Speaker 1: This is the Patriots Catch twenty two Podcasts with Evan
Speaker 1: Lazar and Alex Barth. I'm Lazar La. Everybody nailed it,
Speaker 1: joined us always buy our match. Here is Evan Lazar
Speaker 1: and Alex BArch. If you've decided based off of this
Speaker 1: season that Mac Jones is not the guy you don't
Speaker 1: know football. You don't know football, You're more sorry, you're dumb. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's the first time I heard that back since I
Speaker 1: went off last week about that, and I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1: The internet loved that. I know some people were a
Speaker 1: little bit angry with me. That's okay. That was that.
Speaker 1: I knew that was coming, and I do want to
Speaker 1: mention right off the top, Evan Lazar, Alex Barth with
Speaker 1: you as always excuse me. It does seem a little
Speaker 1: trivial right now talking about football. Yeah, it does. And
Speaker 1: we're very well aware that Alex is going to read
Speaker 1: off an update. Was it from the Bills? So we
Speaker 1: got we got two updates. I'll just get right into
Speaker 1: it here. So first off, it's probably about five maybe
Speaker 1: ten minutes ago. Kairie Elam, who's a corner yes for
Speaker 1: the Bills, a rookie corner tweeted, our boy is doing better,
Speaker 1: awake and showing more signs of improvement. Thank you God,
Speaker 1: keep the prayers coming. All of three and then that
Speaker 1: was three being Damar Hamlin's number, right, And then that
Speaker 1: was followed by an update from the Bills this literally
Speaker 1: as we as the open was playing. Per the physicians
Speaker 1: caring for Damarrow Hamlin at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center,
Speaker 1: Damar has shown remarkable improvement over the past twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: While still critically ill, he's demonstrated that he appears to
Speaker 1: be neurologically intact, his lungs continue to heal, and he
Speaker 1: is making steady progress. We are grateful for all the
Speaker 1: love and support we have received. So fantastic news right,
Speaker 1: not sounds like maybe not out of the woods yet,
Speaker 1: but certainly I think this is the first big update
Speaker 1: we were all waiting for and certainly could be a
Speaker 1: lot worse. Right, So, it sounds like things are trending
Speaker 1: into I'm not a medical professional, but it sounds like
Speaker 1: things are trending in the right direction, which I think
Speaker 1: is all you can pretty much ask for at this point. Right.
Speaker 1: And Adam Schefter this morning also tweeted that Damar Hamlin's
Speaker 1: father actually addressed the team and gave an updated I
Speaker 1: think it was actually last night that they gave that yea,
Speaker 1: but that the general feeling and the building from the
Speaker 1: team standpoint was that they heard a lot of encouraging
Speaker 1: things that made them feel better about moving forward and
Speaker 1: made them feel better about the situation as much as
Speaker 1: you possibly can. So we have to talk about it
Speaker 1: because we can't talk about football without that being in
Speaker 1: our minds to a degree. And it's just it's hard
Speaker 1: because we all love the game. We all love covering
Speaker 1: the game, Alex and I and watching it as fans,
Speaker 1: and this is always the fear, right Like, there's always
Speaker 1: that fear that somebody's gonna get hit in a football
Speaker 1: game and he's not going to get back up. And
Speaker 1: we haven't really seen this in our lifetime. I know
Speaker 1: it's it's happened, you know, at some point in the
Speaker 1: history of the NFL. But in today's day and age,
Speaker 1: where there's a million ESPN cameras, there's social media, there's
Speaker 1: all these different things, this thing, obviously is is tough
Speaker 1: to see. And I hope that the Bills are given
Speaker 1: the leeway from the NFL that if they decide as
Speaker 1: a team that they're just not ready to play this
Speaker 1: game on Sunday from a mental health standpoint in which
Speaker 1: not to obviously Damar Hamlin's health is the number one
Speaker 1: thing that we have to think about, but number two
Speaker 1: to that, I would also just mention the mental health
Speaker 1: of the players and his teammates, right and the players
Speaker 1: on the bank side of things too, that just witnessed
Speaker 1: what happened on Monday night, and that's important too. So
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of those angles. Obviously, our
Speaker 1: our thoughts and prayers are with Damar Hamlin, and uh
Speaker 1: it's glad. I'm so glad to hear that he's starting
Speaker 1: to pull out of this and hopefully doesn't have any
Speaker 1: long term damage from all this. With that being said,
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about football because that's what
Speaker 1: we do and that's what we're gonna do. I have
Speaker 1: to move here, we go, Okay, all right, there, we
Speaker 1: got the video here today we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about football. And I'm going to admit before we move
Speaker 1: on here from the Damar Hamlin stuff. Getting fired up
Speaker 1: about this is gonna is feel silly to me at
Speaker 1: this point. It does, but that's what we do, and
Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna do. So you can call in
Speaker 1: and join the show here at five five PATS five hundred,
Speaker 1: web radio at Patriots dot Com is the email as
Speaker 1: you all probably we know at this point. And uh,
Speaker 1: I want to start with the quarterback, because that's where
Speaker 1: we always start. I want to start with the offense,
Speaker 1: though as a whole, in the quarterback as a secondary
Speaker 1: to that obviously, because that's what we do. We get
Speaker 1: fired up about people that that can that that are
Speaker 1: I mean the clip in the open set it all right, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't want to I don't want to go
Speaker 1: on that whole rant again, but I still go back
Speaker 1: to it. When it comes to Mac Jones, can someone
Speaker 1: offer a real critique of his game? Like? Can we
Speaker 1: can we talk about a real critique you're talking about
Speaker 1: the specifically the performance on Sunday? Sure, yeah, the performance
Speaker 1: on Sunday in particular, because that's what's the newest information
Speaker 1: we have. But can can we talk about a real
Speaker 1: critique of the film of his of his game? Because
Speaker 1: everything that I hear or tend to hear, I guess
Speaker 1: I should say about Mac Jones is related to his
Speaker 1: body language. How he looks. Oh he's whiny baby, Oh
Speaker 1: he's he has he's a noodle. Army has no zip
Speaker 1: on his throws. He's missing open receipt. Like I don't
Speaker 1: hear I hear all these absolutes, right, like all these
Speaker 1: dramatic the Patriots offense sticks. We know the Patriots offense
Speaker 1: isn't good. We know they don't score points. Do you
Speaker 1: know who also doesn't have a good offense? The Chicago Bears.
Speaker 1: Do I hear any of these things about Justin Fields? Right?
Speaker 1: Everybody loves Justin Fields, and I love Justin Fields. I
Speaker 1: love watching Justin Fields. But Justin Fields flat out looks
Speaker 1: better playing football. He's got a big arm, he's athletic,
Speaker 1: he runs right, he does all these other things that
Speaker 1: add to just playing quarterback. And the Bears offense is
Speaker 1: the Patriots are twenty sixth and DV away, the Bears
Speaker 1: are twenty seven Like they're both right there in the basement, right,
Speaker 1: So all this other stuff, And I know he went
Speaker 1: on your rival station, Alex Boomer assiasin like coming out
Speaker 1: and saying, I don't remember the exact word that he
Speaker 1: used off the top of my head. Maybe you do.
Speaker 1: About Mac Jones on I think it was Monday talks
Speaker 1: about the aesthetic and look, I think there's something to
Speaker 1: that if you go so when you have all the
Speaker 1: team pictures, I don't know about you. Yeah, when I'm
Speaker 1: posting a article on ninety five sports ub dot com, right,
Speaker 1: and I need to find a picture to use, Yeah,
Speaker 1: go on getty dot com and I type in mac
Speaker 1: Jones and it just gives me a bunch of pictures
Speaker 1: in mac Jones. He doesn't photographed well on a football
Speaker 1: field like that, just doesn't doesn't look when he and
Speaker 1: when it goes bad for him, it looks even worse, right,
Speaker 1: like when when he's not playing well. And I would
Speaker 1: even say when he throws the ball, like he kind
Speaker 1: of makes weird face. And he's not the first quarterback
Speaker 1: to do that. You know who else doesn't like Justin Herbert? Yeah,
Speaker 1: go look at pictures of Justin Herbert and look at
Speaker 1: his face when he's throwing the football. Um that that
Speaker 1: impacts the way people think about him. It's stupid, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but um yeah, it's just it's it's like it almost
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of and you're gonna hate this,
Speaker 1: but I don't care. Remember it was earlier this year
Speaker 1: somebody flipped the video of Tua, so we saw what
Speaker 1: he looked like during righty, and everybody's like, wow, he
Speaker 1: looks like completely different quarterback right right. It's just the
Speaker 1: aesthetic of it, right, And I think that that's what
Speaker 1: why I get so triggered by it is because I
Speaker 1: don't give a crap, right Like, I know, are not
Speaker 1: a guy for aesthetics, You are not. I don't care
Speaker 1: what he looks like. I don't care about his mannerisms.
Speaker 1: I don't care about the sideline. I don't care about
Speaker 1: how he runs off the field after they don't convert
Speaker 1: another third down, because we've seen that a ton this year.
Speaker 1: I do not care. What does the film tell us.
Speaker 1: Is he making the right decisions with the football? Is
Speaker 1: he accurate with the football? Is he getting the ball
Speaker 1: into tight windows down the field? Is he making those
Speaker 1: down the field throws? Is he a trigger shy or
Speaker 1: is he willing to push it down the field? Like
Speaker 1: all these things, I care so much more about his
Speaker 1: body language, the way he carries himself, the way he
Speaker 1: looks and when he makes a throw. I just this
Speaker 1: type of stuff to me bugs me because it's it's
Speaker 1: not it's not that's not actually football, right, Like it's
Speaker 1: not football. This is just I don't like the guy.
Speaker 1: And if you don't like the guy, and I've been
Speaker 1: saying this for weeks now because I feel like this
Speaker 1: has been brewing for a while. If you don't like
Speaker 1: the guy, I can't convince you to like him, like
Speaker 1: I can't convince you to want to to like his
Speaker 1: aesthetic or like his swagger or lack thereof, or like
Speaker 1: his playing style, like I can't convince you otherwise. But
Speaker 1: what I want to get into is what actually he
Speaker 1: is putting on tape, the actual football of it, not
Speaker 1: all the other body language doctor krap so he I
Speaker 1: want to give a legitimate critique because I think people
Speaker 1: think that I'm you know, I'm a mac apologist and whatever. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't care, but I want to give a legitimate
Speaker 1: I'm proud you've gotten this far by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we went from not wanting to take him until like
Speaker 1: the third round too. Now, maybe being more of a
Speaker 1: macapologist I might have been. I might have been writing
Speaker 1: my initial instinct on this one. Uh. I want to
Speaker 1: give all a gym make critique. So if I told you, Alex.
Speaker 1: I looked this up the other day, and I was
Speaker 1: looking it up for the Buffalo Bills, and what I
Speaker 1: found out was actually astonishing, so astonishing to me that
Speaker 1: I looked it up again. I ran the Pro Football
Speaker 1: Reference search again to make sure that it wasn't like
Speaker 1: a bug or something like that in the system. The
Speaker 1: number one team in the league and producing what explosive plays, right,
Speaker 1: plays with twenty plus yards the Kansas City Chiefs. Sure
Speaker 1: not a surprise. Patrick Mahomes will do that. He They
Speaker 1: by far and away lead the league. They have forty
Speaker 1: nine of them. It's eight more than second place. I
Speaker 1: guess who's in second place, The Patriots. The Patriots. So
Speaker 1: when I saw that, and I'm not sitting here saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the Patriots actually have a secretly great offense because they
Speaker 1: produced twenty plus yard plays. But when I saw that,
Speaker 1: I did a devil taken. I was like, I would
Speaker 1: not have guessed that. I would not have guessed that.
Speaker 1: And I think what we've gotten to the point with
Speaker 1: this offense with the quarterback, which I'll get to in
Speaker 1: a second as well, is that they have the ability
Speaker 1: to create chunk plays. They have the ability to throw
Speaker 1: the ball down the field, and they have the ability
Speaker 1: to have these moments where you're like, wow, that was
Speaker 1: a good play, right. You know, Kendrick Bourne and Mac
Speaker 1: Jones in the second half in Cincinnati, the opening drive,
Speaker 1: they hit Taekwon Thorton down the sideline, he hits Hunter
Speaker 1: Henry on third down. Right, they have the ability to
Speaker 1: have these flashes, to have these moments, to have these
Speaker 1: high level downfield throws, and they rank near the top
Speaker 1: of the league in explosive plays. They rank near the
Speaker 1: top of the league. Mac Jones does in PFF's big
Speaker 1: time throw rate, which I know people got on me
Speaker 1: and they hate that stat. I don't care. So they
Speaker 1: have these moments of flash where they do have these
Speaker 1: big plays. But the problem is is that right now
Speaker 1: they are not doing the things to keep the chains
Speaker 1: moving right so they can have these big plays. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned Kansas City had forty nine chunk plays this year.
Speaker 1: That means that they're roughly at three a game. So
Speaker 1: you're not going to sustain offense with three chunk plays
Speaker 1: per game, and that's the best offense in the league.
Speaker 1: Get doing it right. So what you need is to
Speaker 1: hit the eight yard curl on first and ten to
Speaker 1: convert on third down to score in the red zone.
Speaker 1: Right like all these little other things, these little details
Speaker 1: that end up being big things. So right now, where
Speaker 1: the Patriots offense is at and where mac Jones is at,
Speaker 1: is that they're truly a boomer bust offense. They either
Speaker 1: are hitting a big play down the field or their
Speaker 1: false start, short run, incomplete, incomplete, three and out right
Speaker 1: like that, there's no in between with the offense right now.
Speaker 1: And I think that this gets to the quarterback, which
Speaker 1: is my legitimate critique. Don't worry, I don't think he's perfect,
Speaker 1: all right, the legitimate critique. His short game was terrible
Speaker 1: in this game. His short game was off, His reads
Speaker 1: were off in the short game. There are some throws
Speaker 1: that were off in the short game. And what that
Speaker 1: leads to is that you just can't You can't matriculate
Speaker 1: the ball down the field, right, They can't string drives together.
Speaker 1: And so that's where you have these peaks and valleys
Speaker 1: where they can have the opening drive of the game,
Speaker 1: they can have the eighty nine yard drive in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter, but then the middle quarters is a rut
Speaker 1: of nothingness. So you know, he had a couple of
Speaker 1: different plays where I thought he didn't really read the
Speaker 1: underneath coverage very well. They ran, you know, snag like
Speaker 1: and I want to mention this play because snag, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a flat shallow cross and then you hook
Speaker 1: it up right in between the two zones. Snag is
Speaker 1: a play that every high school team in the country
Speaker 1: runs right like. This is not Matt Patricia's bad at coordinating. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's good at coordinating. It's one of
Speaker 1: the basic plays that every team puts into their playbook.
Speaker 1: But the point is is that the quarterback, regardless of
Speaker 1: who's calling the play in from the sideline, should be
Speaker 1: able to execute it. And they get exactly what they want. Meyers.
Speaker 1: He runs across the field on the shallow drag, It
Speaker 1: pulls one zone defender this way, I think it was
Speaker 1: Taekwon runs the flat, it pulls the other to zone
Speaker 1: defender that way, and Nelson Agloor just sits right down
Speaker 1: in between the stretched out zones and is open on
Speaker 1: first down, wide open waiting for the football, and mac
Speaker 1: Jones decides to throw it over the middle to Jacoby
Speaker 1: Myers with two guys bracketing him in the zone and
Speaker 1: it's incomplete. I thought that the ball that everybody I
Speaker 1: think has talked about with Hunter Henry in the flat
Speaker 1: where he kind of short arms it a little bit,
Speaker 1: I actually thought that was more about the read than
Speaker 1: it was about the throw. Okay, another throw that I
Speaker 1: thought he should have thrown the hitch instead of throwing
Speaker 1: the flat you know, curl flat combination, and he throws
Speaker 1: the flat instead of the curl. So for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: like I feel like mac Jones has at least based
Speaker 1: off this film, and I think that there are some
Speaker 1: evidence from other films as well, his rookie season has
Speaker 1: like flip flops. Like now, all of a sudden, he's
Speaker 1: making these good throws down the field and maybe be
Speaker 1: a little bit more aggressive in his approach down the field,
Speaker 1: but he's not hitting the easy ones, right, He's not
Speaker 1: making the layups. And in order to be a sustained offense,
Speaker 1: you need to be able to make the layups. So
Speaker 1: whether you're Buffalo, Kansas City, the Patriots, the Bengals, like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, you still need to be able to
Speaker 1: make those layups. And I think that that's what happens
Speaker 1: is you know, first and ten, they throw in complete
Speaker 1: to the flat to Hunter Henry. Now it's second and ten,
Speaker 1: and then they maybe they gain yards on second and ten,
Speaker 1: but now it's third and six, and now they have
Speaker 1: to convert a third down, right, and we know that
Speaker 1: they've struggled in that department at times this year. So
Speaker 1: the short game was offen this one from Mac which
Speaker 1: again it is seems to me like a flip flop
Speaker 1: from what it was his rookie season where you had
Speaker 1: some concerns that he wasn't pushing the ball down the field,
Speaker 1: that they weren't letting him push the ball down the field.
Speaker 1: Now they're letting him and he's doing it, but he's
Speaker 1: you know, he's regressed in the other areas. So that's
Speaker 1: an interesting thing I took away from this game. The
Speaker 1: other interesting thing I took away from this game was offensively,
Speaker 1: I actually think the Patriots offense and their passing game
Speaker 1: does a pretty good job against man coverage. Now they
Speaker 1: went right down the field, and I know Miami had
Speaker 1: some injuries. Right in terms of the secondary, is Avian
Speaker 1: Howard's out, Byron Joe's hasn't been playing, Nick Needham hasn't
Speaker 1: been playing, But at the same time, they have been
Speaker 1: able to beat man coverage. You can go back to
Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh game in the beginning of the year when
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh played a ton of man coverage and Nelson Aghaloor
Speaker 1: had that big game. So they've had this ability. They
Speaker 1: had some issues. Miami adjusted in the middle quarters to
Speaker 1: more zone, and they had some issues doing that right.
Speaker 1: They had some issues picking apart the zone, settling in zone,
Speaker 1: and I think the biggest reason why is you know
Speaker 1: the old adage is you run away from man coverage,
Speaker 1: you find soft spots in zone, right, That's how you
Speaker 1: are incorporate your passing game. And I think the biggest
Speaker 1: reason why they've struggled against zone is because that takes chemistry, right,
Speaker 1: That takes timing. It's not just I'm gonna read it out.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look count Henry's gonna beat his man and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw and put the ball on him this
Speaker 1: when it comes to zone, it's where is he gonna sit?
Speaker 1: Where is he gonna settle? Does he see it the
Speaker 1: same way that I see it? Is it? Is it? Split? Safety?
Speaker 1: Is a post? Right? Like what is the coverage and
Speaker 1: what's the conversion based off the coverage. That type of
Speaker 1: stuff takes, chemistry, takes timing, dare I say, takes coordination right,
Speaker 1: and those type of right and those types of things
Speaker 1: are fleeting this offense so in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And Buffalo is coming in this week, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: get to a Bill's preview here soon. Buffalo in the
Speaker 1: week third team matchup played a ton of zone and
Speaker 1: the Patriots obviously struggled with it. So now I feel
Speaker 1: like for years we were talking about this team can't
Speaker 1: get off press man, right, like they can't create separation
Speaker 1: against man. What I see on film with this team
Speaker 1: now is actually more struggles against zone than it is
Speaker 1: against man. All right, So a couple things, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of unpack. Yeah. First off, you mentioned that really
Speaker 1: interesting number at the beginning, right about twenty plus yard plays.
Speaker 1: The Patriots are second in the league. Yes, and you
Speaker 1: need to sustain what happens in between. I know people
Speaker 1: are probably gonna roll their eyes at this stat. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit my station. Oh well, if you take
Speaker 1: away this right the Matt's all of videos, but it
Speaker 1: proves a point here. Yards per play this season overall, right,
Speaker 1: Patriots are averaging five point three yards per play on offense.
Speaker 1: That's tied for seventeenth in the league, so middle of
Speaker 1: the pack. Yeah, yards per play on plays that gain
Speaker 1: less than twenty yards. So on one hand, oh, you're
Speaker 1: taking out the big plays. Of course, the number is
Speaker 1: gonna go down. But if you are a sustainable offense,
Speaker 1: you should still be about the same spot, right in
Speaker 1: terms of yards play. In terms of their ranking, everybody's
Speaker 1: number is gonna go down. I'm looking at it here.
Speaker 1: The most yards per play the team with the most
Speaker 1: yards per play on plays of under twenty yards. Yes,
Speaker 1: is a yard less average in the last place team
Speaker 1: in terms of yards per yards for play totals. So
Speaker 1: we're not gonna don't focus on the total number here,
Speaker 1: focus on the ranking, right, focus on where they are
Speaker 1: relative to the other teams. The Patriots again, yards per
Speaker 1: play period this year offensively tied for seventeenth. They are
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, or sorry, they are tied for twenty seventh
Speaker 1: in yards per play on non explosive plays, right, So
Speaker 1: that just some numbers to back up your point there
Speaker 1: that basically, when they're not getting those shot plays, it's
Speaker 1: really the only way they're moving the ball at this point, right,
Speaker 1: and that is volatile. It's just inherently volatile and we
Speaker 1: know that. And I think the other thing is if
Speaker 1: you look at those explosives, a lot of them are
Speaker 1: like twenty five yard explosives, right. You know he hits
Speaker 1: Taekwon Thornton on the opening drive. I think it was
Speaker 1: a twenty four yard pass, right, And not a lot
Speaker 1: of them, unfortunately, been for touchdowns right there right there
Speaker 1: between the twenty explosives. But it's it's so weird to
Speaker 1: me because they and I love that stat that you
Speaker 1: brought up. I'm probably gonna steal from you yet that
Speaker 1: that's important Pro Football reference. Yeah, I love that stat
Speaker 1: because it's so weird to me because everything that you
Speaker 1: hear nowadays from coaches and stuff like that about football
Speaker 1: is that explosive is explosives. Explosives like big plays. If
Speaker 1: you get one big play a drive, then usually you
Speaker 1: are getting points from that drive. If you get two
Speaker 1: big plays in a drive, you're in the end zone
Speaker 1: like almost every time, right, Like that's how it works.
Speaker 1: But this team is only getting in the end zone.
Speaker 1: You know, when Marcus Jones Houses went out from forty
Speaker 1: eight yards or the drive that they had against the
Speaker 1: Raiders where they had a big passage of Kobe and
Speaker 1: a big run by Remondra and it was like a
Speaker 1: four play drive, right, Like, those are the drives where
Speaker 1: they're scoring. Where they're not scoring is the eleven, twelve,
Speaker 1: thirteen play drives because eventually they shoot themselves in the
Speaker 1: foot and they go backwards, or they don't pick up
Speaker 1: the third down, or they have a false start on
Speaker 1: first and ten. Now it's first and fifteen and you're
Speaker 1: playing behind the chains. So that's been the biggest issue
Speaker 1: for the offense. Spend the issue, biggest issue for the
Speaker 1: quarterback as well. And I don't know if that gets
Speaker 1: better this year, but I do think that there is
Speaker 1: some positives that we can take away and this is
Speaker 1: what I wrote earlier in the week, from the fact
Speaker 1: that the hard things they are actually doing right, Like
Speaker 1: they're getting the big plays. He's making throws down the field,
Speaker 1: he's making higher level throws down the field. But the
Speaker 1: easy things is what they need to clean up, right,
Speaker 1: first and ten, third and six, Like, it bugs me
Speaker 1: to no end that third and six is such a
Speaker 1: difficult down for this team. It shouldn't be right. They
Speaker 1: should be able to move Third and six should be
Speaker 1: like sixty percent of the time they converted. It's not
Speaker 1: for the Patriots, so I can tell you how much
Speaker 1: it is if we saw a little bit. Those are
Speaker 1: the things that certainly stand out to you from this offense.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I want to get to is before
Speaker 1: we move over to defense really quickly. I have one
Speaker 1: more point. You give yours five one more point on
Speaker 1: the well, you go ahead, because this isn't like a
Speaker 1: big picture Okay, so this isn't really a big picture
Speaker 1: thing either. It's actually bringing back something that we had
Speaker 1: talked about previously. Also, Patriots on third and six this year,
Speaker 1: by the way, you want to guess for the thirty
Speaker 1: seven percent close, they're twenty sixth in the league. Thirty
Speaker 1: five percent on the yeah, they're averaging five point four yards.
Speaker 1: The twenty sixth ranking doesn't surprise me at all. Like
Speaker 1: that third and six, especially with this quarterback, like I
Speaker 1: feel like mac is should be able to pick those up, right.
Speaker 1: We're not asking him to pick up third and fifteen,
Speaker 1: where you know, you might have to go extended play,
Speaker 1: or you might have to go with a big throw
Speaker 1: down the field or something like that. Off platform no,
Speaker 1: we're just asking you to pick pick up seven. Actually, sorry,
Speaker 1: that was the total third down It's a twenty six
Speaker 1: point three percent even lower twenty eight, twenty eighth in
Speaker 1: the league, although they are a head of directly ahead
Speaker 1: of the Cincinnati Bengals. That's surprising. And then the Browns
Speaker 1: Coltson in Washington. But the thing I wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up here, Evan, we talked about this and it was
Speaker 1: probably more of a fair point at the time than
Speaker 1: I allowed it to be. I was just in my
Speaker 1: fields about the game. And this was after the minutes
Speaker 1: said after before the Minnesota game when you talked about
Speaker 1: Mac needs to put together the drive, right, Yes, and
Speaker 1: this isn't quite that drive. But how many times this
Speaker 1: year have the Patriots, whether it's to go ahead or
Speaker 1: to put a game away, right, we've talked about can
Speaker 1: they put that drive together? Can Mac put that drive
Speaker 1: together late in the game to at least seal the game?
Speaker 1: If not? Right? And look, the level of difficulty on
Speaker 1: this one is not as high as maybe some of
Speaker 1: the other examples. But in this game against the Dolphins,
Speaker 1: Marcus Jones makes a great open field tackle on Tyreek Hill. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Miles Bryant. Yeah, Miles Bryant makes a great open field
Speaker 1: tackle on Tyree Hills. So credits Miles Briant. He had
Speaker 1: a great game in this one. Patriots get the ball
Speaker 1: back with about ten minutes to They're up sixteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: so still very close. They then go eighty nine yards
Speaker 1: and eleven plays, take five minutes off the clock, and
Speaker 1: that's the drive that ended with that Jakobe Myers jump
Speaker 1: all touchdown DPI on the sideline. But Mac on this
Speaker 1: drive Kendrick Bourne for sixteen yards incomplete to Kendrick Bourne,
Speaker 1: Stevenson for five yards, throws it deep to Jacobe for
Speaker 1: twenty five yards. I think that's the throw that you
Speaker 1: shared on Twitter up on the wheel route. Then they
Speaker 1: run with Hermandre. Mac does the QB sneak, gets it
Speaker 1: to Hunter Henry for four yards to pick up the
Speaker 1: first down. On second and two, one yard one run
Speaker 1: for Rmandre. You get to pass interference one more incompletion
Speaker 1: Damian Harris down to the goal line and then Mac
Speaker 1: makes the adjustment on that final play to get Jakobe
Speaker 1: Myers for the touchdown. Again, it's not Tom Brady against
Speaker 1: the Rams of two thousand and one, but that it's
Speaker 1: a glimpse into kind of that drive we've been waiting
Speaker 1: for Mac to put together. It feels like the game
Speaker 1: awards that, Yeah, they put We've been waiting for that
Speaker 1: putaway drive. Eleven plays, eighty nine yards, five minutes up
Speaker 1: two that's a put away drive to me. And honestly, look,
Speaker 1: I know what they did against the Bengals at the
Speaker 1: end of the game wasn't wasn't the drive that we
Speaker 1: are looking for, especially almost was almost was. But they also,
Speaker 1: let's not forget and I'm not saying they played well
Speaker 1: for the majority of the Raiders game, but they put
Speaker 1: the Patriots up twenty four seventeen in the Raiders game too,
Speaker 1: So they've had some of that later game that they've
Speaker 1: made some of that happened a little bit more Babe recently.
Speaker 1: I know the Bengals game kind of stands out as
Speaker 1: a well, we have that one in there, so let's
Speaker 1: not forget about that. But they've been doing a little
Speaker 1: bit more. I come back to though, like we were
Speaker 1: just mentioning the non explosives part of your offense, just
Speaker 1: converting first and ten into second and three, right, and
Speaker 1: converting second and three into a first down and third
Speaker 1: and six and two a first down, like these situational
Speaker 1: things that should be easier than they are for this offense.
Speaker 1: And I think the big picture takeaway from all of
Speaker 1: it is that I still don't know what their identity
Speaker 1: is as an offense. I don't know on first down,
Speaker 1: what are you coming out in, Like, what's your grouping,
Speaker 1: what's the play call? Like? I think they want it
Speaker 1: to be spread, quick game, Like. I think that that's
Speaker 1: what they want it to be. But the quarterback I
Speaker 1: don't think has done a great job with it. Quite
Speaker 1: frankly in recent weeks. I think that that's what they
Speaker 1: want their first and ten identity to be is Mac
Speaker 1: and the gun, three wide, you know, eleven personnel. Let's
Speaker 1: run quick game and let's get first and ten into
Speaker 1: second and two, right, Like, I think that that's what
Speaker 1: they want it, which is a good plan. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a fine plan. You know. For McDaniels, it's probably under center,
Speaker 1: play action, full back, you know that sort of thing, right,
Speaker 1: that's sort of the identity. But if this is gonna
Speaker 1: be your first down identity, quick game, spread, all that,
Speaker 1: I'm fine with it. But you obviously you gotta be
Speaker 1: really good at executing that if that's your identity, right
Speaker 1: The Patriots are great at lead the full back through
Speaker 1: the whole play action, hit, hit the crosser behind the linebacker,
Speaker 1: right like, that was their offense and they were great
Speaker 1: at it. They're not great at what they want their
Speaker 1: identity to be right now, and that's why their offense
Speaker 1: is so Jacqueline. I think a lot of that offense
Speaker 1: is spacing. If you're gonna be if you're not gonna
Speaker 1: stretch the field horizontally, you have to stretch it vertically
Speaker 1: because there's less planes to work with, right and yeah,
Speaker 1: when I say planes, like you can have two guys
Speaker 1: who are on the same plane horizontally if one guy's
Speaker 1: five yards down field, one guy's twenty five yards down right, right,
Speaker 1: because they're not near each other. But if you're gonna say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're only gonna work with ten to fifteen yards of
Speaker 1: the field, there's ways to do that, but it has
Speaker 1: to be spaced out correctly because you're gonna run into
Speaker 1: situations like we saw early in that in that Bengals game,
Speaker 1: right where receivers are on top of them, or like
Speaker 1: Smith gets a concussion because Kendrick board runs is right
Speaker 1: on top of them in a Quick Games style type
Speaker 1: of concept. Yeah, and Mac just throws it not thinking
Speaker 1: Kendrick Bourne's going to be on top of Johnny and
Speaker 1: he gets sandwiched. Like, those are the things that you
Speaker 1: can't have with it. You have to have the quarterback
Speaker 1: has to read out the underneath coverage properly and get
Speaker 1: the ball to the open guy. You know, those types
Speaker 1: of things have to happen if you're gonna be good
Speaker 1: quick game offense. And I don't mind quick game, you
Speaker 1: know I quick game RPO. If that's their early downe identity,
Speaker 1: I don't mind it. They're just not executing it well. Right,
Speaker 1: But that almost gives you a hope moving forwards, because
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, the pieces look like they're all there.
Speaker 1: The idea behind it is not terrible. And I know
Speaker 1: I in Windows. We've seen them do it in Windows,
Speaker 1: so it's like it's not like they can't execute it.
Speaker 1: It's not like they're not talented enough to execute it. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 1: final point here about the offense, which is kind of
Speaker 1: sprinting it forward to the Bills game here, and then
Speaker 1: we got to talk defense in this Bills game. And
Speaker 1: look I know that there's a ton of non football
Speaker 1: stuff about this Bills game. We don't know Buffalo's mindset,
Speaker 1: we don't know if this game's even gonna be played
Speaker 1: right now, But just operating under the assumption that they're
Speaker 1: going to kick off at one o'clock on Sunday and
Speaker 1: the Bills are going to be the Bills. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: operating off of that. This is a game to me
Speaker 1: where you kind of have to let Mac try to
Speaker 1: cook a little bit. Like, I just don't think you're
Speaker 1: gonna We know about the sideline outburst the last time
Speaker 1: around on the Thursday night game, quick game. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to use the profanity, but you know we all
Speaker 1: remember what he said, right, And I just don't think
Speaker 1: you're gonna beat this Bill's team because you're going to
Speaker 1: have to score in the twenties to get a win
Speaker 1: at least. And I'm giving the defensive end of the
Speaker 1: fit of the doubt that they can hold Buffalo to
Speaker 1: thirty or under. Right, I think they can, But they
Speaker 1: are gonna, right, That's why I think they can. But
Speaker 1: they have to score twenty seven, right, they are. It
Speaker 1: has to be thirty to twenty seven or twenty seven
Speaker 1: twenty four or something like that, they're not going to
Speaker 1: win this game in the teens, and to play conservatively
Speaker 1: like they did on that Thursday night game where they're
Speaker 1: running quick game and they're trying to run the ball
Speaker 1: like you're not going to keep up with Buffalo on
Speaker 1: the scoreboard like that. And I think that they've shown
Speaker 1: enough over the last couple of weeks opening up the
Speaker 1: passing offense and throwing the ball down the field a
Speaker 1: little bit more that to give the coaches confidence that
Speaker 1: they could do it right, that Matt can put the
Speaker 1: ball on people, that the receivers can get open, that
Speaker 1: the line can hold up well enough to give those
Speaker 1: opportunities a chance to get down the field. And I
Speaker 1: think that they've shown enough explosiveness over the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks to keep trying to do that. Because if
Speaker 1: you go into this Bills game and you try to
Speaker 1: go back to that Thursday night game plan and you're
Speaker 1: trying to throw beat Josh Allen with six yard passes
Speaker 1: down the field, and I know he doesn't play defense,
Speaker 1: but the point is is that you have to score
Speaker 1: trying to go punch for punch with him. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just don't think that you can hang that way. And
Speaker 1: I would much rather if they're gonna lose and they're
Speaker 1: gonna miss out on the playoffs, like I would much
Speaker 1: rather than go down swinging. Well, that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I was gonna say. You know, on what hand, what
Speaker 1: do you have to lose a playoff spot? And that's
Speaker 1: something very significant to lose, right, I am well documented
Speaker 1: is in being in the crowd of you people are
Speaker 1: lunatics for wanting the team to miss the playoffs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you just like you said, you're not gonna beat
Speaker 1: Josh Allen in the Bills trying to win this game
Speaker 1: sixteen fourteen, twenty three, twenty one, right, Like that's what
Speaker 1: they did last week. Yeah, hold on tight, get that
Speaker 1: scare on defense, and just grind it out. I think
Speaker 1: that's what they wanted to do on that Thursday night
Speaker 1: game too, to be honest with you, I think they
Speaker 1: wanted them to elongate the game, right and the short game,
Speaker 1: which which you do need to do against this team
Speaker 1: to an extent. Yeah, you do need to do if
Speaker 1: you're playing the Bills, and I've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: you need to shrink their margin for error. That all
Speaker 1: still stands from a defensive point of view, right, But
Speaker 1: you do need to take some shots. You just do
Speaker 1: you need. You can only beat the Bills their own
Speaker 1: like you can only beat the Bills if you give
Speaker 1: them a taste their own medicine a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's much easier said than done. But I'm not
Speaker 1: saying come out and be the Chiefs and run four
Speaker 1: verticals NonStop. But you got to have a couple plays
Speaker 1: in there that you're willing to kind of let it loose.
Speaker 1: And this to go back to Miami game as well,
Speaker 1: something we saw in that game that they haven't done
Speaker 1: a lot this year. They've been very conservative this year
Speaker 1: as a whole offensively on second and short. There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of times where they get into second and one,
Speaker 1: second and two and right run the ball. They've run
Speaker 1: a number of quarterback steaks in that situation and sometimes
Speaker 1: they get it, sometimes they don't. But that's a great
Speaker 1: down to take a shot because the other team really
Speaker 1: has to defend everything. Yeah, everything's on the table and
Speaker 1: you're third and two, which is should be converted rights.
Speaker 1: But the idea is now you have teams suckered in
Speaker 1: where your tendencies what they're looking at when they get
Speaker 1: that scouting report skew heavily towards Hey, they're probably gonna
Speaker 1: be conserve here. Yeah. On second and two and they
Speaker 1: had three second and shorts against the Dolphins. Two of
Speaker 1: them they threw down the field, once to Myers, once
Speaker 1: to Thornton. The one to Thornton was incomplete, the one
Speaker 1: to Myers was complete, and then there was a third
Speaker 1: and two the second and two on that drive we
Speaker 1: just talked about where they did do the quarterback sneak,
Speaker 1: but more of that mentality. You know, if you and
Speaker 1: first of all, I get to get in a second
Speaker 1: and two, and we talked about that, but if you
Speaker 1: can get in a second and one, two, three, take
Speaker 1: some shots on those downs. Yeah, And I think that
Speaker 1: that's if they can do that and they can convert
Speaker 1: on those it sounds like a little thing. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about a very specific situation here. You know, they ran
Speaker 1: how many plays fifty sixty plays against Miami. I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, three plays in a fifty game script, a
Speaker 1: sixty game script. They ran fifty seven. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: three plays in a fifty seven play script. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: those can be impact plays. Those can be game changing plays.
Speaker 1: So that's something i'd like to see. We saw it
Speaker 1: for the first time last week. I'd like to see
Speaker 1: if that carries over now. This has kind of been
Speaker 1: a theme this year where they do something and it
Speaker 1: looks encouraging and we maybe don't see it again. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that goes back to the identity thing,
Speaker 1: right that I think sometimes this offense and this team
Speaker 1: on offense this year gets too caught up in game plan, right, like,
Speaker 1: what's the best thing to do against this team? Well,
Speaker 1: you got to do what's what you can do best sometimes, right,
Speaker 1: and what you've consistently been able to execute, and not
Speaker 1: worry so much about it, especially when you're twenty six
Speaker 1: in the league in DVOA and any one, you're one
Speaker 1: scoring drive per game for the most part, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you're not a good offense right now. So to get
Speaker 1: caught up in all, well, this is a zone team
Speaker 1: and they blitz or they don't blitz, or they this
Speaker 1: or they that. Like, I just think it's too it's
Speaker 1: over complicating things sometimes where you just need to run
Speaker 1: your stuff, Like one, run the plays that you feel
Speaker 1: confident in, that you feel good at and I think
Speaker 1: that goes back to this game. I also you mentioned
Speaker 1: the second down player they threw incomplete the Thornton. That
Speaker 1: one was from like the thirty five or thirty six
Speaker 1: yard line and it went into the end zone right
Speaker 1: to throw it. I love that because, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: incomplete on that play. But I love the idea of
Speaker 1: taking shots from the fringe read zone right right, because
Speaker 1: it's not good in the red zone. So what's the
Speaker 1: point of getting into the red zone? Like, there's no
Speaker 1: so I would I've been harping all year long from
Speaker 1: the twenty five yard line. Can we just throw it
Speaker 1: into the end zone from the twenty five because there's
Speaker 1: more space obviously, right, So there's easier it should be
Speaker 1: technically an easier access, and maybe you get it down
Speaker 1: to the one yard line on a DPI like on
Speaker 1: the Jacobe Myers right, and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit easier and you're not trying to
Speaker 1: drive it in the red zone anymore. Right, You're not
Speaker 1: first in ten or first and goal from the nine.
Speaker 1: You're first and goal from the two, And that makes
Speaker 1: things a whole lot easier for the offense at that point.
Speaker 1: And it's something we know this offense can do. They
Speaker 1: do it last year with Hunter Henry from like that
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five yard line range, he was automatic. Yeah
Speaker 1: in that range. All right, we got more to defense
Speaker 1: because we got Bill coming up at eleven forty five things,
Speaker 1: so we got we gotta move defense first and foremost.
Speaker 1: I I want to talk about this game and give
Speaker 1: them credit for this game because I thought they did
Speaker 1: this was the best job. And I know that they
Speaker 1: played backup quarterback, but still I go watch you know,
Speaker 1: Teddy Bridgewater and Skyler Thompson against Minnesota earlier this year,
Speaker 1: they lit them up, right, So just because they play
Speaker 1: these two backup quarterbacks, I don't think we can write
Speaker 1: off everything that they did. I want to give them
Speaker 1: credit because I thought this was probably the best game
Speaker 1: that they had this year at handling a number one
Speaker 1: elite receiver and Tyree Hill and and really in a
Speaker 1: number one elite receiver in Jalen Waddle as well. Right,
Speaker 1: you could those two guys combined I believe had under
Speaker 1: one hundred yards in this game, or right around one
Speaker 1: hundred yards. And look, I don't care who the backup
Speaker 1: quarterbacks are, those guys are still run they're gonna run
Speaker 1: their routes less, right, They're gonna run less like technically
Speaker 1: sound right, right, Because it's a backup quarterback, they're sticking
Speaker 1: with those guys in coverage. It doesn't matter who the
Speaker 1: quarterback is at that point. Right. So they've played a
Speaker 1: lot of this zone coverage, and I think there is
Speaker 1: something to be said. I believe. I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: the staff the top of my head since the Bills
Speaker 1: game in Week thirteen, where they've played teams like the Bills,
Speaker 1: you know, they've played obviously the Bengals, the Dolphins like
Speaker 1: these good passing games. Right, they are zone coverage on
Speaker 1: like eighty five percent of their downs. They don't play
Speaker 1: man anymore. They just don't. And that's that's fine. It's
Speaker 1: because they don't trust the corners, right. You know they
Speaker 1: have Tay Hayes, you know, playing out there at corner,
Speaker 1: who's been on the team for three days. You're not
Speaker 1: going to go have him. Oh yeah, you got Jalen
Speaker 1: wat right, you know you're not going to do that
Speaker 1: as much now. I think there is something to be
Speaker 1: said of can you do this against an elite quarterback?
Speaker 1: Can you do this against Josh Allen on Sunday, where
Speaker 1: a lot of what you're doing is, you know, they're
Speaker 1: playing a lot more split safety, and they're spinning it right,
Speaker 1: they're playing right, they're starting in two, they're making it
Speaker 1: one and they're starting in one and they're making it happen. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just spinning the dial in zone against these quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: And maybe that works against the Teddy Bridgewater, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't work against the Joe Burrow, or maybe it works
Speaker 1: against you know, a Derek Carr, but it might not
Speaker 1: necessarily work against the Josh Allen. Well Alan historically better
Speaker 1: against Man. Well, their receivers are just so good that
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to try to cover Stefon
Speaker 1: Digs in Man for four quarters like good, right, And
Speaker 1: that's why I think a big reason why they're so good.
Speaker 1: They're great against Man, they're great against post safety right
Speaker 1: single high. They just shredded. They shred it. So what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do, and this is the sort of
Speaker 1: every single time I ask a player a coach about this,
Speaker 1: is that they want offenses to have to march. They
Speaker 1: want them to have to go on a fifteen play
Speaker 1: touchdown drive instead of a five play touchdown driving. I
Speaker 1: know that sounds obvious, but it's not how teams always play.
Speaker 1: You know. Miami is a defense that tries to come
Speaker 1: after your aggressive and they try to play aggressive. And
Speaker 1: let's not confuse that with Ben don't Break, because that's
Speaker 1: not it's not exactly the same thing. No, I don't
Speaker 1: think so, because I think what they're trying to do
Speaker 1: is get that mistake right. And I don't mean get
Speaker 1: that mistake where they stall out in the red zone.
Speaker 1: I mean get the Kyle Dugger picks. They know how
Speaker 1: well the secondary ballhawks, and they are trying the more
Speaker 1: throws you have to make in all these different looks.
Speaker 1: They're basically just trying to make the quarterback dizzy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is ultimately what it is. Hey, you're gonna run fifteen plays,
Speaker 1: You're gonna see fifteen different looks, right, and then you're
Speaker 1: gonna come out on the next drive and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to guess what you're gonna see again. And it
Speaker 1: just they are trying to force theseus. They are trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, make these quarterbacks mentally malfunction right where it's
Speaker 1: just just just data overload. And I think the other
Speaker 1: thing that they're really trying to do, which they did
Speaker 1: a really good job against Miami in this game, and
Speaker 1: I think at times they did a good job against Buffalo.
Speaker 1: And the first matchup is they're trying to get the
Speaker 1: quarterback off the first read, right, and they know the
Speaker 1: first read is gonna be Tyree kill or it's gonna
Speaker 1: be Wattle, or it's gonna be Digs or something like that, right,
Speaker 1: So if they can get the quarterback to hold the football,
Speaker 1: and they haven't always done it right because the quarterbacks
Speaker 1: that they've faced the Bridgewater in the beginning of this game,
Speaker 1: they've done a nice job of just taking profits. Right. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna back off and play zone, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take the underneath stuff. But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: think what they've been able to do at times successfully
Speaker 1: is get the quarterback to hold the football and now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the quarterbacks holding the football and
Speaker 1: Judon and uj and Barmore are coming after him and
Speaker 1: they're able to get some pass rush going. And I
Speaker 1: think that's sort of the key as well, or the
Speaker 1: goal I want to talk about Kyle Duggers, Well, I
Speaker 1: would just say that thing when it comes to the Bills,
Speaker 1: And I say this all the time. They can get impatient. Yes,
Speaker 1: they want to play their game. They want to be
Speaker 1: the Globe trotters. They want that five play scoring drive
Speaker 1: and something Josh Allen has done much better against the
Speaker 1: Patriots than any other opponent. He seems to be more
Speaker 1: willing to be patient against the Patriots than anybody else.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. Yeah, it maybe it's
Speaker 1: just Bill, but you watch him play, and you know,
Speaker 1: like last year, right going into the game here, those
Speaker 1: like three or four games before that, he was not
Speaker 1: playing well. He had like a three pick game against
Speaker 1: the Falcons, and it was the same thing because teams
Speaker 1: are just baiting him into it. And then he came
Speaker 1: here and he took checkdowns all day and he just
Speaker 1: marched right up the field. They didn't seeven to have
Speaker 1: an issue with it. So I like, he'll watch He'll
Speaker 1: probably do that again. But Alan in this offense is
Speaker 1: a group. You can make him patient and they will
Speaker 1: eventually think, hey, we're talented, forget what they're giving us.
Speaker 1: Let's try that deep shot and that will backfire on
Speaker 1: them at times. It hasn't against the Patriots, but it
Speaker 1: does against other teams. Yeah, on Kyle Dugger, he's very
Speaker 1: good AFC Defensive Player of the Week ye Pro Bowl
Speaker 1: snub his game, and I mean this as a compliment,
Speaker 1: and I think people are gonna take it as an insult.
Speaker 1: His game reminds me a lot of prime Jamie Collins
Speaker 1: because he's got these unbelievable, unreal flashes right where he's
Speaker 1: making these plays like the pick six where he jumps
Speaker 1: a route, he drops off the line of scrimmage, from
Speaker 1: the line of scrimmage, drops to depth, jumps the route,
Speaker 1: and then has this ridiculous return where he's stiff arm
Speaker 1: and guys and breaking tackles and things like that, and
Speaker 1: you're like, holy crab, Like that's an all pro safety
Speaker 1: type of play. Yeah. He also gets loose a little
Speaker 1: bit uncoverage. Sometimes it gets lost in zone coverage, right,
Speaker 1: and we'll give up some stuff. So the player that
Speaker 1: actually gave up according to PFF, that gave up the
Speaker 1: most yards and coverage in this game was Dugger. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: so he has He's a boom er bust player right
Speaker 1: now to a degree. But I still think that the
Speaker 1: boom out in his case with the offense, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the case, right, I think the offense is
Speaker 1: too much bust, But with Dugger, I think in his case,
Speaker 1: the boom is certainly outweighing the bust. And I'll take
Speaker 1: some of the bust for the pick sixes, especially with
Speaker 1: this team because they need it right And and the
Speaker 1: way he attacks the line of scrip image is tremendous,
Speaker 1: you know, against the run, as a blitzer, all that
Speaker 1: type of stuff. He's still is coming along a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think in coverage, I still think that that's an
Speaker 1: area of weakness of his game. But I think with
Speaker 1: Jamie Collins in his prime, I still think Jamie Collins
Speaker 1: was a great player, right, And I think Dugger's a
Speaker 1: good player. So I think some of that conversation of
Speaker 1: well is he really you know, as he overrated? Is
Speaker 1: he good? You know whatever? I think too. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's really fair to him to be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he gave up all these yards in coverage. But they're
Speaker 1: asking him to go and make make plays on the ball.
Speaker 1: They're not asking him to be Gilani to buy where
Speaker 1: you're just playing your role, like he's got to make
Speaker 1: big time impact plays. And I think sometimes we fall
Speaker 1: into this as well with Judon, where you know, maybe
Speaker 1: he lets the quarterback out of the pocket once every
Speaker 1: ten times, but the Patriots they don't need him to
Speaker 1: just like push the pocket and collapse it, right. They
Speaker 1: need jude On to go out and get sacks, and
Speaker 1: go out and get and get force takeaways and force
Speaker 1: big game changing games, swinging drive swinging plays in the
Speaker 1: defense's favor, and I think dugger falls into that category
Speaker 1: as well. So you're knock is basically that he's not
Speaker 1: ed Reid, which like isn't wrong. But if that's the
Speaker 1: worst thing he can say about the guy, he's pretty
Speaker 1: freaky good, right, I think. And I don't think he
Speaker 1: quite has the interception numbers because he's not targeted as much.
Speaker 1: But I know, I think that Duggard this year is
Speaker 1: very similar to what j. C. Jackson was for this
Speaker 1: defense last year, right where he's he's the turnover machine.
Speaker 1: And well, it's funny you say that, because I think
Speaker 1: some of what I see with him not necessarily in
Speaker 1: terms of the like how you'd write up a scouting
Speaker 1: report on a player. But yeah, there is a similarity
Speaker 1: with jac Jackson in that there are these players that
Speaker 1: just they just get football on the level that it's
Speaker 1: it's not even a football IQ thing. And I think
Speaker 1: Dougger has a very high football IQ. But the way
Speaker 1: he reacts just his knack to be able to get
Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time. And some
Speaker 1: people hear that and they think luck. No, it's not
Speaker 1: a luck thing. Like you just watch him and you
Speaker 1: can see him realize I need to be in this
Speaker 1: spot now, and he has the athleticism to get there.
Speaker 1: That's what that pick was, and he talked about it
Speaker 1: after the game. He's in a coverage assignment, his assignment
Speaker 1: stays into block, he becomes a free player. He recognized
Speaker 1: the route, conversation, combination, and boom, he gets right there
Speaker 1: in the spot and he makes the pick. And the
Speaker 1: thing about players like that is the more football they see,
Speaker 1: the better they get because it's basically just processing information. Right,
Speaker 1: I've seen this before. I do I know what's coming.
Speaker 1: It's kind of Tom Brady's answers to the test thing. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: he just knows. His instincts in the moment are so
Speaker 1: good that he just knows, Okay, I've seen this, this
Speaker 1: is how I need to react. And the more football
Speaker 1: players like that see, the better they get because they
Speaker 1: simply have more information to work with. Jac Jackson is
Speaker 1: a great example of a very instinctual player and the
Speaker 1: more he saw, the better he guy. Jack Jones is
Speaker 1: another guy I've talked about in this light where his
Speaker 1: instincts are great and he needs to get beat a
Speaker 1: couple times to kind of see. I also find the
Speaker 1: game plays off of them. But if you're gonna play
Speaker 1: like that, I also think you are going to get beats.
Speaker 1: You are, but because it becomes a learning process, and
Speaker 1: it also just inherently you're trying to make plays on
Speaker 1: the fall and sometimes you are going to get beat,
Speaker 1: or sometimes you're not going to be in the right place,
Speaker 1: I think. But I think with Jack get what I
Speaker 1: would say to aggressive with it, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that's necessarily Dugger's problem, and we well Jack's a rookie too, right.
Speaker 1: The more you see, the better it gets. There are
Speaker 1: some guys that have great instincts but never hone them,
Speaker 1: and they just become these overly aggressive boom er bus players.
Speaker 1: Whereas you know with Kyle Dugger, you're seeing a guy
Speaker 1: that I think is adjusting, is learning, is taking that
Speaker 1: information in applying it forwards. I think you mentioned the
Speaker 1: Boom er bust. I mean it's it's much more towards
Speaker 1: Boom than it was even a year ago. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: he has those instincts, he has that quick twitch ability,
Speaker 1: and now he's starting to use his experience to build
Speaker 1: on that and become an even better player. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: couldn't agree more. And I think that, like I keep saying,
Speaker 1: with guys like Jamie Collins, with guys like a JC, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you take some of the times where they get
Speaker 1: beat for the pick sixes? Right? You just take some
Speaker 1: of the times. And I think that with Dougger, he's
Speaker 1: got a really solid baseline of run defense, that he's
Speaker 1: a he's a four down player just because of that, right,
Speaker 1: you know, and the fact that he can be so
Speaker 1: many different things for this team too. You know, he
Speaker 1: plays a traditional strong safety, he plays a linebacker, he
Speaker 1: plays the edge or the nickel spot, like, he can
Speaker 1: do all these different thing on the boundary a couple
Speaker 1: times this year, Yeah, they they'll play him on the
Speaker 1: boundary in those three safety packages from time to time.
Speaker 1: So to I think that Dugger wears more hats in
Speaker 1: this defense than anybody else I think he's surpassed and
Speaker 1: Adrian Phillips type role. I think he's surpassed some of
Speaker 1: the guys up front that that move on and off
Speaker 1: the line of scrimmage. He plays at the back end,
Speaker 1: he plays on the boundary, he plays in the in
Speaker 1: the slot. He plays at the linebacker level. He plays
Speaker 1: on the edge of the defense like he plays in line.
Speaker 1: When he they blitz him, you know, on those zeros,
Speaker 1: or they bluff them like they did on the pick six.
Speaker 1: He plays all over the field for this team. Last question,
Speaker 1: it's his own role. It's his own. It's not he's
Speaker 1: not even this point the only guy. And I wasn't
Speaker 1: old enough to really study Rodney Harrison, but I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that this is pretty similar to how they
Speaker 1: ended yeah, how they ended up using Rodney back then.
Speaker 1: So so I was actually looking at Rodney last night.
Speaker 1: I know we got to wrap it up, but I
Speaker 1: have to put this tangent out. No time for this.
Speaker 1: Rodney Harrison comes in the league now he's a safety
Speaker 1: or linebacker, he's probably dugger see. I think he's more like, uh,
Speaker 1: like Jamal Adams, like a Fred Warner tight or maybe
Speaker 1: the name I want to use and it hasn't panned out.
Speaker 1: But the guy we thought na Kobe Dean was gonna
Speaker 1: be coming out of the draft, he's bigger than a
Speaker 1: Kobe Dean, though not that much. Nakobe Dean's like five eleven,
Speaker 1: like two twenty. Ronnie Harrison six one, two twenty. I
Speaker 1: just remember Ronnie being thicker than that. He's listed to
Speaker 1: two twenty. I was surprised too when I looked it
Speaker 1: up last night, but six one, two twenty back that
Speaker 1: no shot. Now he might have been aligned back. I
Speaker 1: just an interesting We have a I wish we had
Speaker 1: more time than I wish we had a Hall of
Speaker 1: we had we had a Hall of Fame minute plan,
Speaker 1: but all the schedules can pack today, so we're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to get to it. We'll get to
Speaker 1: it for well, we'll get to it next week because
Speaker 1: I'm fired up about that as well. All Right, it's
Speaker 1: it's getting ridiculous. I want to have this conversation with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the really quickly, because it's all I gotta get it
Speaker 1: out really quickly. Seventies Steelers, how many guess how many?
Speaker 1: How they have twe? Yeah? How about the Lombardi packers
Speaker 1: a lot twelve twelve Hall of famers on the Lombardi packers,
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, I think it should be
Speaker 1: harder than it was back then to get into the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. So I don't think there are ten
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame players on the Dynasty era of Patriots.
Speaker 1: But right now we are trending and it depends like
Speaker 1: if you want to count Moss and Revs, you can
Speaker 1: count Moss and Revs. Did you count Lombardi? Like do
Speaker 1: you count the coaches and that? No, that those are additional,
Speaker 1: But I think Bill get right, So that's so right now,
Speaker 1: it's trending towards probably five. Right, So you have Law
Speaker 1: and you have seen Moore already in how many people
Speaker 1: are gonna be in with Patriots rings? Like, that's more
Speaker 1: the conversation. So they have Lombardi and they have Lombardi,
Speaker 1: they have Law and see Moore already in. Yeah, Brady
Speaker 1: is obviously going to be in, Vinitari will probably get in,
Speaker 1: and then Gronkowski will get in. Yeah. Right, so that's five. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to count Moss and Revs you can,
Speaker 1: so that that that's technically seven, but it's not even
Speaker 1: with a ring, right, And it's different because the Seventiesers
Speaker 1: didn't have free agency, right, So you know me and
Speaker 1: Joe Green played for the Steelers for thirteen years for
Speaker 1: his entire career, right, he didn't go anywhere. But for
Speaker 1: guys like Vince Wilfork, guys like Rodney. I would even
Speaker 1: put guys like Devin mccordy in that conversation, Dante, Hi Tower,
Speaker 1: Julian and Dillon, those guys. If those guys were on
Speaker 1: the seventies Steelers, they're lock Hall of Famers. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: the Patriots they're not even gonna be. They're not even finalists,
Speaker 1: let alone in the Hall of Fame. It's you can't
Speaker 1: have treated it one way for all of these years,
Speaker 1: and then you get to the modern, modern, modern era
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, all like all these
Speaker 1: other guys are going to get in. And I mean
Speaker 1: part of the problem though, is the Hall has not
Speaker 1: done a great job recognizing like not specialist players and
Speaker 1: like kickers and punters. But well they have, but guys
Speaker 1: who like Vince Wilfork wasn't a statistical monster, right, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't you know, a guy like Julian Edelman wasn't
Speaker 1: a traditional wide receiver. Matthew Slater's another one. The fact
Speaker 1: that Devin Hester has gotten to a second ballot blows
Speaker 1: my mind. Yeah, because I think they look at him
Speaker 1: as a wide receiver who also returned kicks, but like
Speaker 1: he's the greatest kick return of all time. Kick returning
Speaker 1: is a position like the So the finalist came out
Speaker 1: last night. They're fifteen of them. Some of them are locks,
Speaker 1: Joe Thomas, Terrell Reeves. You know those guys are Hall
Speaker 1: of Famers, Okay, but you're telling Hester as a finalist
Speaker 1: should be in. Yeah, Hester, like Jared Allen is a finalist.
Speaker 1: I mean he could play, He could player, but he
Speaker 1: could over some of these other guys. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but he was a hell I don't know every wide receiver.
Speaker 1: Reggie Wayne, Tory Hold, Andre Johnson. Andre Johnson's the best
Speaker 1: one out of that group. Like he's he was an animal, okay,
Speaker 1: and he's playing with like Sage Rosenfelds and things like
Speaker 1: that in Houston. But it's just I don't know, Reggie
Speaker 1: Wayne's gonna get into the Hall of Fame. But Reggie
Speaker 1: Wayne is to Indianapolis. What you know, Julian Edelman is
Speaker 1: or Wes Welker is to the Patriots, right, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's just I don't know. All right, let's let's
Speaker 1: get to these calls. You guys got to be quick,
Speaker 1: but we can get to these two calls here before
Speaker 1: we wrap up. Justin and Virginia, thanks for hanging on.
Speaker 1: How you doing, hey, guys, how you gonna? How are
Speaker 1: you doing good? Thanks? Hey. I'd also add to Kyle
Speaker 1: Dugger just like the value he provides and run defense,
Speaker 1: like when he was on the field versus when he
Speaker 1: was off, was just unmatched. Yeah, yeah, he's a great
Speaker 1: run defender. Absolutely. Quick question though, Um, a lot of
Speaker 1: people bring up Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr when they're
Speaker 1: like talking about Mac jones physical skill set. If we
Speaker 1: gave him the weapons and support that Matt Ryan kind
Speaker 1: of had for the better part of his career, how
Speaker 1: do you think he would like match up to Matt Ryan.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Appreciate your going, Thank you. So
Speaker 1: I tried to make the Matt Ryan comparison once upon
Speaker 1: a time with Matt Jones. Matt Ryan is six four
Speaker 1: and like you know, he's just a bigger specimen than
Speaker 1: Mac Jones is so, I think there are probably a
Speaker 1: lot more physical tools to Matt Ryan's game than maybe
Speaker 1: people remember, and maybe compared to Mac. But I mean,
Speaker 1: if you get Mac Jones, Prime Julio Jones and like,
Speaker 1: that's I'm sure he would look great too, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's I definitely agree with the caller in
Speaker 1: that respect. I don't know that he's gonna like win
Speaker 1: an MVP, but whatever one step below that is sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see it if he had Prime Julio Jones
Speaker 1: and Kyle Shanahan calling his plays. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if you would win an MVP either. Tony Gonzalez there
Speaker 1: for that, I don't. I think that was post Tony okay,
Speaker 1: but he obviously had Tony Gonzalez. First I met for
Speaker 1: his career, was Tony Gonzalez there? Maybe not? I was
Speaker 1: there that year? Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, he had. They
Speaker 1: had Julio and Tony Gonzalez at one point when they
Speaker 1: were I think they made it to maybe one NFC
Speaker 1: championship game, or maybe they were competitive in a divisional game.
Speaker 1: I remember that for some reason. I think it was
Speaker 1: an NFC championship game. All right, Patty, what's going on up, guys,
Speaker 1: real quick point before my couple of questions. I said
Speaker 1: it when Nias Williams went into the Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: before ty Law. But if Bryan Dodkins is in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, Rodney Harrison absolutely belonged to the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. So just a couple of quick questions are
Speaker 1: with what happened on this past Monday night, do you
Speaker 1: think that these Bills players, if they line up, especially
Speaker 1: on defense, might be might still be in a little
Speaker 1: bit of state of shock, and that might might thank
Speaker 1: for a little bit more competitive game. Wanted to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that and the last collar justin who
Speaker 1: brought up guys comparable to back? I dare you guys
Speaker 1: to find me a better top to Mac. Maybe not
Speaker 1: hype wise, but just watch him play, Eli Manning. It's
Speaker 1: almost like you're watching the exact same quarterback. That's all
Speaker 1: I got. I don't thanks for call, Patty, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't hate that Eli com I know people around
Speaker 1: here are going to hate that just because of all
Speaker 1: the history, But I think Mac takes care of the ball,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit better than Mac's never gonna lead
Speaker 1: the league in turnovers, Yeah, there's a couple things. He's
Speaker 1: not gonna lead the league. And to be fair, but
Speaker 1: he's never gonna lead the league in turnovers. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I understand from like an throwing motion, like all like
Speaker 1: playing style. I mean, if you want to talk about
Speaker 1: the aesthetic thing we set off the top, like guys
Speaker 1: Eli and Peyton both right, remember that, Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: ugly players. Um what was the other thing that he
Speaker 1: brought up? Oh, if the Bill's defense, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't really like speak to that until we see it. Look,
Speaker 1: I'll say this, I'm not gonna blame guys for being
Speaker 1: hesitant about playing a FOA game on Sunday, like I
Speaker 1: I wouldn't blame any of them for that. Now, how
Speaker 1: that impacts the game itself, who knows. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's a thing where you kind of you know, as
Speaker 1: the game goes on, they feel better about it. Um,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't blame any but it. And it could
Speaker 1: be the reverse. It could be, Hey, you know, let's
Speaker 1: go win this for our guy and and maybe you
Speaker 1: get that effect too. I don't know how they're thinking.
Speaker 1: And the reality is it's probably gonna be a range
Speaker 1: and different guys are gonna fall in different parts points
Speaker 1: of that scale. But I went on anybody for coming
Speaker 1: into that and by across the league, I wouldn't fault
Speaker 1: players for coming into this game and maybe being a
Speaker 1: little timid to start on Sunday. Yeah, I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think that they're gonna be timid to tackle people and stuff,
Speaker 1: because once you get back out there, I think it
Speaker 1: just becomes second nature. Like I'm a football player, this
Speaker 1: is sort of what I do, right, But I do wonder.
Speaker 1: The big thing for me is if the Chiefs win
Speaker 1: on Saturday, yeah, and they decide the NFL has decided
Speaker 1: that they're not going to play Bengals Bills, which I
Speaker 1: think was reported this morning. It was trending them right.
Speaker 1: Then the Bills can't get the number one seed. So
Speaker 1: at that point they're they're talking about two and three. Now,
Speaker 1: if they win, they would be the two, so that
Speaker 1: would guarantee to home playoff games. So it's not it
Speaker 1: is a factor, but I think that at that point,
Speaker 1: you know you're playing on wildcard weekend, you know you're
Speaker 1: not getting the buy. I think to a degree, maybe
Speaker 1: you get to a point there where how much does
Speaker 1: that game really mean to Buffalo. I think the two
Speaker 1: seed is somewhat important because you're gonna play the Bengals
Speaker 1: Tech probably on the divisional round, and you want that
Speaker 1: to be in Buffalo. But I don't know if that
Speaker 1: alone is enough to get everybody up for this game,
Speaker 1: especially after what happened on Monday night. And I also
Speaker 1: play all out, Like if you're Josh Allen on Sunday
Speaker 1: and you can't get the number one seed, Sean McDermott
Speaker 1: has to be saying to Josh Allen like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: let's cool it this week. All right, we gotta get
Speaker 1: get going here. I'm sorry to Jerry on the line.
Speaker 1: We'll call back for Unfiltered. They'll be on at noon.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go talk to coach Belichick right now, and
Speaker 1: Alex and I will be back next week. Where our
Speaker 1: time keeps on changeing, We're sorry about that, but we're
Speaker 1: just trying to We're probably gonna be on at this time.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to stay on video because we know
Speaker 1: you guys love the videos. So we'll see you next week.
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