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OPPOSITION TERRITORY: New England Patriots · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

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Hey there, folks, it's Jeff. I wanted to let you know we've
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recorded this podcast episode on Tuesday, June eighteenth, twenty twenty four. So
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by the time you hear this, some things may have changed here or there
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with this Opposition Territory podcast, but we hope you enjoy the show. Welcome
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to Opposition Territory here at the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest running
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weekly Philly sports podcast show in the world eleven years strong. But we got
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a great discussion coming your way here on Opposition Territory. If you are new
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to listening to the PST podcast platform. Every week we do an Opposition Territory
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podcast where we get into another team within the sports world. Sometimes they are
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teams that arrivals of our beloved Philly sports teams. Sometimes they're teams that we
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really want to just hone in on what their organization and what their team is
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specifically doing. But this week we're gonna getting into the new England Patriots,
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a team I think that is very interesting as this NFL season is upon us,
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a new era and a new direction for the Patriots is upon us.
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What are they going to do in the future. We got a great discussion,
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Let's get right to it. Joining us this week from musketfire dot com.
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We love having her on to talk about the New England Patriots and what
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is happening with this team, especially during this offseason. Again, she's from
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musketfire dot com, great fan nation site that we love. We've got the
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one and only Sarah Marshall. How you doing, Sarah, I'm great.
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How are you? I am doing all right? I'm really excited for the
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football season to start here. Look, I love baseball, I love basketball.
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I know you're a Celtics fan. Congratulations to you on the Celtics taking
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the NBA championship. But I just need some football my life at this point
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because the offseason football stuff that we see going on, it's just not getting
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it done for me, I know. And now we're entering like the dead
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part where nothing's happening for another month or so. But I guess that kind
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of gives us a little bit of a refresh where we're like, Okay,
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the teams are, you know, where they're going through all their changes and
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whatnot, but we kind of know what they're doing. So now we can
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get more excited for training camp, absolutely, and we can kind of sit
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back a bit reflect on our off seasons, you know, whether it's with
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me with Philadelphia Eagles, you New England Patriots. And that's where I wanted
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to start our conversation. Actually, it's a great segue because we've seen some
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changes on this Patriots team during the course of this off season, both from
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an offensive standpoint, defensive standpoint as well. So I'm wondering, Sarah,
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what grade would you give the Patriots front office for the moves that they made
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during the off season as we look towards, you know, what the future
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of this franchise looks like, you know, both from a free agency standpoint
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and from an NFL draft standpoint kind of combined. So what grade would you
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give the Patriots front office? And why? So? I am going to
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probably be in the minority here, and I'm going to give the Patriots a
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solid be Okay. I know that a lot of people probably don't agree.
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A lot of Patriots fans will not agree with me. I'm used to that.
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There's a lot of Patriots fans that are downtrodden. Right now. I
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don't get it, because this is the thing, when you look at what
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we needed heading into the off season, we needed a quarterback. We needed
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to address the offensive line. We needed to address the receiving corps. They
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did that in free agency, they did that in the draft. We got
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Drake may Hello, you know, the third overall pick. Joe Milton too.
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He's kind of up and down, erratic type of quarterback, has a
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lot of opinions about him. But I think it's very exciting. I was
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shocked that they did that. Totally fine with it, though. They also
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addressed the offensive line in free agency and the draft. They double dipped at
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the offensive line in the in the draft, and they did the same thing
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with the receivers. They got Javon Baker and Jalen Polk in the draft.
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They also signed kJ Osborne. So none of them are needle movers. And
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that's kind of why I dock them a little bit because I think that,
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you know, they didn't get a solid left tackle option, which is a
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big hole on the roster with Trent Brown now with the Bengals, and then
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they didn't get the big name, flashy wide receiver one that they needed.
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We know that they tried to get Kelvin Ridley that didn't work. They didn't
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try to go for a blockbuster trade that everybody wanted, and so I think
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that might be something that comes back to bite them. But I do feel
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like the team is in a better position than people are giving them credit for.
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Do I think they're going to be competitive this year? Absolutely not,
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Okay, But I do think that they're going to be better than people saying
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they're going to get three wins. I just don't see that happening. Okay,
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But yeah, I would say a big, solid be solid bee.
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Okay, solid bee. Well, we're going to get the competitiveness of this
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Patriots team as our conversation goes on a little further and toward the end of
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our discussion here, but I guess, you know, to talk about the
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leadership of this team. You know, as we know Drod Mayo's been hired
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as the head coach. It's going to be a fascinating storyline in my opinion,
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to see the potential culture change and just the shift with Mayo leading the
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charge here. Sarah, So, I'm wondering what's the conventional wisdom around Drad
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Mayo's leadership style, how he may be able to bring the team, you
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know, back to that potential winning culture down the road like you said maybe
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this year not as competitive, but what that possibly looks like down the road
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with a culture that he instills within the Patriots organization and this team overall,
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What does that look like to you? I think it's he's in a unique
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situation and he's a unique option, I would say, because he's a former
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player, and not just because he's a former player. He's a former player
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for the Patriots. He played under Bill Belichick and then coached alongside Bill Belichick,
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so he has like the best of everything right there. Like you couldn't
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dream of a better scenario for you learning how to be a coach. But
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I think he comes off more as as a player's coach, which is going
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to be quite a change in New England because you know, players loved Bill
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Belichick if they had been there for a long time. Obviously there are the
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few people that came in and left and had wanted nothing to do with him.
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But I do think that is a huge marketable feature of Mayo, and
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you've already seen that the players are buying into it. They've been talking about
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it for the last two years, about how much they would love to play
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for him, that they would run through a brick Wall for him, like
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he's their guy. So I think that's a good sign for the future because
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the players are buying in, buying in now, and they're ready to compete
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and like be the player that Mayo needs them to be now and in the
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future. The only iffy part, of course, is that when you look
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back historically throughout the NFL, players coaches can be really great or that can
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be their demise. So I think that, as I said, Mayo has
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the benefit of being a disciple of Belichick, so that has the foundation of
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the Patriot Way, whatever that might be now, so he knows the good
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and the bad of that, and then he understands what it's like to be
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a player, so he's more understanding. He is very aware of what it's
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like to be a player and those expectations, and he's a little bit more
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lenient and more there for the players, and so I think that's going to
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take them a long long way. I've always been a fan of players who
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become head coaches. You look at what Damiko Ryans has done down in Houston,
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and one of the reasons I like that in terms of where a team
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is going to go from a not just a productivity standpoint, but from a
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relationship standpoint. We've been talking on this podcast platform now for many years about
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how relationships are so critical with regard to the coaching staff and with regard to
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the players on the field. If you don't have a good relationship, I
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don't care what talent you have out there. I don't care what the talent
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level is on the field, the ice, the court, I don't care
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what it is. If you don't have solid relationships with coaches and players,
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it's not going to manifest itself into wins at the end of the day.
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It's not going to do that at all. And I think when you have
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a former player that is at the helm, it is that much I don't
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even say easier, but just the understanding of what players are going through on
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a day to day basis within their lives. Being able to make that connection
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is so very critical when it comes to how a team is going to create
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and generate that culture. So, as we're moving along here, I just
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wanted to throw my two cents in there. But as we're moving along here,
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I wanted to get into the quarterback situation with you, Sarah, because
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Jacoby Brissett is now coming back to the team. As you mentioned, Drake
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May was drafted just a couple months ago. The organization obviously sees Drake May
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as being the future. But I'm wondering, how do you see the quarterback
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position really taking shape this season from a short term perspective and even also from
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a long term perspective potentially, you know, years down the road. I
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mean, it's a scenario where Drake May. Is it a scenario I should
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say, where he learns from Jacoby Brissett perhaps for a year or so,
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you know, he studies the game, he then takes over What are your
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thoughts here about how this really does play out short term long term? So
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I think the plan was they knew that they were going to be taking a
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quarterback, so I think that's a big reason why they brought Jacoby Brissett in.
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I think he was one of the better options that they had for veteran
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free agent quarterbacks and someone who's familiar with the system. You know, he's
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done well when he was with the Browns with Alex van Pelt, the new
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offensive coordinator in New England, so that seemed like a great parent. Yeah,
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I do think he was brought in to be the starter no matter who
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they drafted, and I think that's still what it is. I mean,
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that's what they're saying. But I think that we need to buy into that
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a little bit more because the Patriots have one of the hardest schedules in the
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entire league for the twenty twenty four season, which does not bode well for
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a rookie quarterback leading a team that's in the midst of a of a rebuild.
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Yes, so you know, Drake May has looked great so far in
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spring practices, but it's just spring practices, so you can like take that
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for what it is or what it's not. However, so you know,
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it's not an easy division to come into. The AFC East is no longer
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a joke division to most people. But at the same time, you know,
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there's a lot of benefits to sitting a quarterback for a year. We
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saw it with like look at Patrick Mahomes, the talent that they were keeping
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on the bench under Alex Smith, Like we see, I'm not saying he's
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going to be Drake May's gonna be the next Patrick Mahomes. What we're just
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saying, like an example of you know, success in that area look at
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Jalen Hurts. Look at Jalen Hurts. He's said, yeah, yeah,
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exactly. So I would say that Brissette is the starter unless for somehow,
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you know, May is able to just be an absolute star in the summer
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and through the preseason that they would just be a fool to sit him.
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But I think we're either going to get a full season of Jacoby Brissett,
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which I'm fine with, or maybe we'll get to the point where, obviously
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the Patriots are out of the playoff contention, whatever that might be. Whenever
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that might be, maybe they'll have May start later in the season just to
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get him some reps as a rookie. But I'm on board with that,
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Like I would rather Briset be the guy this year. May learn and become
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as good as he can be so that we can avoid the mac Jones situation
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as much as possible, because he might have benefited from sitting a year,
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you know, and I don't want that. Yeah, yes, yeah,
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so I want to avoid that as much as possible. And if sitting May
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for a year is it, then I'm completely okay with that. And I
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think, you know, as we look at this offense, there's just so
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many unknowns when it comes to what we're going to see. I mean,
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it's not just necessarily with the quarterback position. You talked about the left cat
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tackle position and how there's some uncertainty there about where the talent's going to go
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with regard to that position on the offensive line. You know, I also
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wonder from a receiving standpoint. You mentioned the receivers that were brought in during
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free agency not necessarily going to move the needle in a big, big way,
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But I wonder how the receiving and the rushing attack is going to play
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out in terms of its balance over this next to football season. Here in
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your opinion, Sarah, what is going to set the tone for the offense
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this coming season? What are your thoughts. I assume they're probably going to
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go a lot of the backfield. They have Ramanderie Stevenson for a reason.
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They brought in Antonio Gibson, and I think he's a little bit under the
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radar, like fantastic signing for them, I think I think so too.
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Yeah, yeah, And I think you know, he was never a big
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flashy name with the Commanders, but we did see him have a one thousand
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yard season and he's great as an option in the receiving game as well,
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so that's you know, the bread butter of the Patriots offense right there.
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So I do think we're gonna see a lot of the ground game. But
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then we also have Damario Douglas, who popped off hard in the pun because
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we call him Pop Douglas here last year, and then Kendrick Bourne as long
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as he's healthy. He was on his way to having the best season of
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his career again last year, which he's already done with the Patriots in twenty
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twenty one. So I think we're gonna see a mixture of that. But
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I do think there's a new attitude from the receivers this year, and they're
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definitely adapting to this new mindset and wanting to prove everybody wrong. So I
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think that's going to take them a long way, because you know, that
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can be fuel for anybody being the underdog and being doubted. That's something that
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the Patriots have always thrived on, which is an ironic situation given who they've
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had leading their team with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, but you know that's
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been the case. So yeah, I would say the ground game, but
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I think we're going to see some good seasons from Douglas and Born for sure.
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Again, folks, we're talking to Sarah Marshall from fansideds musketfire dot com.
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Check out what she and her colleagues are doing over there, fantastic website
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if you want to get some details on what's going on with the New England
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Patriots. On the flip side of the offense, of course, we have
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the defense, and I also wonder what is going to set the tone Sarah,
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for what the defense is going to look like this coming season. Look
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last season in twenty twenty three, the Patriots defense, they had continuity,
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They played tremendous football. I think overall, very underrated unit within the NFL
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and the defense and offense at this point, as we're talking about here,
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and just as I've read as well, they're on two totally different planes of
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existence at this point, so separated in terms of talent level, productivity,
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and again continuity as well. How do you think the defense can really set
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the tone as well, perhaps maybe even for the offense this coming season.
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I mean, what are you going to be looking at overall when it comes
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to the defense setting the tone this season? So I think that there was
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a lot of tension last year between the defense and the offense. It was,
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It's been reported multiple times, and we know, yeah, and obviously
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it was because the offense wasn't pulling their weight, and you could argue that
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the defense was pulling all of the weight. I mean that they were doing
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so much to try and keep them in games and it just wasn't working.
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That's exactly yeah. So I think that the offense is going to want to
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try and equal that out a bit more, and I think that they have
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the pieces in place to attempt to do that. I can't say that they
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will because I don't know yet, but I do think that the defense is
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going to remain the better side of the team anyway, will likely be led
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by guys like Matthew Judon, who's very amped to be back, Christian Barmar
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who just got a massive extension this offseason. So they're going to want to
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play hard for Mayo. But I'm going to be looking for that consistency to
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stay because nearly every piece that they had last year is still with the team.
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They lost a couple guys like in the secondary, but nothing that is
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going to be a massive loss. Really, So what I really want to
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see is guys stepping up to match or at least be in the same stratosphere
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of production of Judon because once he went down in Week four with that season
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ending injury, the past rush basically fell off. There was almost none until
16:26
later in the year, and that's when Barmore came alive. But we need
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to see Judon not be the sole reason why the defense is really doing anything.
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We know that there are a bunch of mobile quarterbacks in the AFC East,
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but especially in the AFC, and we can't have Judon being the only
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one being a point of attack, like you can't do that. So I
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want to see guys like Joshua Ooja step up. I want to see him
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repeat his twenty twenty two season because he kind of fell off last year.
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I want to see more from Barmore. I want to see Keon White have
16:56
a second year jump. So I really think that they just need to build
17:02
on what they did last year, maintain what they did last year, and
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build upon that. I think that's I think that's some good analysis right there,
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folks. And as we are getting ready to end our discussion here,
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Sarah I wanted to get into some divisional talk here. You've mentioned the AFC
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East a couple times here. It's going to be an interesting division. Of
17:19
course, lots of the analysts believe that the Jets are going to make some
17:22
big time strides if Aaron Rodgers does stay healthy. The Dolphins have some high
17:27
powered weapons as well. In the Bills, they have a pretty darn good
17:30
quarterback as well, but most feel like they've kind of taken some steps back
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with their roster this offseason. How do you see the AFC East taking shape
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this coming year as it pertains to the Patriots and some of these other teams.
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Maybe some things that you're going to be looking out for. So I
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might get some backlash for my take on the Jets, but I think that
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the division isn't going to be as much of a fight as people are saying
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it's not to be. I think that it's going to be a little bit
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close, sir, probably between the Bills and maybe the Jets are the Dolphins.
18:03
I think the Jets and Dolphins are obviously going to compete for number two.
18:07
But I think the Jets are packed with talent, but people are kind
18:11
of over estimating how much they're going to be getting from Aaron Rodgers, right
18:15
right, yeah, saying it's yeah. He took four snaps with the Jets
18:22
last year before tearing his achilles. He's coming into the season as forty years
18:26
old. It's a serious injury that impacts quarterbacks, especially their mobility. So
18:30
I think people are kind of overlooking that. And on top of the fact
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that he's forty years old and we haven't seen him play a full game with
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this new team, and this is the first time in his entire career that
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he is with a brand new team, a brand new coach, like that's
18:45
a lot to change at this stage in his career, and no offense,
18:48
but he's not Tom Brady, So I just I don't know about that.
18:52
I think the Dolphins, at the end of the day, their success rests
18:57
on the shoulders of Tua. Tua can be erratic, but if he's on,
19:02
then they're going to be good because they're stacked on offense and defense.
19:04
But if two was not good, they're not doing anything. I think the
19:08
Bills are definitely going to be taking a step back. Some of that might
19:11
be wishful thinking, but Josh Allen didn't really come alive as a quarterback until
19:17
he got Stefan Diggs. Step On Diggs is gone, so they also let
19:21
go of Gabriel Davis. That's a guy that was becoming his go to on
19:26
offense as well. So I think that you know, they added a guy
19:30
like key On Coleman, but he is a rookie. We don't know how
19:33
that's going to go. I think that it's gonna be a little bit more
19:37
of a challenge this year for the Bills, and there's gonna be a lot
19:41
of pressure on the Bills because they were in their championship window, you know,
19:45
the past few years, because they had stacked their team. They went
19:48
all in and they didn't win anything. Sean McDermott is probably on the hot
19:52
seat this year if he doesn't get anything done this year. I wouldn't be
19:55
surprised if they asks him. So, you know, all that's great,
20:00
but I think the Patriots are just going to surprise some people. I don't
20:02
think that they're going to be competitive this year, and I think for the
20:04
most part, Patriots fans are fine with that because they're in the middle of
20:07
a rebuild. I'd rather than be mediocre right now as they're trying to build
20:11
the team to be competitive than actually be trying to be competitive, and they
20:15
don't have all of the pieces to sustain that more than this year. So
20:21
yeah, I think the AFC's is going to be a division to watch,
20:25
but I don't know that it's going to be as much of, you know,
20:26
a fireworks division, like people are trying to say, you know,
20:32
everything runs through the Chiefs. Yes, so you know, as long as
20:36
another AFC team comes about and kind of give them actual competition to the Chiefs,
20:41
then I'm all for it. I don't care if that's even the Jets,
20:44
just like do something right to knock them off their throne, you know.
20:48
Again, folks, Sarah Marshall find her on Twitter slash x at s
20:53
marsh xo. She's a great, great follow and again must get fired dot
20:57
com. She's doing great work over there, and really quick. I know
21:00
you do a lot of WWF or WWF dear Lord, WWE content. Rea,
21:06
Seriously, I don't know how and why it got to the point,
21:07
but my face, my dumb Facebook feed is like full of like WWF content.
21:11
Like I'm talking WWF content from back when I was going to the Philadelphia
21:15
Spectrum with my dad as a kid watching events on a monthly basis. I
21:21
don't know how the heck this happened, but anyway, WWE content creator,
21:25
let folks know where they can follow you out there with regard to the WWE
21:27
content that you're creating. So I have a YouTube channel with my friend.
21:33
I don't know if you you might still be able to search my name and
21:36
find me that way, but the show is called No Nights Off. You
21:38
can also search Pitts and Sarah's wrestling show. But yeah, we stream three
21:42
times a week talk about everything from WWEAWTNA, so if you're interested, you
21:48
should go check it out. Sarah was great having you on our Opposition Territory
21:52
podcast this week. I'd love to talk more Patriots with you in the future.
21:56
Come back and join us down the road, my friend. Yeah,
21:59
I'd love to thank you. That's going to do it for us here on
22:03
Opposition Territory this week. Please share our podcast with your friends and family members
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