Speaker 1: This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Speaker 1: Lazar and Alex Barth.
Speaker 2: Blazarre from Lazarn, Hello, everybody nailed it. He joined us always.
Speaker 1: By our bar gask.
Speaker 2: Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars is.
Speaker 3: The data skewed because in this one game he was
Speaker 3: struggling this one receiver or this type of receiver that
Speaker 3: maybe we don't have. Like again, okay, the right answer
Speaker 3: is not Okay, let's throw a million go balls at
Speaker 3: this guy.
Speaker 1: It's to get me the cutups of all the go balls.
Speaker 1: Let's see why.
Speaker 3: This is happening and do we have the assets on
Speaker 3: our roster to be able to take advantage of this?
Speaker 4: Yes or no?
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly okay.
Speaker 3: But I think there are some people, and maybe they're
Speaker 3: not really the coaches, but I think there are some
Speaker 3: people who look at it, analytics who look at that
Speaker 3: and don't go to that second step and say, this
Speaker 3: guy sucks against the goal ball bombs away. That's not
Speaker 3: the process and that never will be the process, and
Speaker 3: math can never fill in that groundwork in the middle.
Speaker 2: It always comes back to the analytics debate on this show,
Speaker 2: doesn't it. Oh yeah, it always does. No matter what
Speaker 2: we talk about for two hours, it always circles back
Speaker 2: to talking about math and nerds and analytics. But today
Speaker 2: we are going to talk a lot about roster projections,
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit of Patriots news here at the
Speaker 2: top of the show, nothing major, but a signing that
Speaker 2: we will discuss in the impact of that as well.
Speaker 2: And we'll take your lovely calls and emails here on
Speaker 2: Catch twenty two for the next couple of hours, with
Speaker 2: Alex Bartha over there of course as always, and Evan
Speaker 2: Lazar in the host chair here, and we have our
Speaker 2: roster projection to get to Alex, we want need to
Speaker 2: do the defense in your special teams as well here
Speaker 2: in a few minutes, so we're going to get to that.
Speaker 2: But before we get to that, we wanted to get
Speaker 2: to some of the news off the top of the show.
Speaker 2: And no, I will not talk about the Celtics too
Speaker 2: much in the show, I promise.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 2: Let's look here, I know, I know everybody gets all
Speaker 2: up in arms when I talk about something that's not
Speaker 2: Patriots related, even though there's nothing going on in Patriot
Speaker 2: will the Celtics are the talk of the town and
Speaker 2: the Red Sox are playing, but the Bruins just released
Speaker 2: New Jersey, so I'm gonna have to buy the misses
Speaker 2: of New Jersey probably, So just no, I won't talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: I have any kind of event you can use to
Speaker 3: like buy one for I'll say this. I was thinking
Speaker 3: about this driving in. This is in a lot of
Speaker 3: ways and people often say this a draft show. We
Speaker 3: like talking about the draft. True, the NBA Draft is tonight.
Speaker 3: That's why it's all the buzz about the Celtics. So
Speaker 3: let's save it till the end, and maybe we'll do so.
Speaker 2: It's not everybody gets up in arms, stick to footballball.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the draft.
Speaker 3: So at the end of the show we'll do a
Speaker 3: draft minute and what league that draft is about?
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe we can tie it together to the Patriots somehow,
Speaker 2: if we're good enough at this. But before we get
Speaker 2: into the roster projection at the top of the show here,
Speaker 2: the Patriots did make a signing the other day, signing
Speaker 2: ya Seir Durant, offensive lineman. Name might sound familiar. He
Speaker 2: has been here before, who was on the Patriots roster
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, actually played in a few games
Speaker 2: and started a game for the Patriots in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: He has been most recently one of your leagues, the UFL,
Speaker 2: the DC Defenders, the champions of the UFL.
Speaker 1: He can do that your specialty leagues because it is
Speaker 1: your league. Not everybody for football fans at all, it's everybody.
Speaker 3: There are actually multiple people who are like true football fans,
Speaker 3: believe it or not.
Speaker 2: So he was on the DC Defenders most recently. He
Speaker 2: won a championship in the UFL, for whatever it's worth,
Speaker 2: with the DC Defenders. He also, for whatever it's worth,
Speaker 2: was a first team All Pro in that league, the UFL,
Speaker 2: All UFL and from all for people that actually have
Speaker 2: followed that league closely. Yeah, Sir Durant was one of
Speaker 2: the best offensive linemen in the UFL this past season,
Speaker 2: just based.
Speaker 1: Off he was the best left tackle, so he played.
Speaker 2: A little bit of left tackle. He played a little
Speaker 2: bit of left guard, but he made the All UFL
Speaker 2: team as a left tackle.
Speaker 1: Well, no, so he he started out as a guard
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 3: And then switched to left tackle halfway through, and then
Speaker 3: he was DC's left tackle all the way through this
Speaker 3: year when they won the title.
Speaker 2: So he was he's a player with some NFL pedigree,
Speaker 2: obviously some UFL pedigree as well over the last couple
Speaker 2: of seasons. Now there's conversation about Yasir Durant's future and
Speaker 2: his viability on this roster, But I also think this
Speaker 2: ties into our conversation that was ongoing last weekend is
Speaker 2: going to be ongoing all summer with this team about
Speaker 2: the left guard position in particular, and just depth on
Speaker 2: the offensive line as a whole. And I look at
Speaker 2: Yasir Durant, I can't help but connect that a little
Speaker 2: bit to the retirement of Wes Schweitzer. You lost your veteran, potential,
Speaker 2: bridgy offensive lineman that could start on this team at
Speaker 2: left guard. You bring in another one, it seems like
Speaker 2: in yah Sir Durant, So in my mind, even though
Speaker 2: he played tackle in the UFL, he's played a little
Speaker 2: bit of tackle and he's played a little bit of
Speaker 2: guard in his career. The Patriots announced him as a
Speaker 2: tackle for what it's worth when they signed him. But
Speaker 2: in my mind, I look at this as another body,
Speaker 2: another name to throw into the hat at this ongoing
Speaker 2: left guard competition, basically replacing west Schweitzer as sort of
Speaker 2: the veteran in that room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a little more than that.
Speaker 3: Honestly, this is a guy that played right tackles first
Speaker 3: in the NFL, then played guard early when he got
Speaker 3: to the UFL, and has played left tackle since they
Speaker 3: have a lack of depth.
Speaker 1: We talked about this last week.
Speaker 3: Unless Marcus Bryant really takes a step forward, they don't
Speaker 3: really have a swing tackle. Vdarian Lowe is only playing
Speaker 3: on the left side. Cain Wallace to Mantre Jacobs are
Speaker 3: only playing on the right side. Jack Connelly played swing
Speaker 3: in college, but it's just like, where is he at
Speaker 3: skill wise? Is he a guy that's and I had
Speaker 3: him on my roster last week, but that was almost
Speaker 3: kind of by default. If I'd had you see Durant
Speaker 3: as an option, I would have put him on the
Speaker 3: roster over Jack Connolly because he can play left tackle,
Speaker 3: he can play right tackle, and he can play guard.
Speaker 3: So the fact that he can give you a backup
Speaker 3: in all those spots where they don't really have a
Speaker 3: defined backup I think stands out. I think this is
Speaker 3: more than just an optional left guard. I think this
Speaker 3: is a guy that can fill a number of holes
Speaker 3: for them on the offensive line.
Speaker 2: So you see him in that almost like a six
Speaker 2: man type of role where he can play guard and tackle,
Speaker 2: maybe move around as a backup and maybe make this roster.
Speaker 2: And this was another thing when we were talking about
Speaker 2: the offensive roster projection, which if you didn't hear that,
Speaker 2: that was in last week's show. This is another thing
Speaker 2: that stands out to me about how they can struy
Speaker 2: this fifty three man roster and how they build it.
Speaker 2: Do they keep some of these guys that are younger
Speaker 2: that have developmental upside while also keeping a guy like
Speaker 2: Yasir Durant, who if somebody gets hurt, then Durant's probably
Speaker 2: your your top backup. And the guy that goes into
Speaker 2: a game, maybe it isn't Marcus Bryant. Maybe Marcus Bryant's
Speaker 2: just here to develop and it's not necessarily here to
Speaker 2: keep him around, you know, to actually get into an
Speaker 2: NFL game as a rookie. And you could maybe say
Speaker 2: the same thing about some of their other players as
Speaker 2: well on this team. So I could see that I
Speaker 2: could see, yes, here Durant coming in as on game day,
Speaker 2: we actually view this guy as one of our top backups.
Speaker 2: He's not necessarily in the two to three year plan
Speaker 2: here as a future asset, like some of these younger
Speaker 2: linemen are that we drafted recently. But maybe on game day,
Speaker 2: if somebody goes down, you know it's yes here Durant
Speaker 2: that steps up. I could see that. I still do
Speaker 2: think he's gonna get a chance to compete at left guard,
Speaker 2: because I think everybody's gonna get a chance to compet
Speaker 2: at left guard. I think you're gonna see four or
Speaker 2: five different bodies there competing at that spot in training camp.
Speaker 2: But again it's it's we talked about it yesterday on
Speaker 2: him filtered with poly P and I it's the number
Speaker 2: one thing with the team right now that I have
Speaker 2: the biggest concern about is this offensive line. And on paper,
Speaker 2: they're definitely better than they were a year ago, there's
Speaker 2: no doubt about that. But they could only have gone
Speaker 2: up from last year. They were the worst line in
Speaker 2: football buy all intents and purposes. You know pretty much
Speaker 2: every statistical measure thirty one thirty two, thirty one thirty
Speaker 2: two in the league. You know, whether it's win raid
Speaker 2: or pressures or sacks allowed or PFF passer run blocking grade,
Speaker 2: like whatever metric you want to use. They were one
Speaker 2: of the worst in the league. So they just continue
Speaker 2: to shuffle, even if this is back into the roster shuffling,
Speaker 2: looking for as much depth and as much talent at
Speaker 2: that offensive line as they can possibly get. Now, I
Speaker 2: know the only a one year deal. The terms were
Speaker 2: not announced, but I doubt it was for high money.
Speaker 2: My guess is though, is yes, here Durant had a
Speaker 2: little bit of a market. He had a really nice
Speaker 2: season in the UFL. Yeah, and I bet you he
Speaker 2: had a couple of teams that were paying attention to that.
Speaker 2: He decides to sign with the Patriots, so we'll see,
Speaker 2: we'll see what ends up happening. But West Sweitzer retires,
Speaker 2: They had the open roster spot as a result of
Speaker 2: west Schweitzer retiring, and they bring in an offensive lineman
Speaker 2: to replace him. I think you can connect the dots
Speaker 2: there with those two things as well anything else on Durant.
Speaker 1: No, that pretty much covers it all.
Speaker 2: Right, let's get into our fifty three man roster projection
Speaker 2: for the defense and the special teams. Will obviously start
Speaker 2: on defense and then trickle our way down here. So
Speaker 2: starting with the defensive line, Now, I know we always
Speaker 2: joke about this. You get into the weeds of what's
Speaker 2: a defensive lineman, what's an edge defender? Do you even
Speaker 2: like the term edge defender? Now you hate it?
Speaker 1: I included this year since Madden put it in the game.
Speaker 2: I figured, since Madden put it into the game, I
Speaker 2: need not because I've been telling you it exists for
Speaker 2: like five years. But now that it's in Madden, it's
Speaker 2: finally on your roster.
Speaker 3: No, I'll tell you honestly why I did it, And
Speaker 3: this is how I've always felt about edge. I think
Speaker 3: where edge met where that's a useful term, is when
Speaker 3: you go through the draft. There are guys that, depending
Speaker 3: on what team drafts them and what system they'll be
Speaker 3: playing in, might be defensive end, might be an outside linebacker.
Speaker 3: So in the absence of system and that context, you
Speaker 3: have to call them.
Speaker 1: An edge because you don't know.
Speaker 3: The thing that always bugged me is once they're on
Speaker 3: a team, you know what position they're playing because you
Speaker 3: can put them in that system, so it makes it
Speaker 3: a little clearer. But we don't exactly know how this
Speaker 3: Rabel system is going to use certain guys, So this
Speaker 3: might be a one year thing for me. I might
Speaker 3: go back next year when we have a better look
Speaker 3: at this defense, but for the time being, I.
Speaker 1: Mean on White.
Speaker 3: I actually don't know whether or not ke On White
Speaker 3: will profile more as a defensive end or more as
Speaker 3: an outside linebacker in this system, So.
Speaker 1: You could go either way. So I have use it
Speaker 1: this year.
Speaker 2: I haven't with the defensive lineman because I I guess
Speaker 2: I I put it two ways. I think it's Alignment's
Speaker 2: obviously the number one thing. If you're gonna be consistently
Speaker 2: in or outside of the tackle, like, that's that's the
Speaker 2: line of demarcation to me. Like, if you're lining up
Speaker 2: outside over the tackle, be five technique anything may seven
Speaker 2: to nine whatever, outside of the tackle, then you're like,
Speaker 2: you're an edge. To me, you're a pure edge. If
Speaker 2: you are a Kean White, who I do think is
Speaker 2: gonna play a bulk of snaps inside the tackles, okay,
Speaker 2: then I would say you're more of a defensive lineman.
Speaker 2: The other line that I often use is two point
Speaker 2: or three point stance.
Speaker 3: So I use that and then I use like, how
Speaker 3: often are you dropping in a coverage?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right, You're not gonna drop a defensive lineman in coverage.
Speaker 3: Remember, they used to always drop tray Tree Flowers into coverage,
Speaker 3: so like that made him seem more like a linebacker.
Speaker 1: I liked you liked when they dropped Trey Flowers in
Speaker 1: a coverage.
Speaker 2: No, but I did. I didn't mind it as much
Speaker 2: as everybody else.
Speaker 3: I still remember when they were playing the Steelers and
Speaker 3: this was prime Le'Veon Bell. I don't remember exactly what
Speaker 3: yere it was, but Le'Veon was like the dude. It
Speaker 3: was like a third and five and they had tray
Speaker 3: Flowers and man coverage on Le'Veon Bell around midfield, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, it got a little wonky at times. But I
Speaker 2: when you not that this isn't the point of this
Speaker 2: segment of the show, but it's June. When you get
Speaker 2: into the simulated pressures in that world, you can see
Speaker 2: why it's advantageous because when he lines up on the
Speaker 2: line of scrimmage, most likely with his hand in the dirt,
Speaker 2: the offensive line or the pass blocking has to account
Speaker 2: for him as a rusher right, so that will get
Speaker 2: an alignment to engage him off the snap, which in
Speaker 2: theory could create a free runner someplace else.
Speaker 3: So I get doing that sometimes, Like, yeah, it keeps
Speaker 3: the offense off guard. It's more like gotta have it downs.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to win with skill. I want my best
Speaker 3: players doing to get the best. That was always kind
Speaker 3: of how I viewed it.
Speaker 2: They've been very successful in the past though with uh
Speaker 2: We're call him replacement blitzes, where the entire like you
Speaker 2: bring an inside linebacker on a blitzer you know, used
Speaker 2: to be like high Tower or Bentley in the past,
Speaker 2: and then he would drop an edge and that just schematically,
Speaker 2: the tackle is gonna set out to the edge because
Speaker 2: he's hand in the dirt about to rush or in
Speaker 2: two point stands about to rush. You have to count
Speaker 2: for that player on the line of scrimmage. So then
Speaker 2: what happens is is like they slide the protection in
Speaker 2: that direction towards the pass rusher and then the linebacker
Speaker 2: just blitz is unblocked through the middle.
Speaker 1: Because is what Brian Flores is making huge in Minnesota
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 3: I just remember that one play being like in Trey
Speaker 3: Fi he was on a heater and I forget who.
Speaker 1: This Steelers tackle is, but he was like owning him
Speaker 1: the whole game. It was like, just let him just
Speaker 1: let him go get the quarterback.
Speaker 2: So getting back to the roster protection defensive lineman, I
Speaker 2: have six defensive lineman currently on the fifty three man roster.
Speaker 2: Three obvious ones Milton Williams, Christian Barmore, key On White.
Speaker 2: Those three guys are locks. I have Kiris Tonga and
Speaker 2: Jeremiah Farms on the team right now, and I have
Speaker 2: Joshua Farmer on the team right now. So that leaves
Speaker 2: six guys on No Jacquelin Roy, Tremaine Jones, Javari Rizzi,
Speaker 2: Ziah Eaton or Wilfred Penny.
Speaker 1: He'll stay as an ipp On Patrick quad. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have bar More Farmer, Farms, Tonga, Williams, and then
Speaker 1: I have ke On White with the with the edge.
Speaker 2: So you have you have Farms too, right, yes at Farms. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this one wasn't really really too difficult for me.
Speaker 1: Feels pretty cut and dry.
Speaker 2: It feels pretty cut and dry. I didn't really have
Speaker 2: any guys that I felt like I was really fighting
Speaker 2: for to keep on the roster. It's gonna be interesting, though,
Speaker 2: And I look at the top of this with Williams
Speaker 2: and Barmore, how much are they really gonna truly play
Speaker 2: those you guys, are those guys going to be seventy
Speaker 2: five seventy percent snap count type of guys? Because that's
Speaker 2: that's high you know that would be on the lot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for a defensive lineman, I don't know if they have
Speaker 2: the interior depth and to really be rotating them a ton. Wait,
Speaker 2: like Millan Williams, and we were talking about this yesterday too.
Speaker 2: Millon Williams in Philadelphia was I'd call him a rotational player,
Speaker 2: I think part times a little strong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, rot rotational player. Well, he was like right around
Speaker 1: fifty percent.
Speaker 2: Right, so that that's going to be significantly increased with
Speaker 2: the Patriots this year.
Speaker 1: And he talked about that as introductory press conference.
Speaker 2: It'll be interesting to see how that go. That goes
Speaker 2: one of two ways. Either his production follows and it's
Speaker 2: just even more production than what he was as a
Speaker 2: fifty percent player, or he's really truly a fifty percent
Speaker 2: player that they're now making place seventy percent and his
Speaker 2: production goes the other way. I'm willing to bet that
Speaker 2: he continues to be a good player for them, but
Speaker 2: as something to monitor with this grew. The other thing
Speaker 2: that I thought was as I was doing this, like
Speaker 2: I continue to kind of feel the same way about
Speaker 2: interior run defense. Kiri's Tonga is really the only player
Speaker 2: on this list that they have right now, and Barmore
Speaker 2: at his peaks is carved out a really good run defender.
Speaker 2: You know, he's really developed in that phase of his game.
Speaker 2: But in terms of like true run stuffers, Kiri's Tonga's
Speaker 2: really it. He's on the team because of that. There's
Speaker 2: really nobody else to put on this team as a
Speaker 2: true nose tackle that can play that role. But if
Speaker 2: I had to say one thing that I think this group,
Speaker 2: because I think the group's really good, But if I
Speaker 2: had to think of one thing that this group might
Speaker 2: potentially be a flaw or fatal flaw, it would be
Speaker 2: do they have enough beef on the line of scrimmage
Speaker 2: to stop the run against some of these true power
Speaker 2: run teams. Like if a team comes into a game
Speaker 2: plan and they have the horses to do it and
Speaker 2: they say, we're just gonna run it down the Patriots
Speaker 2: throat today, Like that's how we feel like we're gonna
Speaker 2: beat them. Are they going to have enough beef to
Speaker 2: be able to hold up in that kind of game plan?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fair question.
Speaker 3: We saw this be an issue last year and they've
Speaker 3: lost some size. We've talked about this, you know, them
Speaker 3: adding another defensive tackle, like true nose tackle would that
Speaker 3: makes some sense. But they're gonna have to win by
Speaker 3: combination and guys coming down from the second level to
Speaker 3: help in those spots.
Speaker 2: And plays in the backfield. Yeah, I think that's gonna
Speaker 2: be a big part of it. Deuce likes to say
Speaker 2: they're going to stop the run on the way to
Speaker 2: the quarterback. I think that's a big part of it too.
Speaker 2: You know, if you make some of those splash plays,
Speaker 2: you get teams into second and longs, then they don't
Speaker 2: have the ability to run the football as much. And
Speaker 2: maybe that's how you get yourself out of worrying about that.
Speaker 2: So that's a defensive line. Williams Barmore, White Farmer, Tonga Farms.
Speaker 2: I think we're all on the same page there. Moving
Speaker 2: on to the edge defenders. Love that this is a
Speaker 2: thing for you now that I'm.
Speaker 1: Glad that you for this year. We'll signal come around
Speaker 1: for this year.
Speaker 2: So edge defenders right now, I have Harold Landry Chase on,
Speaker 2: Anthony Jennings, Braiden swinsonaves Elijah Ponder the UDFA as of
Speaker 2: right now, on the outside looking in, I didn't really
Speaker 2: have very many issues with this one either. I hope
Speaker 2: that Swinson shows us a little bit more in the summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I didn't necessarily think that he had a bad spring.
Speaker 2: I think that would be going too far. He just
Speaker 2: didn't have a noticeable spring. I hope he's more noticeable
Speaker 2: in the summer. I am still circling Anthony Jennings on
Speaker 2: this roster. I just I don't know if he's a
Speaker 2: fit and what they're gonna try to do schematically, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if there's a role for him on this team.
Speaker 2: So maybe Ponder ends up coming on a little bit
Speaker 2: in the summertime. He's a little bit more their type
Speaker 2: in terms of the body type and the style of play.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's someone that could push Jennings here eventually. But
Speaker 2: that was my group as of right now, And again
Speaker 2: I do want to see a little bit more from
Speaker 2: Braiden Swinson. Maybe I just need to notice him more.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's not nothing he did.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's just tough for any edge guy,
Speaker 3: and he wasn't out there a ton in the spring.
Speaker 1: He's just kinda behind.
Speaker 3: I mean, it seems like that top group is Keon White, Kaylevon,
Speaker 3: Chase On, Harold Landry, Yeah, on the edge. So I
Speaker 3: had those three Swinson, I save Anthony jennings On. I
Speaker 3: know a lot of people took him off just because
Speaker 3: of his usage in the spring, but when he was
Speaker 3: out there, even though he was with the second unit,
Speaker 3: when he was out there, he was dominating. And this
Speaker 3: team just can't afford to move on from players with
Speaker 3: that talent. And you find a role for a guy
Speaker 3: like that. Now, maybe he gets traded. They can't be
Speaker 3: cutting a guy with that kind of ability. I just
Speaker 3: don't think they can. I think he's too good. So
Speaker 3: for now I have him on the team and they'll
Speaker 3: find something for him to do.
Speaker 1: I trust that.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. He's one of their best fifty three players.
Speaker 3: Now I had him as player fifty one to fifty three.
Speaker 3: Fair enough, But because it is, the fit is a
Speaker 3: little weird. But I just again, I don't think they
Speaker 3: can move on from a player with that level of talent.
Speaker 2: He's he's one of their best fifty three players.
Speaker 1: So I'll hired me might be one of their best,
Speaker 1: like twenty players.
Speaker 2: Even if he's not a great system fit. To your point,
Speaker 2: they don't have enough guys that I'm like, excuse me,
Speaker 2: I need to find a role for so and so.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: I can't keep Anthriny Jennings. From a talent standpoint, it's
Speaker 2: a no brainer. He's one of their better players. You
Speaker 2: can't just move on from that. I just wonder him
Speaker 2: and Tavai are the two guys that I just can't
Speaker 2: really wrap my head around in this defense. I just
Speaker 2: don't know where they belong in this group. I have
Speaker 2: them both on right now, just to get to the linebackers,
Speaker 2: you know, Roberts, Bullayne, Christian Ellis, Jelina to Via, Jack
Speaker 2: Gibbons is my group right now. Obviously Marte Maphu could
Speaker 2: have a conversation here about him now that he's officially
Speaker 2: a linebacker. We're gonna have to see that in the summertime.
Speaker 2: Joly deVie is the same thing to me as Anthrony Jennings.
Speaker 2: Do I think he's a system fit?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Do I think he's one of their best fifty three players. Yes,
Speaker 2: and until one of these guys, whether it's Mapu, whether
Speaker 2: it's Elijah Ponder, whether it's a you know, one of
Speaker 2: the younger guys, one of the rookies. You know, someone's
Speaker 2: gonna have to push those guys off the roster to
Speaker 2: just say they're not system fits, so they're not good
Speaker 2: enough to be on this team. Right, I don't think
Speaker 2: we're there yet. Who are your linebackers?
Speaker 3: I Christian Ellis, Jack Gibbons, Robert Splain and Gelani Tova.
Speaker 3: And when it comes down to me, and we've kind
Speaker 3: of talked about this before, do they want somebody different
Speaker 3: than what they have at the top of the depth
Speaker 3: chart and Splaine and Ellis to run down hill and
Speaker 3: stop the run and help them in situational roles, or
Speaker 3: do they just want another guy that adds more depth
Speaker 3: of what they have. If it's the former, If they
Speaker 3: want just one run stopper, it's t Vi. If they
Speaker 3: just want more depth behind Ellis and Splain, then there's
Speaker 3: a stronger.
Speaker 1: Case for Marte Mapu. But I think they'll want something different.
Speaker 3: I think they'll want some more size there and then
Speaker 3: Marte Mapu maybe can stick on the practice squad.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I'm with you.
Speaker 2: I also just feel like with Tavia, if there were
Speaker 2: to be an injury to Splain specifically, which, Yeah, when
Speaker 2: you look at this group right now, if Splaine gets hurt,
Speaker 2: then they're not in great shape. In my opinions, Splaine's
Speaker 2: kind of a lynchpin right now. This linebacker group. You
Speaker 2: need Splaine to be the one hundred and twenty plus
Speaker 2: tackle guy that he has been in Vegas the last
Speaker 2: couple of years. That's what you signed, That's what you
Speaker 2: need him to do. But if he got hurt in
Speaker 2: his estimas time, the guy with the experience and with
Speaker 2: the really the NFL game experience to be able to
Speaker 2: go out there and play seventy snaps in an NFL
Speaker 2: game is July to Via like he's the guy that
Speaker 2: has that kind of experience. And I guess you could
Speaker 2: say the same thing about Jennings. So for that reason,
Speaker 2: I think he's here for the time being. The Mapu thing,
Speaker 2: you know, fascinates me. I've been saying since the day
Speaker 2: they drafted him that he's a linebacker and not a safety.
Speaker 2: I got where they were going with him playing him
Speaker 2: at safety in the old system. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: overlap with those hybrid safeties and linebackers in today's NFL.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like it was we're gonna make this linebacker
Speaker 2: into a corner like they were making him into a position.
Speaker 2: That made some sense, but him playing at the second
Speaker 2: level of the defense as a modern linebacker is still
Speaker 2: the best path to him sticking in the league in
Speaker 2: my opinion. He's still two twenty two twenty five with
Speaker 2: good length. So even though he's not two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty pounds for today's measurements, in today's body types, at
Speaker 2: that position, he's right there. If he bulkes up to
Speaker 2: like two twenty five to two thirty, he's the size
Speaker 2: of most linebackers in today's NFL at that size, six three,
Speaker 2: two thirty is an NFL linebacker. Now, what it allows
Speaker 2: you to do. You have a lot of coverage flexibility.
Speaker 2: I think that's the main thing. Whether it's him playing
Speaker 2: man to man against certain guys you know, running backs,
Speaker 2: tight ends that thing, or dropping into his own coverages
Speaker 2: high stress zone coverages. He just gives you a lot
Speaker 2: of that kind of versatility where he's a linebacker basically
Speaker 2: like a safety type, Like he's a linebacker in a
Speaker 2: safety body. So he's gonna have some coverage up side.
Speaker 2: Is he gonna be able to get to that point
Speaker 2: where he was at Sack State though, where he was
Speaker 2: flying around.
Speaker 1: Well, so that's the thing you talk about, he's got
Speaker 1: to put this weight on.
Speaker 3: It's not necessarily as simple as putting the weight on
Speaker 3: and then just like all right, I have this weight on,
Speaker 3: I'm playing the same weight.
Speaker 1: Like when you put weight on, how does it impact
Speaker 1: your movement ability?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So that's where the question is that he can get
Speaker 3: up to two thirty and still fly around like that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's going to be a contributing player. He gets up
Speaker 3: to two thirty and then slows him down a step, Well,
Speaker 3: then what good was putting on the weight because now.
Speaker 1: He's lost was his best, best trait, which was his explosiveness.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe it helps that he's playing more at the
Speaker 2: second level and maybe he's more natural in that spot
Speaker 2: and has more experience in that spot. Dating back to college.
Speaker 2: The other thing with him in terms of flying around,
Speaker 2: he just wasn't reading the field very well playing safety.
Speaker 2: I didn't think he saw the field very well. I
Speaker 2: don't think he processed the game very well from that spot.
Speaker 2: A lot of misdirection and a lot of things eyes
Speaker 2: in the backfield, you know, tunnel vision, Like he just
Speaker 2: wasn't seeing the game very well. And if you don't
Speaker 2: have that instinct, then you don't have that processing ability.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna play fast. You're you're you're not gonna
Speaker 2: play fast. So that's why guys that aren't particularly fast
Speaker 2: can play faster. Like I don't think Robert Splaine is
Speaker 2: like this tremendous athlete, but when then you watch him
Speaker 2: play it, and uh, the NFL like he is a
Speaker 2: great sideline to sideline tackler because he plays so quickly
Speaker 2: and he's processing things so quickly. So for Marte Mapu,
Speaker 2: I have less concern about him having the athleticism to
Speaker 2: be a rangy linebacker and more concerned about is he
Speaker 2: going to see the game to be a rangy linebacker.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason, it just didn't click with him from
Speaker 2: a mental standpoint. There's certain games that I just have
Speaker 2: stuck in my head of misdirection and things like that
Speaker 2: caught catching him off guard. Remember that game was it
Speaker 2: was two years ago in Miami where Tyreek Hill just
Speaker 2: ran right by him. He was in like a quarters
Speaker 2: and like you just have the deep part of the
Speaker 2: field and he just got his eyes glued into some
Speaker 2: eye candy in the backfield and just let number ten,
Speaker 2: like the one player you can't let run by you
Speaker 2: just ran right by him. Like things like that just
Speaker 2: have consistently happened with Marte Mapu that if he's gonna
Speaker 2: stick around and he's gonna take that next step, he's
Speaker 2: gonna have to process the game faster. And I think
Speaker 2: that's really fascinating with him because a lot of his
Speaker 2: teammates credit him for being a really smart football player
Speaker 2: and a guy that can wear the green dot and
Speaker 2: communicate and all that kind of stuff, but he just
Speaker 2: hasn't translated in terms of his actual post snap processing.
Speaker 2: So that'll be big for Mapu. Any any hope at
Speaker 2: all for Monty Rice or cam Riley, We didn't mention
Speaker 2: them with linebacker.
Speaker 1: Cam Riley made a couple of plays in the spring.
Speaker 2: That's a past break up.
Speaker 1: We'll see. Keep an eye on.
Speaker 2: Him, all Right, to corners. I have six corners currently
Speaker 2: on the roster, Christian Gonzales and Carlton Davis, Marcus Jones,
Speaker 2: Alex Austin, Marcella's Dial, Isaiah Boulden, So that six leaves DJ,
Speaker 2: James Miles, Battle Kobe minor, Brandon Crossley and Jordan pulk
Speaker 2: Off the roster, but Gonzo, Davis, Jones, Austin, Dial, Bolden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, same group, same group for me.
Speaker 3: I think Alex Austin's the key to this group in
Speaker 3: the sense, not that he's the best player, but like
Speaker 3: in the sense that you're gonna have Gonzalez and Davis
Speaker 3: on the outside, you're gonna Marcus Jones in the slot.
Speaker 3: If Alex Austin we saw him in the slot a
Speaker 3: decent amount in the spring. If he can be your
Speaker 3: third boundary corner and your backup slot corner, that kind
Speaker 3: of saves you a spot, and it opens up an
Speaker 3: opportunity to keep a guy like Isaiah Boulden maybe for
Speaker 3: special teams purposes, right, And that's not to say he
Speaker 3: won't play some corner, but we saw them finally mix
Speaker 3: him in a little bit with the kick returners this spring.
Speaker 3: Marcella's Dial kind of same thing. But you should be
Speaker 3: able to get through the season mainly with four corners,
Speaker 3: and then it gives you some more flexibility with those
Speaker 3: other two.
Speaker 2: So the one guy that maybe had some questions again
Speaker 2: about scheme fit. They've talked a lot about size at
Speaker 2: the nickels spot. But I don't think Marcus Jones going anywhere.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 2: I think Marcus Jones is a lock on this team.
Speaker 2: To me, he's probably their starting true nickel corner. You know,
Speaker 2: they probably will have a safety nickel as well that
Speaker 2: they go to in those big packages. But when you
Speaker 2: just talk about traditional three cornerback nickel right now, Marcus
Speaker 2: Jones is the guy in the slot. To me, he's
Speaker 2: just too good in man coverage. He's too strappy, he's
Speaker 2: too opportunistic with his playmaking ability as well, it's too dynamic,
Speaker 2: like he's just such a dynamic athlete and a dynamic player.
Speaker 2: And then you add on to that the punt return ability.
Speaker 2: He's team more than has a role on this.
Speaker 3: You know, will they ultimately re sign him at the
Speaker 3: end of the year in his contracts up?
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's where you get into more that
Speaker 1: do we want to invest in this player with our scheme?
Speaker 1: But he's not a guy you rush out the door.
Speaker 2: Right Alex Austin, we talked so much about that Jason mccordy,
Speaker 2: third cornerback, outside corner roll. That to me is Alex Austen.
Speaker 2: You know, Carlon Davis and Christian Zalizer can be your starters.
Speaker 2: Is there a chance that you need a third outside
Speaker 2: corner in that group? Maybe Gonzalez is shadowing somebody that
Speaker 2: plays a lot inside that week, and so you need
Speaker 2: a third body out there. Maybe one of those guys
Speaker 2: gets dinged up at some point and you need him
Speaker 2: to spot start or something like that. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if Alex Austin's a lock, but whatever is below lock,
Speaker 2: he's like right in that next category of pretty securely
Speaker 2: on the roster. Dial I like his versatility. I still
Speaker 2: think Dial could play some safety or play some slot
Speaker 2: as well some special teams. And same thing with Bolden.
Speaker 2: I think Bolden's are going to be a really good
Speaker 2: special teamer in this league if he continues to develop
Speaker 2: not only just as a returner but also as a
Speaker 2: coverage guy. You know, a guy that can cover kicks.
Speaker 2: I think he has a really high future with that.
Speaker 2: So I have all six of those guys on the
Speaker 2: team there at cornerback safety this one. Again, I could
Speaker 2: hear arguments from some of these other guys on this group,
Speaker 2: but as of right now, I have four safeties. Kyle Duggar,
Speaker 2: Jabrill Peppers, Craig Woodson and Jalen Hawkins, Marcus EPs, Dealt
Speaker 2: Pettis and Josh Minkins are the guys off the roster
Speaker 2: as of right now. If you wanted to make the
Speaker 2: case for Epster Pettis, I could, I could hear it.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be opposed to it. But Duger and Peppers,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, have one more year. They have one
Speaker 2: more year as the incumbent starters. I think they're gonna
Speaker 2: play a lot if healthy. I don't think there's any
Speaker 2: real argument there. If they have another down year by
Speaker 2: their standards, especially Duger in twenty twenty five, maybe we're
Speaker 2: talking about a different direction in twenty twenty six. But
Speaker 2: as of right now, because of the extensions they just signed,
Speaker 2: because of the year from hell that they both just
Speaker 2: had essentially last year, Let's see if Dougger can get healthy,
Speaker 2: Let's see if Peppers can get his life in order. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, let's move forward with these two guys
Speaker 2: and hope that they're the players we thought.
Speaker 3: Well, Peppers was banged up too, especially when he came
Speaker 3: back last year, So you know, you hope if the
Speaker 3: two of them are healthy, we know what they can do.
Speaker 3: The two of them are healthy, that's one of the
Speaker 3: best safety combinations in football. I like what I saw
Speaker 3: from Craig woods in this spring. Jalen Hawkins is going
Speaker 3: to make the team. They were just giving him so
Speaker 3: many opportunities in the spring. I don't think that's ultimately
Speaker 3: what his role will look like because Dugger wasn't out
Speaker 3: there right now, we'll change things. I left del Pettis
Speaker 3: off items my fifty fourth player probably could make the
Speaker 3: argument to keep him over, maybe like Marcella style for
Speaker 3: special teams. But yeah, that group comes down to Duggar
Speaker 3: and Peppers. Where are they at they do they take
Speaker 3: a step forward, and can they bounce back?
Speaker 1: After look last year, I don't think it was an accurate.
Speaker 3: Reflection of either of their true skill sets. But you know,
Speaker 3: it can be tough to bounce back in the NFL.
Speaker 1: You're another year older. Now.
Speaker 3: It'll be interesting to see where they're at, especially to me,
Speaker 3: especially Douger, just because he's you know, still banged up
Speaker 3: and didn't practice the spring.
Speaker 2: I'm hopeful that Craig Woodson can make those guys right,
Speaker 2: you know, like if Craig Woodson can play in the
Speaker 2: deep part of the field. Yeah, and then Kyle Dugger
Speaker 2: can play more in that box robber role or maybe
Speaker 2: over the slot a little bit, and Peppers can play
Speaker 2: closer the Line's like, if you can get those guys
Speaker 2: into their natural homes, so to speak, then I think
Speaker 2: that this group is still has the potential to be really,
Speaker 2: really good. I still don't love it when it's bass, nickel,
Speaker 2: base defense, Dugger and Pepper's up top and that's your tandem.
Speaker 2: I don't love that together. I still have concerns about
Speaker 2: if they're too similar to one another, and if they
Speaker 2: both really belong closer to the line of scrimmage, are
Speaker 2: they going to be complimentary enough. When Devin McCarty retired,
Speaker 2: we talked about it a ton. I talked to Devin
Speaker 2: about it. I wrote about it with some of the
Speaker 2: quotes that he had about how they used to be
Speaker 2: so the puzzle pieces used to fit together really nicely.
Speaker 2: Back there, it was McCarty, it was Chung, it was harmon,
Speaker 2: and they were able to just play off of each
Speaker 2: other so well. Once those other guys started to age
Speaker 2: out a little bit, it was McCardy and Duggart for
Speaker 2: a couple of years there where you have a true
Speaker 2: free safety, you have a true strong safety, if you
Speaker 2: want to call it that box safety, and it all
Speaker 2: just fit together really nicely. I still don't know if
Speaker 2: Pepper's and Dugger fit together that well. But if Woodson
Speaker 2: can be the third guy in and he can be
Speaker 2: that guy that frees them up to do the rest
Speaker 2: of that type of stuff, then maybe you save that
Speaker 2: a little bit. Maybe you get back to that a
Speaker 2: little bit. It'll be interesting to see about that fourth
Speaker 2: spot though. Right now I have Hawkins. I think we
Speaker 2: both have Hawkins right as the fourth safety making the team.
Speaker 2: But epstin Pettis have a chance like they're definitely not.
Speaker 2: That's not set in stone by any means. Epps has
Speaker 2: played games in the NFL, kind of like Hawkins, like,
Speaker 2: sort of like a journeyman safety, has played in the league,
Speaker 2: has started in the league. Pettis had a promising rookie season,
Speaker 2: if you want to call it Dad as a UDFA.
Speaker 2: I just wonder with Pettis if you can just get
Speaker 2: them onto the Prata squad. I don't know if there's
Speaker 2: gonna be a ton of market for del Pettis right now,
Speaker 2: based off of the Patriots you know their roster and
Speaker 2: where their roster's at, so that that's a safety group. Defensively,
Speaker 2: I think I skewed a little bit heavier towards offense
Speaker 2: in terms of numbers. Here, let me do a quick
Speaker 2: math for you. So I had twenty four defensive players
Speaker 2: on my roster and.
Speaker 3: I had I had twenty five and twenty five. I
Speaker 3: didn't even split. I didn't even mean to do that,
Speaker 3: but I did.
Speaker 2: So I had twenty four and twenty five based off
Speaker 2: of my quick math.
Speaker 1: Oh, did you count schooler as a specialist.
Speaker 2: Yes, so I'll get to that.
Speaker 1: You're really twenty four and twenty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a little bit heavier to defense then, I guess. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that that's the offense of the defense. Looking at
Speaker 2: special teams, ye, your special teams.
Speaker 3: Okay, you just like disparaging a bunch of fans for
Speaker 3: no reason when you do that.
Speaker 1: I don't know why why you find that.
Speaker 2: I just like, I just like doing it to annoy you.
Speaker 2: Bryce Berenger at punter that that's not a surprise. Julian
Speaker 2: Ashby had long snapper also not a surprise. I understand
Speaker 2: why they're they're keeping this competition going and I understand
Speaker 2: why Parker Romo is here. But Andy Borgallis is gonna
Speaker 2: be the kicker? Yeah, I don't think that's that that's
Speaker 2: really a question. So Parker Roma maybe sticks around on
Speaker 2: the practice squad as an emergency kicker, filling in practice
Speaker 2: at times. That's often happens during the season to not
Speaker 2: put the tax on the leg Bargalis during practice during
Speaker 2: the week. So Parker Roma sticks around in the practice squad,
Speaker 2: But Andy is going to be the kicker.
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you do a do you do a bubble?
Speaker 2: I do a bubble. Oh and by the way, Brandon's
Speaker 2: schooler coverage?
Speaker 1: I had him with the safeties.
Speaker 2: Is Brandon school the best special teamer in the NFL?
Speaker 1: Who's the All Pro last year? Brand's school?
Speaker 2: Yeah he's I think he's the best special teamer.
Speaker 7: I think he is.
Speaker 2: There's a is he still with the Jets? There's the
Speaker 2: other I think he's with the Jets. There's another one
Speaker 2: probably was the second team All Pro.
Speaker 1: There's a guy there's Isn't there a guy in the
Speaker 1: Chargers too? JT. Gray from the safety or second team
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a good player too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's another guy.
Speaker 2: I want to say is with the Jets. That's also
Speaker 2: a good special teamer. But I think the schooler's got him.
Speaker 2: Uh I do I do a bubble or did a bubble?
Speaker 2: So my as of right now Marte Mapu, Del Pettis,
Speaker 2: Leyden Robinson, Jayvon Baker, Land Larrison, who I head off,
Speaker 2: and then I just put tight end three? Okay, if
Speaker 2: they're going to carry a third tight end or not
Speaker 2: a third tight end, I think is a bubble type.
Speaker 1: Of So I do my bubble like I like March Madness,
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know how they do like last
Speaker 1: four in, next four out? Whatever?
Speaker 3: Yes, so my last three so this is essentially players
Speaker 3: fifty one, fifty two and fifty three. This isn't the
Speaker 3: order of how good they are, but it's the order
Speaker 3: of like where I kept them Anthony Jennings, Jack Connolly,
Speaker 3: Gelawni Tavai and then my first three off were Dell Pettis,
Speaker 3: Marcus Bryant, and Ben Brown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're similar. You're a little higher on Ben
Speaker 2: Brown than I am. It's not so much that I
Speaker 2: think Ben Brown's a bad play.
Speaker 3: He got a lot more reps than I thought he
Speaker 3: would just spring now, granted that was with Jared Wilson limited.
Speaker 3: But I also still think if Jared Wilson wins the
Speaker 3: starting job.
Speaker 1: In camp, which I think he can do if he's healthy.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: I originally came up with this take before he found
Speaker 3: out he was dealing with some sort of injury. But
Speaker 3: if he's fully healthy by July twenty third, I think
Speaker 3: he can win the starting job. I don't know if
Speaker 3: Garrett Bradbury stays as the backup. I he might just
Speaker 3: be a guy that's, you know, a seven year veteran,
Speaker 3: has never he started every game he's played, and I
Speaker 3: believe in the in the NFL, does he say, hey,
Speaker 3: let me go somewhere where I'm gonna a chance, Because
Speaker 3: once Jared Wilson's starter, he's the starter, right, You're not
Speaker 3: continuing that competition. And if they were to do that, well, now,
Speaker 3: Ben Brown's clearly the backup center. I think Ben Brown's
Speaker 3: a good backup center. I thought he was, you know,
Speaker 3: okay as the starter last.
Speaker 1: Year all things considered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for most of the season he tailed off.
Speaker 3: He tailed off at the end, but like I would
Speaker 3: be fine with him as the backup. So I'm not
Speaker 3: he's gonna be in the mix all the way through.
Speaker 3: I also wonder if they just haven't played little guard, because,
Speaker 3: like you said, everybody's gonna compete there, and you know.
Speaker 1: He's a physical football player. He is a smart football player.
Speaker 2: That's the best argument I've heard.
Speaker 3: So he's he's gonna be in the mix, like he's
Speaker 3: not somebody we can just forget about it, even though
Speaker 3: he might be the third center right now, and usually
Speaker 3: you're not talking about the third center as a guy
Speaker 3: that's really in the mix for a roster spot. The
Speaker 3: other thing is, if Jared Wilson plays left guard, what
Speaker 3: does that mean about Cole Strange. If that means Cole
Speaker 3: Strange isn't here, well, now you still need a backup
Speaker 3: center behind Bradbury, which again would be Ben Brown. So
Speaker 3: he's he's more in the mix than it seems like
Speaker 3: at first glance.
Speaker 2: I think that's a fair take. I hadn't really thought
Speaker 2: about because at this point, and granted, we have a
Speaker 2: long way to go, and I know we say that
Speaker 2: all the time, but it just has to be said. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I look at it as the odds of Jared Wilson
Speaker 2: coming back from this injury and then beating out Garrett
Speaker 2: Bradbury and training camp with really essentially not a very
Speaker 2: much of a spray, Like he was extremely limited in
Speaker 2: the spray, So he's playing catch up come August. So
Speaker 2: beating out Garrett Bradbury in season might be one thing,
Speaker 2: But beating out Garrett Bradbury for Week one against the
Speaker 2: Las Vegas Raiders, I think is gonna be lofty. I'm
Speaker 2: not rolling out, especially when you put into this equation
Speaker 2: that Jared Wilson's already a one year starter in college.
Speaker 2: That's a twenty one year old prospect, Like he's already
Speaker 2: a young guy as it is in terms of center
Speaker 2: prospects go like most centers prospects that come in the
Speaker 2: league have been playing center for like four or five
Speaker 2: years in college. So the fact that this guy started
Speaker 2: one season at Georgia is twenty one going on twenty two,
Speaker 2: and then really didn't have a spring where he was
Speaker 2: participating fully, I just think it's a lotty to expect
Speaker 2: him to then go out and beat a veteran center
Speaker 2: like Gared Bradbury.
Speaker 3: It's not just about Wilson either, Like Bradbury took a
Speaker 3: step back last year, he's on the older side. He
Speaker 3: takes another step back this year, like does he come
Speaker 3: back to Wilson?
Speaker 2: I see what you're saying. The one argument I would
Speaker 2: have for Wilson is that there's no doubt about it
Speaker 2: that his physical traits are beyond Bradbury's at this point.
Speaker 2: Like Bradbury is undersized, he gets picked on in pass protection,
Speaker 2: like that's a real concern with his game. Jared Wilson's
Speaker 2: much more bigger, sturdier, more athletic at this point of
Speaker 2: his career then Bradbury is. I just think the experience
Speaker 2: is gonna end up winning out there, because not that
Speaker 2: he's a quarterback like Drake may was last year, but
Speaker 2: with any rookie, like you don't want to just throw
Speaker 2: the rookie into the fire unless you have to. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I don't think they're gonna have to be in
Speaker 2: a position where Bradbury's so bad that they have to
Speaker 2: push Jared Wilson into the starting lineup right away. But
Speaker 2: maybe Ben Brown sticks around on the practice squad two.
Speaker 2: Now that's possible because not a lot of teams carry
Speaker 2: like a true backup center anymore on their roster. They
Speaker 2: might carry a guy that could play some center in
Speaker 2: a pinch, like a cold strange who could play center
Speaker 2: in a pinch, but just a purely one position backup center.
Speaker 2: You don't see that too often in the league. That's
Speaker 2: usually now a practice squad spot. So maybe that's Ben
Speaker 2: Brown on the practice squad because I'm with you on
Speaker 2: Ben Brown in general. I didn't think he was awful
Speaker 2: last year. I thought he was if he was your
Speaker 2: biggest problem on the offensive line last year, your offensive
Speaker 2: line would have been better than would have ended up
Speaker 2: being like they had much bigger issues and excuse me,
Speaker 2: than Ben Brown at center. So that's your roster projection.
Speaker 2: If you want to weigh in on our roster projections
Speaker 2: and you think that we're wrong or you think we're
Speaker 2: right or whatever, be sure to do so. The email address,
Speaker 2: which is right. I want to point this out. It's
Speaker 2: right there at the bottom of the screen. Now we
Speaker 2: got we got fancy with this, we got graphics now,
Speaker 2: producer Alex. That's pretty cool. I like that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the graphics. So you can see right
Speaker 2: there on if you're watching on YouTube or on the
Speaker 2: live stream on any of your social media platforms. Podcast
Speaker 2: at patrons dot com is the email address eight five five,
Speaker 2: Pats five hundred is the phone number. We got some
Speaker 2: people waiting on the line, so we're going to get
Speaker 2: to those now and I'll get to your emails. Patty
Speaker 2: is an aguam. What's up, Patty?
Speaker 9: What's up?
Speaker 2: How we doing.
Speaker 9: Doing good? So my question today is who is the
Speaker 9: as far as like who you guys have in making
Speaker 9: the fifty three men roster, who do you think you
Speaker 9: guys most polarizing player is. And I'll give you my answer,
Speaker 9: like I'm mold over two players, one on offense, one
Speaker 9: on defense. On defense, that was Kyle Dugger for me,
Speaker 9: But on offense, I think it's and I keep bringing
Speaker 9: this guy up. I think it's Cole Strange. And this
Speaker 9: is what the caveat of take the quarterback out because
Speaker 9: obviously your quarterback is more oftentimes than not, your most
Speaker 9: polarizing player. But to me, Cole Strange is like the
Speaker 9: is the key to the whole offensive line, Like if
Speaker 9: he's going to be twenty seventy in the next month,
Speaker 9: and for me, like you know, twenty seven to thirty two,
Speaker 9: those are your prime year set an NFL player. You
Speaker 9: have the experience. Even though he's been injured but like
Speaker 9: you have the experience of going through a system or systems,
Speaker 9: and you know, just if he's able to kind of
Speaker 9: put it all together this year and really solidify that
Speaker 9: spot up as left guard, you know, maybe he gets
Speaker 9: a contract expansion, but more so, like you know, Will
Speaker 9: Will Campbell's going to have his ups and downs as
Speaker 9: a rookie. You know it's gonna happen. He's not going
Speaker 9: to come in and be prime Joe Thomas' first year.
Speaker 9: But if Strange can kind of capture that lightning in
Speaker 9: the bottle that he had in twenty twenty three where
Speaker 9: he statistically had his best season and can build off
Speaker 9: of that, Like I said that really to me, I know,
Speaker 9: like you'll have questions at center, but like that kind
Speaker 9: of solidifies the offensive life more, you know, more or less.
Speaker 9: And I just wanted to get your guys opinion on that.
Speaker 5: I'll take it out fair guys, Thanks, Patti.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Cole Strange is a fair answer. It's a fair answer.
Speaker 2: He's going into year four as the last year of
Speaker 2: his rookie contract. They obviously did not pick up the
Speaker 2: fifth year option for pretty obvious reasons, so he's in
Speaker 2: a contract year. Whether he plays left guard center. He's
Speaker 2: gonna have to play it at a pretty good level
Speaker 2: to be here beyond this season and maybe even be
Speaker 2: here this season. I still am not ruling out Cole
Speaker 2: Strange is not even making the team, that's right. So
Speaker 2: that's definitely a good one. I would say the most polarizing,
Speaker 2: Like when I hear polarized.
Speaker 3: We so like polarizing that we have them on the roster,
Speaker 3: or just who's the most polarizing player on the team,
Speaker 3: because like that's two different things.
Speaker 2: Right, So I when I hear polarizing, I think of
Speaker 2: like controversial, to be honest with you, or like just
Speaker 2: a bane of people's existence in some type of way.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to say Jalen Polk, Like I feel
Speaker 2: like Jalen Polk right now.
Speaker 1: You don't have him on the team. I don't have
Speaker 1: him on the He said that we have on the team.
Speaker 3: Someone that we have on this So, like I was
Speaker 3: gonna say, I just think like when I hear that,
Speaker 3: it's like, well, so my first reaction was like, all right,
Speaker 3: polarizing in terms of like people are gonna agree or
Speaker 3: disagree with me having him on. It's Kendrick Bourne, Who's
Speaker 3: weirdly one of the most polarizing players on this team.
Speaker 3: A lot of what I hear people complain about about
Speaker 3: Kendrick Bourne, I'm like, are you sure you're talking about
Speaker 3: eighty four?
Speaker 1: Are you sure you're talking about that guy?
Speaker 2: Well, their complaints are that he's not a wide receiver one,
Speaker 2: and no one's saying that he is, Like, no one
Speaker 2: has made that art.
Speaker 3: No, He's just like a solid, complimentary player. He's experienced
Speaker 3: with the quarterback, he's experienced with the offensive. He's got
Speaker 3: a little juice I don't know, like I And for
Speaker 3: all the stuff I hear about him being a bad
Speaker 3: locker room guy outside of the Patricia year, there's not
Speaker 3: much evidence of that, And I kind of throw that
Speaker 3: out because it was that year. So I think he'd
Speaker 3: be a good useful player to keep on this team.
Speaker 3: He's not gonna solve every problem they have a wide receiver,
Speaker 3: but I think he'd be a good useful player to
Speaker 3: keep on this team. But people seem to have like
Speaker 3: a real real problem with him being on the roster.
Speaker 2: I think the main reason why is there's sort of
Speaker 2: this like attachment that I think that gets attached to
Speaker 2: Kendrick Bourne. Of like the mediocrity that's been that room, right,
Speaker 2: and yeah, last year specifically, he was supposed to be
Speaker 2: the veteran in the room, he was supposed to be
Speaker 2: the leader. I don't necessarily think that he had anything
Speaker 2: to do with a lot of what went on, but
Speaker 2: maybe you think it did in terms of the immaturity
Speaker 2: and some of the stuff that went on with that
Speaker 2: room last year. Maybe you think that he's shoulders some
Speaker 2: of that responsibility as the as a more veteran player,
Speaker 2: that he should have been more of the adult in
Speaker 2: the room and a better leader to his younger teammates. Fine.
Speaker 2: I think the other thing is is that for a
Speaker 2: while there, especially let's call it twenty three, twenty two,
Speaker 2: twenty three, like he was higher on the depth chart
Speaker 2: than he should have been. So I don't think it's
Speaker 2: necessarily Kendrick Bourne specifically. I think it's just more of
Speaker 2: an era that Kendrick Bourne has represented. Yeah, and people
Speaker 2: just want to move on from that completely, which I understand.
Speaker 2: But I think both of us get heat for being
Speaker 2: so super pro Kendrick Bourne when all we're saying is
Speaker 2: that Kendrick Bourne is a serviceable NFL receiver, Right, None
Speaker 2: of us think that he's prime Randy Moss. Okay, he's
Speaker 2: just a serviceable guy. He's a decent NFL receiver. He's
Speaker 2: an average NFL receiver. That's it. That's all we're saying.
Speaker 3: Well, and I also just think he has less variance
Speaker 3: than some of the other guys. And yeah, they have
Speaker 3: to keep some guys with upside, but you want somebody
Speaker 3: that you can kind of set your watch to, even
Speaker 3: if he's not the best player.
Speaker 1: You want somebody that you kind of know what he's
Speaker 1: gonna give you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that that's a that's a good one. Can
Speaker 2: I hadn't hear the part that they had to be
Speaker 2: on my projection, I would probably say, if he has
Speaker 2: to be on the projection, it's either born or col Strange.
Speaker 1: Cole Strane is a good one.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a it's put up a shut up
Speaker 2: time for cold Strange, Like he's gonna have to carve
Speaker 2: out a role, make this roster be a starter. Probably
Speaker 2: put some good tape out there. I mean, what's what's
Speaker 2: cole Strange's future if his season goes the way the
Speaker 2: first three have gone in and out with injuries, inconsistent play.
Speaker 2: I don't know where he sticks in the league beyond
Speaker 2: maybe like a tryout, second contract somewhere. So it's a
Speaker 2: big year for him, obviously with the first round pick
Speaker 2: attached to it. It's a big conversation in the big
Speaker 2: storyline in general with that draft pick and what that
Speaker 2: draft pick represents and a lot of ways, similarly to
Speaker 2: Kendrick Bourne, it just represents a time where they were
Speaker 2: not making very many good personnel decisions as an organization,
Speaker 2: and so Cole Strange of gets lumped into that as
Speaker 2: as a poster child for that entire era of Patriots football,
Speaker 2: which I think a lot of us would would like
Speaker 2: to forget and like to move on from. So next
Speaker 2: up here is Anthony and Seattle. What's up? Anthony?
Speaker 10: Hey, Hey, what's up? Everyone's up? Alex I guess on Hey,
Speaker 10: longtime pfw S, last TU listener, call her emailer, first
Speaker 10: time calling into you guys.
Speaker 1: Nice, So thank you.
Speaker 10: And you know, through the years, I've looked for a
Speaker 10: second podcast to PEU to try to fill that void
Speaker 10: when they go to two shows a day during the
Speaker 10: off season, and none of them have caught my attention
Speaker 10: until you guys came along. So I thank you guys
Speaker 10: for that awesome. Hey, So one thing that I caught
Speaker 10: my ear a couple of times that Evan you've mentioned it.
Speaker 10: I want to see what you guys think about this scenario.
Speaker 10: So you brought up Jared Wilson being not ruling him
Speaker 10: out in that competition to possibly win the left guard
Speaker 10: spot if he just ends up being just the best
Speaker 10: pure blocker out of that that group of guys, and uh,
Speaker 10: that got my ear cop just because so I thought about, Okay, well,
Speaker 10: let's say if that, if that, if it plays out
Speaker 10: that way and he was to win the starting left
Speaker 10: guard job and then he ends up being like a
Speaker 10: maybe like not great but good, Let's just say he's
Speaker 10: a good guard, and then like I Will Campbell's you know,
Speaker 10: de center good. I think if that in that scenario,
Speaker 10: I like to know what you guys think. But for me,
Speaker 10: I think if that's the case, I'm no longer all
Speaker 10: that interested in like moving him back to center. Let's
Speaker 10: say we move on from Bradbury, you know, next next season,
Speaker 10: and uh, you know, I like the idea of you know,
Speaker 10: him and Will Campbell just kind of like growing up
Speaker 10: together in the in this league. Now, if we got
Speaker 10: some you know, you got good play over there on
Speaker 10: on that side of the line, and then uh, you know,
Speaker 10: looking to try to you know, I think guard's more
Speaker 10: important position. And so now you're going to you know,
Speaker 10: Alex's you know, Soto sign one draft one at the
Speaker 10: center position now instead of being like a sign onund
Speaker 10: of one in trying to fill that guard positioning in
Speaker 10: or maybe even bring in a couple guys who can
Speaker 10: do kind of or like Wilson, who could play both.
Speaker 10: And then now you've got kind of a competition where
Speaker 10: it's three guys that fill two spots. Where you got
Speaker 10: the best guys it takes the guard spot, the second
Speaker 10: best guy is the center, and then you got the
Speaker 10: third guy who's the backup for both spots. I was
Speaker 10: just curious what you guys think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for the call, Thanks for listening. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2: With Jared Wilson, I agree with the consensus that his
Speaker 2: best long term positions at center. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 2: the number one thing is when you when you talk
Speaker 2: to people that no offensive line play, you know, like
Speaker 2: the Duke Mannyweather is the world who have worked with
Speaker 2: Jared Wilson having a center that's that dynamic of an
Speaker 2: athlete can just really open up a lot of avenues
Speaker 2: of what you can do in the run game that
Speaker 2: you can't normally do with the center that's not a
Speaker 2: great athlete. So the center a lot like the middle linebacker,
Speaker 2: sits the pace of the offensive line and says how
Speaker 2: much range and just athleticism you have on the offensive line.
Speaker 2: So when you have a center like Jared Wilson who's
Speaker 2: a very dynamic athlete, you know, the number one s
Speaker 2: tier of course of this is Jason Kelce. When you
Speaker 2: have a guy that can move like that at the
Speaker 2: center position, it just makes your line more dynamic as
Speaker 2: a whole. But I agree with the caller and that
Speaker 2: in a vacuum, left guard is probably a more valuable
Speaker 2: position because you're going to be facing those three techniques,
Speaker 2: Like you're going to be facing more pass rush types
Speaker 2: on the defensive line than you might be at center,
Speaker 2: where at center, a lot of your reps in pass
Speaker 2: protection you're gonna be uncovered, like there's not gonna be
Speaker 2: anybody straight up over you, So you're not gonna be
Speaker 2: put into those one on one battles quite as often
Speaker 2: as you might be at left guard. So I get
Speaker 2: the caller's point. I still think Jared Wilson's naturally best
Speaker 2: at center. I'm not ruling him out for left guard.
Speaker 2: Less bit about him maybe projecting as a left guard
Speaker 2: long term, and more because it might just be your
Speaker 2: best five on paper, like Camble, Wilson, Bradberry on when
Speaker 2: new Moses is probably your five most talented offensive lineman
Speaker 2: on the roster. So if you're in that vane, if
Speaker 2: you want to get all those five on the team
Speaker 2: or on the field, excuse me, the way to do
Speaker 2: it is to play Jared Wilson at guard. So that
Speaker 2: that's more of my thinking of it. I like his
Speaker 2: point though, and I think that they're right there with you.
Speaker 2: Will Campbell and Jared Wilson are here to hopefully be
Speaker 2: anchors of the offensive line for the next five to
Speaker 2: ten years. Like that's the goal. Whether it's center or
Speaker 2: left guard for Wilson in the long term, well that
Speaker 2: remains to be seen. But the goal is to have
Speaker 2: those guys developed together and develop along this runway with
Speaker 2: Drake may as pillars up front for you. So hopefully
Speaker 2: it does work out that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I just I do think you want to
Speaker 3: keep his long term development in mind, and if it's
Speaker 3: your best five week one September twenty twenty five, but
Speaker 3: you think he's better off waiting a month and then
Speaker 3: slipping in at center in October and he gets to
Speaker 3: develop at that position behind the scenes. I know you
Speaker 3: said you think he can develop or well playing left guard.
Speaker 3: I'm a little less optimistic about that idea. I think
Speaker 3: you develop playing the position you're gonna play, practicing at
Speaker 3: the position you're gonna practice. I want his long term
Speaker 3: development in mind, But if there's nobody else like he
Speaker 3: kind of has to do.
Speaker 2: It be interesting to see how they feel about that,
Speaker 2: because in this system, there's not as much mentally on
Speaker 2: the center. It's more on the quarterback than it is
Speaker 2: on the center. We've talked about that a million times,
Speaker 2: so it'd be interesting to see how they feel about it.
Speaker 2: He's relatively inexperience, like I was saying earlier. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: regardless of where you play him, he doesn't have a
Speaker 2: ton of in game reps under his belt. So if
Speaker 2: you feel like the best way for him to develop
Speaker 2: is in game live reps, which I do, I think
Speaker 2: that's the best way for any player to develop. Now
Speaker 2: you don't want to rush him and put him out
Speaker 2: there too.
Speaker 1: They're not reps at the It's a different position.
Speaker 2: It is, but it's not we're not talking about him
Speaker 2: playing tackle, like we're talking him move over and moving
Speaker 2: over one spot, but.
Speaker 3: You're also talking about the mechanic of actually snapping the
Speaker 3: ball and having to get up from that stance and
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. So you are it's like, it's
Speaker 3: different mechanically.
Speaker 2: But if you're in practice and yeah, he'll run, maybe
Speaker 2: he runs scouts team center and things like that. But
Speaker 2: if you're in practice and you're not getting any real
Speaker 2: live reps in games at center, and you're a young,
Speaker 2: inexperienced player, as it is, like, where is that is
Speaker 2: it enough to just give him practice squad reps during
Speaker 2: the season, you know, scout team reps during the season,
Speaker 2: and that because he needs to play at some.
Speaker 1: Point, Well, we'll see how We'll see how close he
Speaker 1: is in preseason. That will be big.
Speaker 3: But like, if you think he's close enough in preseason,
Speaker 3: maybe he's not perfectly polished to play center, but you see, like, hey,
Speaker 3: he's pretty close, so let's start him at center so
Speaker 3: he can get over the hump and by the time
Speaker 3: we get you know, around Halloween, will be rolling.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I definitely think there's a chance that he plays
Speaker 2: as a rookie somewhere on this line, more than a chance.
Speaker 2: And I'm not necessarily with you that he beats Bradbury
Speaker 2: out for week one or has a chance to. But
Speaker 2: does he have a chance to beat Bradbury up by Halloween? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 2: I think that's definitely on the table and should be
Speaker 2: on the I just.
Speaker 3: Think that runway becomes longer if he's starting at guard. Also,
Speaker 3: if he's starting at guard and you want to move
Speaker 3: him to center to replace Bradbury, now you're changing two
Speaker 3: spots instead of one, which becomes more convoluted.
Speaker 2: That's a that's a fair point as well. I understand
Speaker 2: what you're saying. And we've been down this road. We've
Speaker 2: been down this road with Mike Onwenu and it hasn't
Speaker 2: been pretty right inside outside inside. Now, this isn't quite
Speaker 2: like as give.
Speaker 1: Them give him a position, but I think it.
Speaker 3: I think centert to guard is a bigger transition than
Speaker 3: you're making it.
Speaker 2: But it's not as big as guard to tackle. It's not.
Speaker 1: It's not because it completely different mechanic, just like it's
Speaker 1: a different mechanic.
Speaker 2: But you're still blocking in a phone booths.
Speaker 3: Thematically, it's more similar. The actual physical motions are very different, but.
Speaker 2: You're still blocking in a phone like tackle. You're blocking
Speaker 2: in space right your damp side, whereas at garden center
Speaker 2: it's a it's a quicker car.
Speaker 3: But I think going from a loaded up three point
Speaker 3: stance to having an app the ball and get yourself
Speaker 3: up and get your hands up and get your head
Speaker 3: up and look around like, that's a big difference. When
Speaker 3: you're reguard, you're looking your see your assignment. You of
Speaker 3: them sized up from the beginning. When you're a center,
Speaker 3: there's more you're doing before you get to that stage.
Speaker 1: You're right, So I just let him work at that position.
Speaker 2: Can I bring up one other, like nerdy offensive line thing?
Speaker 3: I need all the nerdy offensive line stuff I can
Speaker 3: get so and look bad in front of David Andrews.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here's actually a good question for him.
Speaker 2: Here's another nerdy offensive line thing I've been thinking a
Speaker 2: lot about Will Campbell. Yeah, and this isn't a short
Speaker 2: arm joke, so don't make it that. But it's not
Speaker 2: not a short arm joke. He really. I could probably
Speaker 2: in the six to seven games I want to say,
Speaker 2: maybe eight games of his that I watched at LSU
Speaker 2: last year, I could probably count on one hand the
Speaker 2: amount of time he was in a three point stance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're very they don't do it. They don't do it.
Speaker 2: They don't do it. And he's they play of their
Speaker 2: offenses out of the shotgun. He was up into two
Speaker 2: point stance, up on his feet with his you know,
Speaker 2: his arms up and not in the three point pat
Speaker 2: patriot style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and approach to that weird sort of upright stance
Speaker 1: to begin with.
Speaker 2: And he has the weird upright stance to begin with.
Speaker 2: It's it's not something that I am concerned about. It's
Speaker 2: something that I want to watch, like it's on my
Speaker 2: radar to watch in training camp in this over the summer.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of advantages in the run game to
Speaker 2: being in a three point stance. Now, you might sit
Speaker 2: there and say, well, isn't that a tell? It can
Speaker 2: be Actually, if you really study film, it can be
Speaker 2: a tell sometimes for certain guys. A guy that has
Speaker 2: a little bit of a tell like that. It's Trent Williams,
Speaker 2: but Trent Williams is so damn good. It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: matter that he has a tell, but he does have
Speaker 2: a little bit of a tell. Three point stance though,
Speaker 2: it's just as exactly how you would think. It's just
Speaker 2: naturally creates a lower pad level. It just you are
Speaker 2: just leveraging your You're down in the three points, has
Speaker 2: said upright, So you're just naturally your pads are starting
Speaker 2: at a lower point, so it's easier to kind of
Speaker 2: like just get out of your stance and explode out
Speaker 2: of your stance and get into the block with low
Speaker 2: pads and good leverage. It's not not a thing that
Speaker 2: he's never done it, and it's also not not a
Speaker 2: thing that his arms are not particularly long. So like
Speaker 2: when he goes into the three point stance a couple
Speaker 2: of times I saw him do it in the spring.
Speaker 2: It was just kind of awkward at first to see
Speaker 2: him do it. And I don't think he's done it
Speaker 2: a ton. Again, I'm not concerned. I just I am observant,
Speaker 2: like I just want to see it more consistently and
Speaker 2: see what it looks like more consistently. Am I crazy
Speaker 2: for caring about this?
Speaker 3: Or is this like like you said, it's a thing.
Speaker 3: It's a thing to watch. I don't know that it's
Speaker 3: the biggest concern because it will help with the leverage
Speaker 3: at times.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's absolutely a thing.
Speaker 3: It's like when we talk about, you know, we did
Speaker 3: with Drake May last year, like he's never really been
Speaker 3: under center, right, and it's just a different mechanical thing.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean he can't do it is another thing
Speaker 3: he has to learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems like a fair comparison, right or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to ask and I probably should
Speaker 2: have already asked Will Campbell about it, because in a
Speaker 2: lot of times when we hear about like the under
Speaker 2: center thing with quarterbacks, they'll come back and Matt Jones
Speaker 2: is this way. He laughed at it because like in
Speaker 2: high school he ran like a version of the wing
Speaker 2: t and was under center all the time. So maybe
Speaker 2: there was a chance that Will Campbell down in the
Speaker 2: Bayou in high school and Monroe, Louisiana was in a
Speaker 2: three point stance for four straight years, right, Like I
Speaker 2: don't know, like maybe he was. You never know, So
Speaker 2: maybe it's nothing. It's just something that was on my radar,
Speaker 2: the stance that he has. And then Coupled with that,
Speaker 2: the fact that he hasn't played a lot of reps
Speaker 2: with his hand in the dirt is just something that
Speaker 2: I want to watch and monitor. Do they tweak with
Speaker 2: his stance? His stances is unorthodox. He's he kind of
Speaker 2: stands like straight up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's kind of got nash and Gendy thing going on.
Speaker 2: He stands like more straight up or more vertical than
Speaker 2: most guys. But then as soon as the ball is snapped,
Speaker 2: he has really great sink and flexibility to like get
Speaker 2: into that power stance that you want to see him in,
Speaker 2: the athletic stance, but he does start from a higher
Speaker 2: point than what you're used to now. Emery Jones on
Speaker 2: the other side at LSU also did not as pronounced
Speaker 2: as Will Campbell, but it was also a little bit
Speaker 2: more of an upright stance for him as well. So
Speaker 2: maybe it was just an LSU thing that that's how
Speaker 2: they felt they wanted to do it for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: But do you do you think Genty is a good example?
Speaker 2: In Vegas? They this has been a little bit of
Speaker 2: a talking point. Do you tweak with Will Campbell's set,
Speaker 2: not his actual post snap how he moves, but like
Speaker 2: the actual when he comes to set, he's more upright.
Speaker 1: First of all, the Raiders are trying to change genty stance.
Speaker 2: I don't think they are, but it was a talking
Speaker 2: point with their media.
Speaker 3: That's something that I don't think he needs. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a picture of him with his hands on his knees.
Speaker 3: That'd be a shame if they change that. I love
Speaker 3: his stance, and he's not the only one.
Speaker 1: Dude didn't.
Speaker 3: I think Jaya Jai used to stand like that. Sound
Speaker 3: a couple other guys, but I might just yeah, maybe,
Speaker 3: but that was I think two coaches to go for them.
Speaker 3: I don't think you tweak his stance right away. If
Speaker 3: he struggles out of the gate, that might be one
Speaker 3: of the first things that you look at to adjust,
Speaker 3: But you're already thrown enough on his plate. If he's
Speaker 3: comfortable and it's working, it's I mean, there's examples of
Speaker 3: this in sports. You know, I always go to like
Speaker 3: Steph Curry, right, you would never teach a kid to
Speaker 3: shoot a basketball mechanically the way Steph Curry shoots it.
Speaker 3: He's a very unorthodox jump shot. But you're also not
Speaker 3: gonna correct Steph Curry's because he's Steph Curry and it
Speaker 3: works for him. But it works for him, it's not
Speaker 3: gonna work for anybody else. Aaron Rodgers very unorthodox throwing motion.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't coach somebody to throw the ball that way
Speaker 3: so that he throws both feet off the ground, right,
Speaker 3: But you're not gonna look at him and be like, no,
Speaker 3: you need to change this now. If Aaron Rodgers had
Speaker 3: gotten in the league and it kind of sucked it first, yeah,
Speaker 3: the coach is probably would have gone to him and
Speaker 3: been like, no, we need to clean up your mechanics.
Speaker 3: So I think that's something with Will Campbell. If it
Speaker 3: works for him, it works for him, you don't screw
Speaker 3: with it, and it's not something you're necessarily gonna touch
Speaker 3: right away if he's proving in the summer that it's worked,
Speaker 3: but if he starts to struggle, that's going to be
Speaker 3: one of the first things you look at and correct.
Speaker 2: When when Drake May first got in here last year,
Speaker 2: I remember talking to TC McCartney, their quarterbacks coach last year,
Speaker 2: and I know that staff has a lot of negative
Speaker 2: energy around him right now, but they did a nice
Speaker 2: job with Drake May. Van Pelton McCarty one thing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the hardest thing they do. And I remember talking to
Speaker 2: him about Drake May's throwing motion because there's a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about it. Was, you know, the elongated throwing
Speaker 2: motion and he kind of brought the arm all the
Speaker 2: way back and they would you want to tighten that?
Speaker 2: Would you want to shorten that? And the one thing
Speaker 2: that McCartney said to me was that if when it
Speaker 2: comes to the throwing motion, the concern that you have
Speaker 2: about it is is he controlling the football and is
Speaker 2: he throwing the ball accurately? So some people looked at
Speaker 2: it in the draft and said, Drake May's throwing motion
Speaker 2: is part of the reason why he has those May
Speaker 2: sprays like is because it's throwing motions longer. So basically
Speaker 2: you just have like more margin. You're creating a more
Speaker 2: room for error, right because yeah, you're longer, so you
Speaker 2: have more time to make a mistake in your mechanics.
Speaker 2: So if you shorten that motion up and in theory,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be quicker, it's gonna be more compact, the
Speaker 2: ball is going to come out smoother. I would say
Speaker 2: the same thing is true for Will Campbell. They didn't
Speaker 2: touch Drake May's arm motion because they felt like it
Speaker 2: wasn't an issue, right, They felt like it wasn't why
Speaker 2: he wasn't throwing accurately. They thought the accuracy was more
Speaker 2: timed up with his footwork and the fact that he
Speaker 2: wasn't throwing in rhythm with his feet. So once they
Speaker 2: cleaned that up, he had some sprays last year, but
Speaker 2: he was way more accurate than anybody could have imagined.
Speaker 2: Like it was way better than anybody could have imagined.
Speaker 2: Same thing in my mind with Will Campbell, Like you said,
Speaker 2: if his stance in his start of his set is
Speaker 2: not hindering him and he's not losing because of it,
Speaker 2: then don't touch it. If he sprayed the ball all
Speaker 2: over the field with the offensive line equivalent of that is,
Speaker 2: then maybe you start to be a little bit more
Speaker 2: concerned about him, and you start to get him into
Speaker 2: a more natural stance.
Speaker 1: But I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not worried about like the high any of the
Speaker 2: high level stuff with Bill Campbell.
Speaker 1: I'm really not.
Speaker 2: I think he's gonna be fine. All this little minutia
Speaker 2: stuff though, is uh.
Speaker 1: So we do on the show.
Speaker 2: I find it interesting. We'll see what happens I don't
Speaker 2: know if they're gonna tweak with it, but I will
Speaker 2: definitely be looking for it. Uh. Kayley is in San Diego.
Speaker 2: What's up, Kayley?
Speaker 8: Kayley, Hey, guys, I was watching Patriots on stills here
Speaker 8: yesterday and I heard Evan was talking a little bit
Speaker 8: about the break in between for the summer. Who are
Speaker 8: you guys watching for this summer and making sure they're
Speaker 8: staying out of trouble. We saw Digs in the yacht.
Speaker 8: Who else do we we watch him?
Speaker 2: Oh Man, Thanks for the call, Keyley. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to speculate on players potentially getting into trouble. Let's hope
Speaker 2: nobody does. But that was just a point we brought
Speaker 2: up lot yesterday about this being at the time of
Speaker 2: the off season where just league wide, unfortunately, this is
Speaker 2: when guys tend tool out again in some trouble. But
Speaker 2: let me ask you this as an off season topic, Kaylee.
Speaker 2: We're not dodging your question. It's just I don't think
Speaker 2: we need to speculate about that. The question that I
Speaker 2: have for you, because I have two different brains when
Speaker 2: it comes to this, My you know, working brain is saying,
Speaker 2: if you cancel my summer NFL calendar. I am not
Speaker 2: going to be happy, Okay, like this is our This
Speaker 2: five weeks is really our summer. Yeah, where we actually
Speaker 2: get to enjoy summer. And woe is us? I know,
Speaker 2: but bear with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: However, from a logistical standpoint, it makes less than zero
Speaker 2: sense that they go through this spring circuit and they
Speaker 2: have this weird five week gap and then we come
Speaker 2: back for training camp. It just doesn't make any sense
Speaker 2: logistically why they do it this way. I still think,
Speaker 2: based off of some of the things that you hear
Speaker 2: coming out of these NFLPA meetings and league meetings, that
Speaker 2: reconfiguring the entire offseason is on the calendar or on
Speaker 2: the you know, in terms of just putting it so
Speaker 2: that OTA's leads directly into mini camp, directly into training camp.
Speaker 2: Instead of having the spring start in April run through June,
Speaker 2: five week break training camp, we would have probably everything
Speaker 2: would probably start in the beginning to middle of June
Speaker 2: run all the way through July. Maybe you have like
Speaker 2: a week off in there somewhere around July fourth, and
Speaker 2: everybody back for training camp. You the reporter would probably
Speaker 2: hate it, But doesn't it make more logistical sense for
Speaker 2: it to be that way.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. It doesn't. You need a break physically at
Speaker 1: some point.
Speaker 2: So the break would be the off season from the
Speaker 2: end of the football season in January slash February to
Speaker 2: the beginning of June.
Speaker 3: I just think break two and a half months of camp,
Speaker 3: because that's what you're talking about. So you're talking about
Speaker 3: starting in mid June, mid June to mid July, mid
Speaker 3: July to mid August to the end of August, right,
Speaker 3: is the that's two and a half months of camp.
Speaker 1: You'd have like, that's brutal, so you'd have to shorten it.
Speaker 2: You'd have. What you'd have is is this ota thing
Speaker 2: what we have now where when in the very beginning
Speaker 2: would be more of like a ramp up period and
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be five six practices a week. It would
Speaker 2: be like two or three practices a week.
Speaker 3: How about So how about you just get rid of
Speaker 3: that and you start like the second week in July.
Speaker 3: Start get rid of the spring and start two weeks earlier.
Speaker 2: That would That is probably the compromise. That's where the
Speaker 2: NFLPA is. Yeah, the NFLPA wants to do away with
Speaker 2: the spring starting all together.
Speaker 3: So like for instance, this year, because they always start
Speaker 3: on that Wednesday now, right, which is July twenty twenty third, Yes,
Speaker 3: start on July ninth, So that gives you two more
Speaker 3: weeks to lead up and that can be all the install. Right,
Speaker 3: What is install realistically, Tay, I've never done this process.
Speaker 1: It is two weeks too short for install.
Speaker 2: For your base stuff. No, now, but.
Speaker 1: What are they installed in the spring? I'm saying the
Speaker 1: install that you would do in the springing.
Speaker 2: Right, But I'm talking about your base offense, meaning like
Speaker 2: first and ten from the twenty five what plays are
Speaker 2: you running if by the end of the spring, because
Speaker 2: they have the extra time. Now, by the end of
Speaker 2: the spring, they're already into like red zone work. Well,
Speaker 2: I get so that the other thing, that type of
Speaker 2: stuff would have to wait.
Speaker 3: Well, the other thing, I guess is because we're thinking
Speaker 3: of this starting with OTAs, they have what a month
Speaker 3: before OTAs begin, that's on the calendar.
Speaker 1: Yes, So when is is that? What's starting in so
Speaker 1: the June.
Speaker 2: The proposal that I have seen from the NFLPA, and
Speaker 2: that came out a couple of years ago, is the
Speaker 2: first time I heard of this. The proposal that I
Speaker 2: saw was they would start probably right around this time,
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit earlier. They would have essentially a
Speaker 2: mini version of the spring where it's o TA rules,
Speaker 2: nonpadded shorts and T shirt.
Speaker 3: What about the stuff before they even get to the
Speaker 3: o TA practices because that would be that phase one,
Speaker 3: Phase two that would be gone. But you need that too,
Speaker 3: because isn't that when you like go over on the whiteboard.
Speaker 2: That's when LA gonna be And yes, that's the classroom.
Speaker 1: So do you need that?
Speaker 2: I think you need it. But this is the compromise, okay,
Speaker 2: because I think that the this and in the story
Speaker 2: that Paul Broke brought up as a story from from
Speaker 2: Bill from Belichick about how stressed out Belichick would be
Speaker 2: about this time of year because you don't know what
Speaker 2: the players are doing. They're completely off, they're out of
Speaker 2: the ibility. And it's not just about the off fields,
Speaker 2: it's also where they come back.
Speaker 3: I guess what I worry about is if you shorten this,
Speaker 3: we already have enough issues where you get to week
Speaker 3: one and players aren't ready.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: The first month of the season has become an extended
Speaker 3: preseason because teams are still installing plays. The linemen have
Speaker 3: barely hit anybody. So if you're gonna shorten this even further,
Speaker 3: or what is that going to do to the quality
Speaker 3: of the product. If they're gonna do that, you need
Speaker 3: to have more padded practices.
Speaker 1: You need to and I.
Speaker 3: Don't think the players are gonna go for that, and
Speaker 3: I don't know that they should, but like you need
Speaker 3: to balance the fact that you still need to actually
Speaker 3: get ready for the season.
Speaker 2: Agreed. Now, the biggest pushback this is really I would
Speaker 2: say player driven mostly. Yeah, the biggest pushback I think
Speaker 2: players have about all of this is that in no
Speaker 2: other sport, in professional American sports, do you have this
Speaker 2: kind of calendar where there's a spring practice circuit for
Speaker 2: seven eight weeks. It's almost two whole months really when
Speaker 2: you think about it. They have a little bit of
Speaker 2: a lull in there, like around the draft and rookie
Speaker 2: County camp where the veterans are out of the building,
Speaker 2: but it's basically a two month thing. From April to
Speaker 2: the beginning of June. You have a spring camp, then
Speaker 2: you have a five week break, and then you have
Speaker 2: training camp into the season and then you're going In baseball,
Speaker 2: they report for spring training and they play all the
Speaker 2: way through. In basketball they report for camp, they play
Speaker 2: all the way through, and hockey they report for camp.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much more you have to do in football.
Speaker 2: But I think that the players want one continuous break. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what they're trying to vouch for. So to your point,
Speaker 2: teams are probably saying, well, let's do two weeks of
Speaker 2: Phase one Phase two classroom in stall and conditioning. Then
Speaker 2: we'll do a three week ramp up period that is
Speaker 2: OTA rules, you know, shorts and T shirts. But we're
Speaker 2: on the practice field, we're playing actual football eleven on eleven,
Speaker 2: and then training camp starts right around the same time. Now,
Speaker 2: that would start you in US right around mid June,
Speaker 2: mid June, where like right where Mini camp started. Yep,
Speaker 2: that would be phase one of ot of OTAs would
Speaker 2: be then, and we would you would run all the
Speaker 2: way through the whole season. It wouldn't stop at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just a lot. That's a longer calendar than
Speaker 1: these other leagues.
Speaker 2: Have, which is why the players are pushing back and
Speaker 2: want it. Don't want to chop off Phase one and
Speaker 2: Phase two all together.
Speaker 3: I just you can't. You still need to get ready
Speaker 3: for the season. You still have. Also, there's so I've
Speaker 3: heard mixed things on this from players because some guys,
Speaker 3: you know, during the season you don't get a lot
Speaker 3: of toat time to spend with your family. And this
Speaker 3: is more of the older players. You have kids, right,
Speaker 3: you want to be off when they're off. You want
Speaker 3: to be off when they're out of school. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: you can do stuff as a family. And you know,
Speaker 3: if you start on June eleventh, you're basically going back
Speaker 3: to work, well like a week before they start summer vacation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just you know, all of those things like
Speaker 2: if you play in New England and you're up here
Speaker 2: that time of year, obviously this is the best time
Speaker 2: weather wise, is the best time for vica. You know,
Speaker 2: the vacation around here.
Speaker 1: Like it's weird.
Speaker 3: But in theory, the best way to do it that
Speaker 3: would make everybody the happiest.
Speaker 1: This wouldn't be good for the football. The best way
Speaker 1: to do it would.
Speaker 3: Be to do it in the other direction. Come out
Speaker 3: of the draft, go right into OTAs. Not because there's
Speaker 3: like two or three weeks right between the drafts and OTAs.
Speaker 3: Come out of the draft, go right in OTAs, going
Speaker 3: to mini camp, do training camp in like May and June,
Speaker 3: take July off and then come back and like MiG
Speaker 3: mid August and have like a two week ramp up
Speaker 3: to the season. Now, that makes zero sense logistically because
Speaker 3: you're gonna lose a lot and then have to get
Speaker 3: right into the football. But that's probably what everybody would want.
Speaker 3: It would just hurt the football.
Speaker 2: So here's why I brought it up. Not only because
Speaker 2: I am preparing myself for this being a reality at
Speaker 2: some point that they're gonna chop July off in June,
Speaker 2: but also Joff here from Virginia. He wrote in about
Speaker 2: potential eighteen game schedule, and in my mind, the league
Speaker 2: is not going to part with anything, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, the league, I mean the owners. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: owners are not gonna part with anything that cost them money.
Speaker 2: Like they're just they're not gonna give up any game.
Speaker 2: They're not going to give up any any gate, you know,
Speaker 2: ticket gates or anything like that. They're not going to
Speaker 2: give up anything of actual value. Now, the one thing
Speaker 2: they might give up is making the calendar more player friendly, right,
Speaker 2: because that doesn't cost him any money in theory. So
Speaker 2: jaw for Jeff, I don't know how it's Jeff with
Speaker 2: a G.
Speaker 1: That's Jeff.
Speaker 2: Jeff in Virginia says, you know, the eighteen game schedule
Speaker 2: is coming and is an off season topic. That's why
Speaker 2: I'm bringing it up, and that's probably fair. So he said,
Speaker 2: how would you guys feel about three bye weeks to
Speaker 2: keep players healthier? The way it would work is you
Speaker 2: would do half the NFL have a bye thing. It's
Speaker 2: giving week. Half the week before knout will have the
Speaker 2: prior off week. Then you do one bye week. Okay,
Speaker 2: this is very complicated. Basically, his proposal is to have
Speaker 2: eighteen games, three bye weeks, and then have the super
Speaker 2: Bowl on Presidence Day. If I'm not mistaken, all they
Speaker 2: have to do is add one more week in the
Speaker 2: super Bowls on President Yeah.
Speaker 3: And that's coming, and that that's absolutely coming. Although they're
Speaker 3: gonna get rid of a preseason game when they add
Speaker 3: the eighteenth, so I'm not sure where that week will
Speaker 3: come from. Honestly, what they should do is, I assume
Speaker 3: when they go to eighteen games, they're also going to
Speaker 3: go to eight teams per conference in the playoffs, because
Speaker 3: that thing is looming to once there's no bye weeks,
Speaker 3: they should have a bye week before the playoffs.
Speaker 1: And just everybody gets that week off like that. So
Speaker 1: maybe that's.
Speaker 3: How you get to President's Day because they didn't they
Speaker 3: added a bye week before the regular season when they
Speaker 3: got rid of the fourth preseason game to push it
Speaker 3: back the way they did. No, they're gonna have to
Speaker 3: go to two bye weeks when they get to eighteen games,
Speaker 3: Like that's gonna happen. But what I think is that
Speaker 3: what that's gonna be is it's going to be. Uh,
Speaker 3: the NHL does something like this. I think it's called
Speaker 3: potted bye weeks. I don't remember exactly, but like you're
Speaker 3: you're basically grouped with your division and every division has
Speaker 3: a bye week at the same time. So what you'll
Speaker 3: have is probably from weeks with three to ten, eight
Speaker 3: weeks three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so from weeks three to ten or four to eleven,
Speaker 3: you'll each division will have a bye week in there,
Speaker 3: and then from weeks eleven to whatever whatever to whatever. Right,
Speaker 3: So you wouldn't you wouldn't have a bye week week
Speaker 3: two and five, right, it would be you're you're gonna
Speaker 3: be in a group with the same team with your
Speaker 3: division you're all or maybe they just group teams differently, whatever,
Speaker 3: But like every team would have one bye week before
Speaker 3: the halfway point, every team would have one by week
Speaker 3: after the halfway point, and you'd be taking the same
Speaker 3: bye weeks with the same teams you're grouped with, and
Speaker 3: the ideas you'd be grouped with teams that you play
Speaker 3: to make the scheduling easier.
Speaker 1: Eighteen games, two byes, eighteen games two buys.
Speaker 3: But it's not that it's a little more complicated than that,
Speaker 3: because you can't give a team like week two and
Speaker 3: five for a bye or week fifteen and like thirteen
Speaker 3: and fifty four state right, everybody, It's really what it's
Speaker 3: gonna have to be is first half by, second half BY,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna have to split it like that. And
Speaker 3: if you have an early first half BY, you have
Speaker 3: an early second half BI. If you have a late
Speaker 3: first half BY, you have a late second half BY.
Speaker 3: Because even if you split first and second, if you
Speaker 3: have a bye week week eight and a bye week
Speaker 3: week eleven, that could be advantageous or disadvantageous depending on
Speaker 3: who you look at. So there's gonna be more math
Speaker 3: that goes into the bye weeks, and this is where
Speaker 3: it's okay to use math. There's gonna be more math
Speaker 3: that goes into the bye weeks once you get to
Speaker 3: two and when they go to eight teams in the playoffs,
Speaker 3: I'll say this again, there should be a bye week
Speaker 3: before the wildcard round.
Speaker 2: So I agree. I actually love the idea of the
Speaker 2: bye week before the wildcard round because I feel like
Speaker 2: that would also then in turn, maybe make week eighteen
Speaker 2: or nineteen, whenever the hell it's gonna be, it'd be
Speaker 2: week twenty.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna it's gonna be two buys eighteen games,
Speaker 1: be week twenty, Week twenty.
Speaker 2: That would then, in theory, make week twenty more viable
Speaker 2: because you're not Teams that know they're gonna be playing
Speaker 2: on wildcard weekend now often use that as a rest
Speaker 2: week or they go easy or whatever. It's kind of
Speaker 2: a pseudo bye week because they don't have the bye week,
Speaker 2: so they have to build their own bye week. So
Speaker 2: now in theory that that week becomes more of like
Speaker 2: the regulars, you're not going to get what we got
Speaker 2: last year with Joe Milton versus the Buffalo backups, Like
Speaker 2: you're not gonna get that as often. So I'm for that.
Speaker 2: I think that's just better for the product as well.
Speaker 2: I eighteen weeks, two buys where we're headed. The concessions,
Speaker 2: my guess is a lot of them we won't even
Speaker 2: hear about in terms of the NFLPA will be little
Speaker 2: things that have nothing to do with anything. Maybe the
Speaker 2: offseason reconfiguration. Those will probably be the concessions by the league.
Speaker 2: And let one less preseason game, which.
Speaker 1: I can't wait till five hundred teams again.
Speaker 2: And it won't bring five hundred teams back.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah? Yeah, eighteen games, yes, even number.
Speaker 2: So math ye, So yeah, I think that that's that's
Speaker 2: where we're headed. It'll be interesting to see though when
Speaker 2: we get there. Presidents say weekend right now is just
Speaker 2: a week after the super Bowl, right like?
Speaker 1: Correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, they need they need one more week and
Speaker 3: then it will finally be official. The day after super
Speaker 3: Bowl will be a holiday.
Speaker 2: It could just be holiday, like they could just make.
Speaker 1: It back to I'll be fair, like back to back
Speaker 1: federal holidays. That's a tough sell.
Speaker 2: I feel like our current president would do something.
Speaker 1: Like that, though, Look, if it's built in, why not.
Speaker 3: Also, don't you want to get it off of you
Speaker 3: have a certain other obligation that weekend, right, wouldn't you.
Speaker 1: Like to get it out of that weekend?
Speaker 3: I get again, Actually everybody is a certain it's also
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1: We get again.
Speaker 2: I find woe is me, But I get absolutely bamboozled
Speaker 2: by that week because it's just as birthday and it's
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day and it's Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: So that the rams bengled super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Like I was texting you the whole time you were Yes,
Speaker 3: we were to find out after you weren't watching.
Speaker 1: We were out to dinner and there was probably didn't
Speaker 1: have to wait for a table and no wait and listen.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Jess, I rented out the whole restaurant.
Speaker 2: Look at this and as you know, just as a
Speaker 2: big sports fan. So it's not it's not like that
Speaker 2: she's like one of those girls that's like, you know,
Speaker 2: very anti this whole thing, but doesn't trump her birthday
Speaker 2: when when it's not relevant teams, if it's not the
Speaker 2: Patriots playing in the super Bowl, it's not relevant teams,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. But there was a TV in her
Speaker 2: like her head was here and the TV was like
Speaker 2: right here. I know I'm really good radio right now.
Speaker 2: The TV was right behind her, and she could tell
Speaker 2: that I was looking through her to the TV at
Speaker 2: one point, and she she made it. She was just
Speaker 2: not happy. I don't think she made a switch seats,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't.
Speaker 3: You of all people should want that, is it? I
Speaker 3: kind of And it was the first year they did it.
Speaker 3: I think it was on Valentine's Day, right, and it
Speaker 3: was like brutal, just good luck, good luck to all you. No,
Speaker 3: oh wee, I look, I I speaking see I have
Speaker 3: the opposite. My birthday is on a major sports day
Speaker 3: or weekend, and I love it. My birthday weekend and
Speaker 3: it's not always exact day. My birthday weekend, uh is
Speaker 3: usually the first weekend of March Madness, which is awesome.
Speaker 1: They'd better not expand the tornament. I do not want
Speaker 1: that to be the second weekend. It's also it's just
Speaker 1: too it's too many teams. It's too many teams.
Speaker 3: Do not expand, Charlie Baker, do not expand March Madness. Please,
Speaker 3: it's fine, so plenty of teams.
Speaker 2: You say this though, and Justin and I are going
Speaker 2: on six years together. Can you believe that's? Yeah? It's crazy, like,
Speaker 2: throw us a party for that six years? Well, isn't
Speaker 2: that the That might be Yeah, that might be the goal.
Speaker 3: There's a thing, there is a party for that that
Speaker 3: people generally have, by the way.
Speaker 2: So anyways, uh may the Patriots have obviously never played
Speaker 2: in the Super Bowl, yeah, in that six year period,
Speaker 2: so hopefully fingers crossed Mike Rabel all goes well, But
Speaker 2: imagine my world if I am not only am I
Speaker 2: gone for the entire week covering the Super Bowl, woe
Speaker 2: is me, but I am also not home for her birthday.
Speaker 1: So it's been six years.
Speaker 3: So literally, so you guys, the first year you guys
Speaker 3: were together was nineteen yeah, because because I remember watching that,
Speaker 3: I was I was with you guys for that super Bowl.
Speaker 2: So twenty nineteen. Yeah, we met in October during football
Speaker 2: season of October of twenty nineteen and U and that
Speaker 2: was That was a weird football season for me because
Speaker 2: my priority has changed quite rapidly, like all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I went from like only obsessed with football to like
Speaker 2: having this whole other thing in my life. My life
Speaker 2: definitely changed for the better, but it definitely changed.
Speaker 1: They're gonna move to the Patriots, and the Patriots they're
Speaker 1: gonna move it back. The only shame in then moving
Speaker 1: it back.
Speaker 3: I remember the Patriots, so that the first week of February,
Speaker 3: right Februar one, two, three, four, five, sixty seven, I
Speaker 3: believe I remember looking at some the time. The Patriots
Speaker 3: have won Super Bowls on I think five of those dates,
Speaker 3: so they only needed two more, and we would have
Speaker 3: spent the entire week with a Patriots super Bowl anniversary
Speaker 3: on every day. And now when they win another one,
Speaker 3: we'll have to wait a whole other week. That one
Speaker 3: will be separate from all the others, and we only
Speaker 3: have five days of the week we get to separate
Speaker 3: celebrate super Bowls.
Speaker 1: Oh woe was us.
Speaker 2: But we'll get back to the football here in a second.
Speaker 2: But just one last offseason things. So Frank Amer, congratulations
Speaker 2: to got married, smart man. This is the time to
Speaker 2: get married if you're if you're in any NFL.
Speaker 3: Unless they move this calendar, and then his anniversary is
Speaker 3: going to be during trient camp.
Speaker 2: But in theory, you line up. It's not just about
Speaker 2: the wedding day. Everybody thinks about the wedding day, but
Speaker 2: nobody thinks about the wedding day and the anniversary, right,
Speaker 2: because then it's your anniversary every single year too. If
Speaker 2: you do it during football season, not only did you
Speaker 2: get married during football season, but then your anniversary now
Speaker 2: falls on football season every single year. So smart man
Speaker 2: got married right during this dead time of the offseason,
Speaker 2: right now, and now every year, he should be safe.
Speaker 1: I think he'll be safe unless they move his calendar.
Speaker 2: Unless they move the calendar, and then he's screwed. All right,
Speaker 2: let's get back to the phones here. Robin is in Westboro.
Speaker 2: What's up, Robin?
Speaker 6: Hey, guys, that's going Hey good. So I sort of
Speaker 6: have a bone to pick with both of you about
Speaker 6: this argument.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 6: I feel like the media is split into people who
Speaker 6: don't like math, like math and uh no one who
Speaker 6: actually does math. I see you as a lot of
Speaker 6: people who are handed as statistic and trusted equicitly or
Speaker 6: they are distrusted immediately.
Speaker 2: All these formulas are secret.
Speaker 1: You can't do it yourself. All the formulas are kept secret.
Speaker 2: No, No, but you can create.
Speaker 6: Your still have a general idea how it calculates.
Speaker 3: No, that's the whole thing with dv o A. It's
Speaker 3: a secret formula, right, you don't know how it's calculate.
Speaker 6: DVO is definitely a bit more secret. But I think
Speaker 6: e p A is actually something you could work with
Speaker 6: a lot more.
Speaker 2: You could code it.
Speaker 1: You have not a code.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, the average football fans coding. The average fans
Speaker 3: coding is uh. I think QB are secret, right, pride secret.
Speaker 1: We don't want people to know because we're just trying
Speaker 1: to create things that fit our narrative. Sorry, go, you
Speaker 1: could let him tell.
Speaker 6: But my point is. My point is that people people
Speaker 6: who do MAK understand that there's assumptions built into it
Speaker 6: and are are less likely to trust their own statistics
Speaker 6: because they know where the shortcomings are. And I just
Speaker 6: wanted to say, like, e p A is a very
Speaker 6: real stat.
Speaker 2: Alex, Yeah, what is it?
Speaker 1: What is it? The measure of.
Speaker 6: Expected points?
Speaker 1: But it's expect. It's not real, it's expected.
Speaker 2: It's right there, Robin all.
Speaker 11: Expected is average point. It's just where his abilities. So
Speaker 11: we say expected, Yeah, he doesn't. He's hung up on
Speaker 11: the word expect. He's hung up on the word expected.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Alex, how about this? How about you just read
Speaker 6: a summary of how e p A is calculated? And
Speaker 6: I think you'll like it a much a bit better
Speaker 6: better than you think, because it plays into the situation
Speaker 6: of the game a bit more like this. I'm not
Speaker 6: saying it's an all end all it's a great stat
Speaker 6: because again there's assumption built in, but I think, uh,
Speaker 6: it plays into the situation a bit more than you think.
Speaker 2: Is that a problem? I thought you had a bone
Speaker 2: to pick with both of us. That's just a.
Speaker 6: Talics Oh oh, Evan, Uh, I guess my problem was
Speaker 6: that sometimes you blindly trust the statistics like EPA, do
Speaker 6: you do you know how it's calculated you or do
Speaker 6: you have a general idea you don't need to know
Speaker 6: the nitty gritty yes, yeah, and stuff like that. It
Speaker 6: helps you understand what the statistic is. Basically, what I'm
Speaker 6: saying is watch the game film of the statistics rather
Speaker 6: than just have a statistics to spit out.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean, I think I watch enough game
Speaker 2: film for all of us. But thanks for the call, Robin. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I hear what he's saying. No, I'm not a I'm
Speaker 2: not a statistician like I didn't. I'm not a I'm
Speaker 2: not a that much of a math guy. I am
Speaker 2: one of those math guys that if you give me
Speaker 2: the numbers, I then interpret the numbers the way I
Speaker 2: want to interpret them. Right, I'm not somebody that's actually
Speaker 2: calculating the numbers itself. I'm not Aaron Shatz, Like, I'm
Speaker 2: not building a formula and calculating numbers. I just use
Speaker 2: the numbers at Aaron Shatz gives me to then draw
Speaker 2: conclusions from them.
Speaker 1: But you don't know. But so this is what bothers me.
Speaker 1: You don't know what the basis is for those numbers.
Speaker 2: DVOA is his own formula. So that's that's something that
Speaker 2: is a little bit more cut and dry in terms
Speaker 2: of that. But expected points added, I do know for
Speaker 2: the most part how it's calculated.
Speaker 1: You know, take what it is basically on average, this
Speaker 1: this team would score this many points on this drive.
Speaker 3: This is how much they actually scored on this drive.
Speaker 3: This is the difference plus or minus or whatever. I
Speaker 3: don't care about that. Why did they do better than
Speaker 3: the average team did? Why did they did where? I
Speaker 3: would like to think that most football fans people watch
Speaker 3: the game semi regularly can figure that out by watching
Speaker 3: the game themselves. Hey, this team started at the opposents
Speaker 3: thirty yard line, it didn't score. I don't need a
Speaker 3: number to tell me that was a bad drive. Why
Speaker 3: didn't they score? Was the pass protection bad? Did the
Speaker 3: quarterback make a bad decision? Was the play calling bad?
Speaker 3: Did the defense make an unbelievable play? Did the coach
Speaker 3: make a bad decision? In terms of going forward, like
Speaker 3: that's don't I don't care that, you know, well, the
Speaker 3: average team usually scores here and they didn't. I know,
Speaker 3: I know, and I'd like to maybe I'm giving the
Speaker 3: average fan too much credit. I'd like to think the
Speaker 3: average fan knows without being shown a number.
Speaker 2: But I don't think that that's I don't think that's
Speaker 2: out for debate in terms of that's not what the
Speaker 2: numbers are being used for. The numbers are being used
Speaker 2: to do two things. Either rank things, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: ranked players, rank offenses, ranked defenses, or to just like quantify,
Speaker 2: you know, so and so is having a really good
Speaker 2: season in this area of the game. Third down. Let's say,
Speaker 2: you know, what are like all the NFL teams or
Speaker 2: what are like, who's the best third down team in
Speaker 2: the NFL. I know you might traditionally just use like
Speaker 2: the percentages of did you make it or did you
Speaker 2: not make it? But EPA takes that into account and
Speaker 2: then also adds more of like did you generate an
Speaker 2: explosive play on third down? Not just did you pick
Speaker 2: up seven yards on third and six, but did you
Speaker 2: pick up twenty seve years.
Speaker 3: We already have numbers for all this. We have third
Speaker 3: down percentage, we have our average yards gains per third down.
Speaker 3: I know you're gonna tell me, well, third down percentage
Speaker 3: doesn't work because you know, if one team has an
Speaker 3: average of eight yards to go and one team has
Speaker 3: an average for five yards to go, obviously the five
Speaker 3: yard team. Okay, but that's almost removing the context because well,
Speaker 3: you know, relatively speaking, the team that's in third and eight,
Speaker 3: you know, converts more than the team that's in third
Speaker 3: and five, even though the percentage is lower. Okay, but
Speaker 3: the the team that's in third and five more often
Speaker 3: is still the better team because they're getting the third
Speaker 3: and five instead of third and eight. I actually don't
Speaker 3: want that piece of context removed. I want that in there.
Speaker 3: So like, I just think it's again it's I'm not
Speaker 3: even saying the numbers are wrong. I just think it's
Speaker 3: in people creating another they're adding or subtracting context as
Speaker 3: they want in order to find a number that supports
Speaker 3: their argument.
Speaker 1: That's what analytics are to me.
Speaker 3: So often they feel backwards engineered that this is what
Speaker 3: I believe, and I need a number that I can
Speaker 3: put out there to say what I believe versus I
Speaker 3: believe this, and here are the numbers that back it up.
Speaker 3: Because it's why can't people say, I think some of
Speaker 3: these people because they don't watch the game in a
Speaker 3: way they can say I believe this, and maybe the
Speaker 3: numbers don't back it up, but here are the x
Speaker 3: and ose football reasons why it's true. The numbers are
Speaker 3: in there to replace the x and ose football reasons,
Speaker 3: which I understand simplifies it for some. But I also
Speaker 3: think it's become something that's kind of become a lazy tool.
Speaker 2: So two things to that, and to a different point
Speaker 2: to that. Specifically, I tried to like the caller's point
Speaker 2: about like watch the film that which is I think
Speaker 2: is funny, so to I try to watch the I
Speaker 2: watched the film first and foremost all the time. So
Speaker 2: when you but I when I look at the film,
Speaker 2: and I'll say, just in my head, when I watched
Speaker 2: that tape. My takeaway was that they were really successful
Speaker 2: this week with gap runs for whatever reason, their downhill
Speaker 2: run scheme, the gap schemes. Those schemes are really humming today.
Speaker 2: But in theory like that could be anecdotal, right like
Speaker 2: where it's just a couple of big plays stand out
Speaker 2: in your head and that's how it feels. What I
Speaker 2: like about the numbers is that I can say the
Speaker 2: Patriots are really effective in man coverage this week, or
Speaker 2: the Patriots are really affected effective with gap runs this week,
Speaker 2: and then I can put not just my eye test
Speaker 2: to it. I can put an actual quant a fiable
Speaker 2: number to it and say the Patriots are really good
Speaker 2: in gap runs this week. Their EPA was plus whatever.
Speaker 2: So now you say you have my film analysis backed
Speaker 2: up by the numbers. If you're going to the numbers
Speaker 2: and then reverse engineering like you said, and then trying
Speaker 2: to pry out the film that supports the numbers, you're
Speaker 2: doing the back.
Speaker 1: Don't you believe that there's people that do that? Probably, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are.
Speaker 2: But I think that the hope is is that the
Speaker 2: football people, the people actually in the football world that
Speaker 2: are making these decisions or commentading on this type of
Speaker 2: stuff are doing in the way I'm so, and it's
Speaker 2: this is what I'm seeing because let's face it, I'm
Speaker 2: I fully am aware. I am not a coach. I
Speaker 2: am not in a football front office, I am not
Speaker 2: on a coaching staff. So yeah, I can sit here
Speaker 2: and tell you that I know how to watch the film.
Speaker 2: If you don't believe that, I totally understand.
Speaker 3: But why can't you do Why couldn't you just do
Speaker 3: yards per carry on gap versus yards per carry on
Speaker 3: that gap?
Speaker 2: You could, but yards per carrying itself, like kind of
Speaker 2: the callers point has inherent flaws to the statistic, Like
Speaker 2: what if like a two yard run on thirty and
Speaker 2: one is much different than the two yard run on
Speaker 2: first and ten. That's where EPA can help. Like EPA,
Speaker 2: that's the goal of the statistics.
Speaker 3: So the one that I've started coming around on it's
Speaker 3: success rate. It's a similarity, which is basically like did
Speaker 3: you get x percentage yards to a first down?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So the way that I look at EPA is,
Speaker 2: you know, just kind of sum it up beyond just
Speaker 2: its expensive points at it. EPA to me is a
Speaker 2: better measurement of like explosiveness of your offense, like essentially
Speaker 2: just like a more glorified yards per play.
Speaker 1: Okay, we have other explode we have explosive play percentage.
Speaker 2: Right, but when you look at explosive play percentage, you're
Speaker 2: you're taking the sample and you're going like this because
Speaker 2: you're only looking at the plays that are actually explosive.
Speaker 2: EPA takes all of the plays into account and measures
Speaker 2: how just explosive an offense is compared to the to
Speaker 2: the average. Right, you can still success rate is really good.
Speaker 2: Success rate is like consistency of an offense, like how
Speaker 2: consistently are you taking chunks out of the chance?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So success rate I've kind of come around because you know,
Speaker 3: my theory is that like if you run the ball
Speaker 3: for three point four yards per car, you never need
Speaker 3: to throw it, which is not literally true, but it's
Speaker 3: kind of a thought experiment, right, So like I don't
Speaker 3: hate that idea of Okay, how often are you remember
Speaker 3: a couple years ago, I got really into that thing
Speaker 3: about average yard average yards to go on first down. Yes,
Speaker 3: so like that kind of thing I'm super interested in.
Speaker 3: The The EPA to me is just like I don't
Speaker 3: you don't understand it, and nobody do you understand? No,
Speaker 3: but I no, I mean like you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't wrap your head around it because of the
Speaker 2: math equation, Like you don't, it's a form.
Speaker 1: What is the equation? What is the equation?
Speaker 2: Oh, I can't just look like it's it's not just
Speaker 2: like as simple as a public yard. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: it's it's public.
Speaker 1: Is it public or public?
Speaker 2: If you or to look it's public. Now Here's the thing,
Speaker 2: the thing that I think bothers me the most about
Speaker 2: your argument, because I hear some of your other arguments
Speaker 2: about this. You and your brethren are caught up on
Speaker 2: the word expected because in other sports it means it's
Speaker 2: something different than what it means when it comes to
Speaker 2: EPA and basketball. It's like expected points are expected like percentage, Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: like that that's a projected number. It's not a real number.
Speaker 2: It is if we take this shot one hundred times,
Speaker 2: we expect to make it seventy percent of the time.
Speaker 2: But it's not taking into account like your brethren likes
Speaker 2: to say, it's Game seven of the NBA Finals and
Speaker 2: the pressure's on, and like it's a different shot than
Speaker 2: in January that expected goals in hockey, same thing. You're
Speaker 2: taking shots from a high danger area. Most of the
Speaker 2: time those shots go in. This amount of times you
Speaker 2: got hoser, the goalie stood on his head, and it
Speaker 2: only went in this many times in this game. That's
Speaker 2: not what we're talking about when it comes to EPA.
Speaker 2: EPA is taking in this situation, first and ten from
Speaker 2: the twenty five the league average is this, and you
Speaker 2: produced that.
Speaker 1: But you don't you don't score two and a half
Speaker 1: points on one play.
Speaker 2: But it's not That's not what it is. It's not about, Like,
Speaker 2: we're not talking about it in terms of like touchdowns
Speaker 2: where seven field goals worth three. It's it's on its own.
Speaker 3: So where does that value come from? How are you
Speaker 3: assigning the value to that? What is the point like,
Speaker 3: it's not referring, it's referring to something that's hypothetical, right
Speaker 3: if you ever run.
Speaker 2: How is it referring? It's it's a it's a baseline
Speaker 2: average of the league. All thirty two teams are this
Speaker 2: successful on this particular down and distance in this time and.
Speaker 3: What what what defined successful in that situation?
Speaker 2: Because you say average place the average amount of yards?
Speaker 2: How on first and ten from the twenty five how often, Like,
Speaker 2: what is the average yard per play across the league?
Speaker 2: That's the baseline, that's zero in e p A. If
Speaker 2: you are above that, if you let's just call it
Speaker 2: four yards. Yeah, if you have if you gain six yards,
Speaker 2: then you're in the green. You're a plus something.
Speaker 1: Would you be plus two?
Speaker 2: No, you're just because because it's so, then what is it?
Speaker 1: What is the number tied to?
Speaker 2: Because the number is on a scale, you're you're talking
Speaker 2: about it like, no, you're talking about it like numbers
Speaker 2: on the scoreboard.
Speaker 3: It's not because it's on its own scale, right, So
Speaker 3: this is an imaginary number.
Speaker 2: It's oh my god, it's not an imaginary number.
Speaker 1: There's it's not yards, it's not points, it's not down
Speaker 1: like what.
Speaker 2: Its own statistic. Yeah right, it's not. No, it's not
Speaker 2: made up. Made up is expected field goal percentage? That's
Speaker 2: made up. I get that. This is there's a baseline.
Speaker 2: This is the scale based zero of all thirty two
Speaker 2: teams and what they average in the game.
Speaker 1: Okay, what they average. You have to average it. You
Speaker 1: average points, you average yards, you average Okay, So then
Speaker 1: but it's not on it's on its own sliding scale.
Speaker 2: I don't know why that matters. It's on its own scale.
Speaker 2: Zero is zero, it's the average. So you either above zero,
Speaker 2: you're below's eero.
Speaker 3: Or what dictates how much you're above zero? If you
Speaker 3: gain two yards above the average, but you're not plus two.
Speaker 2: Because it takes into account the fact that just because
Speaker 2: you gain if you're if let's go back to four
Speaker 2: being the average, just because you gain six yards, that
Speaker 2: in the grand scheme, that's like only like a faction
Speaker 2: of the actual like impact of this.
Speaker 1: So what dictates how much of a fraction it is?
Speaker 2: The situation? What is it in the game? What is
Speaker 2: a down like third downs obviously gonna have more weight,
Speaker 2: a turnover, a touchdown is gonna have well soot.
Speaker 3: So that sounds like it would. What about a team
Speaker 3: that nickels and dimes its way down the field?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would technically speaking, like they wouldn't be super
Speaker 2: super high. That doesn't mean that they couldn't be top
Speaker 2: ten or something like that, but compared to but if.
Speaker 3: You have a team that dam nickels and dimes its
Speaker 3: way down the field, so it doesn't leave room for
Speaker 3: that like the the early Brady Patriots, right versus those
Speaker 3: Manning's Colts teams, who would have had a better EPAE
Speaker 3: more games.
Speaker 2: It's a good question. I don't drink those.
Speaker 1: Those Patriots teams are not hunting explosive plays.
Speaker 2: I don't think we those Colts teams were. But like
Speaker 2: you're you're caught. You're so caught up.
Speaker 3: You can't go back that far because now this number
Speaker 3: is informing or it doesn't go back for far because
Speaker 3: the number is now informing decisions and the preferences and
Speaker 3: what you value has been changed.
Speaker 2: No, you can't go back that far because we just
Speaker 2: haven't had a nerd that's taken the time to go.
Speaker 1: Back that far. Somebody should. I'd be curious.
Speaker 2: I think I want to see, say, we go back
Speaker 2: pretty far.
Speaker 3: It goes back to like two thousand and six. Actually,
Speaker 3: I feel like I remember seeing.
Speaker 2: This, but it's not. It's not two thousand and three. Like,
Speaker 2: I don't think we can go here. I'll pull it
Speaker 2: up for you. Oh this one. Actually, this database actually
Speaker 2: goes back to nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: If you want to have the exact the exact number
Speaker 2: for you here, I'll pull it up for you live
Speaker 2: on the show. This is great Radio I know everybody's
Speaker 2: super into this right now, but like when I hear this,
Speaker 2: it's stat EPA talked about on your station, and people
Speaker 2: like you. You guys get so caught up in the
Speaker 2: word expected, like it just stands out to you, like
Speaker 2: it's like stabbing you in the because which.
Speaker 3: So great about sports is it's unexpected. It's not quantifiable.
Speaker 3: There are unexpected things. You don't show up to watch.
Speaker 3: What's expected. You show up to a sporting event.
Speaker 2: Nobody effect watch the game.
Speaker 1: We are trying to quantify, but but it's being told, well, you,
Speaker 1: I know you think you saw this, but the numbers
Speaker 1: actually say you saw that. I know what I saw.
Speaker 2: Because you're smarter than everybody else. The two thousand and
Speaker 2: three Patriots were sixteenth in EPA, middle of the pack.
Speaker 2: What year two thousand and three? The two thousand and
Speaker 2: four Patriots. Let's see, I'm trying to use my finger here.
Speaker 2: It's not as easy as I was wanting it to be.
Speaker 2: The two thousand and four Patriots is I think we're
Speaker 2: a little bit better offensively than two thousand.
Speaker 1: And three were sixth?
Speaker 2: So good team?
Speaker 1: What were the peyton Man and Colts?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Like off the charts first, right, Okay, so, but but.
Speaker 2: The payment a better offense?
Speaker 1: Who was in the Super But they were better offense?
Speaker 1: Who was in the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2: But what do you mean who this was? It's a
Speaker 2: whole other side of the ball. Like the Patriots defense
Speaker 2: was much better. Like if you look at the Patriots
Speaker 2: defense in two thousand and four, I'm sure that they're very,
Speaker 2: very good in e PA. They were seventh in e
Speaker 2: PA on defense that year. Baltimore was number one. So
Speaker 2: like you can't just say who's in the Super Bowl,
Speaker 2: like there's two other there's a whole nother phase of
Speaker 2: the game. Like that is we're just measuring offense, Like
Speaker 2: the two thousand and seven Patriots are the number one
Speaker 2: team in DVA in the history of d v A.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that sounds right.
Speaker 2: So like I digress, the caller got us on this
Speaker 2: on this tangent, all right, so don't blame us. Aldred
Speaker 2: is uh? Is this Eldred Aldrid? What's up? Aldred? Yes
Speaker 2: it is?
Speaker 7: Hey man, I love here better than But my question
Speaker 7: is there's the offensive line. And then this rumored that
Speaker 7: keeps going around about Triberdahl coming to the page. I
Speaker 7: might do every player Rubert to coming to us no
Speaker 7: matter what and what we're doing. Tribadau they got for
Speaker 7: the for the Giant. Did he drafted a couple of
Speaker 7: years ago because they got I do Carter they got?
Speaker 1: And oh the defensive line. I was thinking on offense?
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, yeah, deepenive line.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So did y'all hear that rumor?
Speaker 7: Do y'all think it's just a rumor or possibility?
Speaker 9: According to Pat Chat, that what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: Nice, Thanks for the call, Eldrid.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 2: Yes, so Keevon Thibodeau in New York? I did did
Speaker 2: they give him a contract or not? I always get
Speaker 2: this confused. I'm sorry, I don't think they gave him
Speaker 2: a contract yet.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: He's recently drafted in the first round, hasn't fully lived
Speaker 2: up to it. They now have Abdua Carter they just afted,
Speaker 2: and uh they have Brian Burns who they traded for.
Speaker 2: So they have three three starting edge rushers essentially on
Speaker 2: the team. Kvon Thibodeau, I want to say, is still
Speaker 2: on his rookie contract.
Speaker 7: He is.
Speaker 1: Uh, they picked up his fifth year option.
Speaker 2: So in theory, he's tradable like he's a possible trade candidate.
Speaker 2: They picked up his fifth year option.
Speaker 1: He's going into the year he's cold strangest draft, so he's.
Speaker 2: He's going into his fourth year, so he has two
Speaker 2: more years of keeping control most of the time this year.
Speaker 2: It would be really next offseason that they would probably
Speaker 2: trade him, but it's an option. You know, he's definitely
Speaker 2: more of a hybrid edge Like he's definitely more of
Speaker 2: a hand up, pan down kind of edge defender, you know,
Speaker 2: doing a little bit of both and really outside the
Speaker 2: tackle type of player longer, if I'm not mistaken, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of one of those types of builds, has a
Speaker 2: lot of traits. Never really put it together in college
Speaker 2: or the pros though, Like he's never been a huge producer.
Speaker 2: He's always just been kind of a trade based type
Speaker 2: of player. I didn't hate it, Like he needs somebody
Speaker 2: young and somebody developmental at that spot. I think we're
Speaker 2: both in the camp of probably drafting looking at that
Speaker 2: spot as a draftable thing coming up here. So I
Speaker 2: wouldn't hate them them being in on that. Like I'm
Speaker 2: not giving up any the farm for him, but I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Hate he's available. They should make the call, But I
Speaker 1: wouldn't expect anything to be imminent there.
Speaker 3: I also think it's you know, you want the Giants
Speaker 3: of all teams should know the value in having a
Speaker 3: deep pass rush, and three starting caliber players at that
Speaker 3: position is not necessarily a problem.
Speaker 2: It does help that Abdull Carter is so versatile like
Speaker 2: Abdul Carter can play in line, he can play off
Speaker 2: the ball, he can play on the edge Michael Parsons type,
Speaker 2: so that does help. He's not as long as I remember,
Speaker 2: six four two fifty four thirty three eighth inch arms,
Speaker 2: so a little bit shorter, you know, a little bit
Speaker 2: more chiseled. They're cut off than I thought. But good athlete,
Speaker 2: good traits. Just hasn't really put it all together with
Speaker 2: the Giants. I'd say, like on the radar, like somebody
Speaker 2: that I if he does come available more aggressively, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be if they made that trade. I wouldn't hate it.
Speaker 2: Depending on the return.
Speaker 3: Obviously, yeah, I mean he's a good player. Wouldn't be
Speaker 3: against some ada him. I just don't think the Giants
Speaker 3: are going to be in a rush to give him up.
Speaker 2: All right, Ron is in Alabama? What's up? Ron?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 5: Well, I'd likely on air.
Speaker 2: Great, Yes, yes you are.
Speaker 8: So.
Speaker 5: I have a statement. I think we all can agree
Speaker 5: that the quarterback is better than in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: The weapons are better than we haven't we had in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one. The difference now is, you know, we
Speaker 5: had Josh McDaniel, but I don't know the difference in
Speaker 5: the offensive line. Can you go over kind of the
Speaker 5: offensive line in twenty twenty one that how that affected
Speaker 5: that season to go into what nine or ten wins
Speaker 5: with mag John's Yeah, and maybe let me talk about
Speaker 5: that a little bit and I'll get off there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, thank Ron, Thanks thanks for the call. McDaniels
Speaker 2: was here in twenty one two, but that's that's yeah,
Speaker 2: not here nor there.
Speaker 3: So they had it was David Andrews at center, Shack
Speaker 3: Mason at guard, Ted Carris left guard, had left guard
Speaker 3: Isaiah went at one tackle and then the other tackle rotated.
Speaker 1: Trent Brown played.
Speaker 3: Ten games and then wait, hang on, David, I'm just
Speaker 3: I sorted by snaps on PFF to make sure I
Speaker 3: got the right group. David Andrews started every game at center.
Speaker 3: Shaq Mason played sixteen at guard at right guard. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I'll help you out okay, Andrew Shack and Ted
Speaker 3: Carris was the interior. Isaiah Win played one guard, but oh,
Speaker 3: I should be going by snaps. Left tackle was Isaiah Win,
Speaker 3: left guard, left guard was ten Ted Carris with some
Speaker 3: Mike and when who center was David Andrews Brown? Yeah,
Speaker 3: well Trent Brown and Mike and when who kind of
Speaker 3: split at right tackle?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So what I remember of that line because I
Speaker 2: was a big teddy cave still am on When who
Speaker 2: started the season at right guard or left guard? Excuse me?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And it did not go well. He did not play
Speaker 2: very particularly well left guard, but there was obviously after
Speaker 2: his rookie season there was just a ton of hope
Speaker 2: and everyone figured he had a bright future. So they
Speaker 2: played him at left guard, and it was semi controversial
Speaker 2: that Ted Carris replaced him in the starting lineup at
Speaker 2: left guard. But for whatever reason, first six to eight
Speaker 2: games of the season in twenty twenty one, it was
Speaker 2: a little bit rocky, you know, when it wasn't playing
Speaker 2: particularly well, Win had his issues. Right tackle was not
Speaker 2: solidified necessarily either, with you know, a little bit on Winny,
Speaker 2: a little bit of Brown, and then they put Ted
Speaker 2: Carriss in the starting lineup at left guard, and for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, it kind of all came together from there
Speaker 2: and they were pretty solid for most of that season
Speaker 2: on the offensive line. Now, they had Carmen Brisilla was
Speaker 2: the offensive line coach, good offensive line coach, Josh McDaniels
Speaker 2: was the offensive coordinator, good offensive coordinator. But Ted Carris
Speaker 2: Man he came in and he really like steadied that ship.
Speaker 2: Their line was kind of projecting more closer to what
Speaker 2: we saw and like maybe not quite twenty three, twenty
Speaker 2: four bad, but like twenty two rough, you know, that
Speaker 2: sort of projection, And then they ended up studying out
Speaker 2: and ranking pretty well for the entire season I want
Speaker 2: to see say, and a big part of that was
Speaker 2: Ted Carris So compared to now, it's hard to say
Speaker 2: because they haven't played any games obviously now, but compared
Speaker 2: to now, I would say that that line was more experienced.
Speaker 2: You know, you had Andrews Mason. Carris was more of
Speaker 2: a veteran player at that point. Trent Brown certainly was,
Speaker 2: but I don't know if the talent level was all
Speaker 2: that different. You had a young tackle, just like they
Speaker 2: have a young tackle at left tackle now, and you
Speaker 2: had you know, maybe Morgan Moses was a little bit
Speaker 2: more of a name brand than Trent Brown was at
Speaker 2: the time, but Brown had the eighteen season with the Pats.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think the town level is about
Speaker 2: the same as it was in twenty one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's probably a little more charity in twenty twenty one. Right,
Speaker 3: You're gonna have at least one, if not two rookies
Speaker 3: starting this year, so there's unknowns that come with that,
Speaker 3: but the overall talent level, I'd agrees about the same.
Speaker 2: So they've ended up finishing that season eleventh in pass
Speaker 2: block win rates, so pretty good. Eleventh and pass block
Speaker 2: win rate, and sixteenth in run blocking win rate. So
Speaker 2: if they get if that's this year, I'd great, golden.
Speaker 1: I would make that's middle pack. That's average.
Speaker 3: I would take an average offensive line, like they still
Speaker 3: need to be better long term, but we knew they
Speaker 3: weren't going to fix everything with the offensive line this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that line ended up being pretty solid in twenty one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it ended up that.
Speaker 3: I'd be curious what those numbers are and I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think you can filter it this way, but
Speaker 3: like just second half of the year, one's cares, yeah,
Speaker 3: because they probably a top ten line in football.
Speaker 1: Ones Carris came out.
Speaker 2: It was a it was a weird thing. And sometimes
Speaker 2: you know, you just talk about like the mixes of
Speaker 2: offensive lines a five man unit, right, and for some
Speaker 2: reason that mix just worked better. For whatever reason it was,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it just did. Mark is in Connecticut.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 1: Mark?
Speaker 12: Hey guys, how are you doing today?
Speaker 10: You guys staying cool?
Speaker 1: Yes, trying.
Speaker 12: So I think I have a good question for you guys.
Speaker 12: And I mean no disrespect to the players, because I
Speaker 12: love the players, but eighteen week season, if we go
Speaker 12: to that, why do we need to add another bye week?
Speaker 12: I mean, they only play once a week, you know,
Speaker 12: it's not like you know, we're talking baseball where they
Speaker 12: play almost every day. Same thing with basketball, you know,
Speaker 12: other sports like that. So I just have that kind
Speaker 12: of question why we needed to think that we need
Speaker 12: an extra bye week if we do go to an
Speaker 12: eighteen week season. And love you guys, Hope you guys
Speaker 12: have a great rest of the week.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mark. So, I think it's twofold one. It just
Speaker 2: says we don't play obviously, right, But just as people
Speaker 2: that work in it, were at least close enough to
Speaker 2: it to understand it's grind.
Speaker 1: It's a long grind to ride for them. We could
Speaker 1: get by with our second bye, of course, but like
Speaker 1: it's a long grind. Just witnessing it yea, like almost
Speaker 1: as like a first hand account. We're around it, we
Speaker 1: see it physically. It's it's extremely taxing.
Speaker 2: The Patriots the last couple of years have had really
Speaker 2: late bye weeks, and it's long. It's a haul because
Speaker 2: when you really think about it, like we were talking
Speaker 2: about earlier about the whole offseason, like they start at
Speaker 2: the end of July, and if you don't have a
Speaker 2: buy until week fourteen, there's really no break from like
Speaker 2: August to that buy, just.
Speaker 1: Sort of that one weekend.
Speaker 3: But that one weekend is roster cuts, so you're not
Speaker 3: exactly relaxed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a grind. That's one thing. It's totally
Speaker 2: fair to categorize it as that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other thing I would say is that the league
Speaker 2: is going to have to give up a little something
Speaker 2: to get something here. And if that's the concession, we
Speaker 2: get a full another week of games and we get
Speaker 2: all of that payout, then the players are gonna want
Speaker 2: something in return. Now they're not gonna get out a
Speaker 2: lot because it's the NFLPA notoriously gets real role.
Speaker 3: I also think it's just good for the league to
Speaker 3: have a second bye week.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's just for the players.
Speaker 3: You've been harping on the NBA calendar being too long
Speaker 3: because all these players are getting hurt.
Speaker 2: It's not at all a green team or take. It
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with the Celtics injuries.
Speaker 3: Fair but well you were saying it after Halburn. But no,
Speaker 3: but like you don't want guys getting hurt. That's bad
Speaker 3: for the league. If guys are getting hurt, so another
Speaker 3: week to recover and rest. They didn't add a bye
Speaker 3: week when they went fourteen to sixteen games. They didn't
Speaker 3: add a bye week when they went sixteen to seventeen,
Speaker 3: so the one bye week was designed for fourteen weeks.
Speaker 3: You've now almost added like another third onto that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, having another week to rest and recover, it's
Speaker 3: not just about the players wanting that so they can
Speaker 3: go on vacation. I think would benefit the league because
Speaker 3: with the longer season, you're gonna have more injuries. You
Speaker 3: don't want that give these guys an extra week to
Speaker 3: rest up in the season and get right. That's the
Speaker 3: main reason. If I'm the league, I want a second
Speaker 3: bye week.
Speaker 2: That's a great point. And it's not like it's a
Speaker 2: to have the best product out on the field.
Speaker 3: And you know what a second bye week also gives you.
Speaker 3: So if you go to eighteen games, right, and you
Speaker 3: have one bye week, you have nineteen weeks.
Speaker 1: You know what happens. If you go to eighteen games
Speaker 1: and two bye weeks, you have twenty weeks. That's a
Speaker 1: whole other week. You can sell ads and sell tickets
Speaker 1: and you're getting talked about NonStop on TV and radio
Speaker 1: in the internet, like, of course the league wants another week.
Speaker 1: Of course they do. That should be the biggest win win.
Speaker 3: A second bye week with eighteen games twenty weeks is
Speaker 3: a win for the players, it's a win for the league.
Speaker 3: There is zero reason for that not to happen, zero
Speaker 3: reason for it. And if you do that, you can
Speaker 3: probably go back to the bye week after the international game,
Speaker 3: which means you can schedule more international games, which is
Speaker 3: not good for the players, but something that the league
Speaker 3: can do that they want to do.
Speaker 2: It's all good points all right, Tim is in Boston.
Speaker 2: What's up? Tim?
Speaker 4: Hey, guys, I'm not trying to claim any authority on
Speaker 4: the matter, but like, as part of my job, I
Speaker 4: build and interpret like a lot of analytical models. I
Speaker 4: have a degree in math and data science, so I
Speaker 4: wanted to weigh in on this analytics debate. Models are
Speaker 4: really good at like pattern detection, determining correlation, and I
Speaker 4: think Alex you had a really good example. Like if
Speaker 4: a model says that this corner has a really bad
Speaker 4: EPA against twin targeted on goballs, Like that's a fact,
Speaker 4: that's indisputable, that's correlation. But what it doesn't tell you
Speaker 4: is the causation. Like you can't claim that the performance
Speaker 4: is bad because it's goballs. You know, if you just
Speaker 4: went against your marchase and justin Jefferson, that's the cause,
Speaker 4: that's the causation. But the model can't tell you that.
Speaker 4: So like if Drake May has a ten percent higher
Speaker 4: completion percentage when he wears blue socks rather than white,
Speaker 4: no analyst is going to claim that it's because of
Speaker 4: the socks and just you know, put them in blue
Speaker 4: sox the whole time. Like the models can give you
Speaker 4: that correlation, but any analyst worth their salt knows you
Speaker 4: have to go and check for causation. And that's not
Speaker 4: something i'm models can provide to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point, Tim and Dad, thanks for
Speaker 2: the call. This is a difference between somebody like me
Speaker 2: who just digests the stats and people like Tim who
Speaker 2: actually creates status.
Speaker 1: Well so, and this has been my case.
Speaker 3: I think this maybe the take that I have has
Speaker 3: kind of been skewed. It's I understand there are people
Speaker 3: using it correctly. I think a lot of people are
Speaker 3: using correctly are behind closed doors because it's a lot
Speaker 3: easier to use correctly when you don't have to generate
Speaker 3: a take out of it.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of people who if.
Speaker 3: You're using it and you also know football, fine, I
Speaker 3: think there are people who use it in place.
Speaker 1: Of knowing football, and that's what bothers me.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, all right, one last email here, and I
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 3: I love the socks example. There's some like famous baseball
Speaker 3: one where this one player was like elite.
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what it was. It's like a
Speaker 1: while ago. This one player was like unbelievable.
Speaker 3: On Tuesdays, he was like elite on Tuesdays, and so
Speaker 3: there was like this whole push battom clean up on
Speaker 3: Tuesdays and it was just like it just for whatever
Speaker 3: reason that day they kept facing sucky pitching.
Speaker 2: There you go, all right, this is from Dylan. He
Speaker 2: emails and he says, Evan, I'm with you. I don't
Speaker 2: care about all the Patriots, Bulls, Yankees fans kick rocks.
Speaker 2: As a Boston sports fan, the Celtics are all I
Speaker 2: want to talk about right now. Hater's gonna hate my
Speaker 2: very underrated not going to happen move going forward. Is
Speaker 2: Stefan Castle a great two way player that will fit
Speaker 2: into the Celtics system and the Spurs are looking to
Speaker 2: have one too many shooting guards. Also, the backcourt would
Speaker 2: be called white Castle. It doesn't get better than that.
Speaker 2: I do like that. So Stefan Castle. We've seen that
Speaker 2: American Stefan go to White Castle. We've seen that trade
Speaker 2: proposal out there. But unfortunately the trade proposal is something
Speaker 2: that to me as a Celtics fan, is off the table,
Speaker 2: which is trading Jalen Brown. It's Jalen Brown for the
Speaker 2: number two overall pick in Stefan Castle and some other
Speaker 2: pieces from San Antonio coming back to Boston, but our
Speaker 2: takes on the Celtics move.
Speaker 3: We'll give you this a little update here that I
Speaker 3: think you're gonna be disappointed. By God, it's not trading
Speaker 3: Jalen Brown. I guess Sham said on McAfee that I.
Speaker 2: Don't I'm gonna I'm gonna fight with Shams right now.
Speaker 3: The Celtics may look to flip Anthony Simons.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I know you like Simons. I like Simons. I also
Speaker 3: wouldn't hate if they flip them.
Speaker 2: But I have a I have a beef with Shams
Speaker 2: And this isn't where I wanted to go with this,
Speaker 2: but is where we're going.
Speaker 1: No, we say we're gonna do draft talk. You have
Speaker 1: to make this quick. I have a beef with Shams.
Speaker 1: I understand.
Speaker 2: I understand that you are trying to sell, just like
Speaker 2: we're trying to sell this show. You're trying to stir
Speaker 2: up drama. We don't do that, but that's what you're
Speaker 2: trying to do. And I get it. You get paid
Speaker 2: to do that. When you say that the Celtics are
Speaker 2: taking calls on all players and you don't put names
Speaker 2: to the players. That they're taking calls on That is infuriating,
Speaker 2: Like are they actually seriously taking calls on Jalen Brown
Speaker 2: and Derek White or not? Well, but tell me that
Speaker 2: we don't sit there and tell me yesterday before Porzingis
Speaker 2: gets Dell that they're listening to calls on all their
Speaker 2: players when we all know that Porzingis is getting traded,
Speaker 2: Just say it's porzing They're trade and trade Porzingis. No,
Speaker 2: but we do this all the time in football, where
Speaker 2: like you know, the team's taking calls on this player,
Speaker 2: but they're never really going to trade them.
Speaker 1: They're just looking to see if somebody. It's really stupid.
Speaker 1: I would want them taking calls on on Jays calling off.
Speaker 1: Don't give it? What if the Nuggets calling off for Yoka?
Speaker 2: Don't give the take? If you're not going to put
Speaker 2: a name to it, because all you're doing well isn't
Speaker 2: all play. You're just driving us all.
Speaker 3: This is a weird take from you. All players implies
Speaker 3: all players. Why do you need a name? It's ever
Speaker 3: you want them to list the entire roster?
Speaker 2: No, because my I don't.
Speaker 1: It's all players. It's all players.
Speaker 2: Because I don't think the Celtics are in any serious
Speaker 2: way considering trading.
Speaker 1: So you just think you lied. Basically.
Speaker 2: I don't think he lied. I think that he's stretching
Speaker 2: the truth to strum up drama because it's more interesting
Speaker 2: for the show and more interesting.
Speaker 3: They're taking calls on all players. They're taking calls on
Speaker 3: all players. He doesn't say how seriously they're taking those calls.
Speaker 2: I think that it's we're telling half true.
Speaker 1: We say this all the time the phone and there.
Speaker 2: You might hang up that lass. But there's a huge
Speaker 2: difference between taking calls on Sam hows Er and taking
Speaker 2: calls on Jalen Brown. So you had as as an insider,
Speaker 2: I need to know what we're talking. Who were we
Speaker 2: talking about here?
Speaker 3: Like, I think it's right, but we did considered overall
Speaker 3: pick we did this a third overall pick two years ago.
Speaker 3: You take the call. If somebody's gonna get dumb, you
Speaker 3: take the call. You might laugh and hang up, but
Speaker 3: you take the call.
Speaker 1: So that's just being a good gave and Brad Stevens
Speaker 1: a good GM.
Speaker 2: On the moves they've actually made really quickly with Porzingis
Speaker 2: and Drew Holliday a necessary evil. Now I'm not sitting
Speaker 2: here to tell you that it's a good thing for
Speaker 2: this cell, except they had to make these moves. They
Speaker 2: got worse that we all know that, and they had
Speaker 2: to do it. But at the same time, they had
Speaker 2: to do it. And I think, what the one big
Speaker 2: thing that needs to be said, because I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people are chogging this up to just a
Speaker 2: taxpayer savers, you know, saving money on the repeater tax,
Speaker 2: and it's more money in Bill Chisholm's pocket. That No,
Speaker 2: the restrictions of the second Apron on what you can
Speaker 2: do from a roster building standpoint are substanct.
Speaker 3: They actually limit your ability to assign free agents, what
Speaker 3: you can do in trades.
Speaker 1: It's like it actually it's not raft.
Speaker 2: It freezes your draft.
Speaker 1: It freezes your draft PA, which is huge.
Speaker 2: The biggest thing that getting out of the second Apron
Speaker 2: does is it allows you to aggregate salaries and trades,
Speaker 2: which is extremely important because now you can trade in
Speaker 2: theory three players for one player. Right, So now it
Speaker 2: puts the Celtics back into those conversations to trade for
Speaker 2: a star, which they could not do before unless they
Speaker 2: match the salary one in one out. So essentially you
Speaker 2: would have had to have traded. I'm not saying they're
Speaker 2: going to trade for him. Let's say Yanni says I
Speaker 2: want to come to Boston and that that he just
Speaker 2: get me to the Celtics. That's his mindset. You would
Speaker 2: have had to have traded Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: for Giannis because you only could be one in, one out.
Speaker 2: Now you could aggregate salaries, So Anthony Simmons, who's making
Speaker 2: twenty seven million on an expiring contract, you could put
Speaker 2: him and Yang and Houser and package all these players
Speaker 2: together to get to the sixty million that Yannis is owed.
Speaker 2: When you're over the second apron, you couldn't do that.
Speaker 2: So in theory, this puts the Celtics back in play
Speaker 2: to make major moves, and that's where they need it
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: What do you want to see him do in the
Speaker 1: draft tonight.
Speaker 2: I know that there's rumors that they might move up
Speaker 2: into the lottery. I don't think they're gonna be able
Speaker 2: to get up there.
Speaker 3: If you could flip Houser to get into the late lottery,
Speaker 3: I would do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would do it too. They have those two picks.
Speaker 3: Or Simons if you could flip because those guys to me,
Speaker 3: are redundant. I know they play different positions, but that's
Speaker 3: your bench spark shooter guy, right, not a lot of defense,
Speaker 3: but it's gonna put the ball in the basket if
Speaker 3: you can flip one of those guys to get into
Speaker 3: the mid lottery and ideally at a big which is
Speaker 3: what I would like to see them do, especially if
Speaker 3: we don't know what Luke Cornett's future is. That's what
Speaker 3: I want. I don't like Ryan Kulkbrenner, I don't like Creighton.
Speaker 3: He makes a lot.
Speaker 1: Of sense for the Celtics. I'd probably come around.
Speaker 2: They also need a wing because Tatum is not coming
Speaker 2: back this season, I don't think, and they're gonna need
Speaker 2: depth at that pick I want.
Speaker 3: I don't want them to have this narrow focus. We've
Speaker 3: talked about this, like the Brady off when Brady towards
Speaker 3: Ac and they kind of set around him. I don't
Speaker 3: want them to have this narrow focus. Though, of these
Speaker 3: are the movie we need to make to plan without Tatum.
Speaker 3: I want them to bring guys in that when Tatum
Speaker 3: comes back, this guy's gonna compliment Tatum really well.
Speaker 1: I would honestly rather that be the preference.
Speaker 3: I'd rather they build for twenty seven to twenty eight,
Speaker 3: twenty nine to thirty than just twenty six. Well, that's
Speaker 3: why I like Simons, because I think Simons is just
Speaker 3: Simons does both.
Speaker 2: He's a volume scoer, he's a microwave, he's a bucket getter,
Speaker 2: and you just put him out there and this next
Speaker 2: season it makes them more watchable frankly as a fan,
Speaker 2: but also if he's around in the long term, he's
Speaker 2: another guy kind of like porzingis, who could just drop thirty.
Speaker 3: I think if you flip Houser right and move up
Speaker 3: in the draft, it would be, you know, Peyton Pritchard
Speaker 3: and Anthony Simons is your backcourt on your second unit? Yeah,
Speaker 3: that plays, that plays. That would be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Well that's your Celtics s mint. But I want to
Speaker 2: stress because I see it a lot about that this
Speaker 2: is just about cutting taxpayer dollars, and I mean NBA taxpayer.
Speaker 2: Do you think this is the second Aprons of death set?
Speaker 3: Let me ask him to be in the second if
Speaker 3: we wrap it up, because I think there's a report
Speaker 3: sort of along these lines recently, like the NFL was
Speaker 3: looking at the NBA's salary cap structure.
Speaker 2: It's a joke.
Speaker 1: Do you think it would ever come to the NFL?
Speaker 2: I hope not. I think that this is gonna ruin
Speaker 2: the NBA. I've had this take off the air with you.
Speaker 2: I know it's a Celtics homer take, but I really
Speaker 2: strongly believe it. I think the Apron system is going
Speaker 2: to ruin the NBA. I think it's horrible for the league.
Speaker 2: I understand that you're trying to make all thirty teams
Speaker 2: relevant and spread the talent around, but what I think
Speaker 2: you're doing is you're actually going to dilute the entire product. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you're not gonna have any great teams anymore. Everybody's
Speaker 2: just gonna kind of be no offense. Indiana and Oklahoma City,
Speaker 2: who I think Oklahoma City is probably closer to that
Speaker 2: great enchelon. Maybe they get there eventually, but I think
Speaker 2: you're just gonna have a lot of like good, not
Speaker 2: great across the league. And I would much rather watch
Speaker 2: heavyweights than watch that. So I think that's gonna be
Speaker 2: a big problem for the league. Before we go. Based
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Speaker 2: go places, NBA Draft, NHL Draft this week. Not a
Speaker 2: whole lot going on in patriot Land, so we'll see
Speaker 2: what happens between this week and next week. But we'll
Speaker 2: see you guys then.
Speaker 1: Bye.
Speaker 13: Hey, this is Deuce. Thanks for tuning into the show.
Speaker 13: If you really want to help us, make sure you
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Speaker 1: Thanks a lot,