1:48:02
Speaker 2: Probably that Michigan tackle. It's ash and Genty, But so
1:48:10
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't. I I don't think they should take
1:48:11
Speaker 2: ash and Genty. I don't. He's gonna be a cowboy
1:48:13
Speaker 2: one way or the other. But that's a okay, he's
1:48:16
Speaker 2: gonna be come on, well, no, I just I don't
1:48:19
Speaker 2: care it's him. I think it's him.
1:48:21
Speaker 3: To your point about the Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham, yeah,
1:48:25
Speaker 3: I'm almost with you. I wouldn't take a defensive tackle
1:48:28
Speaker 3: that high. That's the one position if you want to
1:48:31
Speaker 3: sell you wouldn't take like I and I know.
1:48:32
Speaker 2: This is unfair, but like, yeah, you wouldn't take Chris
1:48:35
Speaker 2: Jones that high.
1:48:36
Speaker 3: No, I'm talking specifically like in this class for this team. Okay,
1:48:40
Speaker 3: So like if you want to sell me on Will Johnson,
1:48:42
Speaker 3: if you don't believe in one of the tackles you
1:48:43
Speaker 3: want to and they add a veteran receiver, right, you
1:48:46
Speaker 3: want to sell me on Will Johnson. I can be
1:48:47
Speaker 3: sold on Will Johnson. You want to sell me on
1:48:49
Speaker 3: Michael Williams, you want to sell me I'm still not
1:48:51
Speaker 3: sure on James Pierce, but like we'll get their Abdua Carter.
1:48:54
Speaker 3: I just look at defensive tackle and I think Mason
1:48:57
Speaker 3: Graham's a good player. I think Dion Walker is already
1:49:01
Speaker 3: being slept on, and I think he's going.
1:49:03
Speaker 2: To be as good.
1:49:06
Speaker 3: Well, for one thing, they have Barmore. I would say
1:49:08
Speaker 3: defensive tackle is the one position where.
1:49:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd have Barmore, And I would say that like
1:49:12
Speaker 2: Kean is really like a flex like so like he's
1:49:15
Speaker 2: more of a hand than the dirt guy, so passing
1:49:17
Speaker 2: downs too.
1:49:18
Speaker 3: Between that and looking at the rest of the class,
1:49:20
Speaker 3: if you're gonna take Mason Graham, at least trade down
1:49:22
Speaker 3: and take Deon Walker, that's the one and I reserved
1:49:25
Speaker 3: the right change my mind for a long way out.
1:49:26
Speaker 3: But looking at it right now, I that's that's the
1:49:29
Speaker 3: one position I'd be like, I think it's is Mason
1:49:33
Speaker 3: Graham the best player available? Maybe, but when you get
1:49:36
Speaker 3: into the value of it, of you know, what are
1:49:39
Speaker 3: you really adding. I think a guy like James Pierce,
1:49:42
Speaker 3: if he is the past rusher, we think he is
1:49:44
Speaker 3: a guy like Michael Williams probably gives you more pound
1:49:47
Speaker 3: for pound. And if it's like, well, no, we want
1:49:49
Speaker 3: a defensive tackle, we want a two headed monster in
1:49:51
Speaker 3: the middle. Trade down, take Dean Walker. I think he
1:49:54
Speaker 3: ended up better for it.
1:49:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really coming around on on defense. I mean, look,
1:49:59
Speaker 2: we went on this whole thing about the coaching and
1:50:01
Speaker 2: on the deal. This is all predicated on them adding
1:50:04
Speaker 2: t Higgins, DK Metcalfeck. Sure, but they don't think they
1:50:08
Speaker 2: need to take ten. But even still, I mean yeah,
1:50:10
Speaker 2: but like, even still, it is obviously everything is is
1:50:14
Speaker 2: you know about attacking it correctly in the veteran market too, right,
1:50:18
Speaker 2: But I just look at it and I just think
1:50:20
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of really good defensive talent in
1:50:23
Speaker 2: this draft. I think Will Johnson, even though he's had
1:50:26
Speaker 2: a little bit of a down year. You tell me,
1:50:27
Speaker 2: I think he's a hell of a football player. Still, yeah,
1:50:30
Speaker 2: you know, I think there's a lot of really good
1:50:32
Speaker 2: defensive talent. I still feel like Travis Hunter is a
1:50:34
Speaker 2: better corner. I know I'm with you on that. I
1:50:37
Speaker 2: know he's probably gonna play receiver in the league. But
1:50:39
Speaker 2: the point I'm getting at is is that you know
1:50:42
Speaker 2: they need talent on both sides of the ball. And
1:50:44
Speaker 2: I understand we all want to give Drake May as
1:50:46
Speaker 2: toys and we all want to set Drake May up
1:50:48
Speaker 2: for success. We absolutely do, but you can do that
1:50:51
Speaker 2: in different avenues. And I look at the defensive side,
1:50:53
Speaker 2: and really, when you think about it, two out of
1:50:57
Speaker 2: the last three drafts have been offensive drafts for the Patriots.
1:51:00
Speaker 2: Twenty three was the defensive draft. Bill pick three guys
1:51:03
Speaker 2: on the top of the draft, all defense, you know,
1:51:05
Speaker 2: Christian Zales, Kean White, Marte Mapu. But in twenty twenty
1:51:08
Speaker 2: two it was Cole Strange, Taekwan Thornton, Pierre Strong. They
1:51:12
Speaker 2: mixed in Marcus Jones in there, and then obviously last
1:51:15
Speaker 2: year they pick one defensive player in the sixth round.
1:51:17
Speaker 2: In Marcella's dial That's a big reason why the depth
1:51:21
Speaker 2: on the defensive side of the football is where it is.
1:51:23
Speaker 2: You haven't really been drafting a ton on that side
1:51:26
Speaker 2: of the football, So we're at the point now where
1:51:29
Speaker 2: another pass rusher is necessary. Your pass rush right now
1:51:33
Speaker 2: is I think they're thirtieth or thirty first in the
1:51:35
Speaker 2: league in pressure rate on defense, so they don't get
1:51:37
Speaker 2: pressure on the quarterback anymore. They're second cornerback spot opposite
1:51:42
Speaker 2: of Christian Gonzales is a problem. Marcus Jones is a
1:51:45
Speaker 2: slot like, he's just undersize to play on the outside.
1:51:48
Speaker 2: He's a good slock corner, but he's a stock corner.
1:51:49
Speaker 2: Jonathan Jones is really gonna, I think gonna transition to
1:51:53
Speaker 2: free safety here soon and start to play more at safety,
1:51:56
Speaker 2: so you really need another guy on the outside opposite
1:51:59
Speaker 2: of Gonzales. You're getting to the point where all these
1:52:02
Speaker 2: things are starting to creep up inside linebacker depth, you know,
1:52:06
Speaker 2: like you lose Bentley and that whole group kind of
1:52:08
Speaker 2: goes to to shambles.
1:52:10
Speaker 3: And this how many years have we done that? It's
1:52:12
Speaker 3: been a bad linebacker draft. Yeah, right, good linebacker draft
1:52:16
Speaker 3: this year. Harold Perk and Danny Stutsman, she had Campbell,
1:52:19
Speaker 3: assuming he comes out. The one thing I'll say to
1:52:22
Speaker 3: the point you just gave is when you because because
1:52:24
Speaker 3: you're just kind of going off of who you've heard
1:52:27
Speaker 3: of as the top thirty guys. Yeah, right, the talent
1:52:31
Speaker 3: We've become so accustomed to there being just this tremendous
1:52:34
Speaker 3: depth on the offense inside of the ball these last
1:52:36
Speaker 3: few drafts outside of the running back position and maybe
1:52:39
Speaker 3: tight end, which are two positions Patriots could maybe addressed,
1:52:43
Speaker 3: but later on, like you don't have that depth at
1:52:45
Speaker 3: wide receiver. You don't have that depth to tackle this
1:52:48
Speaker 3: edge class, loaded, loaded linebacker class, very good, the cornerback class.
1:52:56
Speaker 3: There's a lot of underclassmen. So I'm hesitant to say
1:52:58
Speaker 3: it's gonna be deep yet, but like it could be.
1:53:00
Speaker 3: It very well could be. And I think some of
1:53:02
Speaker 3: these guys are gonna come out because they're gonna see
1:53:04
Speaker 3: that opportunity you if they add the veteran receiver with you,
1:53:11
Speaker 3: But like if not, I just you're gonna be able
1:53:14
Speaker 3: to get quality defensive players later then you're gonna be
1:53:16
Speaker 3: able to at quality offensive players in the draft. It
1:53:18
Speaker 3: looks like so they need volume. Wise, they need to
1:53:22
Speaker 3: address defense in this draft when we're talking about the
1:53:25
Speaker 3: top if they don't add a veteran receiver has to
1:53:28
Speaker 3: be teed. McMillan, you talk, so not to cut you off,
1:53:31
Speaker 3: but just I think this is related tech mcmilliner.
1:53:35
Speaker 2: Tackle. Yeah. So the other thing that we talked about
1:53:37
Speaker 2: the other day on PU which I think is a possibility.
1:53:40
Speaker 2: A lot of the time when you look at the
1:53:41
Speaker 2: league free agency, defensive guys do hit free agency quite frequently.
1:53:47
Speaker 2: So there's some corners, especially, uh, you know, DJ Reed,
1:53:51
Speaker 2: Tavarious Ward, Uh, you know guys that Carlton Davis is
1:53:55
Speaker 2: going to be a free agent, Guys that can are
1:53:57
Speaker 2: are good corners in the league that are gonna be
1:54:00
Speaker 2: coming up on the market. If they're gonna do if
1:54:03
Speaker 2: they're really like if you really think wide receiver is
1:54:06
Speaker 2: that they need to hit that and they need to
1:54:07
Speaker 2: hit tackle one and two in the draft and have
1:54:10
Speaker 2: another top heavy at least offensive draft, Well, then you
1:54:13
Speaker 2: have you have to fill it in another way, right,
1:54:16
Speaker 2: So then then it becomes free agency becomes when you
1:54:19
Speaker 2: add defense, right, But one of these ways whichever And
1:54:22
Speaker 2: we're gonna have a conversation at some point, probably soon
1:54:25
Speaker 2: and go down this rabbit hole of which path is better.
1:54:28
Speaker 2: But it's either you got to put all your sources
1:54:30
Speaker 2: into the offense and free agency and all of them
1:54:33
Speaker 2: into defense in the draft or vice versa. I don't
1:54:35
Speaker 2: think that's true. I think you can mix and match it.
1:54:38
Speaker 3: You could sign or trade for a receiver, draft to
1:54:43
Speaker 3: tackle at the top of the draft, sign one of
1:54:45
Speaker 3: those corners, draft against really good edge draft. I can't
1:54:49
Speaker 3: stress that enough. Sign a pass but sign a sign
1:54:52
Speaker 3: a corner. Draft a pass rusher in the second round.
1:54:55
Speaker 2: On day two of the draft. That realistically just based
1:54:57
Speaker 2: off of just trendons, like you might get like a
1:55:01
Speaker 2: Joshua j type who's like a really good pass rusher
1:55:03
Speaker 2: on third down. But my feeling is is that they
1:55:07
Speaker 2: on defense they might need a three day player.
1:55:09
Speaker 3: There are some for this draft specifically, I get what
1:55:12
Speaker 3: you're saying. Yeah, for this draft specifically, I think there
1:55:15
Speaker 3: are some potential, uh primary pass rushers that you're gonna
1:55:20
Speaker 3: think about where they're gonna be picking on day two.
1:55:21
Speaker 3: We're not talking about picking the forties right and the
1:55:25
Speaker 3: board will change. But the Ohio State guys Jack Sawyer,
1:55:29
Speaker 3: three down player out of o High State currently projected
1:55:32
Speaker 3: like a top forty kind of player. There's a little
1:55:35
Speaker 3: bit higher. He's probably gonna be first round pick. But
1:55:37
Speaker 3: like Nick Gordon, three down player, the teel Maul Muluau,
1:55:43
Speaker 3: I think it is from the other High state guys
1:55:44
Speaker 3: three down play. They can get that three down I
1:55:48
Speaker 3: don't know that you're gonna get Miles Garrett, but can
1:55:52
Speaker 3: you get a guy who can be your primary pass
1:55:54
Speaker 3: rusher and be a three down player at that stage
1:55:56
Speaker 3: in the draft. I think it's possible. It's very possible. Cornerback,
1:56:00
Speaker 3: same way. Again, we'll see how many of these younger
1:56:02
Speaker 3: guys come out. It's a younger group, but you know,
1:56:05
Speaker 3: if more guys go to the draft, I'm really interested
1:56:07
Speaker 3: to see what the book ends up being on the
1:56:09
Speaker 3: Ohio State guys. So, Denzel Burke was a projected top
1:56:14
Speaker 3: ten pick for a long time. He has had a
1:56:16
Speaker 3: rough season. He has had a rough season. David Igbanoz
1:56:20
Speaker 3: in the other corner kind of same thing. Fringy first
1:56:23
Speaker 3: round guy. Now people are saying more that, you know,
1:56:25
Speaker 3: fifty to seventy five range, it's gonna be there's always
1:56:29
Speaker 3: these guys right where you look at the tape, you're
1:56:31
Speaker 3: gonna have I'm gonna have to remind you watch Denzel
1:56:34
Speaker 3: Burke in twenty twenty two, don't just watch Denzel Burke
1:56:36
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three. Yeah, And where does that come down?
1:56:39
Speaker 3: If they see him in twenty two and they say
1:56:41
Speaker 3: he had a down year last year for whatever reason,
1:56:43
Speaker 3: you get a potential like he certainly has the ceiling
1:56:46
Speaker 3: to be a guy that can be legitimate option opposite
1:56:49
Speaker 3: Christian Gonzalez. It's just where do you think he's at
1:56:51
Speaker 3: from last year to this year?
1:56:52
Speaker 2: Fair enough? I just look at it, and you know,
1:56:55
Speaker 2: the more that I watched this team unfold this season,
1:56:59
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of this and I'm not
1:57:00
Speaker 2: trying to make it harder on him than it already is.
1:57:03
Speaker 2: I'm really not. But a lot of this just stems
1:57:05
Speaker 2: from the fact that I think Drake May is just
1:57:07
Speaker 2: awesome and it is gonna make a lot of the
1:57:08
Speaker 2: offense go okay, but let me finish. Yeah. The more
1:57:12
Speaker 2: I watch the team, though, the more I look at
1:57:16
Speaker 2: the defense being the bigger problem right now than the
1:57:18
Speaker 2: offense right Like, it just it's very clear to me
1:57:22
Speaker 2: that the defense is the unit that's going backwards. The
1:57:25
Speaker 2: offense is at least on this steady climb up and
1:57:27
Speaker 2: a lot of that is like probably ninety percent of
1:57:30
Speaker 2: that is rake. But like, at least we see some
1:57:32
Speaker 2: some light at the end of the tunnel for the
1:57:34
Speaker 2: offense where if you go out and you add a
1:57:37
Speaker 2: big time playmaker in free agency, you might be done
1:57:40
Speaker 2: on offense. I still think you need to tackle. You
1:57:42
Speaker 2: probably still need to tackle, but like, I don't think
1:57:44
Speaker 2: that that tackle needs to be you know, like Trent
1:57:48
Speaker 2: Williams right, Like, I think that if you go out
1:57:49
Speaker 2: and you get a serviceable NFL left tackle, then you'll
1:57:53
Speaker 2: you'll be fine as an offense. Like I really believe
1:57:56
Speaker 2: that if you you still got to go out and
1:57:58
Speaker 2: get the guy right, I'm not saying that. But defensively,
1:58:01
Speaker 2: I think that they have sort of had needs everywhere
1:58:04
Speaker 2: on defense all of a sudden. Offensively, I think they
1:58:08
Speaker 2: need to tackle help, and I think they need a
1:58:10
Speaker 2: number one receiver. I think they have a decent two
1:58:13
Speaker 2: through five in the receiver.
1:58:14
Speaker 3: I'm with you, Like, if they add the left tackle
1:58:16
Speaker 3: we're talking about just this year, they need like they
1:58:18
Speaker 3: need a project tight end, they need to develop mental
1:58:20
Speaker 3: center play. If you add the tackle, if you add
1:58:23
Speaker 3: the receiver. You're kind of banking on Caden Wallas showing up.
1:58:26
Speaker 3: We haven't gotten to see much of him this year,
1:58:28
Speaker 3: but like that's group. I just wouldn't I worry that
1:58:31
Speaker 3: they're gonna look at it and say, Drake mays good,
1:58:34
Speaker 3: we're done.
1:58:34
Speaker 2: Let's work on the defense.
1:58:35
Speaker 3: Like you can't do that, you need This is learning
1:58:38
Speaker 3: lessons from the mac Jones Erra. Right, Yeah, go get
1:58:41
Speaker 3: the kid the receiver. That has to happen, and you
1:58:45
Speaker 3: have to make sure his blind side is protected. It's
1:58:48
Speaker 3: a volume thing on defense. It's a it's a quality
1:58:50
Speaker 3: thing on offense. It's a quantity thing on defense.
1:58:53
Speaker 2: So my last thing on this and then we got
1:58:54
Speaker 2: a wrap. Yeah, I feel like we always get caught
1:58:58
Speaker 2: and I'm not just like, I'm not saying you, I'm
1:59:00
Speaker 2: just saying this is a general I feel like we
1:59:03
Speaker 2: always get caught in thinking the best the way to
1:59:05
Speaker 2: support the quarterback is to get him receivers, get him
1:59:08
Speaker 2: offensive line, build up the offense. It also doesn't hurt
1:59:12
Speaker 2: to make sure that the defense isn't given up thirty.
1:59:14
Speaker 2: It doesn't hurt, right, Like if he has to go
1:59:16
Speaker 2: out there and he has to score twenty four a
1:59:18
Speaker 2: game to win ten games. Then that also helps a lot.
1:59:22
Speaker 2: Like you look at what Kansas City is doing right,
1:59:25
Speaker 2: Like they're nine to one because Patrick Mahomes has to
1:59:27
Speaker 2: make like two plays at the end of the game
1:59:29
Speaker 2: to win them half of these games like that, that's
1:59:32
Speaker 2: how they've gotten here. So it doesn't hurt to have
1:59:35
Speaker 2: a good defense too. Like that helps a young quarterback
1:59:37
Speaker 2: as well, when he doesn't have to go out there
1:59:38
Speaker 2: and score thirty five to win the football. It does.
1:59:41
Speaker 2: And look, you know me, I'm the defense guy. Like
1:59:42
Speaker 2: I'm one hundred percent with you on that, but normally
1:59:44
Speaker 2: I'm the offensive guys. Right, you know, we've kind of
1:59:46
Speaker 2: flipped here. I would just say, like, because the defense
1:59:49
Speaker 2: just doesn't stop anybody younger quarterback, younger quarterback, you want
1:59:53
Speaker 2: to give him the pieces to absolute absolutely. I just
1:59:57
Speaker 2: think that there are a couple of pieces away on offense.
1:59:59
Speaker 2: I think defensively is starting to get a little bit tenuous.
2:00:01
Speaker 2: That's all really quickly, and then we really do have
2:00:05
Speaker 2: to wrap. We talked to little Dolphins. I don't love
2:00:08
Speaker 2: this matchup on the on paper for the Patriots this week.
2:00:11
Speaker 2: Not only is Miami just not a great place for
2:00:14
Speaker 2: them normally, but I just don't really see a path
2:00:18
Speaker 2: for them to a stop the Dolphins offense consistently and
2:00:22
Speaker 2: then be outscore the Dolphins offense the other side of
2:00:26
Speaker 2: the football. I'm trying to find a path for victory
2:00:30
Speaker 2: in this game. I do every week, I even if
2:00:32
Speaker 2: for three and eight, right, And I'm gonna try to
2:00:35
Speaker 2: talk myself into this is how they can win this game.
2:00:38
Speaker 2: The only way that I see that they can win
2:00:40
Speaker 2: this game is they have to play one of those
2:00:43
Speaker 2: clean time of possession type of games. Like it's gonna
2:00:47
Speaker 2: have to be they did that last week. It's gonna happen.
2:00:49
Speaker 2: I know, it's gonna have to be boring, right, Like
2:00:53
Speaker 2: it's gonna have to be twenty to seventeen or seventeen
2:00:56
Speaker 2: fourteen or something along those lines. And uh, that's not
2:01:00
Speaker 2: the thirty five to thirty shootout that we all would
2:01:03
Speaker 2: kind of like to see, I would assume with Drake May.
2:01:05
Speaker 2: But that's where I'm sort of at with this game.
2:01:07
Speaker 2: What's your statement on Jersey Mikes. So this is my
2:01:11
Speaker 2: statement on Jersey Mikes. My fear with the great Jersey
2:01:16
Speaker 2: Mikes is that you're no longer gonna be a sub above.
2:01:20
Speaker 2: You're gonna just be like every other sub. You are
2:01:22
Speaker 2: just gonna be a sub. The reason why I love
2:01:26
Speaker 2: Jersey Mikes is because Jersey Mikes has a sub above
2:01:31
Speaker 2: the rest. Okay, this is gonna be corporate America for them.
2:01:37
Speaker 2: Corporate America here we come right, Here comes the hedge fund,
2:01:41
Speaker 2: here comes the freaking capitalism people to ruin my sandwich chain,
2:01:48
Speaker 2: and I am very upset a Kramer and buy yourself
2:01:51
Speaker 2: a meat slicer Deli slicer Ma because they're I'm gonna
2:01:54
Speaker 2: slice my arm off, Alex. That's really that's a really
2:01:57
Speaker 2: hard to use. They're not easy. They're not as hard
2:01:59
Speaker 2: to use. All I'm saying to you to whoever bought
2:02:02
Speaker 2: Jersey Mikes, do not ruin the product. That's what corporate
2:02:06
Speaker 2: America does. You come in, you ruin the product. Equity
2:02:10
Speaker 2: firm Blackstone.
2:02:12
Speaker 3: That sounds horrible, Okay, but wait, are they the ones
2:02:14
Speaker 3: behind Blackstone grills?
2:02:15
Speaker 2: Because if they are, they know food? Because those black
2:02:18
Speaker 2: I am very upsets called Blackstone. What's that girl called?
2:02:21
Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about? So like the Flatsop,
2:02:23
Speaker 2: those things are the other thing about Jersey Mikes that
2:02:26
Speaker 2: that I I I yeah, Blackstone grill, those things. Okay.
2:02:29
Speaker 2: The other thing about jerseys is that this is I
2:02:33
Speaker 2: didn't expect to do that whole philosophical thing. I thought
2:02:35
Speaker 2: you were just gonna do this part. This is a
2:02:36
Speaker 2: this is the first world problem, I fully admit. But
2:02:39
Speaker 2: I travel a lot for work, right, So I'm in
2:02:42
Speaker 2: different cities. I'm popping around a lot during football season,
2:02:45
Speaker 2: and I can always count on whether I'm here, whether
2:02:49
Speaker 2: I'm in Miami, whether I'm in Chicago, whether I'm in Arizona,
2:02:54
Speaker 2: whether I'm in Buffalo, wherever i am in the country,
2:02:57
Speaker 2: I can get a jersey Mikes number seven and have
2:03:01
Speaker 2: and know what I'm getting myself into, right, And that
2:03:04
Speaker 2: is very key for me. I'm a I'm a person,
2:03:06
Speaker 2: I'm a creature of habit and the fact that I
2:03:09
Speaker 2: might have to now figure out a different subplace to
2:03:12
Speaker 2: get my sandwich from for game day that really has
2:03:15
Speaker 2: me stressed out. Alex. I'm not gonna lie it's stressing
2:03:18
Speaker 2: me out. I'm sure you'll find another sandwich. I don't
2:03:20
Speaker 2: know if I'm going to. I think I'm not going to.
2:03:22
Speaker 2: You just can not eat on game days. I didn't
2:03:24
Speaker 2: say that. I just said that now I'm gonna have
2:03:25
Speaker 2: to go local, and then I'm gonna have to like
2:03:27
Speaker 2: Google in which places are always like I love good
2:03:31
Speaker 2: local sandwich place. There's one sandwich place, local sub pizza
2:03:33
Speaker 2: place usually, so I agree, Like we're big good good
2:03:37
Speaker 2: food store people are probably gonna go tomorrow. But like
2:03:40
Speaker 2: I know about good food store because I live here, right, Like,
2:03:43
Speaker 2: how am I going to find the local sub establishment
2:03:47
Speaker 2: in Buffalo, New York? Like maybe my people, my friends
2:03:51
Speaker 2: in Buffalo can help me out with Maybe this becomes
2:03:53
Speaker 2: a thing.
2:03:53
Speaker 3: Maybe on on social media each week you are on
2:03:55
Speaker 3: the road, like where should I get my sandwich?
2:03:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is gonna be brutal because they're gonna
2:03:58
Speaker 2: ruin Jersey mice so tough. I hate it. I hate
2:04:02
Speaker 2: I hate corporate America. Sometimes speaking of America, Massachusetts is
2:04:07
Speaker 2: made for everyone, for leaf peepers, corn maze strollers. That's
2:04:17
Speaker 2: just such an amazing transition. I'm sorry, I have to
2:04:21
Speaker 2: do the read. Do the read. Massachusetts is made for everyone,
2:04:24
Speaker 2: for leaf peepers, corn maze strollers, were gotta lovers, pumpkin pickers,
2:04:28
Speaker 2: and anyone else you can think of. Come where there's
2:04:31
Speaker 2: something for I still think you're gonna to have macro
2:04:34
Speaker 2: with it, like I just thought you were gonna do things. Massachusetts,
2:04:38
Speaker 2: where everything is made possible. Plan your trip to visit
2:04:42
Speaker 2: M dot com dot com. I always think it's Org,
2:04:44
Speaker 2: but it's dot com. It's VISITM dot com. Easy to drink,
2:04:48
Speaker 2: easy to enjoy. Bud Light, the official beer sponsor of
2:04:51
Speaker 2: the New England Patriots. We will talk to you next
2:04:54
Speaker 2: week Tuesday. Next week Tuesday at four pm here for
2:04:57
Speaker 2: Catch twenty two and we'll see you guys then bye.
2:05:01
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