Speaker 1: This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Speaker 1: Lazar and Alex Barth and Lazarre.
Speaker 2: Hello, everybody nailed it, joined us always buy our bark.
Speaker 2: Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars. I said we
Speaker 2: weren't going to get into the steam minutia, but that
Speaker 2: that was it. That's what we do. I said, I
Speaker 2: was gonna set the table first, but.
Speaker 1: We didn't say pleasantry.
Speaker 2: You guys don't believe in pleasantries over over at the hub.
Speaker 1: You got no we got we gotta show it.
Speaker 2: You're you're not into pleasantries, so we're not gonna do
Speaker 2: pleasantries here today. It's Evan Lazarre, Alex Barth, Patriots Catch
Speaker 2: twenty two with you until about four o'clock here today,
Speaker 2: so we gotta get a long show today morell we got.
Speaker 2: We got almost the two full hours here, so it's
Speaker 2: gonna be fun. It's gonna be good. Alex. We were
Speaker 2: just talking before we we hit record on the show
Speaker 2: that everybody is against your boy. Now everybody hates me, Alex.
Speaker 2: I I am I I am too negative. I'm the
Speaker 2: grinch that stole Christmas or the week one moral victory
Speaker 2: for the New England Patriots, and uh, everyone hates me.
Speaker 2: Everyone's mad, everyone's fired up. They're on the YouTube comments,
Speaker 2: they're emailing, they're they're they're they're tweeting at me. Uh,
Speaker 2: they're they're coming after me for my my Tuesday PU show,
Speaker 2: talking about me everywhere, just kidding about how negative I
Speaker 2: was about this Patriots team. So right off the top
Speaker 2: of the show, here's what we're gonna do. Here's what
Speaker 2: we're gonna do, so that all of you get off
Speaker 2: my back and tell me that I'm not being negative
Speaker 2: anymore and we can all move on from that. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna give you three three whole nice things about your offense,
Speaker 2: Patriots fans, three nice things about the offense. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go one at a time. Let Alex interject in between.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna say three nice things about this offense
Speaker 2: right now. So get off my back, all right. Get
Speaker 2: this is positive, positive energy only, and I'm being one
Speaker 2: hundred sense sincere, you ready go for it.
Speaker 1: Let's see, let's see how since here you can really
Speaker 1: be here.
Speaker 2: Number One, I loved what I saw from Bill O'Brien
Speaker 2: in this game. Thought Bill O'Brien had a great script.
Speaker 2: I thought he had great call sheet called good plays
Speaker 2: in this game. I think a big reason why the
Speaker 2: offensive line that was completely overmatched and overwhelmed in this game.
Speaker 2: Despite some narrative I said, it's gonna be positive something,
Speaker 2: all right, and here we go, I can't even do it, okay,
Speaker 2: despite the mismatch between the offensive line and the defensive line,
Speaker 2: I thought a big reason in this game why it
Speaker 2: didn't take over the game for Philadelphia is because of
Speaker 2: how O'Brien called the game. Yeah, and I understand that
Speaker 2: some people get annoyed by the thirteen screens and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, but it had to be it
Speaker 2: had to be done. It had to be done. In
Speaker 2: this game, I thought that they at least changed it
Speaker 2: up enough with the screens that there was some different
Speaker 2: ones that thrown in there, and then they finally sprung
Speaker 2: the one for Romandra in the fourth quarter. The bunch
Speaker 2: formations were excellent. And I think that this is something
Speaker 2: that I really love about O'Brien, and he's talked about
Speaker 2: this in some of the coaching clinics that he's done.
Speaker 2: One of the things I really love about him is
Speaker 2: that when he finds something that works against a defense,
Speaker 2: he's not afraid to just keep pressing the button. A
Speaker 2: lot of offensive coordinators and we're going to maybe talk
Speaker 2: about one here later on in the show that I
Speaker 2: a play caller, I guess I should say later on
Speaker 2: in the show, think that every single play needs to
Speaker 2: be unique and different, and like they want to win.
Speaker 2: They're trying to win every single play, right And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying O'Brien's not, but like you understand what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: Like everything is different, window dressing, different design, YadA, YadA YadA.
Speaker 2: Bill O'Brien figured out that the Eagles were having difficulties
Speaker 2: with the bunch formations, especially those tight bunches. That what
Speaker 2: we saw in Kendrick Bourne's touchdown, the throw to Mario
Speaker 2: Douglas on the sideline on the corner route, and he
Speaker 2: just kept pressing the but and he just kept hitting
Speaker 2: the play, hitting it, hitting it, and until you stop it,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna let you off the hook by going
Speaker 2: to different things. Really enjoyed that with Bill O'Brien, thought
Speaker 2: that he called the game well in terms of managing
Speaker 2: the offensive line and managing the situation of the game.
Speaker 2: And I thought he had Mac buttoned up in terms
Speaker 2: of his decision making and where his eyes were going,
Speaker 2: and like things like that. So overall made in voyage
Speaker 2: of Bill O'Brien in the regular season, I give him
Speaker 2: an A minus an a minus. The only knock that
Speaker 2: I had on this plan out of everything, I wish
Speaker 2: there was a little bit more motion. I wanted them
Speaker 2: to kind of stress the Eagles the same way Kansas
Speaker 2: City did in the Super Bowl by using motion. Maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit more motion, a little bit more downfield RPO.
Speaker 2: You know, I love both those things. That might be
Speaker 2: the next iteration, but in terms of what we saw
Speaker 2: in Week one, really enjoyed this game script from Bill
Speaker 2: O'Brien and I thought he called a good game.
Speaker 1: I thought he did too. Again, you talk about this,
Speaker 1: this is everything I've been yelling for the offense to
Speaker 1: be for two years, right it? Remember last year is
Speaker 1: that we were talking about, No, the strength and in
Speaker 1: this wide receiver group is the depth. It's not the
Speaker 1: top of the depth chart. And they shouldn't have anybody
Speaker 1: that really plays over an overwhelming amount and mix and
Speaker 1: match the combinations, put them in different formations. Last year
Speaker 1: was the same three guys in like two or three
Speaker 1: formations and that was it. And that first drive. I
Speaker 1: mean they're subbing in and out like this and like that,
Speaker 1: and they're in bunch and they're five wide and they
Speaker 1: were in i think three at one point, depending on
Speaker 1: how you want to qualify time Montgomery, and I mean
Speaker 1: he got weird in a good way, uh throughout the game.
Speaker 1: So I really liked what I had, what I was
Speaker 1: off O'Brien. The one nitpick I had was on the
Speaker 1: play before the final play, the kaishaon booty fourth down.
Speaker 1: The screen on third and thirteen felt very McDaniel's ish
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: It was tough. I under the defensive line of the
Speaker 2: Eagles made a great play on it.
Speaker 1: So but that's the thing, like I understand the defense
Speaker 1: of that, Like, hey, they knew it was four down territory.
Speaker 1: They wanted to try it. They weren't trying to get
Speaker 1: it all once. They're trying to get to like at
Speaker 1: least a fourth and six, fourth and seven. But against
Speaker 1: that defensive front, with the way the screens were working
Speaker 1: in the game, I know Wheremandre hit one big one,
Speaker 1: but outside of that, I didn't think they're having a
Speaker 1: ton of success on it. I'm not against the philosophy,
Speaker 1: like they didn't need to pick up the thirteen yards
Speaker 1: on third and thirteen. I'm not against that, but was
Speaker 1: there a was there a better way to get six
Speaker 1: or seven yards than throwing the ball into the backfield
Speaker 1: in that situation. That was my one nit pick. Besides that,
Speaker 1: I thought the offensive game plan was awesome this week.
Speaker 1: I really liked what they did, especially given the circumstances
Speaker 1: of who they had available and who they were facing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the screen I watched back those those final two
Speaker 2: drives this morning just to make sure I had it
Speaker 2: right in my head, and the screen was. It was
Speaker 2: set up to hit because they the Eagles were in
Speaker 2: a too high safety shell. There was not a whole
Speaker 2: lot of players in the box. I think there was
Speaker 2: only one off ball linebacker on the play, and one
Speaker 2: of our guys, Jordan Davis, made just a ridiculous play
Speaker 2: to come off his rush and really force Remandre to cut.
Speaker 2: If Remondre doesn't have to take that extra jump cut
Speaker 2: to get around Jordan Davis, then he just goes right
Speaker 2: up the field, up the gut off of David Andrews's
Speaker 2: block and gets probably eight nine yards before the safeties
Speaker 2: come down and crash on him. But Jordan Davis made
Speaker 2: a fantastic play on that. But I understand that you
Speaker 2: wanted them to be a little bit more aggressive there,
Speaker 2: and I don't fault you for it. But overall, I
Speaker 2: thought O'Brien was great. I did want to like talk
Speaker 2: a little bit more about the bunches and the stacks
Speaker 2: that they were using. I just love this part of
Speaker 2: Bill O'Brien's playbook. I think it puts the defense in
Speaker 2: such a mind pretzel trying to cover these types of
Speaker 2: routes because what the Patriots will do with the route
Speaker 2: a lot of the times, there'll be an option on
Speaker 2: one of the three routes side of the bunch that
Speaker 2: is just breaking off of leverage. So for example, on
Speaker 2: the Tomrio Douglas throw on the corner route, this is
Speaker 2: just I don't know for a fact, but I'm just
Speaker 2: like guessing Tomroo Doug I believe has a post corner
Speaker 2: like he can break onto the post or it can
Speaker 2: break on the corner, depending on how the defensive back
Speaker 2: plays it. Right, the defensive back sits inside, he's going
Speaker 2: to break the corner. If he sits outside, he's going
Speaker 2: to break the post. And a I just think that
Speaker 2: that's such a mind f like, you know, if you're
Speaker 2: the defensive back, like you're trying to pick him up
Speaker 2: out of the bunch formation. Now he's got this two
Speaker 2: way option, there's all sorts of space. He really can't
Speaker 2: jam him because he's in the bunch to begin with,
Speaker 2: so you can't get hands on early, and he just
Speaker 2: has all this freedom to just then go ahead and
Speaker 2: make a move and get open. And the other thing
Speaker 2: I liked about that play in particular too, is that
Speaker 2: the Mario made the the right read, ran the right
Speaker 2: ran the right route. So I was really impressed with
Speaker 2: the bunches, the stacks, you know, they run a lot
Speaker 2: of that two lane you know, to option routes. One
Speaker 2: at twelve yards, one at six yards. That worked like
Speaker 2: multiple times. It worked on a on a Kendrick Born
Speaker 2: throw for about eighteen yards, you know, Kendrick cott the
Speaker 2: underneath option and then turned it upfield and ran for
Speaker 2: about fourteen yards after the catch, and worked on fourth
Speaker 2: down to Hunter Henry even though you had to one
Speaker 2: hand and catch it, the concept itself worked and got
Speaker 2: them open. So I thought that a lot of that
Speaker 2: was really good. I think you'll continue to see a
Speaker 2: lot of that moving forward. It's just fun to watch those,
Speaker 2: like to break them down and to see them the
Speaker 2: spacing and the sequencing of it together, and the different
Speaker 2: options that they have off those bunch formations, a lot
Speaker 2: of different things you can do with them. So I
Speaker 2: was really impressed with that. So there's one positive. I
Speaker 2: did it. That was all positive. Right, you brought up
Speaker 2: the screen.
Speaker 1: No, you brought up something before that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, set, Yeah, but I reset, I reset, you know,
Speaker 2: we kill kill right, reset, We did it again. Number two.
Speaker 2: In this game, I have said a lot of negative
Speaker 2: things about Mac Jones. I will own that. Gonna give
Speaker 2: them a positive in this I thought that Mac Jones
Speaker 2: as well as Bill O'Brien did a really really good
Speaker 2: job of managing the rush in this game. Two point
Speaker 2: three eight time to throw on average, which is very
Speaker 2: very fast. Now, a lot of that's quick game screen,
Speaker 2: I get that, but that's all part of it, right,
Speaker 2: that's running all those things is all part of it.
Speaker 2: And I thought he did a really good job of
Speaker 2: getting the ball out.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought he did a really good job of managing
Speaker 2: the rush in the pocket, you know, maneuvering, making little subtle,
Speaker 2: those subtle movements we talk about all the time. That
Speaker 2: didn't seem like he has had that innate miss last year.
Speaker 2: He handled pressure well for the most part. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: he was able to for.
Speaker 1: What it was against that rush with the offensive line
Speaker 1: he had, he handled pressure well in this game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. And I think which was.
Speaker 1: The biggest question coming into the season with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, I thought that there was a lot of
Speaker 2: the reason why I said earlier, and I know I
Speaker 2: said no negativity, but the reason why I said earlier
Speaker 2: that the offensive line performance was really not that good
Speaker 2: despite what we've heard about, you know, not giving up
Speaker 2: a sack until the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: I'm actually kind of with you on that one.
Speaker 2: But the offensive line performance was not that good because
Speaker 2: a lot of guys were giving up hurries, but they
Speaker 2: were hurries and not hits or sacks right because of Mac,
Speaker 2: And I give Mac a lot of credit.
Speaker 1: It was that Mac was his own best pass protector
Speaker 1: in this game. And he said how many times we
Speaker 1: say that this offseason, that's who Mac's gonna need to
Speaker 1: be in twenty twenty three, And I thought he absolutely
Speaker 1: was his own best pass We'll get to the offensive
Speaker 1: line I'm with you on that one. I think for
Speaker 1: what it was, it was fine. Yeah, but there's some
Speaker 1: really heavy qualifiers that come with that that just are
Speaker 1: applicable to this one specific game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And lastly, just on Mac with the pressure, I
Speaker 2: thought he did a really good job of controlling the
Speaker 2: depth of his drops in this game, which is an underrated,
Speaker 2: sneaky thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many times did we see him last
Speaker 1: year when he got pressured where he double back and
Speaker 1: he'd start twisting around like I don't think did he
Speaker 1: do that once in this game?
Speaker 2: And he did a great job. I thought he was
Speaker 2: really dropping for the most part. So the rule of
Speaker 2: thumb is that you want to get the rusher on
Speaker 2: we're talking about edge rushers now, you want to get
Speaker 2: edge rushers ten yards past the quarterback ten yards. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if it's eleven yards in the quarterback gets sacked, then
Speaker 2: that's on the quarterback. The quarterback's got to step up
Speaker 2: in the pocket. Now, if there's interior press, like I get,
Speaker 2: there's other factors. But the point is is that if
Speaker 2: you're a tackle, your job is to block the edge
Speaker 2: rusher ten yards past the quarterback. I cannot tell you
Speaker 2: how many times in this game, Mac was dropping to
Speaker 2: like seven or eight yards on purpose because he knew
Speaker 2: that Calvin Anderson was probably gonna be a little shaky
Speaker 2: over there in his first game. And they did a
Speaker 2: really good job at controlling the depth of the pocket,
Speaker 2: really really good job. And he threw made some throws
Speaker 2: while under pressure, most notably the kender Born drop. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: but that throw is a great throw. Well, it was
Speaker 2: some pressure in his face, Seemer. There was a lot
Speaker 2: of a lot of positivity about Mac Jones. All right,
Speaker 2: I said a lot of positive things.
Speaker 1: It was the insistence to not acknowledge any of this
Speaker 1: earlier in the week and not a breakdown that was puzzling.
Speaker 2: A lot of positive things about your quarterback.
Speaker 1: So where was this on Tuesday?
Speaker 2: We'll get the tuesday anyways. Is that enough gushing about
Speaker 2: the quarterback? Said three things? Yes?
Speaker 1: Oh about the Yeah, all right, yeah, last one.
Speaker 2: Round of applause to the captain David Andrews. Great game
Speaker 2: by David Andrews. I thought David Andrews played one of
Speaker 2: his better games I've seen him play in a while,
Speaker 2: not only blocking like snap to snap individually, but I
Speaker 2: give he was helping those rookie guards out a ton
Speaker 2: pre snap and he did a great job in this
Speaker 2: game with a ton of chaos around him and two
Speaker 2: guards that were getting beat like a drum on both
Speaker 2: sides of him. And David Andrews. I said, no, dang it,
Speaker 2: but still David Andrews. David Andrews, great, great game from him.
Speaker 2: I hope that the hamstring's okay. I think it will be.
Speaker 2: He's a tough guy, he'll play through it. But I
Speaker 2: really was impressed by by Da. He was great in
Speaker 2: this game.
Speaker 1: I nothing about the Jamario Douglas or Kendrick Bourne makes
Speaker 1: it into your positives. Not yet, Oh come on, not yet,
Speaker 1: not yet. We're not gonna talk about it yet on
Speaker 1: the show. Or not yet. You're not willing to compliment
Speaker 1: either of them.
Speaker 2: But I didn't say I'm not ready to compliment any
Speaker 2: of them. Don't know, you don't get all crazy. I
Speaker 2: just said that, like, we'll talk about it, we'll get
Speaker 2: to it. Yeah, but these are my three like gold stars, okay, Like.
Speaker 1: I look, you watched the line closer than me, so
Speaker 1: I'll give you the Andrews one for me. Like one
Speaker 1: of my biggest takeaways coming away from this game is
Speaker 1: just Kendrick Bourne. All the stuff we talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: can he take off this year? Can he have that
Speaker 1: remember that we were talking about, like to break out
Speaker 1: year in year seven? Yeah, kind of like an abstract.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything fugazi about what he did
Speaker 1: in this game. He's back. And this is why last
Speaker 1: year I was red in the face saying it's malpractice.
Speaker 1: They're not putting this guy on the field because he
Speaker 1: can change the game. He can change the game. And
Speaker 1: I thought he showed in this game why he makes
Speaker 1: that and he and this is all with him having
Speaker 1: a bad drop. I'm not gonna say he was. He
Speaker 1: should have caught that ball on that third down late
Speaker 1: in the game. That's probably Max's best throw. But there
Speaker 1: were other things as well that cost him the game.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just that. And I thought Bourne was excellent
Speaker 1: in this game.
Speaker 2: I agree with you that I agree with you that
Speaker 2: one hundred and ten percent about last year with Kendrick Bourne.
Speaker 2: I agree with you one hundred and ten percent this
Speaker 2: year that Kendrick Borne needs to be on the field.
Speaker 2: And it Yeah, we said before the season started. I
Speaker 2: think both of us were in lockstep on this on
Speaker 2: one of the previous shows on Catch twenty two that
Speaker 2: we felt like Bourne should be the most targeted receiver
Speaker 2: in the Patriots offense, and nothing that I saw on
Speaker 2: Sunday deters me from that point. I will say he
Speaker 2: has some route running miscues on film that I think,
Speaker 2: in the coach's eyes, probably hold him back a little
Speaker 2: bit from being the guy that we all want him
Speaker 2: to be. But at the same time, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: for this particular football team that that can matter. Like,
Speaker 2: so I would if you want to run guy right,
Speaker 2: because like, if he runs like I think maybe in
Speaker 2: this game he had two or three routes, I would
Speaker 2: say probably two. I think the third one would be
Speaker 2: a nitpick. I'd say there's probably two routes where I
Speaker 2: thought that he ran the route incorrectly, But that doesn't
Speaker 2: wipe out all the routes that he ran great right like,
Speaker 2: and he runs too many good routes to take him.
Speaker 1: Off, And I would just say that was a massive nitpick. Again,
Speaker 1: you're being positive, but great shot with it. No, but
Speaker 1: I would like that it goes back to something we talked
Speaker 1: about the soft steins. If they wanted that guy DeAndre
Speaker 1: Hopkins was available. Yeah, Jerry Judy was real. I mean,
Speaker 1: now you're talking about a top twenty receiver, right if
Speaker 1: the biggest knock on the guys two routes he ran
Speaker 1: over the course of the game, and that's why you
Speaker 1: can't feature him. Can then in the drop, but like
Speaker 1: then you needed to go get Like he's as good
Speaker 1: as they have and he's pretty good. But if you're
Speaker 1: expecting elevation they they clearly felt based off what they
Speaker 1: did in the offseason, I would argue that they don't
Speaker 1: need a receiver better than what Kendrick Bourne did on Sunday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I again, I I his miscues are not
Speaker 2: big enough for me to take him off the field
Speaker 2: by any stretch of the imagination, because of how good
Speaker 2: the good plays are with him. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, the couple running miscues that he had
Speaker 2: did hurt them, and then obviously the job hurts them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's just I'm with you, that's the difference between But.
Speaker 1: That's not even like I don't want to say it's
Speaker 1: not his fault, but like, that's not he gave you
Speaker 1: as much as you can realistically expect him to give.
Speaker 2: I agree if you want more. That's about the players
Speaker 2: they have. I'm just simply telling you why I didn't
Speaker 2: give him a gold star.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2: So those are my three gold stars. Bill O'Brien, mac
Speaker 2: under pressure, maneuvering pressure, managing pressure, and uh and and
Speaker 2: David Andrews, who I thought was great in this game.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Damario Douglas. I am buying all the to
Speaker 2: Mario Douglas stock. I want Damario Douglas on the field
Speaker 2: as much as possible. I think that he is the
Speaker 2: one guy that is dynamic in this offense besides maybe
Speaker 2: Kendrick that can get open, that can run with the
Speaker 2: football a little bit. I am clamoring, clamoring to see
Speaker 2: him with the football in his hands with some space.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: They unfortunately couldn't get him loose in this game. They
Speaker 2: were close on that throw that Jalen Carter made Max Sale,
Speaker 2: But I think that if they can get him in
Speaker 2: those types of matchups. I really like the Mario Douglas
Speaker 2: and how he ran the routes in this game. One
Speaker 2: one conversion that he didn't run properly, but it's a
Speaker 2: rookie in his first game. I'm not gonna and I'm
Speaker 2: sure there's many more that the coaches know about the DIDO,
Speaker 2: but like, you know whatever, I just similar to Kendrick Bourne. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's gonna have some mistakes, he's gonna have some growing
Speaker 2: pains as a young player, but he's too good to
Speaker 2: not play him a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, their three bet went once they get healthy. I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty clear at this point. There's been some
Speaker 1: reporting to this points as well. When they're an eleven, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Parker Bourne Pop Pop. That's that's And I know people
Speaker 1: want to knock Kashan Booty in this game too, Like
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take him off the field.
Speaker 2: I didn't love Kashan Booty in this game.
Speaker 1: I didn't love him, but I didn't like he belonged.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, I don't know. I mean he
Speaker 1: doesn't need a true red shirt, like.
Speaker 2: He's No, I don't think he needs a true red shirt.
Speaker 1: But just to get back to we can get into
Speaker 1: Kashan buy because later, because I feel like that changes
Speaker 1: the conversation. But the point being like, when you're an eleven,
Speaker 1: Parker Bourne Pop, that's got to be the group right now,
Speaker 1: Like those are the three best receivers. And I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's close.
Speaker 2: I don't think it is. And I also would just
Speaker 2: say that I like how those three compliment each other.
Speaker 1: Oh, you have a really wide range of skill sets there,
Speaker 1: and no, I think it beyond. That's part of why
Speaker 1: I like it. I think that group elevates, they all
Speaker 1: elevate each other again because of that diverse the diversity
Speaker 1: of skill sets within there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really like Douglass in this game. I did.
Speaker 2: So those are my three positives, and we started the
Speaker 2: show there. We're going to open up the phone lines
Speaker 2: here in a second, eight five to five, pats five hundred.
Speaker 2: It is the phone number. Got three people on hold already.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get to you and just a second, I promise.
Speaker 2: I think the one thing I do want to say
Speaker 2: about you know what I said on Tuesday about Mac
Speaker 2: and and just I don't want to beat a dead horse.
Speaker 2: I've already talked about Mac and my my critiques about
Speaker 2: Mac enough, but people that just listen to this show,
Speaker 2: I want them to understand where I'm coming from as well. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and uh, I think the biggest thing with Mac is
Speaker 2: I want to say two things. One, Uh, I want
Speaker 2: Mac Jones to be great. I really do, and I
Speaker 2: think that people now, uh, maybe a little bit more
Speaker 2: publicly than I would like. Yeah, I know that I
Speaker 2: love Mac, Like, Mack's a great guy, and I enjoy
Speaker 2: covering him, and I enjoyed the conversations that I've had
Speaker 2: with him. I'm not we're not friends, Like, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying any of that. I'm just saying like I enjoy
Speaker 2: interacting with Mac. With that being said, where my frustration
Speaker 2: comes from with Mac is I truly do want him
Speaker 2: to be great. But for him to be great, he's
Speaker 2: the little details of the quarterback position, the nuances that
Speaker 2: you get from studying film over and over and again.
Speaker 2: He has to dominate that, Like, he has to be
Speaker 2: really really good at that because he's not going to
Speaker 2: change dramatically from a physical standpoint. So if he's gonna
Speaker 2: be great, then he has to have clean footwork. He
Speaker 2: has to throw from a solid base, he has to
Speaker 2: make good decisions with the football, he has to throw
Speaker 2: on time, Like these are the things that he has
Speaker 2: to do to play with his margins. And my frustration
Speaker 2: comes from when I watch the film and I'm like,
Speaker 2: you're not controlling the controllabulls Mac. You got to be
Speaker 2: able to control the things you can control. He can't
Speaker 2: control the fact that he's not Lamar Jackson, and he
Speaker 2: can't control the fact that he doesn't have it. People
Speaker 2: get mad when I bring up Josh Allen that he
Speaker 2: can't control the fact that he doesn't have an army.
Speaker 1: Can control the he doesn't turn the ball or four times.
Speaker 2: That's why people get mad. He can't control the fact
Speaker 2: that he doesn't have an arm like justin Herbert. He
Speaker 2: can't control that. But what he can control is his
Speaker 2: own individual process and over the course of a game.
Speaker 2: So my frustrations with him come because I'm like, I
Speaker 2: want you to be good, dude, but like you're these
Speaker 2: are the things you're missing right now. And I think
Speaker 2: the main thing from this game that I was concerned with,
Speaker 2: and I'm willing to give him the caveat in the
Speaker 2: and within that caveat give him the time for the
Speaker 2: offensive line to get healthy, is that his footwork being
Speaker 2: off in this game for large stretches might have been
Speaker 2: related to the fact that he was not being protected well.
Speaker 1: So the other thing I would say to that, because
Speaker 1: he his footwork was good as a rookie it's not
Speaker 1: totally new. He this goes back and I know people
Speaker 1: are gonna roll their eyes and see me pointing a
Speaker 1: finger at Matt patric again. But last year, do you
Speaker 1: think he had a coach that when they in and
Speaker 1: broke down the film could get to that level with him?
Speaker 1: No work on that and I and so, yeah.
Speaker 2: Like I wonder, Look, obviously we all would love to
Speaker 2: be a fly on the wall in any of those meetings,
Speaker 2: but I really wonder what the coaches feel about it,
Speaker 2: because the bottom line is is this is where my
Speaker 2: concern came on Tuesday, is that when he doesn't throw
Speaker 2: from a solid base, he doesn't throw at a ton
Speaker 2: of all.
Speaker 1: And look, I'm sure he knows that, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: the coaches know that. And it's not like they just
Speaker 1: got out here, right, they had camp and all of that,
Speaker 1: But a game environment changes things. Like he was I
Speaker 1: thought during camp he was doing a good job of
Speaker 1: setting the feet and all that, right, And you I
Speaker 1: think you agree with me on that. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know that there was somebody that was going to go
Speaker 1: to him in last year, last year and say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a mess. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: he developed some bad habits, and I think when you're
Speaker 1: down two starting guards, maybe someone last year started creeping
Speaker 1: in the back of his head like I'm going to
Speaker 1: take a beating today. We all thought that in the
Speaker 1: press box. We were talking about like, he's not going
Speaker 1: to make it through this game. Yeah, with two rookie
Speaker 1: guards against his defensive line. Yeah, Like you mentioned, Bill
Speaker 1: O'Brien did a great job kind of helped him out,
Speaker 1: and he did a fantastic job himself of keeping himself clean.
Speaker 1: But I think that was part of it. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot he's thinking about in this game, specifically
Speaker 1: beyond mechanics. I look at it and say, all right, yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I thought Mac was better than you're giving him credit
Speaker 1: for in this game. I think if that's Mac Jones'
Speaker 1: worst performance of the year, this team's making the playoffs.
Speaker 1: I'll say that right now. Or if Mac Jones playing
Speaker 1: that way to that level is their biggest problem, and
Speaker 1: they have no bigger problems than Mac Jones performing like
Speaker 1: he did on Sunday, when again he threw for three
Speaker 1: hundred yards and three touchdowns against the top ten defense
Speaker 1: in the league. If that's their biggest problem, they're gonna
Speaker 1: make the playoffs and that's good. Now maybe it's not.
Speaker 1: Maybe it gets worse. Can the coaching staff fix those
Speaker 1: little things that you're talking about, and can him and
Speaker 1: Bill O'Brien get in the lab and basically does he
Speaker 1: go in there? He was hard on himself after the game,
Speaker 1: so I think he knows what you're saying. Yeah, can
Speaker 1: they go in the room and say we need to
Speaker 1: fix A, B and C and then come out on
Speaker 1: Sunday night and A, B and C are fixed? And
Speaker 1: this to me, when it relate, whether it relates to Mac,
Speaker 1: whether it relates to the the offense, whether it relate
Speaker 1: to some of the coaching decisions, this is the great Uh.
Speaker 1: This game was weird in terms of having to sit
Speaker 1: up there and evaluate it. I wrote like three different
Speaker 1: columns because I didn't like them, and I kept having
Speaker 1: to scrap them because I think this feels people are
Speaker 1: gonna hear this as a fence sitting take. I will no,
Speaker 1: but it's not. It's not. There wasn't because the Patriots
Speaker 1: played such a polarized game. Whatever your preconceived notion was
Speaker 1: about the team going into that game, you have something
Speaker 1: to point to and say it was true. If you
Speaker 1: want to sit here and say, hey, Bill O'Brien's here,
Speaker 1: the offense looked different. They moved the ball against this
Speaker 1: good defense at times, and hey, it's the you know,
Speaker 1: defending NFC champion. It wasn't gonna be perfect. I think
Speaker 1: that's a perfectly valid take. And you could sit here
Speaker 1: and say the issues they had, and I believe this,
Speaker 1: the issues they had, while similar to the issues they
Speaker 1: had last year, the problem last year wasn't that they
Speaker 1: were making those issues in September. A lot of teams
Speaker 1: make similar mistakes to the ones they made in September.
Speaker 1: The problem was they were still making them in December.
Speaker 1: They never got fixed. And that was the case last year.
Speaker 1: It was the case the year before that, it was
Speaker 1: the case the year before that. So you're absolutely allowed
Speaker 1: to sit here and say I saw a lot from
Speaker 1: that game that I liked. I saw a lot that
Speaker 1: looks like progress. Yeah, it wasn't perfect, but to go
Speaker 1: toe to toe with the defending NFC champion in Week
Speaker 1: one and have time to build on that with the
Speaker 1: new coaching staff, I'm encouraged. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: do think it's fair to say yes, but we felt
Speaker 1: encouraged in twenty twenty early in the season. We felt
Speaker 1: encouraged in twenty twenty one early in the season. Even
Speaker 1: last year early on, there were some moments where we
Speaker 1: were like, Okay, here we go, let's see and then
Speaker 1: So it's not a moral victory thing though, No, it's
Speaker 1: a benefit of the doubt thing in a bubble. Listen,
Speaker 1: just let me finish it. Let me finish in a bubble.
Speaker 1: I'm young team, third year quarterback coming off a year
Speaker 1: they missed the playoffs, goes toe to toe with the
Speaker 1: defending NFC champion. I think a lot of with making
Speaker 1: mistakes that are pretty textbook to make early in the year.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of teams you would look at
Speaker 1: that and a lot of circumstances and say, there's something
Speaker 1: to build on here. It's not a moral victory. Think
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily feel great about it, but it's when
Speaker 1: we're projecting out over the course of a seventeen game season,
Speaker 1: if the things that usually get fixed across the league
Speaker 1: by teams get fixed, they'll be in a good spot.
Speaker 1: I think that's an absolutely fair evaluation of this game.
Speaker 1: But you can also bring in the caveat that we
Speaker 1: felt that way about this team in twenty twenty and
Speaker 1: they never made the fixes they needed to make. We
Speaker 1: felt this way about the team in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: and they never made the fixes they needed to make. Obviously,
Speaker 1: last year they never made the fixes they needed to make.
Speaker 1: So our Bill and O'Brien and Adrian Clem that much
Speaker 1: better that Obviously they're better than Patricia. But like the
Speaker 1: McDaniel statts in twenty and twenty one, are are Patricia?
Speaker 1: Are mcdan the third try? Are O'Brien and Clem?
Speaker 2: Yes worth?
Speaker 1: The best benefit of the doubt that not only can
Speaker 1: you look at it and say they are going to
Speaker 1: fix these things, but say they are going to fix
Speaker 1: these things that they haven't been able to fix in
Speaker 1: each of the last three years. That's essentially the question
Speaker 1: me coming away from this game. Are you taking the
Speaker 1: cheese on it? Are you going to after what we've
Speaker 1: been through the last three years of them falling apart
Speaker 1: November and December? Are you still willing to look at
Speaker 1: this and say it'll look better by Thanksgiving, it'll look
Speaker 1: better by Christmas than it does now.
Speaker 2: That's a fair take. I don't disagree with a lot
Speaker 2: of that I think where my bigger concern came from.
Speaker 2: I guess from this game. Because I can nitpick mac
Speaker 2: Jones all day long, I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2: You know. There's little things with his footwork that I
Speaker 2: didn't like, especially throwing the ball to his right. I
Speaker 2: thought that throwing to the ball to the right sideline,
Speaker 2: the ball died on the mall game long, and that
Speaker 2: it was footwork related to me. Like I think because
Speaker 2: for him, and like I said earlier, like he needs
Speaker 2: to have a solid base and solid footwork for him
Speaker 2: to generate velocity. He can't generate a velocity of platform. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he has to have a solid platform to throw from.
Speaker 2: So I think that that's where a lot of my
Speaker 2: concerns came from. The other concern that I had in
Speaker 2: this game was, like you said, coming into the year,
Speaker 2: confirming a prior, and my prior was now when the
Speaker 2: chips were down and it was the fourth quarter, and
Speaker 2: Bill O'Brien can only take you so far because it
Speaker 2: ultimately comes down to the players on the field winning
Speaker 2: a game for you. I did not think offensively, not offensively,
Speaker 2: not just Mac Jones, the entire offense. I did not
Speaker 2: think that they had enough talent to win those games.
Speaker 1: So I guess this goes back to my point. I
Speaker 1: think some people will just agree with you. Flat some
Speaker 1: people will say, look, it was no secret that the
Speaker 1: Eagles defense had more talent than they did on offense.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many teams in the league have
Speaker 1: more talent on offense than the Eagles do on defense.
Speaker 1: It's a very short list. Yeah, I think some people
Speaker 1: look at that and say, this one they didn't win.
Speaker 1: But more often than not, in that situation, Bill O'Brien
Speaker 1: will be the difference that they will be able. And
Speaker 1: you have the stat was it owen thirteen?
Speaker 2: Right? Oh? And twelve in in uh twenty five plus
Speaker 2: points games? No.
Speaker 1: The other one the game leading drive on he has
Speaker 1: one in thirty three, one and thirty three.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I think some people look at it and say, Bill
Speaker 1: O'Brien's gond increase that number in this one specific instance,
Speaker 1: he didn't. Yeah, and it's against a very good defense.
Speaker 1: But let's see them get in that situation against Miami.
Speaker 1: Let's se him geting that situation against some of the
Speaker 1: other teams on their schedule that aren't as good defensively
Speaker 1: and it may not go from one to thirty three
Speaker 1: to thirty three and one, but or thirty three for
Speaker 1: thirty three or whatever. But like and it doesn't need
Speaker 1: to it needs to be about five hundred. But so again,
Speaker 1: is Bill O'Brien gonna fix it? There's another number. I
Speaker 1: gotta find the stat I.
Speaker 2: Just don't know if Bill O'Brien's enough.
Speaker 1: And that's where so and that's that's basically what the
Speaker 1: question is. I think coming away from this game, it
Speaker 1: was the first week Bill O'Brien had to work with them,
Speaker 1: and there's I think you'd agree with me on this
Speaker 1: any new coach. And we were actually arguing about how
Speaker 1: much of a difference a new coach makes before the show,
Speaker 1: So I know you're with me on this. Any new coach,
Speaker 1: you need a game or two to really get things fixed, right,
Speaker 1: So I think the argument is all right. Here we
Speaker 1: are with this team again. It was promising, but it
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't perfect. It was good but not good enough.
Speaker 1: Is Bill O'Brien the guy to get them to good
Speaker 1: enough from where they started on Sunday?
Speaker 2: So I don't disagree with anything that.
Speaker 1: You just let me make one more point on top
Speaker 1: of it. I think that the counter to that is
Speaker 1: people talk about, you know, one one in the twenty
Speaker 1: So this is the twenty five points thing, scoring more
Speaker 1: when the opponent scores more than twenty five points. What
Speaker 1: was the number again? Oh and twelve with mac Jones,
Speaker 1: they are without Tom Brady three and twenty five. So
Speaker 1: it's without Tom Brady or Randy Moss. Because of those
Speaker 1: three wins, two of them happened in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: They're one in twenty five, one in they won such
Speaker 1: win basically without Tom Brady Randy Moss. Is it a
Speaker 1: mac Jones problem or is it a because if it's
Speaker 1: a mac Jones problem, maybe Bill Obriant can fix it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's a Bill Belichick problem, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: how much it helps.
Speaker 2: It's gonna give it, so that that's kind of where
Speaker 2: I was headed with it. Yeah, when we say Bill
Speaker 2: Belichick problem, we mean a roster construction problem.
Speaker 1: Well, could be a roster construction problem or like a
Speaker 1: game approach philosophy problem.
Speaker 2: But I think the main thing is roster construction. Game Like,
Speaker 2: I think they're both together when I say Bill is
Speaker 2: trying to win the game. In my mind, twenty four
Speaker 2: to twenty right, like he's trying to get he's trying
Speaker 2: to build on defense to the point where you're not
Speaker 2: going to score, right.
Speaker 1: I think Bill might say points, Bill might say truth here,
Speaker 1: and Bill Belichick here. If you allow twenty five points,
Speaker 1: you've already lost that kind of thing exactly.
Speaker 2: So to that point, the play that really put me
Speaker 2: over the edge and led to a Tuesday's show and
Speaker 2: all this this crap that I've taken. The play that
Speaker 2: really put me over the edge was the fourth and
Speaker 2: three play on the second to last drive of the
Speaker 2: game for the Patriots, because on fourth and three they
Speaker 2: I believe they emptied the backfield on it. It might
Speaker 2: have been one back regardless, Mac and the gun, and
Speaker 2: they have Juju in the left slot there. That's your guy, right,
Speaker 2: like that's your big money offseason free agent edition. We'll
Speaker 2: get it apparently, but that's supposed to be your guy, right.
Speaker 2: And the initial read on the play is Juju on
Speaker 2: an option route, run it and get open. He doesn't
Speaker 2: have to break any particular way. He doesn't have to.
Speaker 2: It's not a you know, a leverage read necessarily, it's
Speaker 2: just make your guy miss, right, Just get open on
Speaker 2: the route. So that's that's the guy you paid twelve
Speaker 2: million dollars a year or two to get open on
Speaker 2: this route. And the initial nitpick or not even a nitpick.
Speaker 2: This was just a bad play for the team. The
Speaker 2: initial hiccup is that Juju just doesn't get open. He
Speaker 2: gets suffocated off the line of scrimmage and doesn't get open.
Speaker 2: So at that point Mac has to come off his
Speaker 2: first read and make something happen out of it. And
Speaker 2: then there's pressure, right, So here's the second problem with
Speaker 2: the play is the pressure. So MATC comes off the
Speaker 2: first read, tries to get over to the other side
Speaker 2: of the field to the second and now there's pressure
Speaker 2: in his face, which you and I are both on
Speaker 2: the record numerous times talking about the short fallings in
Speaker 2: the offseason about offensive line personnel. Yeah, here you go,
Speaker 2: your rear in your head, right, So your twelve dollars
Speaker 2: million dollar receiver can't get open on a one on
Speaker 2: one when you created a matchup for him out of
Speaker 2: the slot on fourth and three to get four yards,
Speaker 2: he can't get open.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Then your quarterback goes to move off of it correctly
Speaker 2: and he can't get to the second read without there
Speaker 2: being three people in his face. Right, and Maac breaks
Speaker 2: the pocket. Good job, right, gets out of the pocket,
Speaker 2: gets out of the pressure. As he's rolling to his
Speaker 2: right out of the pressure, Kendrick Bourne is streaking across
Speaker 2: the field on a crosser and he's wide af open,
Speaker 2: wide af open behind the linebacker. And this is not
Speaker 2: one of those like Mahomes fifty yard right now, wrist
Speaker 2: like eight or nine yards Dounfield's. It's a ten yard
Speaker 2: throw maybe. And you can throw it with touch like
Speaker 2: you can loft it like you don't. He doesn't even
Speaker 2: need to drive it into any hole. He's not fitting
Speaker 2: it into a window.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: All he's gotta do is layer it over the linebacker,
Speaker 2: puts a mayror under it to let Kendrick Bouran run
Speaker 2: underneath it, and just feather it over the linebacker. I
Speaker 2: think I sent you the play. I'm sure you've watched
Speaker 2: it on your own, Alex. I promise you that if
Speaker 2: he makes that throw, it's a touchdown.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Kendrick Bournan is gonna run under it. There's nobody there
Speaker 2: to stop him, and he's gonna score a touch on
Speaker 2: the seat in the middle of the field.
Speaker 1: It was a misthrow. Again, I'm I think you're being
Speaker 1: You've been too critical on Mac this week, But I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say he was perfect and that was a
Speaker 1: missed opportunity.
Speaker 2: So instead, what happens is is Mac kind of panics
Speaker 2: frankly and takes a sack on the play instead of
Speaker 2: making the throw. And those three boxes, to me, are
Speaker 2: the Patriots in a nutshell right now. They don't have
Speaker 2: a good enough receiver to win the one on one Juju, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they don't have a good enough offensive line for the
Speaker 2: quarterback to go through the progression. And then Mac Jones
Speaker 2: is not a play creator. He's not a second reaction
Speaker 2: extended play creator outside the pocket. And so if you
Speaker 2: are xing off all three of those boxes all at
Speaker 2: once in a critical moment, you're gonna get what happened
Speaker 2: on Sun.
Speaker 1: And just just for the record, you can work around
Speaker 1: one of those things, the offensive line well, and any
Speaker 1: of them, I'm saying, like you you can.
Speaker 2: There is really tough.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have all three. Basically, don't have
Speaker 1: all three.
Speaker 2: But if you don't have a money winner, like if
Speaker 2: you don't have like a guy that when it is
Speaker 2: an absolute need to have it down. If you don't
Speaker 2: have a receiver that the quarterback can go to, it's hard.
Speaker 1: No, But but this is what I'm saying, Like, if
Speaker 1: you have one of those three things, you're in good shape.
Speaker 1: I think if you have if you have two of
Speaker 1: good three, you're you're you're pretty cooking, right.
Speaker 2: But they don't have that.
Speaker 1: They don't have. But that's my So I think you
Speaker 1: say that, and I'm just like translating here and I'm
Speaker 1: not disagreeing with you, but it's like you say that,
Speaker 1: like they didn't check any of these three boxes. They
Speaker 1: don't have anyse three things, and people like, oh no,
Speaker 1: blow it up, Like, yeah, you don't necessarily need all
Speaker 1: of those threes exactly right, this is my point.
Speaker 2: And so yes, this is exactly my point. So this
Speaker 2: is my whole take on this, right, And this is
Speaker 2: exactly my point. If you had a receiver, if you
Speaker 2: handed aj Brown a Patriot jersey on Sunday and you
Speaker 2: had a receiver that could win that route out of
Speaker 2: the slot, then you're golden.
Speaker 1: Then right, then none of the other two things don't
Speaker 1: come into into play.
Speaker 2: Play. If you had an offensive line that allowed mac
Speaker 2: John's to go through the progression. Then he hits Kendrick
Speaker 2: Bourne from the pocket with a touchdown on the other
Speaker 2: side of the field instead of having to move right.
Speaker 2: If you had a quarterback that was a wizard when
Speaker 2: the play breaks down, then you would have had another
Speaker 2: touchdo right, right, But they struck out on all three.
Speaker 1: So like and there were good teams Like I would say,
Speaker 1: the Chiefs don't have all three of those things, No,
Speaker 1: but they have Patrick, right, But that's the point. Or
Speaker 1: the Niners don't have all three of those things.
Speaker 2: They have two of three. They have the offensive line,
Speaker 2: they have the receiver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but some people would hear that and say, if
Speaker 1: you don't have the quarterbacks to qualify, And that's just
Speaker 1: the point of trying to prove, like there's ways to
Speaker 1: make it work. And this is why we were pounding
Speaker 1: the table for Jerry Judy, this is why we were
Speaker 1: pounding the table for DeAndre Hopkins because we talked about
Speaker 1: after those moves ev in this offseason, what was the plan.
Speaker 1: The plan was they were banking on Bill O'Brien and
Speaker 1: Adriene Klem to elevate the group they had rather than
Speaker 1: add to it. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's a spot where you need somebody to win. Rout
Speaker 1: might not be able to get that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just that's what it is.
Speaker 1: And and and let let me let me let me
Speaker 1: say this, like O'Brien and Klement elevated that group on Sunday, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they absolutely did. But it was just to the extent
Speaker 1: that they were never gonna be able to do to
Speaker 1: the extent which they need to because down two guards,
Speaker 1: down the number one wide receiver. I know you're rolling right, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're celebrating twenty points. Given the scenario, twenty points. You
Speaker 1: told me they were going to put up three hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty yards and twenty points in that scenario, I'd
Speaker 1: say they did a pretty good job all things considered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they but they gave. They're not saying to
Speaker 2: be happy about team the way I look at it,
Speaker 2: and I know that this is probably not how you're
Speaker 2: going to look at it. But to an extent, they
Speaker 2: netted six points.
Speaker 1: You you, you can't come away from that game and say,
Speaker 1: Bill O'Brien did a badge.
Speaker 2: Of I didn't say that I gave. But that's to
Speaker 2: the point I'm.
Speaker 1: Trying to That's the point I'm trying to make and
Speaker 1: your you're putting my point is like I'm agreeing with you.
Speaker 1: Ohbrian and Clem. The plan was for O Brian Clem
Speaker 1: to elevate the group. They elevated the group on Sunday.
Speaker 2: But that's the whole plan for the whole team.
Speaker 1: But this is my point. I don't this is what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I think what you're saying is basically they
Speaker 1: might not be able to elevate them to the point
Speaker 1: that they need to.
Speaker 2: Elevate them, not not in those big moments, right, And
Speaker 2: I the the difference is and I so this is
Speaker 2: this is my other mistake of why I came in
Speaker 2: so hot. On Tuesday. After I watched the Patriots film
Speaker 2: and did did my my uh after further review and
Speaker 2: all that stuff for the Patriots and got that out
Speaker 2: of the way, I I turned on Chargers Dolphins and
Speaker 2: I watched the Chargers Dolphins game, and in that particular
Speaker 2: game to A played out of his mind. He was fantastic.
Speaker 1: We played against a coach defense, but yeah.
Speaker 2: He played out of his mind. He was really freaking good.
Speaker 2: Justin Herbert also really good.
Speaker 1: I know that.
Speaker 2: And so I watched two quarterbacks that right now might
Speaker 2: be like top five, top ten quarterbacks in the league
Speaker 2: after watching Mac and the Patriots offense.
Speaker 1: And oh so this is just recency bias seven, that's all.
Speaker 2: This is partially the what. And I'm telling you it's
Speaker 2: not just the quarterback play. So I don't want people
Speaker 2: to focus in on that either. It's not just the
Speaker 2: quarterback play. But when I tell you that it looked
Speaker 2: like the Miami offense was playing a different sport, I
Speaker 2: really am not saying like it really was. Because the
Speaker 2: Patriots offense needs to go ten plays on an eighty
Speaker 2: r drive and like meticulate, matriculate down the field and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff and not make any mistakes
Speaker 2: to go backwards, to stay ahead of the chains and
Speaker 2: beyond schedule and all. The Miami just like throws it
Speaker 2: up to Tyreek and it's the touchdown, right, So.
Speaker 1: Yes, but they don't have This is what's what's annoying
Speaker 1: to me about your take. And by the way, they
Speaker 1: don't need to do that. They went sixty three plays
Speaker 1: in six yards for touchdown before they had plays a
Speaker 1: good two minute. That was a great two minute trail.
Speaker 2: I almost put that as a gold star, But I
Speaker 2: just gave it to.
Speaker 1: O'Brien, Okay, fair enough. I mean O'Brien played a big
Speaker 1: part in it. They went They did that without calling
Speaker 1: a time out, which is impressive. So you have proven
Speaker 1: that Tyreek Hill is better than any receiver on the Patriots.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on your hot take.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that. I'm just telling you that the execution,
Speaker 2: the speed, the dynamic playmaking, like all that stuff from
Speaker 2: the quarterback on out was just different in that game,
Speaker 2: and that, as a Patriots fan, most importantly, is frustrating
Speaker 2: because we've been talking about this for four years now,
Speaker 2: really five, like going back to nineteen Brady's last year,
Speaker 2: and it's the same story about the talent on the team.
Speaker 2: I agree with you that they looked better. I agree
Speaker 2: with you that Mac looked better. Everybody looked better on offense.
Speaker 2: The coordinating was better, the play calling was better, the
Speaker 2: play design was better, the quarterback was better. But at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, they still have middling talent.
Speaker 2: They just do. So you're right. I don't think they
Speaker 2: need to change the quarterback to make it even to
Speaker 2: get over the hump, if you want to call it that,
Speaker 2: but they had to change something and now We're in
Speaker 2: the season, so they're probably not going to make any
Speaker 2: drastic changes to the roster.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there a change they could make at
Speaker 1: this point that would I guess Mike Evans would be
Speaker 1: the one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if Mike Evans or like T Higgins comes available
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: I don't think the Bengals are tracking a right.
Speaker 2: But let's I don't want to get too bogged down
Speaker 2: all this as we already have, so let's open up
Speaker 2: the phone lines and then I do want to talk
Speaker 2: about the defense. We're going to talk about the Dolphins.
Speaker 2: So let's turn the page here and uh, we'll see
Speaker 2: what you guys have to say. Roger's in Wakefield. Roger,
Speaker 2: if you're still there, I really appreciate you waiting on
Speaker 2: hold this long.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nobody.
Speaker 2: Be good. How are you?
Speaker 4: Let's move on from this game. We had enough discussed
Speaker 4: the back and will pell at the cross to building.
Speaker 4: So I just have two comments. One is from the
Speaker 4: Dolphins game, which I want your response. How the fazious
Speaker 4: defense is going to handle the hall the whole motion
Speaker 4: thing of Tyre Kim, How Jonathan Jones and the other
Speaker 4: cornerbacks who will be trying to cover him tackle that
Speaker 4: And the second one is what I felt is they
Speaker 4: they played a lot of bookies in the game greats
Speaker 4: except one troop. He played only ten steps.
Speaker 5: That is market.
Speaker 4: I think they kept him safe. That's what I think.
Speaker 4: I want your take.
Speaker 2: So you think, what was it on Marty Mapu? Sorry,
Speaker 2: I I think they were hiding him for this game.
Speaker 4: They are not unleashing him in that game. They just
Speaker 4: want to be use his powers in this game, his
Speaker 4: speed or something like that. That's what I think.
Speaker 2: Got it, got it. Thanks for the Colorajer, you really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. And we'll we'll we'll answer that question. Do
Speaker 2: you think they were hiding Mark. I don't know if
Speaker 2: they were hiding him.
Speaker 1: I think he said for this game, like why they
Speaker 1: didn't see him in the in the summer. I mean
Speaker 1: he was hurt as part of it.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think they hit him in this game. I
Speaker 1: mean you saw him spying Jalen Hurts, he was covering
Speaker 1: a J. Brown down the field. He was everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean only played like ten snaps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he played some high impact snaps. He did like
Speaker 1: the assignments they gave him time.
Speaker 2: My guess is that the way that they view So
Speaker 2: Christian Zal is gonna playe hundred percent of snaps every
Speaker 2: week right like he's he's out there, he's first round pick.
Speaker 2: He's going to play all the time. I think with
Speaker 2: Kean Whiten and Marte Maphu to not put like too
Speaker 2: much on their plate right out of the gate. My
Speaker 2: guess is the plan, like you kind of just alluded to,
Speaker 2: is to pick and choose your high impact spots with
Speaker 2: those guys. I thought Mapu was fine. I mean I
Speaker 2: there was one rep that I really really liked from him. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the post safety rep was was nice with Gonzalez on
Speaker 2: the post, but he had the post corner route to
Speaker 2: a J. Brown that was good. But there was a
Speaker 2: play and this was a this was an issue for them,
Speaker 2: uh in terms of picking up the crosser from this
Speaker 2: passing strength going to the weak side of the field
Speaker 2: and uh, Marty mop who was in the week cook
Speaker 2: and and he actually turned and picked up the crosser
Speaker 2: for the first guy that did it right like you
Speaker 2: know Bentley I thought missed one. I think it was Bentley.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then somebody that was playing in the slab I
Speaker 2: don't remember who it was somebody that was playing in
Speaker 2: the slot, miss miss Dallas Goddard on that post corner
Speaker 2: route and he was wide open if if Jalen Hurts
Speaker 2: had thrown had thrown the crosser, and I thought Marty
Speaker 2: mop who did a really nice job of taking that away.
Speaker 2: So maybe it was something they came to the sideline
Speaker 2: and they said, hey, guys, we gotta we gotta clean
Speaker 2: this up, and and he was able to be on it.
Speaker 2: I don't know, But do I think they were hiding
Speaker 2: him No. I think that they are easing him in
Speaker 2: is a better way of putting it. I don't think
Speaker 2: that they feel like he's fully ready to play as
Speaker 2: much as like Gonzalez played, for example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's fair.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take this file from Todd. What's up Todd?
Speaker 3: Hey, guys. So, I think the difference between McDaniel's offense
Speaker 3: when you know Mack was in it, and then.
Speaker 5: Of course last year's debacle is.
Speaker 3: That Bill O'Brien can actually game plan and just develop
Speaker 3: an offense based around mac talents. I don't think McDaniels
Speaker 3: did that. I think he's you know, might have changed
Speaker 3: his opens a little bit, but it's still McDaniel's offense.
Speaker 3: He wants you to run it. The same thing is
Speaker 3: happening at the Raiders is like, you run my offense.
Speaker 3: That's why you know last year there was quarterback controversy
Speaker 3: because you know, it wasn't wasn't as a round peg
Speaker 3: in a square hole, vice versa whichever. And I think
Speaker 3: that maybe, just maybe, you know, as a league, as
Speaker 3: the year progresses, we're going to see something from Max
Speaker 3: that you know, this is the year, This is the
Speaker 3: year when he gets a chance, because this should be
Speaker 3: his offense and designed around him. So I think this
Speaker 3: is a make or break here. In all honesty, I
Speaker 3: don't see him coming out of this year with either
Speaker 3: being successful or gone. I can't see any other thing.
Speaker 3: I don't see him continuing. If he's not successful, he's
Speaker 3: done because this offense is his. What do you guys
Speaker 3: think safe?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Great, great call to great call because I couldn't
Speaker 2: agree more about the difference between O'Brien and McDaniels, because
Speaker 2: this is something Alex said, I don't necessarily want it
Speaker 2: to be. You know, I love Josh McDaniels. I'm a
Speaker 2: big McDaniels guy, but I agree with Todd one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty percent that McDaniels is McDaniels. McDaniels runs his
Speaker 2: offense to the point where, frankly, other than like the
Speaker 2: read option stuff that they put in for Cam Newton,
Speaker 2: they were asking Cam Newton to like do Tom Brady thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah in twenty twenty, Like, they didn't change the passing
Speaker 2: concepts of that offense a whole lot for Cam Newton.
Speaker 2: So I agree one hundred and ten percent that McDaniels
Speaker 2: is you do my you run my things like this
Speaker 2: is my offense.
Speaker 1: You figure how many like scheme touch guys that they
Speaker 1: try to bring in here under McDaniels that's never worked out,
Speaker 1: like you'd see those pass and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he what's happening with the Raiders. And I
Speaker 2: think that they drafted mac Jones in part because they
Speaker 2: figure kne Josh McDaniel's going to be his offensive coordinator.
Speaker 2: Maybe they thought it was going to be a longer
Speaker 2: runway than it ended up being. Yeah, but they thought
Speaker 2: Josh McDaniel's going to be the offensive coordinator, and in
Speaker 2: that draft, he was the best fit for the McDaniels offense,
Speaker 2: And that's why they they drafted him in the first round.
Speaker 2: So I agree wholeheartedly that that's a great way of
Speaker 2: putting the differences I feel between McDaniels and O'Brien, because
Speaker 2: I will add this, I don't think that the pat
Speaker 2: I don't think it's I don't think it's fair to
Speaker 2: say or categorize and say that the Patriots are running
Speaker 2: the same offense they were running with Josh McDaniels. I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of pretty significant schematic differences between
Speaker 2: how O'Brien approaches the offense and how McDaniels approached the offense,
Speaker 2: both from a formation grouping standpoint, obviously not having a
Speaker 2: fullback and not having twenty one personal and not using
Speaker 2: at avenue. But also I would just say from the
Speaker 2: way that their passing game is is designed, I think
Speaker 2: it's significantly not not say significantly maybe, but different. They
Speaker 2: have a lot of the same concepts, they have a
Speaker 2: lot of the same ideas in terms of, like you know,
Speaker 2: option routes based off of leverage and like things like that,
Speaker 2: but like in terms of how they design their offenses,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a fair, uh categorization to say
Speaker 2: that this is the same offense. That they were running
Speaker 2: at twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: No, it's definitely not. I mean they're related, you know,
Speaker 1: it's they're they're closer to each other than they are
Speaker 1: to Patricia's offense.
Speaker 2: Their cousins.
Speaker 1: Well, no, but I mean like they're close to each
Speaker 1: other than they either one is to Patricia's offense, but
Speaker 1: they're not. Yeah, they're not the same thing either their cousins.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, like when you talk about like languages, right,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, like English and French and languages.
Speaker 2: It's like if you were speaking uh, you know, Italian. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but like sometimes like Northern Italians different than Southern Italian.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't I even thought it was more different
Speaker 1: than that. I was going to say. More, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, like French English, it's spand it they all
Speaker 1: come from like the Saint they all come from Latin, right,
Speaker 1: and then there's everyone it's called like other languages and
Speaker 1: other parts of the world.
Speaker 2: So you think that that they're both romance languages.
Speaker 1: Right, But that's the term I'm looking for res Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're in that same family, but they're different languages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that, And but I hear that
Speaker 2: a lot like that, Oh it's the same offense, Like, no,
Speaker 2: it's really not, it's really not.
Speaker 1: And then it's this, now, all right, I'll say this
Speaker 1: if it's if we're going to compare it to something
Speaker 1: that and I don't think I'm breaking any news here.
Speaker 1: The comparison to Mac Jones past is to Alabama, No,
Speaker 1: to his rookie year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that was the other thing I was about
Speaker 2: to say was that, you know, McDaniels doesn't run any
Speaker 2: of this college stuff, like he doesn't run. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: doesn't run any of that kind of stuff as much
Speaker 2: I should. You know, it's in his playbook, but he
Speaker 2: doesn't really. He told me in twenty one. I remember
Speaker 2: asking him about it and he said, we don't major
Speaker 2: in RP.
Speaker 1: He was like, mad, at you've asked.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it was ridiculous that they weren't running them.
Speaker 2: I love the guy, but like, yeah, this quarter this
Speaker 2: RPO quarterback that lit it up on RPOs in college
Speaker 2: and they just never called them for Mac his rookie year.
Speaker 2: It was it was ridiculous. Anyways, I digress, but I
Speaker 2: agree with Todd that that is a feather in O'Brien's
Speaker 2: cap that I think O'Brien will continue to build this
Speaker 2: offense around Mac Jones, and I think he already has.
Speaker 2: Like the fact that this offense didn't have a whole
Speaker 2: lot of deep shots in this game, I think was
Speaker 2: related to the offensive line, but I also think it's
Speaker 2: related to Mac Jones. I think that they know that
Speaker 2: they're going to time up their deep shots, but they're
Speaker 2: not necessarily going to be like we saw last year
Speaker 2: in the first six weeks of the season before Mac
Speaker 2: got hurt. I should say first three weeks of the
Speaker 2: season before Mac got hurt, it was bombs away, right,
Speaker 2: And they're definitely not going to be that kind of
Speaker 2: offense this year. So I agree that McDaniels are in,
Speaker 2: O'Brien are different, and O'Brien, I think is I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's necessarily that O'Brien's changing his offense for Mac,
Speaker 2: but his offense is already almost pre built to fit
Speaker 2: Mac and to fit what Max's done in the past
Speaker 2: a little bit better. All right, let's go to Sean
Speaker 2: and Vancouver. What's up Sean?
Speaker 3: Hey Evan.
Speaker 7: First off, I'd like to say Shanatova.
Speaker 2: To Alex too, both of us, right, Alex.
Speaker 4: Oh, both of you both.
Speaker 7: I didn't even know Alex. I didn't realize you were
Speaker 7: Jewish as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, really, okay, that's a compliment, I think.
Speaker 1: No, I know, it's just most people.
Speaker 2: It's it's anyway, happy New Year, to thank you.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Okay. So, Evan, when I called in on Tuesday, didn't
Speaker 7: get a chance or I wasn't able to respond when
Speaker 7: you you were wondering why I was encouraged by today
Speaker 7: you with your three points, you answered it. That's exactly why.
Speaker 7: And I don't have expectations that a lot of people
Speaker 7: do for this season, like we've we've talked a lot
Speaker 7: during the off season about team construction and how disappointing
Speaker 7: that was. So I don't expect the Patriots to make
Speaker 7: the playoffs. That's that's not where my my brain is.
Speaker 7: But looks like you were saying earlier, you know, it's
Speaker 7: encouraging without being a kind of a consolation prize of
Speaker 7: not winning. You know, I'm just thinking like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 7: we've seen this before. It doesn't always work, but maybe
Speaker 7: it will this time. And that's where I am as
Speaker 7: a Patriots fan, Like if I were a Canadians fan,
Speaker 7: I wouldn't even be there. Like in terms of the NHL,
Speaker 7: I would just think, I'm going to wait for them
Speaker 7: to show me something because it's just too dismal to
Speaker 7: even bother with. But with the Patriots, it's I've always
Speaker 7: been a Patriots fan, even back in the nineties when
Speaker 7: you know, ninety and ninety one, ninety two, when it
Speaker 7: was terrible. It's it's just what I do. So I
Speaker 7: have to be encouraged and these are the signs. In
Speaker 7: last year it was just a total mess, And like
Speaker 7: what you said with Bob, it's it looks like, okay,
Speaker 7: there is some structure, we can make some headway and
Speaker 7: things can move forward. So that's what I'm getting at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's great. On Tuesday August, just to give
Speaker 2: you context, thanks for the call, Sean, people were just
Speaker 2: calling in and saying I still have hope, and I
Speaker 2: was like, can we just like add some context to
Speaker 2: your hope, like just saying that you have blind hope?
Speaker 2: To me, it means nothing.
Speaker 1: That's that's fan. I mean, we're ultimately rooting for laundry.
Speaker 1: But no, I think what the college just said is
Speaker 1: exactly my point. Do you know what a Rars Shark
Speaker 1: test is?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: No, So Rors Shark test does, yeah, green does? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know you know all right, it's an ink blot test.
Speaker 1: Ink blot test. Okay, So it's like a psychology thing.
Speaker 1: So they have they have like you have like six
Speaker 1: or eight piece of paper that they just drop ink
Speaker 1: on and they show me to you without any context,
Speaker 1: and you say, what you see. It's like looking at clouds,
Speaker 1: and the idea is supposedly based off what people see
Speaker 1: in the ink, you kind of learn about who they
Speaker 1: are as a person. You can learn about their personality.
Speaker 1: This game, to me is a Rars Shark test. What
Speaker 1: you saw in it depends on and tells me about
Speaker 1: what kind of fan you are.
Speaker 2: So you're basically saying I'm a I hate fun You're.
Speaker 1: Like exactly or the other one. Just to flex my
Speaker 1: c and ap psych senior high school. You know, Schrodinger's
Speaker 1: Cat is no. Schrodinger's Cat is this thought experiment that
Speaker 1: basically there's a cat in a box with like a
Speaker 1: little like like just basically the idea that if there's
Speaker 1: a cat in a box with poison, you don't know
Speaker 1: if the cat is alive. Or dead until you open
Speaker 1: the box. And the like philosophical thing behind that is so,
Speaker 1: until you open the box, the cat is both simultaneously
Speaker 1: alive and dead. If that makes sense, both things are true, right,
Speaker 1: both things are true. So this game in some ways
Speaker 1: Schrodinger's game, because we don't know, we don't have the
Speaker 1: box open. Is this because it does both look like
Speaker 1: that's as much again I got to see in the classes,
Speaker 1: as far as I'm gonna go, that's absolutely they do.
Speaker 1: Somebody in the chat said one p sych course in college,
Speaker 1: try one side course in high school. This game, it
Speaker 1: is both simultaneously the first step under Bill O'Brien and
Speaker 1: in that bubbles and encouraging first step. It is also
Speaker 1: the continuation of the post Tom Brady hour in the
Speaker 1: last four years and until we take the lid off
Speaker 1: the box play more football games. I think both interpretations
Speaker 1: for now are correct. And if you want to call
Speaker 1: that a cop out, call it a cop out. It
Speaker 1: probably is a little bit. But like I can't you
Speaker 1: know how I am. I'm gonna sit here and tell
Speaker 1: you what I believe. If you make a valid argument,
Speaker 1: even if I disagree with it, if you back it
Speaker 1: up I'm going to agree with you. I think you
Speaker 1: could make either argument in a way that I would agree.
Speaker 1: We talk, we were arguing to the other night. I said, yes,
Speaker 1: you're not wrong. They haven't proven they can win that game,
Speaker 1: and I am gonna need to see him do it.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, a team with a first
Speaker 1: year roc with a young quarterback doing what they did
Speaker 1: against that defense, well, it certainly wasn't enough for week
Speaker 1: one to say this is the floor you have, this
Speaker 1: is what you're building on in theory. In theory, yes,
Speaker 1: Week one is your worst perform So.
Speaker 2: But this is I guess. This is where I come
Speaker 2: from with it, is that I knew this was their
Speaker 2: floor going into the year, so I didn't learn anything new.
Speaker 2: I knew, okay, but you're.
Speaker 1: Almost acting like this is closer to the ceiling than
Speaker 1: the floor.
Speaker 2: I suppose, like I guess that's where they just people.
Speaker 2: I think the way I look at it, and this is,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of where I'm coming from with all
Speaker 2: of it, is that I think this is a floor
Speaker 2: football team. I think this football team is designed and
Speaker 2: built to have the coaching and the operation and the
Speaker 2: program and all of this stuff put a good floor
Speaker 2: of eight or nine wins, and then they hope that
Speaker 2: you get it. You get a good bounce here, you
Speaker 2: get a bounce there, you play a backup quarterback here,
Speaker 2: you play a backup quarterback there, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you're ten to eleven wins, right, Like you.
Speaker 1: Know, right. So, I think given the opponent, like I think,
Speaker 1: a lot of people expect them to get stopped because
Speaker 1: the Eagles are.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing is I didn't so going into
Speaker 2: this game, I picked Eagles twenty seven Patriots twenty.
Speaker 1: I think the Eagles were top two teams even if
Speaker 1: you want to go beyond the romantics of that. The
Speaker 1: Eagles were top four team in the nflast year.
Speaker 2: But but, but, but but you have to put this
Speaker 2: in context. The Eagles did not play a soul in
Speaker 2: the preseason.
Speaker 1: And because the Patriots played so much.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying that all the trends of the Patriots
Speaker 2: being at home on Tom Brady's return against a raigning
Speaker 2: Super Bowl loser that did not play anybody in the
Speaker 2: preseason told you that the Eagles were probably not going
Speaker 2: to be firing at all cylinders to come out here
Speaker 2: and blow.
Speaker 1: Down when teams used to come in here and it
Speaker 1: was close. Even though the Patriots won, we would say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a scrappy team. That team might be building something.
Speaker 1: Patriots are just on the other side of that. Now,
Speaker 1: that's all that is. I think being five points worse
Speaker 1: and the defending NFC champion does carry some weight with
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Whether you think that's fair or not,
Speaker 1: kind of gets to my point of the game is
Speaker 1: whatever you want to.
Speaker 2: But my only point of of all this and then
Speaker 2: we're getting bogged down and classically in an argument that
Speaker 2: we're not going I think.
Speaker 1: That's what people want to hear after you've lost your
Speaker 1: mind on Tuesday. Apparently I didn't even hear it.
Speaker 2: I say, did you even listen to the show?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: But I had not.
Speaker 1: Even on Twitter. I had friends texting me asking if
Speaker 1: you were okay because it was so I can only
Speaker 1: imagine it was spectacular.
Speaker 2: It was spectacular. I'm proud of it.
Speaker 1: So I think this is what people want to hear.
Speaker 2: Against Bill Belichick.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing that my whole thing I think coming
Speaker 2: into this game was I thought that the Eagles would
Speaker 2: be a little bit rusty. I thought that the Patriots
Speaker 2: would keep this close because of all the things I
Speaker 2: just laid out, So just being competitive, I expected them.
Speaker 1: Okay, being five points worse than the Eagles is you know,
Speaker 1: how many points better are the Eagles involvement?
Speaker 2: But they're not five points worse than the Eagles team
Speaker 2: that took the field in the Super Bowl in February.
Speaker 2: They're five points worse than an Eagles team that essentially
Speaker 2: treated this game as a preseason.
Speaker 1: Okay, but they're going to grow. It's not like they're
Speaker 1: not going to have opportunities to improve either.
Speaker 2: I get it. I'm just saying that the reason why
Speaker 2: I came into the game thinking that it's going to
Speaker 2: be a one score game to begin with was because
Speaker 2: of all of the trends with the Eagles, right, and
Speaker 2: so I didn't expect.
Speaker 1: But the Patriots don't get trends.
Speaker 2: Is kind of like, because my point is that I
Speaker 2: don't think I think a lot of people, like you
Speaker 2: kind of said a few minutes ago, a lot of
Speaker 2: people thought the Patriots are going to get blown out
Speaker 2: in this game.
Speaker 1: I never felt that way, even when even when we
Speaker 1: got the inter report and Mike and went and Cole
Speaker 1: Strange weren't playing and Devonte Parker was ruled out.
Speaker 2: I was more I was a little bit concerned at
Speaker 2: that point, but I still didn't think the Eagles would
Speaker 2: have the execution offensively to run away with it because
Speaker 2: of how little those guys did in August. And that's
Speaker 2: just you know. I think Reese put it in his
Speaker 2: Sunday notes coming into the.
Speaker 1: I think what we've unlocked here is not that you're
Speaker 1: being too estimatetic. You may have been being too optimistic.
Speaker 2: Maybe I think that's the real problem here, is we've
Speaker 2: launched it was it was a combination of of my
Speaker 2: expectations coming into the game, where maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: higher than other people, because I thought the Patriots would
Speaker 2: compete in the game to begin with. I think the
Speaker 2: reason why is I said the trends. But I also
Speaker 2: mention I think the Patriots are going to compete in
Speaker 2: a lot of games because they have that floor. Their
Speaker 2: coaching is good. Their coaching is good, and I want
Speaker 2: to talk about the defense who coached their butts off
Speaker 2: on that side of the ball against the Eagles. Their
Speaker 2: coaching is good. They have good coaching, So they're going
Speaker 2: to be a floor team because of that they're not
Speaker 2: going to stink because they're coaching is really really sound
Speaker 2: on both sides of the football. So I can't thought,
Speaker 2: coming in along with the fact that I thought the
Speaker 2: Patriots are going to hang in there against most teams
Speaker 2: this year, that the Patriots would be close in this
Speaker 2: game against Philadelphia. And that's exactly what happened. And as
Speaker 2: the game was ending live, we sat talked to him
Speaker 2: about this on Tuesday, so Marine can back me up.
Speaker 2: Deuce and Paul were saying, they're gonna win the game. Patriots. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're gonna drive in, They're gonna win the game, and
Speaker 2: I kept on saying, no, they're not. Just just wait,
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: I was with you on that. I was sitting next
Speaker 1: to my cad like, and right after the jabill peppersonly goes,
Speaker 1: do you think they're gonna win? And I'm like, they
Speaker 1: can win, but they haven't won this game in like
Speaker 1: four years, right.
Speaker 2: And it's so that was that was the beginning of
Speaker 2: my turn. Was I had to write the same story
Speaker 2: that I've been writing for for four years.
Speaker 1: So that's my point is where I wonder if you're
Speaker 1: over correcting a bit, And because because I like I
Speaker 1: told you, I told you I wrote three.
Speaker 2: Separate therapy session. Now, like, what's really I I.
Speaker 1: Wrote three separate post game calls because the one thing
Speaker 1: about covering a week one game, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: like covering week one is very different than covering any
Speaker 1: other game, just to pull back the curtain a little bit,
Speaker 1: because you have so many preconceived notions going in. And
Speaker 1: like the example I always give is in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: remember when Mike when when who came out started playing
Speaker 1: right tackle, hadn't played right tackle at all in camp
Speaker 1: even yeah, and he was amazing at it. And that's like,
Speaker 1: you never have to adjust to seeing something like you
Speaker 1: do in week one. Every it's all unexpected. You're on
Speaker 1: your toes. Sometimes you go into a game, you have
Speaker 1: an idea of kind of what you're gonna talk about postgame,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, you know, I know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: focus on this one thing and if it goes this way,
Speaker 1: I'll do this, because that will do that whatever. Week
Speaker 1: ones the one time you can't really do that. The
Speaker 1: one thing you do not expect covering a week one game, Evan,
Speaker 1: is to have to worry that you're gonna be repeating yourself,
Speaker 1: and that was my thing. After the game, I was like,
Speaker 1: because how many times last year did I have to
Speaker 1: write and you and everybody that stupid column that was
Speaker 1: like it was it's been the story of the year,
Speaker 1: or here we go again, and I'm running out of
Speaker 1: synonyms for late game failure or whatever, and I'm sitting here,
Speaker 1: it's like it's week one and I'm having deja vu,
Speaker 1: like this shouldn't be a thing. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where some of the issue in breaking down this game
Speaker 1: comes in, is because you shouldn't be repetitive week one,
Speaker 1: and yet here we are. This game might have as
Speaker 1: well have been played as Week nineteen of the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two season. It would have fitted playing It looked
Speaker 1: a little weak, not you get what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: it looked different, the O'Brien and Patricia stuff. It looked different.
Speaker 1: But the game flow, the game story, it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've written this before, right, And that was kind of
Speaker 1: jarrings because you don't expect to do that in week one.
Speaker 2: And what I keep coming back to and I'm going
Speaker 2: to keep her. I don't care if I sound like
Speaker 2: a broken record. It looked better it looked sharper, the
Speaker 2: play designs were nicer, it looked prettier, it looked better.
Speaker 2: But the talent level is the same on offense. The
Speaker 2: talent level is the same. So when it came.
Speaker 1: Out, all right, I would push back on that, it's
Speaker 1: not the same. I don't know that it's good enough,
Speaker 1: but it's not the same. It's the same. They have
Speaker 1: Tomorrow Douglas. Now, okay, they but they have Ezekiel Elliott.
Speaker 2: I know it's Tomorrio Douglas beter than Jacobe Myers because
Speaker 2: Juju wasn't on the field, So I can't you can't, Okay.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I'm more so talking about like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not throwing Nelson Agler out there, They're not throwing
Speaker 1: a kil Harry out there.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, their receivers are better than they were two years.
Speaker 1: But maybe it's a wash in some of the other
Speaker 1: they didn't have their offensive line, right, maybe it's a
Speaker 1: wash in some of the other direct The talent.
Speaker 2: Level is in the same ballpark. You can tell me
Speaker 2: that this guy's a little bit better than that guy.
Speaker 2: That guy's a little bit better than this guy. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, the talent's in the
Speaker 2: same ballpark, and when it was fourth and three, when
Speaker 2: it was fourth in the game, they're just there's there's
Speaker 2: nobody to it doesn't Yeah, it doesn't happen, they don't.
Speaker 1: But it's again that's it goes back to my thing
Speaker 1: of like, I really didn't want to be repetitive covering
Speaker 1: this game. How many times in the spring and in
Speaker 1: the winter, and going back to last year the stupid
Speaker 1: Tuesday meeting thing that we had to explain and the
Speaker 1: coverage dictating wide receiver, It's like.
Speaker 2: Fourth and three was the Tuesday meeting.
Speaker 1: It picked, right, it picked when's the last time? How
Speaker 1: often do we joke over the summer or when we're
Speaker 1: covering OTAs or even during the drive we're talking about
Speaker 1: this now and watch we're gonna get to week one,
Speaker 1: We're gonna throw it all out, right. How many times
Speaker 1: do we kind of say that when we're talking about
Speaker 1: the team? Do you ever remember? And we've only been
Speaker 1: doing this for six years, but I think that's a
Speaker 1: decent sample size. You remember the last time Week one?
Speaker 1: It was the takes from training camp to the game
Speaker 1: were so seamless.
Speaker 2: I think last year we knew the offense was a disaster.
Speaker 1: We didn't know it was that bad. I think we
Speaker 1: did okay, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Maybe we didn't. We were still I'll speak for myself,
Speaker 2: I was still rose colored glasses a little bit last year,
Speaker 2: so maybe I didn't see it, but I think it
Speaker 2: was gonna be that bad. But I think that we
Speaker 2: should have seen that.
Speaker 1: But there was also stuffs like they'd added Parker and
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, they've done that, and Remandre and
Speaker 1: like I think he had a bigger role expected.
Speaker 2: We knew this. The system and the coaching.
Speaker 1: Was but this was like, I mean, like the game
Speaker 1: could not have happened and the talking points would be
Speaker 1: exactly the same if we were just carrying on another
Speaker 1: week from camp. Nothing changed, And that's weird for week one.
Speaker 1: Usually week one changes things.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll give you that. All right, let's go back
Speaker 2: to the phones. Mason's in Connecticut. What's up, Mason?
Speaker 5: How you guys doing good?
Speaker 8: Hey?
Speaker 9: All right, so I gotta get this out quick. I
Speaker 9: actually have to leave in a second. But Evan, I
Speaker 9: know that you're not a Kashan Boody guy, and I
Speaker 9: get it. I understand. I agree with you that he
Speaker 9: didn't look great on Sunday.
Speaker 8: Okay, he made some.
Speaker 9: Mistake obviously, had the two pass, he didn't get his
Speaker 9: feet down. More importantly, I think on the second one
Speaker 9: last play of the game, I think he ran a
Speaker 9: lazy route. I think if he runs a stem hard
Speaker 9: there and he sells vertical, I don't think Joe breaks
Speaker 9: on it fast enough to push him out of bounds. However,
Speaker 9: for the guys starting in his first NFL game that
Speaker 9: who was kind of playing out a position, Okay, I
Speaker 9: think there were times where he attacked leverage well. I
Speaker 9: think he looked like he was thinking out there a
Speaker 9: lot of times. I think he showed explosiveness off line
Speaker 9: of scrimmage a few times, which was a question mark
Speaker 9: for him coming into this season. I think specifically on
Speaker 9: one of the touchdowns of Kendrick Bourne, he was running
Speaker 9: a curl on the right side of the formation and
Speaker 9: he looked explos off line of scrimmage. I think he
Speaker 9: ran the stem hard, he had a good snapdown, a
Speaker 9: good trigger step, came out of it in three steps.
Speaker 9: I think there were some things to feel good about
Speaker 9: in this game for Kashan Booty, and I think he
Speaker 9: could be a guy and listen before I go, I
Speaker 9: just want to let you guys know it's not too
Speaker 9: late to get on the Kaishan Boody bandwag Okay, I
Speaker 9: want to personally invite you guys to the Kaishan Boody
Speaker 9: Bank Club. We call ourselves the Booty Clap Bandit. The
Speaker 9: door is open the winner circle. Guys, all right, thank.
Speaker 2: You, Thanks, good call, Mason, good call. A lot of
Speaker 2: really good points about Kashan Booty. I agree with you
Speaker 2: wholeheartedly about the last route. Could have ran it faster,
Speaker 2: could have ran it better. Yeah, I'm sure he feels
Speaker 2: the same way. I'm not breaking any news to him.
Speaker 2: Uh what he said about him playing out a position
Speaker 2: agree one percent.
Speaker 1: Some we targed it they didn't have a second true x.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I wrote this in after further review that
Speaker 2: I actually don't hold anything against Kaishan Booty on Sunday
Speaker 2: for that exact reason.
Speaker 1: Even though at the beginning of the show you said
Speaker 1: he was bad.
Speaker 2: I didn't say it was bad. I just said, like,
Speaker 2: you can't really give kaish On Boody like a pass.
Speaker 2: That's fair.
Speaker 1: I No, it's fair.
Speaker 2: I just like I mean, the film was the film, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I agree with the caller that it wasn't hopeless,
Speaker 2: but I just felt like I wrote it in after
Speaker 2: further review that I hold nothing against Kaishan Boody because
Speaker 2: to me, we've talked about this a lot with him,
Speaker 2: even before they drafted him. He's a Z slot like,
Speaker 2: he's an inside player that had to be forced to
Speaker 2: play on the outside because DeVante Parker's hurt Juju is
Speaker 2: whatever and Tykwon Thwarton's on IR so they had no
Speaker 2: other X receiver besides Kaishan Boody. They obviously weren't going
Speaker 2: to play Pop Douglas at the X, so it made
Speaker 2: all the sense in the world that it was Booty.
Speaker 2: We all thought it would be Booty coming into the game,
Speaker 2: and it was. And I agree with the caller one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten percent that that's not on him that
Speaker 2: he doesn't know how to to tap the sideline when
Speaker 2: he's probably done it like six times in his life
Speaker 2: in a game, So I don't blame him at all
Speaker 2: for it. I didn't necessarily see the explosiveness. Maybe I
Speaker 2: have to go back and watch some of his routes
Speaker 2: that the caller talked about and I think that some
Speaker 2: of the route running was a little bit sloppy. So
Speaker 2: that's where I come from with Booty. I don't mind
Speaker 2: do you.
Speaker 1: Think this route running in the second half specifically, I.
Speaker 2: Thought there was one route in particular where he tried
Speaker 2: to run an out and up and I thought that
Speaker 2: maybe he had a chance to get open on it
Speaker 2: because he was single covered and he just didn't really
Speaker 2: sell it all that well and just kind of rolled
Speaker 2: into the defender and it was kind of pretty ugly.
Speaker 2: That was late in the game. I actually thought looking
Speaker 2: back on it, and I'm sure it was a locked route,
Speaker 2: so I don't think he had like the eruption to like,
Speaker 2: if he had just hit like a three step slant,
Speaker 2: I think it would have been more effective than what
Speaker 2: he ended up doing.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm just saying because I the first half, a
Speaker 1: lot of guys are slipping around with the rain. When
Speaker 1: I looked at the route running stuff like I did
Speaker 1: this with Douglas too, I was just I really only
Speaker 1: looked at the second half.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I felt like some of his routes were
Speaker 2: not crisp and not really he doesn't to me, he
Speaker 2: doesn't have a ton of suddenness in his break or
Speaker 2: at the top of the route unless he's running he
Speaker 2: is I can trying to be more positive. He is
Speaker 2: a great slant route runner. Yeah, he runs great slants,
Speaker 2: but when he gets down the field eight twelve yard breaks,
Speaker 2: there's just not a whole lot of sell or wiggle
Speaker 2: to those types of routes. But if you're asking him
Speaker 2: to run a slant like we saw it in Green Bay,
Speaker 2: he runs great slants, So maybe that's something to build
Speaker 2: off of. And I think it's comfortability too, Like you
Speaker 2: can tell that he's so comfortable running a three or
Speaker 2: five step slant that it just looks explosive when he
Speaker 2: does it because he's he runs that route like it's
Speaker 2: the back of his hand. I wasn't like overly like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, take him off the field with Kisehan Boody,
Speaker 2: But I just I feel like there's I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily know if I see the twitch or
Speaker 2: the explosiveness to be a real dynamic receiver in the league.
Speaker 2: Can he be like a fourth or fifth receiver for
Speaker 2: his rookie contract. Absolutely, I think that we're at that point.
Speaker 1: And in the sixth round. Fine, Yeah, it's not like
Speaker 1: they took him top fifty.
Speaker 2: All right, Jeff is in Maine. What's up, Jeff?
Speaker 10: Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Guys?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 10: So I had a couple of things. One, Alex, I
Speaker 10: got a college football player for you, Okay, Tristan keenan
Speaker 10: Umane kind of like the true freshman. I don't I doubt,
Speaker 10: I mean from knowing means football team historically, I doubt
Speaker 10: he's an NFL talent. But he's kind of like a
Speaker 10: faster Rex Burkhead. He's fun to watch, okay. And so
Speaker 10: the thing for the Pats, And I know you guys
Speaker 10: wanted to transition to defense against personnel like Miami, and
Speaker 10: I know that this show has always been a proponent
Speaker 10: of playing Marte Mapu at the second level, and I
Speaker 10: have two He played well at safety the first game,
Speaker 10: I thought, But I think with this game, and I'm
Speaker 10: curious what you guys think, it makes more sense to
Speaker 10: me to keep him at the second level because I
Speaker 10: think if your linebackers are and obviously their past game
Speaker 10: is incredible, but I think if your linebackers are to
Speaker 10: buy and Bentley, Raheem Moster and Devin and Shane are
Speaker 10: just gonna absolutely run away from them, and I think
Speaker 10: that would be a problem. And so I think that
Speaker 10: you know what, the true secondary players handle the receivers
Speaker 10: and you know, move him to the second level to
Speaker 10: try to stop those running backs from absolutely eating you alive.
Speaker 2: Thanks guys, Yeah, that's an interesting point, Thanks Jeff, And
Speaker 2: I did want to transition here to the Dolphins for
Speaker 2: the last half hour of the show and preview the
Speaker 2: Dolphins a little bit. This is a this is the
Speaker 2: conundrum for the Patriots with the Dolphins and the Patriots defense.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, you have to put a ton of
Speaker 2: help on Tyreek Hill. So if you're gonna help a
Speaker 2: ton to Tyreek Hill, and I I say help because
Speaker 2: I don't love calling it a double team, Like I
Speaker 2: don't think it's like necessarily a double team. But at
Speaker 2: the very very least, the post safety has to be
Speaker 2: dedicated to number ten, right, Like the post safety has
Speaker 2: to have eyes on number ten at all times. That's
Speaker 2: just the bottom line, because it's not fair to Jonathan
Speaker 2: Jones to leave him out there on an island against
Speaker 2: Hill all the time. So here's the conundrum, right for
Speaker 2: the Patriots in this game. And I'm curious about your
Speaker 2: take on this, because we had a lot of people,
Speaker 2: Alex that called into the show last week, and I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people on my Twitter I'm sure
Speaker 2: your twitter feed as well that were not confident in
Speaker 2: leaving Christian Gonzales one on one with AJ Brown in
Speaker 2: Sunday's game. Yeah, and they did for the most part,
Speaker 2: and he held up pretty well. So different type of
Speaker 2: receiver with Jalen Waddle. Yeah, And that's the question, are
Speaker 2: you confident in Gonzales? I would think, or maybe it's
Speaker 2: Marcus Jones if you want the speed on speed matchup,
Speaker 2: but either one taking Wattle, it's never truly on an
Speaker 2: island but without the real resource, right yeah? Or are
Speaker 2: you emptying the box? And if most of it was
Speaker 2: a d MP yesterday, I don't know if he's gonna
Speaker 2: play in this game. A shame's a fast running back,
Speaker 2: like the caller said, explosive guy ran like a four
Speaker 2: three eight or something like that. Really speed guy. Are
Speaker 2: you either empty the box and whatever they get to
Speaker 2: the backs of the backfield, the run game, all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff you live with or you live with
Speaker 2: being one on one on Wattley.
Speaker 1: I let him run the ball, me too. I let
Speaker 1: him beat your running the ball. And look, I maybe
Speaker 1: I'm I'm being too optimistic here. And Evan, I know
Speaker 1: you think Sunday's performance should go down as one of
Speaker 1: the worst in Patriots history. But I liked what I saw.
Speaker 1: I liked what I saw from the defensive line. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're going to shut them down without
Speaker 1: additional players in the box against the run. But is
Speaker 1: their offensive line that great?
Speaker 2: I don't, especially not.
Speaker 1: Out there right, So give me you know, Keon White,
Speaker 1: Christian Barmore really good game, probably better run game than
Speaker 1: pass game.
Speaker 2: Christian Barmer had a sneaky good game. It wasn't a
Speaker 2: game you like.
Speaker 1: It was a classic Christian Barmore game. Because people always
Speaker 1: complain that he doesn't have enough stats, but he's always
Speaker 1: like the jude On sack early is a perfect example.
Speaker 2: He's right there.
Speaker 1: He created that even though he didn't get stat Give
Speaker 1: me Christian Barmore, give me key On White, give me
Speaker 1: uh Tetrick Wise would a good game minus the penalties,
Speaker 1: which were big. It doesn't, but right Juwan Bentley, give
Speaker 1: me those guys up front, those four I think they
Speaker 1: do enough. If you're going to give them the run
Speaker 1: and basically put those four guys sort of on an
Speaker 1: island against the run and put the resources in the secondary. Again,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna shut him down. It's not like you're
Speaker 1: going to run for like three yards to carry. But
Speaker 1: I think that keeps it very manageable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're gonna they're gonna play a lot of
Speaker 2: zone in this game. I guarantee it. They're gonna play
Speaker 2: a lot of soft zone and they're gonna try to
Speaker 2: keep the top on the defense. Yeah. Cover two quarters like,
Speaker 2: they'll mix that in Cover three, they're gonna play a
Speaker 2: ton of zone. Uh when they go to man or
Speaker 2: basically man. There's two coverages that I think that that
Speaker 2: exist that I think would be good in this matchup.
Speaker 2: One is what they used last year, which is one
Speaker 2: cross It's one robber, but the robber is looking for
Speaker 2: the crosser from the passing string, and when he picks
Speaker 2: up the crosser, the man coverage defender on the receiver
Speaker 2: drops off and becomes the new robber. He replaces him
Speaker 2: in the middle of the field in the coverage. So
Speaker 2: that takes away things like a crosser with a dig
Speaker 2: from the outside, because now that defender that falls off
Speaker 2: is gonna fall off into the dig window, so you
Speaker 2: can take away both things. So they did that a
Speaker 2: lot because this Miami team, just like when they played
Speaker 2: Kansas City with Tyreek Hill, they know that they're gonna
Speaker 2: run crossing routes. It's either're gonna be Hill or waddle,
Speaker 2: but somebody is running across or I guarantee it, so
Speaker 2: they're gonna They could do that. They could play one
Speaker 2: cross and they could cut off the crossing route and
Speaker 2: then have the post safety over the top to help
Speaker 2: the Tyreek. Uh. The other thing that they could do
Speaker 2: is play a Saban coverage, which is called cover seven.
Speaker 2: Cover seven is too high safety and each safety is
Speaker 2: bracketing a different guy, so they can actually double team
Speaker 2: both players.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 2: The problem with cover seven is that you'll give up
Speaker 2: two hundred yards on the ground if you.
Speaker 1: Play what runs against like Kiffen and Yeah in those.
Speaker 2: Saban loves it. He runs it a lot more in
Speaker 2: college because of obvious differences.
Speaker 1: He runs it against the teams Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they So basically you will have a cone bracket
Speaker 2: is what they call it, an inside out bracket on
Speaker 2: both Wattle and Hill. You can call that on like
Speaker 2: third and long because you know they're not gonna run it.
Speaker 2: But if you call that on first down and then
Speaker 2: they're gonna run for two hundred yards, does it matter
Speaker 2: if they run for two hundred yards. I'm not necessarily
Speaker 2: sold it matters.
Speaker 1: So it as long as the game's close, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if you let them if they get a multi
Speaker 1: score lead, of course, right. But no, I if the
Speaker 1: ball's not in Tira Killing Jalen Waddle's hands and the
Speaker 1: other you can't get beat on the RPOs. That's the
Speaker 1: other thing on these coverages you're describing. Go to that.
Speaker 1: If the ball's not in those guys' hands, let them
Speaker 1: run the ball up and down the field. The other
Speaker 1: thing I've noticed about to him this is I'm debuting
Speaker 1: this take here, so I don't know, feel free to
Speaker 1: push back. I don't want to put this. Do you remember,
Speaker 1: I don't know when you stopped playing two K, but
Speaker 1: they put a thing in where like players are like
Speaker 1: different badges, so it was like not overalls. Okay, do
Speaker 1: you remember the microwave badge? So it was like certain
Speaker 1: players if you kept shooting with them, they'd get better.
Speaker 1: But if you only took a shot with them. Every
Speaker 1: once in a while they'd actually play worse. Two was
Speaker 1: kind of a microwave faster. I like that a little
Speaker 1: bit like this when he how many pass take? How
Speaker 1: many passes did he throw last week? I don't know
Speaker 1: the exact number it was, It was a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to actually find the exact number. And I
Speaker 1: think that's part of the reason. Yeah, through forty five
Speaker 1: passes last year. I think that's part of the reason
Speaker 1: he played so well is because he can get in
Speaker 1: that rhythm where it's drop back pass, drop back pass,
Speaker 1: drop back pass. If you're forcing them to run the ball,
Speaker 1: not just call runs, but also hand the ball off
Speaker 1: on those RPOs. He's not a guy that throws great
Speaker 1: when he's cold. If it's the fifth, sixth, seventh play
Speaker 1: of a drive and he's thrown a pass for the
Speaker 1: first time, this is a very good take. I don't
Speaker 1: have any numbers to back this up, unfortunately, it's just
Speaker 1: something I've noticed. But this is that you've noticed that,
Speaker 1: so you've noticed that from him too.
Speaker 2: It anecdotally it sounds great. Also, I'm sorry they're showing
Speaker 2: Brady on this TV right now. Oh yeah, And my
Speaker 2: favorite part of this entire thing is just watch Stacy
Speaker 2: the whole time, just panicking that the second half is
Speaker 2: about to start and they need to get off Brady
Speaker 2: off the field, and CBS is just like refusing to
Speaker 2: get him off the field. I will get he was
Speaker 2: just on the screen and I we both love Stacey.
Speaker 2: It's hilarious to watch him just like be like, we
Speaker 2: gotta go, we gotta go, you gotta go. We'll get
Speaker 2: to Brady in a second. I do want to end
Speaker 2: the show with our takes on on the on the
Speaker 2: Brady stuff. Uh, it's a really anecdotally. I feel like
Speaker 2: you're right. So I don't even I don't have any
Speaker 2: numbers either.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the numbers would be to back
Speaker 1: that up, because his is him throwing a lot of passes.
Speaker 1: Doesn't like, Yeah, it could be it was intermittent early
Speaker 1: and now they're behind so they have no choice but
Speaker 1: to throw. But like, I feel like he needs to
Speaker 1: get in a rhythm. And when he gets in a rhythm,
Speaker 1: and it makes sense with all those kind of short
Speaker 1: crossing patterns, yeah, it's all very repeatable.
Speaker 2: He throws that. So they want him and this is
Speaker 2: the challenge and what what made that game so good
Speaker 2: against the Chargers was that he wants to throw the
Speaker 2: inbreakers to the middle of the field right, so a
Speaker 2: lot like Mac Jones in that sense, crossing routes, dig rats,
Speaker 2: slant routes like that's too a, that's that's his bread
Speaker 2: and butter. What made this game unique against the Chargers,
Speaker 2: and I know that I've kind of gushed about to
Speaker 2: it today, but he was really freaking good in this game.
Speaker 2: What made him really good in this game was the
Speaker 2: fact that he was able to come off the crossers
Speaker 2: and off the slants and hit the second and third
Speaker 2: read in the progression just as well as he normally
Speaker 2: hits the slants right like he he made a throw.
Speaker 2: I know, Ben Solak like broke it down on Twitter
Speaker 2: where they take away the incut and he comes off
Speaker 2: the incut and hits a wheel to Tyreek kill on
Speaker 2: the second reads.
Speaker 1: Well, the other thing about is he's this has been
Speaker 1: my long standing take onto it. You know this he
Speaker 1: essentially had to relearn how to throw a football because
Speaker 1: he hit injury. I feel like he's kind of gotten there.
Speaker 2: I feel like he threw the ball with as much
Speaker 2: zip on it as I've ever seen him throw.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I'm saying, Like he people don't realize
Speaker 1: he had to rebuild his mechanics from the ground up,
Speaker 1: like in the NFL. That is a massive task. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was really good in this game, and I feel
Speaker 1: like he's kind of gotten there.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing with two. But the reason why
Speaker 2: I love your take so much is because that's the
Speaker 2: type of thing that Bill will notice if Bill notices
Speaker 2: to Bill's great at noticing one, Like where's your heat map? Like,
Speaker 2: where's like the hot areas of the field that you
Speaker 2: love throwing to, like a like a batter in baseball? Right,
Speaker 2: where do I pitch to you? So with Tua, he's
Speaker 2: gonna take away the middle of the field. We can
Speaker 2: guarantee that he's gonna take away the middle of the field,
Speaker 2: and he's gonna take away Tyreek Hill, and he's gonna
Speaker 2: he's gonna be he's gonna force you to play left handed
Speaker 2: from that perspective, and or should say right handed. I
Speaker 2: guess he's going to force two to play right handed
Speaker 2: in that respect. He's not gonna let him throw the slants.
Speaker 2: He's not gonna let him throw the crosses. He's not
Speaker 2: gonna let him throw to number ten, Like that's gonna
Speaker 2: be the game plan. So that take you just had
Speaker 2: is like something that Bill would notice too, in the
Speaker 2: sense that, well, if we if we don't let him
Speaker 2: throw the ball early and we like it, make him
Speaker 2: handed off or we take I would like, well, I
Speaker 2: almost wonder if they take the ball now, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, like if we keep them cold.
Speaker 1: It's not even that it's like because it's not so
Speaker 1: much like going to the bench and all that. I
Speaker 1: guess maybe it is.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just feel like.
Speaker 2: If he's probably ways to keep them cold.
Speaker 1: He's probably not alone in this. But it's more like
Speaker 1: if they go run run now it's third and eight, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like that versus like if he threw the
Speaker 1: first two right, that kind of thing, right, And I
Speaker 1: wonder if you just you basically don't it's it's their offense.
Speaker 1: I know people are gonna hate this take because it's
Speaker 1: all complex and you know, cutting edge whatever. It's a
Speaker 1: little repetitive from the quarterback position. Like you said, it's
Speaker 1: just it's slant incut, slant in cut, and it's three
Speaker 1: step back foot throw, three step back Mechanically mentally there's
Speaker 1: a lot going on, but for the quarterback in that offense,
Speaker 1: it's very mechanically repetitive. I think when you so, maybe
Speaker 1: this is more about the offense than it is two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I kind of talked through this take here.
Speaker 1: I think that if you let him get into that rhythm,
Speaker 1: he's gonna start feeling it and it just sort of becomes.
Speaker 2: Well, second, interesting to see what they do, because I
Speaker 2: think that there's like a bunch of different ways you
Speaker 2: could obviously go about it. But like if the Patriots
Speaker 2: empty the box and ask them to run the ball,
Speaker 2: that would be one sign. If the Patriots come after
Speaker 2: him early, I think that's another sign of like, let's
Speaker 2: rattle him, let's get him off his game early by
Speaker 2: pressuring them. That's another sign that that maybe they feel
Speaker 2: the same way. And I also wonder about like mcdaniels's
Speaker 2: McDaniels McDaniels uh script, Like does he does he throw early?
Speaker 2: Like they're a pretty aggressive throwing team. They Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that you know Daniel does want to run? Yeah, you
Speaker 2: know those stats that are like you know, over expected,
Speaker 2: like how often they throw the ball and downs and
Speaker 2: distances over expected. He pulls his eyes.
Speaker 1: Uh, stupid.
Speaker 2: They're they're always like near the top of the league
Speaker 2: and the so so it's like Buffalo Kansas City like teams.
Speaker 1: Well and especially like if they don't have most are
Speaker 1: even more reason for them to keep it in here.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get back to the calls. It's Forward
Speaker 2: in Georgia. What's up Forward?
Speaker 8: Hey, alex Evan, how are you guys doing. I love
Speaker 8: the podcast first time callers following in.
Speaker 6: Heaven.
Speaker 8: You know what, keep on bringing those truth bombs. Man,
Speaker 8: you just say what do you see? Because that's what
Speaker 8: I like. So don't let the beast get you down.
Speaker 2: We'll do Mike.
Speaker 8: Here's the take. So your podcast is fabulous. That's you know,
Speaker 8: the micro This is kind of a macro take. We've
Speaker 8: had great continuity on defense a few the past few years,
Speaker 8: and we've had pretty good continuity on offense disregarding the
Speaker 8: offensive coordinator. Once of the players have been together, what
Speaker 8: do you guys think about this team being kind of
Speaker 8: like a basketball player where they need to see a
Speaker 8: shot and go in.
Speaker 6: You get over the hump. Yeah, if they could just
Speaker 6: win one game like they played last Sunday, just win
Speaker 6: one of those games leveling up.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a really good take that be.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the call for it. Appreciate you listening as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, the floodgates opening, Yeah, right, like
Speaker 2: you hit one and then all of a sudden, you
Speaker 2: hit a million. I get them.
Speaker 1: That was literally, I mean I'm sitting up on the
Speaker 1: because I'm like formulating the stuff this game goes on.
Speaker 1: That was gonna be my take if they won, was
Speaker 1: they finally saw one go in and now let's like
Speaker 1: they've done it, they know they can do it. I
Speaker 1: think that would have been massive, And I think there
Speaker 1: is something to that. The problem is, is it by
Speaker 1: the time that happens is going to be too little,
Speaker 1: too late. Yeah, you know, if they win that first
Speaker 1: such game in week ten, right and they're four and six, right,
Speaker 1: like Nicole, all right, but it's gonna matter if they
Speaker 1: do it this week. Yeah, I think that there's absolutely
Speaker 1: something to that.
Speaker 2: I think that's the other part of Yeah, I'm glad
Speaker 2: you kind of put it that way, because I think
Speaker 2: that's another part about my frustration overall with the team
Speaker 2: is their first month of the schedule now just got
Speaker 2: easier because of what happened in New York, right, But
Speaker 2: their first month of the schedule is tough. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: super hard. So I knew coming into this first month
Speaker 2: that if they were gonna have a season, they were
Speaker 2: gonna have to come out hot, like they were gonna
Speaker 2: have to come out and at least stay afloat and
Speaker 2: tread water in the first month of the year. Now
Speaker 2: they're already go in one, and you just worry, like,
Speaker 2: all right, maybe the Jets game now obviously looks a
Speaker 2: lot easier, and I'm not ready to just hand them
Speaker 2: a wa against the Jets, I'm not, but I think
Speaker 2: that that's a game they should be favored in now.
Speaker 2: But like one in three to me, with like three
Speaker 2: competitive games and I said, no moral victories, but like
Speaker 2: three competitive games against Miami, the Cowboys, and the Eagles
Speaker 2: obviously already happened. Then I suppose that that's like at
Speaker 2: least staying that's treading water, but really, like to tread
Speaker 2: truly tread water, you gotta go to and two you
Speaker 2: got one.
Speaker 1: Yes, So I know people hate this staty. This is
Speaker 1: like the ultimate negative. Gonna give the ultimate negative take now,
Speaker 1: because anytime an NFL team loses its first game, you
Speaker 1: hear that to two thing right, and its fans roll
Speaker 1: their eyes. So last year, the Bengals actually made the
Speaker 1: playoffs after going oh and two. They were the first
Speaker 1: team to do it since twenty eighteen. The other there
Speaker 1: were five other teams that went oh and two. Their
Speaker 1: average wins for the season was just over six. If
Speaker 1: you throw in the Colts and Texans who started one
Speaker 1: and one, that win average drops below six games. So
Speaker 1: that I feel like that takes off and framed wrong.
Speaker 1: It's not to say if you start oh and too
Speaker 1: you can't make the playoffs. You can. But like the
Speaker 1: Bengals weren't an O and two team. We knew who
Speaker 1: they were. It's not if you start oh and two
Speaker 1: you can't make the playoffs. It's an zero and two
Speaker 1: start is indicative of a team that's not good enough.
Speaker 1: And that's where the concern comes in. It's not it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's it's locked in. But we're talking about
Speaker 1: again team like Cincinnati last year, who had been to
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. We knew who they were. I don't
Speaker 1: think too many people were applying that zero to two
Speaker 1: thing to them because we knew they could dig out
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, if this team starts oh and two,
Speaker 1: it might just be a sign that that's the team
Speaker 1: they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially against good teams right like, because they're
Speaker 2: not playing cupcakes except maybe Zach Welson and the Jets.
Speaker 2: A couple more things and then we have a couple
Speaker 2: one more call than I do want to rap with
Speaker 2: the Brady stuff. I do want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about the defense on Sunday and just are
Speaker 2: kind of spin it for We talked a lot about
Speaker 2: how they match up against Miami, which was good and
Speaker 2: all that, but a Christian Zales and his debut, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to kind of go rapid fire through a
Speaker 2: couple guys, the plan and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I wrote about that and after further review and our
Speaker 2: film review a weekly piece, if you want to go
Speaker 2: and look at how exactly they did it from like
Speaker 2: a schematics perspective. But I thought, really what this game
Speaker 2: made me most excited about defensively was they had Unlike offense,
Speaker 2: they actually have individual players that I think are move
Speaker 2: the needle for them defensively. Christian Gonzalez, I know, he
Speaker 2: gave up seven catches in this game to a J
Speaker 2: Brown but they were all short of the shorter variety.
Speaker 2: He didn't give up a single deep ball and give
Speaker 2: up a single run after catch play.
Speaker 1: Like none of that kind of and he came up
Speaker 1: and tackled.
Speaker 2: I thought he played fantastic in this game.
Speaker 1: I did for what it was like if he's playing
Speaker 1: that way in three years, Yeah, for his first career game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with what I think the plan was probably don't get
Speaker 1: beat deep if they make if they throw it underneath,
Speaker 1: just step up, make that and against the receiver like
Speaker 1: a J. Brown take that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought Christian Zalez was very good in this game.
Speaker 1: I was excited about it. I don't think he was
Speaker 1: their best rookie though.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was going to get to maybe who I
Speaker 2: think you think were you going in order the draft? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: with Christian Gonzales. Just and then we'll move on to
Speaker 2: the next one. Christian Goannzalez. What I liked so much
Speaker 2: about his game was the tackling. Yeah, yeah, that was
Speaker 2: a concern coming in with his physicality. I he didn't
Speaker 2: really want to go there after the game, but I
Speaker 2: think that you could tell that he wants. He knows
Speaker 2: that that was the knock was that he wasn't a
Speaker 2: physical guy and he couldn't tackle very well that Georgia game, right,
Speaker 2: like yeah, all that kind of stuff that was the
Speaker 2: knock and this game. Aj Brown is one of the
Speaker 2: best yack receivers in the league.
Speaker 1: And physically, I mean specimen yeah, Yeah, He's not a
Speaker 1: guy who's gonna run around, he's gonna run through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was able to tackle m I think
Speaker 2: that maybe other than the fourth down pass breakup, which
Speaker 2: was great, he made a tackle on aj Brown coming
Speaker 2: across the field on third down where aj Brown had
Speaker 2: like a step on him coming across and he was
Speaker 2: able to close and make the tackle well short of
Speaker 2: the sticks.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That play there, I was like, that's a play that
Speaker 2: if you asked a scout coming into the draft and
Speaker 2: you said AJ Brown is going to have a step
Speaker 2: on Christian Gonzalez coming across the field on like third
Speaker 2: and nine at like third at like six yards of depth,
Speaker 2: is it going to be a first down? Every scout
Speaker 2: would say yes, yeah, every scout. And he made the tackle,
Speaker 2: and I think that's a really good sign of a
Speaker 2: play that he probably was told he can't make by
Speaker 2: a lot of the scouts. And people like us, and
Speaker 2: that he did make in the game, and that was
Speaker 2: the most encouraging thing to me from that game. I
Speaker 2: knew he could cover the deep ball. I knew he
Speaker 2: would stay a decent you know, tightness, closeness to the receivers,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. But being able to come
Speaker 2: up and make that tackle was huge. So you thought
Speaker 2: the best rookie in this game was Keon White, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean he was awesome. He was You look at what
Speaker 1: he's doing to Lane Johnson. He is bull rushing Lane Johnson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's he looks like he's been in the league five years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no rookie element. And he was a huge part
Speaker 1: of their rush plan against Jalen Hurts. He executed his
Speaker 1: plan at a high level. You know, he's he was
Speaker 1: a problem. He was a problem in the Eagles back.
Speaker 2: Bed four pressures in twenty three snaps, which is an
Speaker 2: insane run outstand.
Speaker 1: I I'm way too excited for what he's going to
Speaker 1: be cut and that's in his first game. He's gonna
Speaker 1: get better. Yeah, I'm way too excited for what he
Speaker 1: can be. I they have a real guy here.
Speaker 2: They need to play him as much as possible. And
Speaker 2: I don't mean to like say like, oh, let's throw
Speaker 2: the rookie into seventy snaps a game, Like if they
Speaker 2: don't feel like he's ready, I feel like he's ready,
Speaker 2: then you play him in the situation he looks ready. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think what what stands out about him?
Speaker 1: Look right here is we're watching this and they have
Speaker 1: the game on it. Right.
Speaker 2: So he won four times in the past rush. Two
Speaker 2: of them were with power just speed to power bowl
Speaker 2: rush one on each tackle. Uh. Then he won with
Speaker 2: an inside out move which I've seen him use in
Speaker 2: practice and it's filthy. Uh just you know, a jude On,
Speaker 2: It's a Judon move. He put fakes outside, comes back.
Speaker 1: Real quick pause. What do you think of that move
Speaker 1: that Miles Garrett pulled where he does like the basketball
Speaker 1: came across.
Speaker 2: I know he's he's he's a Miles Garrett's an alien
Speaker 2: like Miles Garrett does not move like other people do. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: he won with that. Then he won with speed around
Speaker 2: the corner to speed rip around the corner. He he
Speaker 2: made it look easy like he really did. He may
Speaker 2: look easy and not only did I I really not
Speaker 2: only is he just relentless, but the recovery talent to
Speaker 2: like plant his foot in the ground and then go
Speaker 2: chase Jalen Hurts. After Jalen Hurts, you know, leaves the pocket.
Speaker 2: That's rare.
Speaker 1: Like look, I know you just said nobody moves like
Speaker 1: Miles Garrett and I'm not comparing him to Miles Garrett,
Speaker 1: but like this isn't He doesn't move like you expect
Speaker 1: a sixty five, two hundred and ninety pound got to move.
Speaker 2: It's the change of direction for that really stands out.
Speaker 2: Like the play that he bowl rushes mylotta. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then he's able to kind of recover and change directions
Speaker 2: to then get Hurts up into the sideline. That's something
Speaker 2: that their defensive line has been missing. Like Judean and
Speaker 2: ouj and bar More can get downhill better than like
Speaker 2: a lot of guys, but they then they lose contained right,
Speaker 2: Like they don't recover as quickly as he.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this. You talk about getting
Speaker 1: him on the field more, and how do you do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Can he makes some of this work as an interior rusher?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I would hope so, because that would be the
Speaker 2: next step. I I think that with his hand in
Speaker 2: the dirt. He crossed his face so quickly that he's
Speaker 2: going to be really a problem with guards.
Speaker 1: Doesn't even need to be hand in the dirty. You
Speaker 1: could stand them up right, Yeah, we know they do that.
Speaker 1: My point being like, do you think they can get
Speaker 1: to the point And I know that they like to
Speaker 1: put more guys back in these obvious passing situations, But
Speaker 1: where you have a pass rush group of Jude on
Speaker 1: and on the edge in Barmore and Keon White in
Speaker 1: the middle, do you think that's something they can functionally
Speaker 1: build because if they do, yeah, I mean, it'd be
Speaker 1: pretty fun.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I do wonder if, like you know, you've used like
Speaker 2: the Trey Flowers like type of role comparison. I do
Speaker 2: wonder at one point do they put Keon White at
Speaker 2: the nose in that five rush package, you know, five
Speaker 2: zero rush package that they use in that way that
Speaker 2: they had like four guys standing up around Trey Flowers
Speaker 2: and it was just Trey Flowers of his hand in
Speaker 2: the well.
Speaker 1: But couldn't you do that with bar more You could
Speaker 1: and then have wipey one of the guys that's standing up.
Speaker 2: You could, Yeah, yeah, any of that would be great.
Speaker 1: I think all of that would be I just if
Speaker 1: you can find a guy to get the find a
Speaker 1: way to get those four guys on the field in
Speaker 1: a pass rush situation, I mean, you can really do. So.
Speaker 2: It's one of the better fronts in the league. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been saying that all along about the Patriots defensive front.
Speaker 2: They have one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL.
Speaker 2: I don't think you know, Niners, Cowboys, Eagles like those
Speaker 2: teams might have them beat. But other than that, I'd
Speaker 2: probably take their front over everybody else. It's top five
Speaker 2: in my opinion. All Right, So he talked about ke
Speaker 2: Why we talked about Marty Mapu earlier in the show.
Speaker 2: I do want to give Jawan Bentley his flowers, really
Speaker 2: really good Juwan Bentley game. He's he's just a good
Speaker 2: football player. He's just so good at taking on blocks
Speaker 2: and condensing space in the running game. I really feel
Speaker 2: like his development as a player and how fast he
Speaker 2: plays now compared to how he early on in his career.
Speaker 2: Like he could always hit, he could always come downhill,
Speaker 2: but sometimes he looked like his feet were in cement right,
Speaker 2: Like he looked like his feet were stuck he's such
Speaker 2: a more explosive, like just flexible player then he then
Speaker 2: he used to be. I really give him a lot
Speaker 2: of credit. He's he's gotten so much better over the
Speaker 2: course of his career. I played a great game in
Speaker 2: this one. Uh is there anybody else? Si Jabriel Peppers.
Speaker 1: Pepper, Yeah, yeah, he's going to be a player this year.
Speaker 1: Miles Bryant. I thought playing a good game, which again
Speaker 1: it's that thing I've been talking about. Don't well. So
Speaker 1: it didn't start well because they'd a manning up Quez Watkins,
Speaker 1: which he can't do well.
Speaker 2: It was zone but yeah, okay, but.
Speaker 1: Like, let him play a deeper zone, come up diagnose
Speaker 1: like I meant that tackle and aj Brown.
Speaker 2: He should be able to play the flat like it was. Okay,
Speaker 2: it was our p but you get what.
Speaker 1: You get what I'm saying, like, just let him let
Speaker 1: him diagnose rather than chase. When you let him do that,
Speaker 1: he actually does make plays.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take the call from Patty. Who's Who's
Speaker 2: had some good emails this week, Patty, some some interesting emails.
Speaker 2: How you doing, Patty?
Speaker 5: What's going on? Guys? Not much so I haven't listen.
Speaker 5: I wasn't really coming after you the other day when
Speaker 5: I emailed in, my whole point was, like the last
Speaker 5: few years, I know, the end result was they didn't
Speaker 5: get it done, and against good teams they haven't gotten
Speaker 5: it done. But I think just comparing the last year
Speaker 5: what I saw them do, Like, I think if this
Speaker 5: was last year and they were down sixteen to nothing,
Speaker 5: I would have just I would have been pulling my
Speaker 5: hair out that they're gonna end up getting beat forty
Speaker 5: five to nothing or forty five to ten.
Speaker 10: In this game.
Speaker 5: But you know, I did see some improvement. I thought,
Speaker 5: even though like Mac got the ball out quick, the
Speaker 5: fact that they started those two rookies, and those two
Speaker 5: rookies also went up against those monsters on the defensive
Speaker 5: line they played, I think everybody played a pretty good
Speaker 5: game as far as like the offensive line.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got to push back on that a little bit, Patty,
Speaker 2: like their rookies in their first screw starts, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to kill them, but keep going, keep going. I
Speaker 2: don't want to.
Speaker 5: And Mac, you're right. Mac has to play sixteen minutes,
Speaker 5: has to play six minute game, can't play thirty minutes.
Speaker 5: He can't play fifteen minutes and expect to win, but
Speaker 5: you know that that's done and over week one is done.
Speaker 5: I don't have a good feeling about this game. When
Speaker 5: I looked at the injury report, I'm just like, come on, man,
Speaker 5: like that we're already having offensive line lows now, our
Speaker 5: starting left tackle, our starting center, and the rookie that
Speaker 5: they had what was so playing right guard. He's that
Speaker 5: they're not going to play.
Speaker 10: I could see.
Speaker 5: I could see a scenario, honestly where they just there's
Speaker 5: too many turnovers and kind of like how they began
Speaker 5: the game last week, where it's just they turned the
Speaker 5: ball over a couple of times, Miami gets a few
Speaker 5: quick scores and it's over because they can't block it.
Speaker 5: And and I don't think Miami's defense is great by
Speaker 5: any stretch of the imagination. I think Christian Wilkins is
Speaker 5: a beast.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 5: Forget about it. You're can't block them, You're not gonna
Speaker 5: freaking win, You're not gonna move the ball. I think
Speaker 5: the Dolphins are one in this game. And I hate
Speaker 5: to say, because they're my NFL Yankees, I hate them.
Speaker 5: They're they're my least favorite sports team, even more so
Speaker 5: than the Yankees, even more so than the Lakers. That's
Speaker 5: all I got.
Speaker 2: Thanks mate, thanks for the call. I didn't mean. I
Speaker 2: don't want to trash the rookies because it's their first
Speaker 2: career start. They're they're thrown into a tough situation. But
Speaker 2: to categorize Mafi and so is playing well in that
Speaker 2: game is not really telling the truths.
Speaker 1: They played better than expectations. It doesn't mean they played well.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how I put it. I actually I
Speaker 1: texted you the number yard sday was it they ran for?
Speaker 1: I think it was one point three yards per carry
Speaker 1: between guards? Like, that's not they gave it done.
Speaker 2: The two of them gave up twelve pressures between the
Speaker 2: two of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twelve twelve pressures one point three yards per carry. Look,
Speaker 1: they didn't get mac Jones killed, and I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of what the expectation was enough. So they played
Speaker 1: better than that, and that's kind of the story of
Speaker 1: a lot of things with the team's better than expectations.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean it was good.
Speaker 2: Okay, so uh good, good way to end it. On
Speaker 2: the offensive line and then the Brady stuff offensive line,
Speaker 2: What are we looking at on Sunday for this offensive line?
Speaker 2: Assuming that the injuries hold.
Speaker 1: I understand there all five like, like what are we
Speaker 1: talking about?
Speaker 2: We can talk about, but I understand where Patty's coming from,
Speaker 2: where everybody's coming from, that they look at the injuries
Speaker 2: of the offensive line and it's it's concerning. And I
Speaker 2: picked the Dolphins in the game, but overall, in terms
Speaker 2: of like the competitiveness of the game and keeping it close,
Speaker 2: I actually am not overly concerned with the offensive line
Speaker 2: because I really was impressed by how O'Brien and mack
Speaker 2: was were able to manage it on Sunday, and I
Speaker 2: don't think that this Dolphins front is as good as
Speaker 2: the one they just went up there.
Speaker 1: So I think that's a really good way to put it,
Speaker 1: because what scares me about this offensive line they can
Speaker 1: As we were watching the game, Kendrick Bourne takes off.
Speaker 1: He's so good that hidden plan last year.
Speaker 2: He won't let that go and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Kv's my guy. I've said this for you. I will
Speaker 1: find a spot for Kendrick Born on my team any day.
Speaker 1: Guy like on and off the field, just what he thinks. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not so much that I'm worried about Mac Jones
Speaker 1: being under pressure because he handled pressure well last week,
Speaker 1: and like you just said, the big thing, they'll scheme
Speaker 1: around it. Yeah, it's that fourth and three that you hated, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: why did that fourth and three happen? Because on third
Speaker 1: and three they tried to I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was technically half back dive, but like they went between
Speaker 1: the guards with the Zegiel Elliot, he got stonewalled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is my biggest concern with the offensive line. When
Speaker 1: you need a yard to three yards, can the offensive
Speaker 1: line and lie you to get that conventionally? Are you
Speaker 1: going to be weird? Are you gonna have to do something?
Speaker 1: That's what scares me more than anything else right now
Speaker 1: with the offensive line.
Speaker 2: The part of the reason why they dropped back fifty
Speaker 2: eight times is because it was sixteen to nothing out
Speaker 2: of the gate. But they also couldn't run the ball.
Speaker 1: So that, by the way, in a way credit to O'Brien,
Speaker 1: because last year they would not have made that adjustment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you know, the thing that I
Speaker 2: like so much about O'Brien's offense is that, you know,
Speaker 2: his quick game and his green game really operates as
Speaker 2: an extension of.
Speaker 1: The run, even though the other thing you said before,
Speaker 1: you point out he's not afraid if something's working to
Speaker 1: keep going back to it. Yeah, At the same time,
Speaker 1: and this is probably kind of the same take from
Speaker 1: a different angle. If something's not working, even if it's
Speaker 1: something he likes, he'll understand it's not working and move on.
Speaker 1: And they moved on from the run game last week.
Speaker 1: You can't do that every week. At a certain point,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a third one where you just need
Speaker 1: a pound at home and the offensive line needs to
Speaker 1: allow needs to allow you to do that.
Speaker 2: So for the group, Yeah, let's go over the configurations.
Speaker 1: So Trent Brown and City so aren't playing like there's
Speaker 1: just no way a week after concussion. I think you
Speaker 1: move Calvin Anderson to left tackle first and foremost. But
Speaker 1: what are the other offense Andrew Stuber? I think Andrew
Speaker 1: Steuber is the only other tackle, right, All right, well,
Speaker 1: you're moving Calvin Anderson to left tackle.
Speaker 2: I thought Calvin Anderson initially on my initial watch, I
Speaker 2: thought Calvin Anderson was fine. I watched the offensive line
Speaker 2: alone again and he also at a rough game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: keep going.
Speaker 1: I I think some of it too, Like guys are
Speaker 1: they brought down by like they are all kind of
Speaker 1: we talk about guys elevating each other.
Speaker 2: A lot of it too with him, in all fairness
Speaker 2: is like you didn't have training companies out there for
Speaker 2: plays on the week one in the conditioning. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of his his bad bad reps came in
Speaker 2: the second half.
Speaker 1: Which makes sense. Yeah, so all right, so you have
Speaker 1: Callan Anderson left tackle. Let's let's let's do one. We're
Speaker 1: outside of Andrews. None of the guys on the injury
Speaker 1: report play, so you're you're still missing Cole Strange and
Speaker 1: Mike Winning again. I think you're going Callan Anderson, ye,
Speaker 1: Antonio Maffi, David Andrews. It's probably James Ferrence a right
Speaker 1: guard is a practice squad elevation over Jake Andrews.
Speaker 2: Right, I would think so. And then.
Speaker 1: In your Varian Lowe Darian low at right tackle unless
Speaker 1: he's not ready, in which case they probably recall Andrew stupid.
Speaker 1: I think there's a chance to get two offensive line
Speaker 1: recalls for this game anyway. Yeah, if honestly, it's probably
Speaker 1: a one for one if either of those guards return.
Speaker 1: Whoever returns, Mafi's in the other spot. Yep, right over Farence.
Speaker 2: Yep. Mafi was.
Speaker 1: Like, no, you didn't think so. Maybe it's just by comparison.
Speaker 2: Jaileen Carter, just it's Carter, but that's that's every week.
Speaker 2: This week it's Christian.
Speaker 1: That's all right, all right, it's fair point, it's fair point. Well,
Speaker 1: then do you think there's a chance to try Farence
Speaker 1: and just be like, these rookies aren't ready, we're going.
Speaker 2: I think believe to give him the reps and give
Speaker 2: him the opportunity. The way that I look at Stranger
Speaker 2: on Uh is that I think that if that was
Speaker 2: a post Thanksgiving game, I'm not ready to say a
Speaker 2: playoffs because let's fra it, you know, post Thanksgiving game.
Speaker 1: I think the week seventeen against the Bills last year
Speaker 1: winning in Okay, they play I I thought it was
Speaker 1: very interesting when Bill was asked about them on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, where are they gonna play? Sad
Speaker 1: they'll eventually. It's a really.
Speaker 2: Weird because I think one Bill with Bill, it's always
Speaker 2: gamesman ship, right, he doesn't want to tell the Dolphins
Speaker 2: anything but yeah.
Speaker 1: But usually he just says they're out there practicing, you know.
Speaker 1: With Andrew, I think the other.
Speaker 2: Way to look at it is is that that's a
Speaker 2: situation where it's bigger than a week two game against
Speaker 2: Miami and these decisions to make about the long term
Speaker 2: longevity of the player. But I think that my gut,
Speaker 2: and this is not any inside information, my gut is
Speaker 2: is that one of Stranger on when he will be
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 1: I feel like Strange is probably closer than when.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if they're close and they can, it's
Speaker 2: ninety five percent healthy that one of those guys will
Speaker 2: play because they have to at this point, like they're
Speaker 2: desperate for bodies, let alone just the talent level being different.
Speaker 2: So I think one of those guys is going to
Speaker 2: play on Sunday. So I agree with your line. If
Speaker 2: nobody else plays, I think that you're probably in my
Speaker 2: mind looking at Calvin Anderson, Cold Strange, David andrews Antonio,
Speaker 2: Maffivederien Low from left to right. I think that on
Speaker 2: Winny Will they'll continue to hold on winning out. But
Speaker 2: I think Strangel will play on Sunday, just gut, not
Speaker 2: no inside info on that, but I just I think
Speaker 2: he will and really quickly. Also on the on the
Speaker 2: offensive line, I gave David Andrews the gold Star at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the show. But Trent Brown was also
Speaker 2: really good in that game on Sunday too, which makes
Speaker 2: the concussion even more of a bummer. He lost late
Speaker 2: on that Josh Sweat sack, but other than that, he
Speaker 2: was he was pretty good in that game, like old
Speaker 2: Trent Brown, you know, one on one pass pro on
Speaker 2: the backside and played really welled up, really well. So
Speaker 2: hopefully that has a one week concussion and he's back
Speaker 2: long term and it's it's nothing major to worry about,
Speaker 2: all right, really quickly, we got three minutes before we
Speaker 2: got a wrap on the Brady stuff. What what what?
Speaker 2: Just what was your take? Closure?
Speaker 1: Closure? It really it really was the thing. When he
Speaker 1: he left, I remember it was like, you'll get Peyton
Speaker 1: Manning And when's the last time Peyton Manning did anything
Speaker 1: remotely related to the Indianapolis Colts. And it's like that
Speaker 1: sucks because he's such a huge part of that franchise
Speaker 1: and Brady's even bigger here. It's like I don't want
Speaker 1: to lose him forever. I get he had to go
Speaker 1: somewhere else to play, but it's like, is he just
Speaker 1: gonna be a buck now and when he said, you know,
Speaker 1: Patriot for life and to see him in the old
Speaker 1: Jersey and actually do the rundown and all that and
Speaker 1: he's gonna come back again, and just it was it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, he's coming back, Like he's still here, He's
Speaker 1: still a part of this. I get we have to
Speaker 1: share him with Tampa. That's fine.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If we do well, that would be even better. No,
Speaker 1: But like he did, he won a title there. He
Speaker 1: there's an extent to that.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know if in Brady's so I
Speaker 2: said at the end of the show, So what.
Speaker 1: We know his time in Tampa was purely transactional.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's how he views it.
Speaker 1: But but there's all like when they post like you
Speaker 1: always see now, like the graphic of the seven Super
Speaker 1: Bowls and there's like the Bucks logo on it, that's
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like there'll always be that Tampa part
Speaker 1: of it, but like he's he's still the Patriot for life.
Speaker 1: I I is. It was it really like I texted
Speaker 1: like two or three friends, like all of them after that,
Speaker 1: and I was like that was closure, and they were
Speaker 1: all like, that's exactly what it is. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: closure on Like rober Kraft said, we never properly got
Speaker 1: to say goodbye. Yeah, and I think to do that
Speaker 1: and to hear him say what he said, it felt good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I said that. I was I was gonna be
Speaker 2: body language doctor Brady, and he passed with flying color.
Speaker 1: Pat body language, and like it wasn't There was no
Speaker 1: cell job, he wasn't wearing TV twelve stuff. It didn't
Speaker 1: feel like Hollywood, even like this is a stupid little
Speaker 1: observation that I had. His hair was like it looked
Speaker 1: like he just played a game. Like he looked up
Speaker 1: on the no like himself, him standing up you know
Speaker 1: because like him standing on the podium, like it gave
Speaker 1: me a little deja vu to like seeing him pictures
Speaker 1: of him on the podium after Super Bowls. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like because I was thinking, like, is he gonna be
Speaker 1: up there in a suit and he's gonna have the
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars haircut, and you know he's gonna talk
Speaker 1: about oh TV twelve now, Oh he went up there
Speaker 1: in a jersey just looking like some guy and talked
Speaker 1: about how much he loved it here. That was I
Speaker 1: didn't think he would do that. I thought we would
Speaker 1: get Corporate Tom. There was not one ounce of Corporate
Speaker 1: Tom involved in that. It was awesome.
Speaker 2: He uh he let himself, let the let the curtain
Speaker 2: down a little bit. Yeah, he did. He did. And
Speaker 2: I said, you know, I was gonna see like, was
Speaker 2: this like you said Corporate Tom, was this I gotta
Speaker 2: do this for mister Kraft because you know, twenty years
Speaker 2: of paying me, like I kind of have to do this,
Speaker 2: Like all right, I'll go No, this wasn't anything like that.
Speaker 2: And I genuinely think that, based off of his reaction
Speaker 2: and how he carried himself throughout the entire day, that
Speaker 2: he identifies as a Patriot. I think he appreciates the
Speaker 2: Bucks years, and he appreciates the Bucks for letting him
Speaker 2: continue his career in the NFL post Patriots. But I
Speaker 2: don't think that in his mind he has really anything
Speaker 2: to do with the Bucks, if that makes sense, you know, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't think that he really views himself as.
Speaker 1: A break right and uh, I mean like I think
Speaker 1: he'd go back if they had like a thing. But
Speaker 1: all right, Patriots Bucks Week one, they're both playing at
Speaker 1: the same time. He gets invited to both he's coming back,
Speaker 1: He's coming here. I would think, so well, that was
Speaker 1: the thing. I was like, is that what he's gonna do?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know that when he goes into the
Speaker 2: Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame game
Speaker 2: will be Patriots Bucks of course obviously, right yeah, and
Speaker 2: that'll be fun.
Speaker 1: Oh I I that, you know, I don't like usually
Speaker 1: travel with the team, but like, I've never been in
Speaker 1: the PROFILEB Hall of Fame. I want to go. I
Speaker 1: can't think of when I was growing up. But you
Speaker 1: say I'll go and Drew Bledsoe gets in. I'm starting
Speaker 1: to think that's not gonna happen. So I'll go in
Speaker 1: Tom Brady, I'm saying when I was like ten, I
Speaker 1: used to say that that's great.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, so it was great. I thought the him
Speaker 2: coming out on the lighthouse first and like that sort
Speaker 2: of being reveal was cool. Uh the rundown was cool,
Speaker 2: Like I you know, that's not usually my thing. You know,
Speaker 2: I hate fun.
Speaker 1: I thought, would he like zipping the jacket like that?
Speaker 1: It was the old jersey? Yeah yeah, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: just an old jersey, that was a game warn jersey.
Speaker 2: Everything. That really the big the thing that got me
Speaker 2: got me. Yeah, was just like seeing him in Patriots
Speaker 2: gear again. Yeah, like that was like like you said,
Speaker 2: like he could have worn a TV twelve stuff he
Speaker 2: couldn't like, but he was wearing the Elvis.
Speaker 1: He was in Patriots gear. Uh, he was a Patriots
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. But it's even deeper than that. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like they went and got a jersey from the
Speaker 1: pro Shop and it was like the new dream. No
Speaker 1: that and I'll take you you look at the way
Speaker 1: the jersey's cutting. Yeah, that was a game warn jersey.
Speaker 2: Well it was great. All of it was great, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad it happened. And I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 2: uh six twelve twenty four, Alex and I I'm sure
Speaker 2: we'll be there. Oh yeah, and you might have to
Speaker 2: bring the tissues. You might have to. I got a
Speaker 2: little emotional, right, I did bring the tissues. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be a great time.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: That ticket is gonna be a hot ticket though. That's
Speaker 2: gonna be a tough one to get, So don't don't
Speaker 2: don't come side in the DMS asking for tickets.
Speaker 1: That Zach Bryan back to back like two weeks.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Yeah, everybody's gonna be at Zach Bryan.
Speaker 2: That's for sure, all right. Anyways, that does it here?
Speaker 2: That was a full two hours, no commercials, no breaks,
Speaker 2: no nothing, just two hours straight of Patriots talk. We
Speaker 2: put morell to sleep. I love it. We'll be back
Speaker 2: next week for another show here on Patriots Catch twenty two.
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