Speaker 1: Patriots Catch twenty two. We'll join Evan Lazar and Alex
Speaker 1: Bart every Thursday as they take a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the exits and o's trends and latest New England Patriots
Speaker 1: roster moves.
Speaker 2: And I'm usually into the numbers. Okay, we do something.
Speaker 2: I'm into the tangible numbers.
Speaker 3: There's there's tame here.
Speaker 2: Just give me. There's the advantage that fact. Haven't know
Speaker 2: how to work it. I'm surprised an old man over here.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe i'd have to show you like a
Speaker 2: vitorial or something.
Speaker 3: How am I old man?
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Speaker 4: Joan Brook, legend, voice of the New England Patriots.
Speaker 3: It's Patriots Playbook.
Speaker 2: You gotta get them. Yeah, fellow, I don't know what
Speaker 2: this was.
Speaker 3: I can do this. Turntable hands. I gotta put those
Speaker 3: turned table hands in. Yeah, right, do the la la law.
Speaker 5: I turntable hands, turntable I gotta give marine credit.
Speaker 3: Those were clever. Yeah, those were clever. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: a big fan of you know, Evan, you know from
Speaker 3: the locker room too, but those were those are clever,
Speaker 3: Those are clever. So excellent job, an excellent job.
Speaker 2: We need to put a camera on Marine though, because
Speaker 2: he's bump he's bumping in there.
Speaker 3: I love music, I love it.
Speaker 2: We just I just wanted to be documented, that's all.
Speaker 3: So that way we get like embarrass him in front
Speaker 3: of his kids later that kind of thing, or in
Speaker 3: front of his next don't do this in front of
Speaker 3: them already. That's probably also true, right kids, the same
Speaker 3: moves to the power, poor poor kids. Hey, Patroon fans,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do this right now and get this in
Speaker 3: early patri vans. If you want to see Toyota's best offers,
Speaker 3: including those not seen on TV. Right not seen on TV,
Speaker 3: go to buy a Toyota dot Com Toyota's official website
Speaker 3: for deals from the official vehicle of the New England Patriots, Toyota.
Speaker 3: Let's go places. I'm John Rook. We welcome you into
Speaker 3: the Patriots Playbook for a Wednesday, and you know Evan
Speaker 3: Lazar is here. We will also have the one and
Speaker 3: only Mike Greeese from ESPN on the program today. Russell
Speaker 3: Baxter will be back today as we go week ten
Speaker 3: around the NFL this week, you know, And yeah, we're
Speaker 3: gonna talk about dub AARs, but they've got their own issues,
Speaker 3: which I'm sure you and I will jump into in
Speaker 3: a little bit and we'll catch everybody up to date
Speaker 3: if you're not totally initiated with them. And two and seven,
Speaker 3: like I said, we kind of have our own issues too.
Speaker 3: I'm left with two overwhelming thoughts hit me from Tennessee. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Number one, May is a baller, okay, which I'm really
Speaker 3: happy to see. And I feel I'm sure like most
Speaker 3: of the fans in this regard. I mean, guy just
Speaker 3: balls out and I'm like, whoa, Okay, that's number one.
Speaker 3: Number two, there's no talent on this team, not near enough.
Speaker 3: There's some talent, okay. I say that with all due
Speaker 3: respect to the guys in the locker room were working
Speaker 3: their asses off. They are, but he needs a lot
Speaker 3: of help. And so now to me, what I'd like
Speaker 3: to see from this team over the course of the
Speaker 3: last eight weeks, because we're now officially past the halfway
Speaker 3: point nine down, eight to go by week, coming up
Speaker 3: in another week or two, and so I just I
Speaker 3: want to see some progress number one wins and losses.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to measure progress and wins and losses.
Speaker 3: I think I probably gave up on that one about
Speaker 3: six week weeks ago, so I've had to reevaluate. I
Speaker 3: thought this team honestly with what it hadknown, not knowing
Speaker 3: at the time that there was this plan, which I'm
Speaker 3: still not sure really what the plan was, if it
Speaker 3: really even existed. I'm a you know, I'm a big
Speaker 3: conspiracy theorist. You know, there's more than one shooter for
Speaker 3: JFK Okay, that's all. I'm one of those people. But
Speaker 3: as far as the Patriots plan for this year, I
Speaker 3: don't think so. All right, maybe someday we'll go into that.
Speaker 3: What I'm kind of looking at now, though, is this season,
Speaker 3: this franchise's immediate future is incumbent upon Elliott Wolf and
Speaker 3: the scouting staff identifying players who can play. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 3: we all love Bill for what he did over a
Speaker 3: number of years, but it is documented, it is well known,
Speaker 3: and it is a large reason that he is no
Speaker 3: longer here because he came up short as build a GM, Eldred,
Speaker 3: You'll be happy to hear me say that. Okay, he
Speaker 3: came up way short as build a GM. Build a
Speaker 3: coach still, Okay, yeah, build a GM, although I think
Speaker 3: we could also probably surmise that that was a fundamentally
Speaker 3: flawed mistake, you know, bringing in Matt Patricia as an
Speaker 3: offensive coordinator. Okay, So what I need to see now,
Speaker 3: and please I want you to you know, differ with
Speaker 3: me if you do, But I need to see the
Speaker 3: guys who have any interest in playing NFL football. I
Speaker 3: need to see them busting tail. I need to see
Speaker 3: guys playing through whatever ails them. I need to see
Speaker 3: more like Drake who's a week off of going through
Speaker 3: protocol and he's freaking diving and running and going ahead
Speaker 3: first and I'm like, wow, that's I mean, that's like,
Speaker 3: how could you not be inspired by that if you're
Speaker 3: one of his teams? Yeah? I need to see that
Speaker 3: from other people. I need to see Jalen Polk decide
Speaker 3: he wants to play football instead of being a prima donna.
Speaker 3: I need to see some others decide to bust their
Speaker 3: tails as opposed to just kind of letting it happen,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's really what I want to see.
Speaker 3: I thought this team, like I started to say, I
Speaker 3: thought this team had the capability of winning five or
Speaker 3: six games. I really did. I felt very strongly about it.
Speaker 3: I ain't gonna get there. Yeah, and so now I've
Speaker 3: reevaluated could they well, yeah, I guess anything could happen.
Speaker 3: They got seven games left. Could they win five of those?
Speaker 3: I doubt it. But I'm just saying I want to
Speaker 3: see effort. I want to see guys start to rise
Speaker 3: to it. I want them to make Elliott and Gerrod
Speaker 3: and everyone's job tougher when it comes to deciding, all right,
Speaker 3: who's worth sticking around who's not. Now to that end,
Speaker 3: I think that process kind of got started this week
Speaker 3: because there was no trading before the trade deadline. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so they're like, okay, how we were really going to
Speaker 3: improve ourselves week. You know, our guys here are developmental,
Speaker 3: so let's continue to develop them before we shoot them
Speaker 3: to the side. What do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you made a lot of really good points.
Speaker 2: I look at this team right now, and there's there's
Speaker 2: like macro level issues, and there's micro level issues, and
Speaker 2: sometimes just For me personally in season, I tend to
Speaker 2: focus more on the micro of what's actually going on
Speaker 2: on the field because we all understand on a macro
Speaker 2: level that they just don't They simply just don't have
Speaker 2: enough talent on this roster really at this point because
Speaker 2: of the attrition on the defense on either side of
Speaker 2: the ball coming into the season, when you had Kyle
Speaker 2: Duggart healthy, and you had Jabriel Peppers and you had
Speaker 2: Christian Barmore. Obviously you know Judah and I don't think
Speaker 2: we was a part of their plans for this year,
Speaker 2: so I don't necessarily count him, but Judahan, if you
Speaker 2: want to count him. You looked at this roster Jwan
Speaker 2: Bentley defensively and you said, okay, they have some talent
Speaker 2: on the defensive side of the ball, that a lot
Speaker 2: of that has withered away, so that side of the
Speaker 2: ball is dealing with that. Offensively, we knew coming into
Speaker 2: the year they didn't have a lot of talent, and
Speaker 2: they still don't have a lot of talent. So I
Speaker 2: look at Elliott Wolf and I understand a lot of
Speaker 2: people's frustrations with the lack of additions to the roster.
Speaker 2: Certainly the draft last year right now is looking like
Speaker 2: Drake May is the only guy that you're going to
Speaker 2: get out of that. Now, that's the biggest position in
Speaker 2: the sport. So I don't want to downplay.
Speaker 3: It's still disappointing.
Speaker 2: It's disappointing, and it was also not to take anything
Speaker 2: away from the scouting department. I could have made that pick,
Speaker 2: and you could have made that pick, and Marine could
Speaker 2: have made that pick right, like you know, like every
Speaker 2: single one it was.
Speaker 3: Do we not say if Jayden Daniels isn't there, it's definitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can sit there at three and take Drake
Speaker 2: May right. And again, I'm not trying to I know
Speaker 2: that sounded like a shot. I'm not trying to know,
Speaker 2: but that's just the bottom line. So what separates the
Speaker 2: men from the boys when it comes to the draft
Speaker 2: is what did you do in rounds two through seven?
Speaker 2: Because it's easy for us to sit here and take
Speaker 2: the third overall pick and say this is the best
Speaker 2: player for that draft pick. But what did you do
Speaker 2: in round two, three, four, five, and so on? So far?
Speaker 2: Right now, we don't even know if those guys can
Speaker 2: play NFL football, let alone if they can contribute in
Speaker 2: a big way, you know, it'd be big time pillars
Speaker 2: or anything like that. Like, we don't even know if
Speaker 2: Jalen Polk's an NFL wide receiver.
Speaker 3: No, we don't right now, which is sad. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: should know that by now. It's midseason, right.
Speaker 2: And then you look at how they handled free agency
Speaker 2: in the veteran market last March. You know, they re
Speaker 2: signed a lot of their own guys. They didn't make
Speaker 2: any real splashes in terms of additions from the outside.
Speaker 2: So I get all that. The one thing, and I
Speaker 2: said this on Tuesday, that I would say in an
Speaker 2: Elliott wolf in the front office's defense is that when
Speaker 2: you go into an off season, it's your first year
Speaker 2: on the job. You have no quarterback, you have no culture,
Speaker 2: you have no identity, You have really no nothing drawing
Speaker 2: free agents here, as we found out with Calvin Ridley, right,
Speaker 2: you really have no nothing to hang your hat on
Speaker 2: to sell to anybody. Right now, let's give him this
Speaker 2: off season coming up where they're gonna end. They're gonna
Speaker 2: be able to use all their assets on non quarterback positions, right,
Speaker 2: you know, they're gonna be able to attack receiver, tackle,
Speaker 2: edge rusher, corner and potentially linebacker, but like, there's tons
Speaker 2: of holes. Just just pick them, every single one on
Speaker 2: the offensive line, right, like you You're gonna be able
Speaker 2: to address all that with one hundred million dollars in
Speaker 2: cap space, a high draft pick in every single round,
Speaker 2: probably another top five or ten pick in the first round.
Speaker 2: So let's see what they do with all of that,
Speaker 2: because it does appear that they've hit on the quarterback. Now,
Speaker 2: the micro level of the in game stuff to me
Speaker 2: is that I have so many questions right now. O.
Speaker 3: Wait, let me understand. We're going from macro to micro right.
Speaker 2: Ok, big picture to live Yeah, because sometimes, like today,
Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you, John, I sometimes I lose
Speaker 2: the forest for the trees in season, right, every day
Speaker 2: every day, And so I have to remind myself of
Speaker 2: when I watch them on film and I'm pulling my
Speaker 2: hair out because there's things that are going wrong that
Speaker 2: shouldn't be going wrong. I have to remind myself that
Speaker 2: there's not a whole lot of talent on this team.
Speaker 2: So you're at.
Speaker 3: Pains, right, I mean, how do you get this bad?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So you look at you know, things like for example,
Speaker 2: one of the things that I have Frankly, just to
Speaker 2: be honest, I cannot watch their run defense right now.
Speaker 2: I can't watch it. It absolutely Watching their run defense
Speaker 2: every Monday on film is like the bane of my existence.
Speaker 3: I think they re energized Tony Pollard season last week.
Speaker 2: It is painful. It befits the inability to get off blocks,
Speaker 2: the gaps that they blow on the line of scrimmage,
Speaker 2: the linebacker play, all of it, all of it, all
Speaker 2: of it, all of it. And I sit there and
Speaker 2: I'm like, but why would you go here when you're
Speaker 2: supposed to be here? And it makes logical, But at
Speaker 2: the same time, you have to take a step back
Speaker 2: and realize, Okay, this is no longer Vince will Fork
Speaker 2: or Richard Seymour or you know somebody of that ilk
Speaker 2: that is this great, all time great player.
Speaker 3: We know that there's a huge reason behind this, a
Speaker 3: catalyst for this. You know, malaise defensively with no Christian Barmore,
Speaker 3: no Juwan Bentley, yeah, and certainly no Jabril Peers. So
Speaker 3: because of those three, I mean, that's right up the gut.
Speaker 3: That's like missing catcher, second base, center field, and base right,
Speaker 3: You're not gonna be a good defensive team without being
Speaker 3: strong up the middle. It's the same thing in football,
Speaker 3: if not more so. Now, I don't know how you
Speaker 3: fix that. I don't know that you can fix that.
Speaker 3: But what that does tell me, though, is that when
Speaker 3: you missed the three key pieces of the puzzle that
Speaker 3: you can't do without, this team did not look very macro. Yes, right,
Speaker 3: you're not looking at see.
Speaker 2: I got that.
Speaker 3: I'm figuring this stuff out as we go. Is math, Yes,
Speaker 3: it is math, and it's I don't like algebra. And
Speaker 3: I'm you know, trigonometry. Oh it spooked me, you got
Speaker 3: all right, But I'm understanding the concept, right yeah. And
Speaker 3: I'm just like, how do you How do you not
Speaker 3: try to game plan for the present without an eye
Speaker 3: towards the future. That should be done every stinking season,
Speaker 3: every draft, every free agency, every everything. You always draft
Speaker 3: for today with an eye toward tomorrow. Have to and
Speaker 3: if you don't do that, that's, to me, that's a
Speaker 3: fireable offense. Now, I want you to go a little
Speaker 3: bit further though, into the micro as long as we're
Speaker 3: going on that route today, because I think we can
Speaker 3: clearly see that guys are not where they need to be.
Speaker 3: There's not bodies where they need to be, which is
Speaker 3: a big problem defensively right now.
Speaker 2: And just fundamentals and level.
Speaker 3: And we already have gone through many, many, many many
Speaker 3: times this year about the inadequacies of some of the
Speaker 3: play calling on offense, largely due to the personnel, but
Speaker 3: nevertheless there hasn't been a whole lot of creativity. We're
Speaker 3: seeing more of it because you've got somebody like Drake
Speaker 3: who can actually wing it and be athletic and do things.
Speaker 3: But to me, I'll go back to the offense for
Speaker 3: a second, that was embarrassing. He has three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifteen to the three hundred and thirty total yards or
Speaker 3: whatever it was last week. Yeah, I mean, come on, guys,
Speaker 3: help a fell out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And look, I think it even starts to me
Speaker 2: it the coaching, And this is where I wanted to
Speaker 2: go next, because we're mentioning all these big picture things
Speaker 2: about the roster and the fact that they don't have
Speaker 2: the talent and I have to keep reminding myself of
Speaker 2: that and not rail on the coaching too hard because
Speaker 2: of that. But at the same time, I come out
Speaker 2: of this game, in particular on Sunday against the Titans,
Speaker 2: against a one win Titan team with their backup quarterback,
Speaker 2: like this is a very, very winnable game in Nashville
Speaker 2: on Sunday, and I come out of this game feeling
Speaker 2: like the coaching staff has not put these players in
Speaker 2: the best positions to win these games.
Speaker 3: I don't think they have either, And to me, that's
Speaker 3: that's what troubles me almost the most about this staff.
Speaker 3: Again looking at the micro point of view here is
Speaker 3: that we're in the business of winning games in the NFL. Right,
Speaker 3: I don't think has been put toward winning games.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I don't think that they're doing enough, you know. I.
Speaker 2: I'll just bring up my three critiques that I did
Speaker 2: the other day. The very first one starting Leyden Robinson
Speaker 2: at right guard, knowing that the matchup was Jeffrey Simmons
Speaker 2: there in the middle of the Titans defense, knowing that
Speaker 2: that was a mismatch and doing it anyway, and then
Speaker 2: giving the excuse after the game that we moved on
Speaker 2: when who back inside to match up against Jeffrey Simmons,
Speaker 2: who was always going to show up on Sunday. If
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this, but he was
Speaker 2: gonna come to the game and he was gonna suit
Speaker 2: up for the Titans, and he was gonna.
Speaker 3: Play probably gonna play well too.
Speaker 2: So there's always players on the other side. And we
Speaker 2: talk about this a lot on Catch twenty two during
Speaker 2: the offseason. Tuesday players. Tuesday players are the guys that
Speaker 2: the coaching staff comes into the game plan meeting in
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and says, we cannot let player X wreck
Speaker 2: this game. We cannot let player Y have one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yards and ten catches in three touchdowns. Right,
Speaker 2: we have to take away Jeffrey Simmons. We have to
Speaker 2: have a plan. What are how are we accounting for him?
Speaker 2: How who are we gonna who do we feel comfortable
Speaker 2: leaving at one on one? Who do we need to
Speaker 2: help to, How are we gonna slide to protection? How
Speaker 2: are we gonna double team him? How are we gonna
Speaker 2: take care of Jeffrey Simmons. They come into this game,
Speaker 2: they shake up the offensive line again for reasons I
Speaker 2: still don't know. And then Jeffrey Simmons has eight quarterback
Speaker 2: pressures and takes over the entire game and is single
Speaker 2: handedly responsible for multiple negative plays, including Drake May's first
Speaker 2: interception where he comes up through the middle and knocks
Speaker 2: him off his spot and causes the entire play to
Speaker 2: you know, kind of unravel from there. And we had
Speaker 2: no plan coming into the game for Jeffrey Simmons. Who's
Speaker 2: their best player on the roster, the offense, defense, special teams,
Speaker 2: that's their best player, you know. I I'll use another
Speaker 2: kind of cliche. Pregame. They always introduced the team, right
Speaker 2: the road team or the home team. Excuse me, when
Speaker 2: the Patriots are on the road, they do intros. You
Speaker 2: know who the best player on the team is because
Speaker 2: he goes last in the intros, just like when you
Speaker 2: go to a Celtics game, Jason Tatum is the last
Speaker 2: name that they call off the bench for the starting five.
Speaker 2: The last player that the Titans introduced was Jeffrey Simmons,
Speaker 2: and he comes running on the field. The crowd loves
Speaker 2: them right, and they're all into it. He cannot take
Speaker 2: over this game. He took over the game. Not even
Speaker 2: just took it over. He dominated the game, completely wrecked it.
Speaker 2: So that was number one. Number two is whatever their
Speaker 2: plan is before halftime, like their end of half. Situational
Speaker 2: football is horrendous. It's been horrendous all year long. The
Speaker 2: only time that they've actually done a good job with
Speaker 2: it is when Drake May threw a forty yard bomb
Speaker 2: to Kaishan Boudi against the tech, which, like I'll get
Speaker 2: to that, you know him in a second. Like that,
Speaker 2: that is not the coaching staff. That is a great
Speaker 2: young quarterback making a great play to a receiver making
Speaker 2: a great catch right like that. That's not any but
Speaker 2: no one deserves credit for that besides Drake May and
Speaker 2: Kishan Boudi. So that whole situation, you pick up two
Speaker 2: first downs or almost first downs with a you know,
Speaker 2: twenty four yards back to back or twenty three to
Speaker 2: Kendrick Bourne fourteen yards, nine yard completion, second and one
Speaker 2: run stuff, run, stuff, pun like that is just it's
Speaker 2: bad football. Call for what it is, it's bad football.
Speaker 2: So that's number two. Number three the fact that the
Speaker 2: head coach of the team did not know which way
Speaker 2: the wind was blowing to properly decide which way they
Speaker 2: wanted to kick the ball in overtime. And we can
Speaker 2: play the game all day long. This is just my opinion.
Speaker 2: I believe that if the wind is at Drake May's
Speaker 2: back when he rolls to his right and throws the
Speaker 2: deep post back left to Kaiseh on Boudi. It might
Speaker 2: be a walk off touchdown, but because he was throwing
Speaker 2: the ball into the wind, the ball hangs up. It
Speaker 2: gives a moni hooker a time to recover and he
Speaker 2: makes the interception.
Speaker 3: All right. Two of the things that we know, and
Speaker 3: I know this has been talked about by you guys
Speaker 3: this week, been talked about in the local media here
Speaker 3: this week. Number One, Drake's throw was a little off
Speaker 3: his back foot. Yep, okay, so he probably has a
Speaker 3: tendency to hang it up a little bit when you're
Speaker 3: throwing off your back foot and you're not driving into
Speaker 3: the throw. That's number one. Number two, we know that
Speaker 3: not Kaiseh on Boudi. It was Kendrick Bourn. Yeah, slipped
Speaker 3: and stumbled and failed to pull the safety over who
Speaker 3: ended up making the picks on that play. Because if
Speaker 3: he doesn't stumble on that route, the safety is still
Speaker 3: going to account for him. There's more of an opportunity
Speaker 3: for Booty to make a play on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's potentially true. I look when
Speaker 2: I wrote about it in my film review, I'm not
Speaker 2: in a moni hooker's head, So I can't tell you
Speaker 2: if the Kendrick Bourne felling falling down mattered or not.
Speaker 2: Could it have been a factor on the play? Absolutely,
Speaker 2: it could have been a factor. Is it getting a
Speaker 2: little bit over played to me on like the Twitter
Speaker 2: machine and stuff like that, and this was this big
Speaker 2: factor in the play. I would say yes to that
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, I'm somewhere in the middle on that one.
Speaker 2: But what I do know is that that throw is
Speaker 2: designed to go to the post right because they have
Speaker 2: three receivers kind of running from left to right to
Speaker 2: draw the safety. Like you were talking about, Drake's gonna
Speaker 2: roll out right and he's gonna throw back left. And
Speaker 2: over the years, you know, I was joking with Alex
Speaker 2: Barth about this over that has become the pro day
Speaker 2: throw is that I'm gonna roll all the way right,
Speaker 2: arms right, and I'm gonna whip it back left. And
Speaker 2: it started with Zach Wilson, who I know is not
Speaker 2: a great harrison, but it started with Zach Wilson. And
Speaker 2: now every single UH big time quarterback prospect coming out
Speaker 2: of the draft makes that exact throw at his pro day.
Speaker 2: And I watched down in North Carolina, you know, six
Speaker 2: months ago. Drake may make that exact throw at his
Speaker 2: pro day inside. So obviously no wind as a as
Speaker 2: a factor, and we all know that he's got a
Speaker 2: great arm. So I don't know if Kishon Boody would
Speaker 2: have made the catch. I don't know if you would
Speaker 2: have gotten tackled short of the goal line. I don't,
Speaker 2: you can't, you can't know. Uh, but it was a
Speaker 2: The wind was the biggest factor in my opinion. And
Speaker 2: that is a really really agreed unfortunate It's an agreed Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's egregious.
Speaker 3: Ara, It's gonna be more situational awareness and and I
Speaker 3: can even chalk that up a little bit of it.
Speaker 3: And I don't disagree with your points. I'm just saying
Speaker 3: I think we have to realize that we've gotten to
Speaker 3: the stage of the game now where there are certain
Speaker 3: quote unquote rookie mistakes that are gonna happen when you're
Speaker 3: learning your way through the sport for the first time
Speaker 3: as a head coach for the first time. But I
Speaker 3: would also tell you that after you know, situational occasions occur,
Speaker 3: and we've seen several of them. And I'm being kind
Speaker 3: by saying occasions. Yeah, somebody in that STAB's got to
Speaker 3: wake the hell up and say, hey, guys, what are
Speaker 3: we doing here? Right? Nobody's doing that. So it tells
Speaker 3: me one of two things. Either a nobody wants to
Speaker 3: do that, maybe they want to hang him out to dry,
Speaker 3: I don't know, or b they're just not smart enough
Speaker 3: to figure it out. Yeah, And I'm just like, that
Speaker 3: can't be. That can't be because I know these guys.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've told you I've known Alex van Pelt
Speaker 3: since he was in high school. I covered him when
Speaker 3: he was a high school quarterback. So I know he's
Speaker 3: extraordinarily capable. He's a smart guy. He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3: I think that there are decisions, my own opinion, there
Speaker 3: are decisions that are being made above his pay grade.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could absolutely be the case. I just I
Speaker 2: look at those three things in particular, and there's probably
Speaker 2: a million other things that I could rant about as
Speaker 2: well about how this game was coached and handled, But
Speaker 2: you look at those three particular things. The first half
Speaker 2: offense really struggled in this game because of the offensive
Speaker 2: line in the past protection. They actually had a handful
Speaker 2: of plays that had some open receivers down the field,
Speaker 2: had the protection held up that Drake May maybe would
Speaker 2: have made more plays in the first half. You look
Speaker 2: at the film and it's there. You know, there's plays
Speaker 2: down the field that could be made that he's not
Speaker 2: having the opportunity because they shook up the offensive line
Speaker 2: and they started Laydon Robinson. So if you come into
Speaker 2: this game with the same starting five that you had
Speaker 2: the week before that did pretty well against the Jets,
Speaker 2: you know, do you have a better start to the
Speaker 2: game in the first quarter. That's definitely possible. If you
Speaker 2: put your foot down on the gas pedal at the
Speaker 2: end half of the first half and you don't prioritize
Speaker 2: a yard over field position and you know the two
Speaker 2: minute drill, well, then maybe you score points there. You
Speaker 2: get the ball to start the second half, you score
Speaker 2: points there, and now we're in a different ballgame. If
Speaker 2: you have the win at Drake May's back and overtime,
Speaker 2: maybe we have a different ball game. And all these
Speaker 2: things that add up to the coaching staff making it
Speaker 2: harder on the players to win games, and they already
Speaker 2: have enough of an uphill battle.
Speaker 3: And that's extraordinarily troubling. I mean, I think we all
Speaker 3: knew it was going to be a trying season. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we all knew going in that, you know, it was
Speaker 3: probably there was a very good possibility for things to
Speaker 3: get worse before they get better. Right, All we're looking
Speaker 3: for is a little light at the end of the
Speaker 3: tunnel that's not that train coming at you one thousand
Speaker 3: miles an hour, you know, and ready to run you over.
Speaker 3: And it just seems like the Patriots in certain instances
Speaker 3: can't get out of their own way on this one.
Speaker 3: And whether or not it's you know, having a mentor
Speaker 3: to help Gerrod with some of these decisions, because if
Speaker 3: there is one, I don't know who it is. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen any example of it. Somebody that could, you know,
Speaker 3: mage the game and say, hey, yo, guys, what are
Speaker 3: we doing here? We're against the wind? We want the
Speaker 3: win in the extra period, or guys, we want to
Speaker 3: go for two here and try to knock these you know,
Speaker 3: sons of bleeps out now because we're on the road
Speaker 3: against a team that's playing better and Jeffrey Simmons is
Speaker 3: crushing us, you know, which, you know, that's a whole
Speaker 3: nother matter, right, we're talking about football decisions here. A
Speaker 3: number three, Why are we not trying. If this is
Speaker 3: a developmental season, why are we not trying to win games? Yeah,
Speaker 3: don't you develop things when you try to win games too.
Speaker 3: I don't understand what the difference is. Why don't we say, well,
Speaker 3: our priority is not winning games because they're trying to
Speaker 3: develop guys. I find that to be mule muffins. That's
Speaker 3: that's There's just this that doesn't make any sense. And
Speaker 3: it seems to me like that's almost the answer. That's
Speaker 3: the that's the between the lines read that we're getting
Speaker 3: every time we're looking for explanations. And I don't blame,
Speaker 3: you know, the New England media, the Boston media especially,
Speaker 3: I don't blame them for being as tough as they've
Speaker 3: been because we've seen twenty to twenty five years of
Speaker 3: championship football. I think we know what championship level football
Speaker 3: looks like around here more so than almost any other
Speaker 3: fan base in America right now, and so when we
Speaker 3: see things that don't look the way they are. I'm
Speaker 3: also wondering if there's not really a little bit of
Speaker 3: a conflict with Gerard because we know what a really
Speaker 3: good guy he has been. He was a great player
Speaker 3: when he was here, and he's coached and learned as
Speaker 3: well as be coached by one of the best to
Speaker 3: ever have coached this game. I don't see any signs
Speaker 3: of that in him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the two things with Gerard. The one thing is
Speaker 2: is that I just don't see a coaching staff or
Speaker 2: a head coach that has great control of the game situation.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a big game management kind of guy,
Speaker 2: but to me, it's a pass fail and you can't
Speaker 2: fail it, right, Like I don't necessarily need you to
Speaker 2: pass it with flying colors.
Speaker 3: Right, but as long as you don't commit an agregious
Speaker 3: air right well right, the problem is just they're making
Speaker 3: those errors, right, So there should be some kind of
Speaker 3: quote unquote you know qc E quality control guy in
Speaker 3: there helping their rookie head coach with these decisions. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, hey, don't forget draw, we score here, we
Speaker 3: go over one, we're going for two. What are we
Speaker 3: doing here?
Speaker 2: What's the control of the situation? And what's you know what,
Speaker 2: what's the plan?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 2: What's what's the method? In madness?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And the other thing I would just say with Girod
Speaker 2: and I've kind of been on this with him too,
Speaker 2: is like, what kind of coach does he want to be?
Speaker 2: Because I always put coaches in two buckets. One is
Speaker 2: the strategist, right the the Kyle Shanahan's. I think Bill
Speaker 2: started out as a strategist and then kind of ended
Speaker 2: up morphing into the greatest ever and it did different things. Uh,
Speaker 2: but you know the Kyle Shanahans of Sean mcvay's like
Speaker 2: the guys, uh that are are winning with x'es and
Speaker 2: o's that are winning with strategy, football scheme and strategy.
Speaker 2: Then there's the culture builders. There's the Pete Carroll's, there's
Speaker 2: the Mike Tomlins, there's the Dan Campbell's, like the raw
Speaker 2: ra guys, the personality hires, And I'm not that's not
Speaker 2: my cup of tea as a higher but I'm not
Speaker 2: knocking those guys because those guys get those their guys
Speaker 2: to play their butts off every single week and they
Speaker 2: are a cohesive unit and they are a team and
Speaker 2: they stand for something and they're tough and like all
Speaker 2: those types of things. And that's why Pittsburgh is a
Speaker 2: great example, Like they never stink. They never stink because
Speaker 2: Tomlin always has that group ready to go.
Speaker 3: So Mike Tomlin, but at consistent.
Speaker 2: Right, And so when I look at Gerrod, we're nine
Speaker 2: weeks in and I don't know which bucket he belongs
Speaker 2: in when it comes to the culture stuff. I don't
Speaker 2: think that they've had great culture on this team this year.
Speaker 2: I think there has been well documented a number of
Speaker 2: different things that have gone wrong in the culture category
Speaker 2: on and off the field. And so I don't think
Speaker 2: that they that they have great culture necessarily on the team.
Speaker 2: And I don't think that he is this wiz kid
Speaker 2: defensive mind either, because they certainly don't put that on
Speaker 2: film in terms of their defensive strategy or scheme or
Speaker 2: x's and o's whatever you want to call it. So
Speaker 2: what is he as a coach? And I think right
Speaker 2: now what we're learning is that he's learning like he
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily know which way he wants to coach and
Speaker 2: which way he wants to be and the team sort
Speaker 2: of looks likes to.
Speaker 3: Be a little oversight and a little guidance. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I made this, I made this come into so many
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago, and they said, you know, right,
Speaker 3: beyond to something Gerardmeo needs what Bill Belichick head and
Speaker 3: Ernie Adams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they have Evan Rostein on staff. Understood, who's
Speaker 2: supposed to be that? But where Yeah, I know it's
Speaker 2: a fair point, but Evan Rostein is supposed to be
Speaker 2: the in game let just call what it is analytics guy, right,
Speaker 2: So the decisions forked down two point conversions at the
Speaker 2: end of games like the other day, like those are
Speaker 2: all supposedly being made in concert with Evan Rostein and
Speaker 2: the math right in the and the win probabilities and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. For what it's worth, the
Speaker 2: win probability told him to kick the extra point if
Speaker 2: that's not your cup of tea. It's not your cup
Speaker 2: of tea. But the win probability told him to kick
Speaker 2: the extra point. The all the other the other Ernie
Speaker 2: stuff that you're talking about, I would assume is is
Speaker 2: Ben mcadoo's purview of you know, CONSIGLIERI, you know, the
Speaker 2: guy that you can uh sounding board that you can
Speaker 2: go into and discuss these things with. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: just consultant like that's supposed to be Ben McAdoo. I
Speaker 2: don't know how much of that. I don't know how
Speaker 2: much of that Ben mcadow is doing though, because a
Speaker 2: lot of what Ben McAdoo is doing is coaching the offense.
Speaker 2: He's helping out Alex Van pell.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's really, honestly, that's where Ben macadoo should be.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's right. I mean, it's his area of
Speaker 3: expert materia of expertise. So I mean, I don't mean
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to cast dispersions or throw stones at
Speaker 3: at Ben McAdoo or Evan Rosten anybody like that. I'm
Speaker 3: just saying that it's a parent help is required, and
Speaker 3: I don't think whoever is in the position to supply
Speaker 3: that help. If there is someone, and you're telling me
Speaker 3: there likely is, it's not resonating. Yeah, now does that
Speaker 3: mean you got to switch things up? Yeah, you kind
Speaker 3: of have to think about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough. It's I I feel the team, you know,
Speaker 2: often takes on the identity of their head coach. It's
Speaker 2: an old, you know, cliche, and right now it feels
Speaker 2: like Girod is still figuring out who he is and
Speaker 2: what his identity is as a coach and how he
Speaker 2: wants to run the team, and the team feels that way.
Speaker 2: It feels discombobulated, and it feels unsure of itself. And
Speaker 2: I don't think that that's a coincidence. I think he
Speaker 2: is unsure of Am I here for vibes? Am I
Speaker 2: here to run the defense? Am I?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Am I trusting the analytics? Or am I trusting my
Speaker 2: gut when it comes to these last second situations? You know,
Speaker 2: Dan Campbell and Drod brings up Dan Campbell a lot
Speaker 2: as a comparison Dan Campbell. For if you want to
Speaker 2: call it as a detriment, you can do that. But
Speaker 2: Dan Campbell got to Detroit with the philosophy that they
Speaker 2: were going to go forward on fourth down, They're going
Speaker 2: to go for two at the end of games, and
Speaker 2: they were going to be an aggressive decision making team.
Speaker 2: His first year in Detroit, they lost a bunch of games,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the reasons were because of that.
Speaker 2: The NFC Championship Game last year, you could argue was
Speaker 2: because of that. But they started early and often his
Speaker 2: very first year, and they built a reputation in the
Speaker 2: culture of this is what we're going to be about.
Speaker 2: And now they're one of the best teams in the NFL.
Speaker 2: So if you want to be about that, then be
Speaker 2: about it. You can't you know, kind of middle it,
Speaker 2: which is what I feel like they're doing right now.
Speaker 3: I also want to take this a little bit of
Speaker 3: different direction today as well, because while so much of
Speaker 3: the discussion has been about the offense and you know,
Speaker 3: and Drake and things, one of those lines when we
Speaker 3: were talking about defense and the fact that this team
Speaker 3: is sorely lacking up the middle and doesn't have the
Speaker 3: replaceable depth to be able to, you know, cure a
Speaker 3: lot of the eels that this team has right now?
Speaker 3: How much of this is his fair game on DeMarcus
Speaker 3: Covington and his game that seems to have you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes the players in the right spots not making place.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the players are not in the right spots and
Speaker 3: there's nobody there to make plays.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely fair.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Look, I I've I've pointed the finger at Covington at
Speaker 2: times for a couple of reasons. I'd say the number
Speaker 2: one thing to me is that third down and third
Speaker 2: down pressure is like, to me, like on the on
Speaker 2: the defensive coordinator, Like that's really where a defensive coordinator
Speaker 2: makes his money. Yes, from a strategic standpoint.
Speaker 3: On the quarterback getting off the field on the third right.
Speaker 2: You know, what is your scheme? What what are you
Speaker 2: taking away? What are you how are you dialing up pressure?
Speaker 2: You know, that's when you really get first and second
Speaker 2: down across the league is pretty it's all the same, right,
Speaker 2: Like everybody's kind of running the same sort of stuff
Speaker 2: on first and second down. Third down is really where
Speaker 2: you make your money. And right now the Patriots are
Speaker 2: bottom half of the league and third down their bottom
Speaker 2: half of the league in pressure rate. They're bottom half
Speaker 2: of the league in unblocked pressure rates. So they're not
Speaker 2: scheming up guys to get to them to the quarterback either.
Speaker 2: And and that to me is on the defensive coordinator.
Speaker 2: You know, just looking at third and five and overtime
Speaker 2: last week, and you run a scheme the press, the
Speaker 2: rush doesn't get home. You know, christianan Zalez is one
Speaker 2: on one with Calvin Ridley, A get a really good receiver.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's your number one corner and you hope for
Speaker 2: play there. But it was not exactly a awesome down
Speaker 2: of football. And you can't get off the field. You
Speaker 2: give up a field goal blouses, right Like, if you
Speaker 2: get off the field there on third and five and overtime,
Speaker 2: and now you don't you don't have you know, need
Speaker 2: the field goal or whatever. Who knows what happens in
Speaker 2: that sort of game. So, uh, it just those are
Speaker 2: the things I'd look at for Covington, and I do
Speaker 2: look a little bit at the fundamentals up front. You know,
Speaker 2: pad level technique, can usage like that sort of stuff
Speaker 2: is all part of run defense, you know, mentality, you know,
Speaker 2: all that is part of it.
Speaker 3: You know. And while I think we've seen some you know,
Speaker 3: let's let's just you know, kind of run the gamut
Speaker 3: here since we started on this one. This is meant
Speaker 3: to be you know, I intended this actually to be
Speaker 3: you know, the positives from Tennessee. It turns out that
Speaker 3: this is the way it goes here. But I think,
Speaker 3: well that largely we've seen some successes special teams wise, yep,
Speaker 3: I think we've seen that there's a there's a potential
Speaker 3: you know, all star player and special teams and Brendan
Speaker 3: Scouler out there. Maybe he can fulfill that that mental
Speaker 3: that you know, Slate played so well for so many years.
Speaker 3: Pro Bowl calendar, yeah, pro Bowl caliber guy, right, yep.
Speaker 3: There aren't many else out there, but at least he's there.
Speaker 3: Let me. Also, let's talk about you know, Jones returning punch.
Speaker 3: I mean, my goodness, now, Mark, Yeah, the guy is
Speaker 3: is he knows how to do it. He is giving
Speaker 3: his team a chance. There's two right there that I'd
Speaker 3: be ready to say, Okay, find me more like those guys.
Speaker 3: So there are some successes that are out there. But
Speaker 3: how now do you bleed that over to the rest
Speaker 3: of the team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Schooler has been fantastic. And I know that special
Speaker 2: teams some people are all their eyes at it. But
Speaker 2: I just I know, as an example, I've.
Speaker 3: Seen what a different special teams can make over the years.
Speaker 2: Sure, and it's it's sort of like to me and
Speaker 2: I think that you're odd too. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: an identity thing of your football team. Like eight teams
Speaker 2: that cover kicks and cover them well are like tough,
Speaker 2: hard noteses football team.
Speaker 3: And he's right about that. Yeah, that that's an attitude thing, okay,
Speaker 3: And maybe that could be the way that you could
Speaker 3: go about, you know, setting your your your your identification,
Speaker 3: you know the type of team that you are, you know,
Speaker 3: But I just don't see them following up enough on it.
Speaker 3: And I'm just like, why does that there's not a
Speaker 3: trickle down here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's almost like everybody is their own separate, complete department. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: time for women's lingerie out on the fields. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm just like, what are we doing here? There's no continuity? Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I'm just like that that belongs to the coach. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So one of my favorite plays in this game that
Speaker 2: obviously gets washed away because they lost the game. To
Speaker 2: start overtime, they short. They kicked the short kickoff to
Speaker 2: force the Titans to return the kickoff out of the
Speaker 2: end zone, and Brennan's schooler at over twenty miles an hour,
Speaker 2: comes flying in and clocks the returner at the twenty
Speaker 2: yard line, just thud sticks them right at the.
Speaker 3: Twenty yard line.
Speaker 2: And I said to myself at the time, I was like,
Speaker 2: holy crap, is that like he was like a freaking
Speaker 2: zero to sixty on that phot Yeah, and you saw it.
Speaker 2: You saw the energy that you're talking about, and then
Speaker 2: it just doesn't carry over into the defense drive. But
Speaker 2: that to me was like, we have an opportunity here
Speaker 2: to steal some yards. And they actually fumbled a punt
Speaker 2: earlier in the game, so maybe they were thinking we
Speaker 2: actually have an opportunity to turn them over. So we're
Speaker 2: gonna put Schooler right on on where we're gonna drop
Speaker 2: the ball. Then Joey Slide is gonna kick the ball
Speaker 2: right into Schoolers, you know vision, and he's just gonna
Speaker 2: take off and he's gonna make the stick. And that
Speaker 2: was a great play. And I would also just say
Speaker 2: underrated play in this game Marcus Jones's twenty five yard
Speaker 2: return that set them up at the fifty yard line
Speaker 2: on the game tying drive at the end of the game.
Speaker 2: If he doesn't return that to the fifties.
Speaker 3: Probably, Yeah, you gotta have the shorter field for the
Speaker 3: offense that struggles to get yards.
Speaker 2: So that I thought it was a nice compliment. Complimentary football.
Speaker 3: That's complimentary football. You always heard that term, yep, whether
Speaker 3: it was Bill or anybody else, you always heard the
Speaker 3: term complimentary football as the way you develop winning teams. Well,
Speaker 3: they played it a little bit there. That's what complimentary
Speaker 3: football is, and that's really getting at the heart of
Speaker 3: what it is that I feel like is the biggest
Speaker 3: problem with this team. There's no complimentary anything out there.
Speaker 3: One squad is not helping the other, and the defense
Speaker 3: certainly didn't help things this last week because it couldn't
Speaker 3: get off the flip and field.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I And I just wanted to You said
Speaker 2: something earlier about Drake may that that I liked, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to follow up on. You mentioned, you know,
Speaker 2: his compete in his energy, uh, and the plays that
Speaker 2: he's making. And I talked to Devon Gotcha after the game,
Speaker 2: and that's when he gave me the quote that he's
Speaker 2: Josh Allen, which.
Speaker 3: And I'm stealing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I listened to Godshad and not to put
Speaker 2: words in his mouth, but he was basically saying, we
Speaker 2: have a franchise quarterback here. I'm straight and I hear
Speaker 2: him say that, and I'll I again not to put
Speaker 2: words in his mouth, but but I wonder if he's
Speaker 2: sort of trying to tell the rest of the locker
Speaker 2: room like, hey, guys, let's go yeah, like this kid
Speaker 2: can play. Yeah, you know, let's not mess around with
Speaker 2: this and let's get behind. And I said this, you know,
Speaker 2: a month ago or whatever when they they put him
Speaker 2: in there, and you know, when they first made the
Speaker 2: move to start him, and it's not fair to ask
Speaker 2: a twenty two year old to carry a football team
Speaker 2: and to be this leader. But look, if I was
Speaker 2: playing on this team and I saw what we had,
Speaker 2: I'd be getting in line right like I'd be right
Speaker 2: behind him. And I just I do hope that some
Speaker 2: of that starts to happen. So when we talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, what do we expect for the end of
Speaker 2: the year and the rest of the season, that's what
Speaker 2: I expect. I expect Drake may to start to rally
Speaker 2: the troops a little bit. And you have guys all
Speaker 2: of a sudden that are saying, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do a little bit extra, and I'm gonna do a
Speaker 2: little bit more during the week, and you know, I'm
Speaker 2: going to run that route a little bit harder on
Speaker 2: Sunday because Drake's gonna get me the ball if I'm open.
Speaker 2: You know that those sort of things, because it just
Speaker 2: blows my mind, you know, as somebody that played sports
Speaker 2: not well and as you know, I know you played
Speaker 2: sports as well, maybe not well too, but it blows
Speaker 2: my mind when you have a me too, that was
Speaker 2: the one thing I was good at. It blows my
Speaker 2: mind that you have a guy that talented in that gifted, Like,
Speaker 2: in my head, that's an automatic, like this is our
Speaker 2: leader and this is the guy that you know, I
Speaker 2: can play for this guy. So I'm hoping that we
Speaker 2: we started to see some of that because Drake is
Speaker 2: playing great football for the most part, like lights out stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely lights out stuff, all right, So I want
Speaker 3: to I'm gonna try to spin this forward just a
Speaker 3: little bit more because I mean, we can sit here
Speaker 3: and we can surmise about all the bad stuff that's
Speaker 3: going on, uh at nauseam. And we still got seven
Speaker 3: weeks left to go in the regular season, so there's
Speaker 3: I mean, bad can get worse. At the same time,
Speaker 3: the opportunity that presents itself this week against the Chicago
Speaker 3: Bears team that fell flat on its face, yeah, collective
Speaker 3: face last week and an inexplicable loss to Arizona they
Speaker 3: only scored nine points. It's a unique opportunity to see
Speaker 3: two of the top three draft picks from last year
Speaker 3: go at each other, even though they won't play against
Speaker 3: each other. But Caleb Williams Drake May one versus three
Speaker 3: and you know, and I was kind of curious to
Speaker 3: know when when Drake spoke earlier today that he recognizes that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And so it's kind of like, yeah, I want to
Speaker 3: be able to show everybody what I can do. So
Speaker 3: it looks to me like he's going to be sufficiently
Speaker 3: motivated to guad and play this and again, like last
Speaker 3: week in Tennessee, this is a unique opportunity for the
Speaker 3: Patriots to actually, you know what, damn, let's show something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Look, I think a lot of the
Speaker 2: things that we're saying on the positive side about Drake
Speaker 2: to be honest, that a lot of people in Chicago
Speaker 2: are worried about what's going on with Caleb Williams. That
Speaker 2: offense has a really really underperformed this year with Caleb.
Speaker 2: You know, they go out they make the DJ More
Speaker 2: trade a couple of years ago with the Bryce Young
Speaker 2: you know, first overall pick swap and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff and mores in that trade. They go out
Speaker 2: and trade for Keenan Allen. They draft Roma Dunza in
Speaker 2: the first round with their original first round pick. You know,
Speaker 2: they make all these moves to really load up this
Speaker 2: roster around Caleb Williams signed DeAndre Swift and free agency.
Speaker 2: Cole Kmett is a pretty good tight end. He's already there.
Speaker 2: So they have like kind of five guys around Caleb
Speaker 2: that are all capable NFL players, much better supporting cast
Speaker 2: than what Drake May walks out there with every single Sunday,
Speaker 2: and they're twenty seventh in DVOA. Caleb is twenty seventh
Speaker 2: in QBR right now. Caleb Williams' is QBR is the
Speaker 2: same as Jacoby Bursetts was wow with the Patriots, So
Speaker 2: they are not performing very well on offense relative to expectations.
Speaker 2: His deep ball, Caleb's deep ball has really been terrible.
Speaker 2: He's one of the worst statistically, one of the worst
Speaker 2: deep ball throwers in the NFL this season, which is
Speaker 2: not what he was advertised as. He was advertised as
Speaker 2: a bombs away, big play machine coming out of US Seed,
Speaker 2: and that's certainly what he was in college. So Shane
Speaker 2: Walder and their offensive coordinators taking some heat, Caleb's taking
Speaker 2: some heat. So they right now are in an interesting spot.
Speaker 2: Like their records, not as bad as the Patriots. Obviously
Speaker 2: they're favored in this game on Sunday, but I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say that it's been gangbusters there in Chicago. Offensively, certainly
Speaker 2: now defensively, really good test I think for Drake May
Speaker 2: against a really really good Bears pass defense, one of
Speaker 2: the better pass defenses in the league, and they're very,
Speaker 2: very vulnerable or leaky against the run. So if the
Speaker 2: Patriots can actually get the run game going, it's probably
Speaker 2: gonna be this week. But against the pass, they've been
Speaker 2: pretty stingy in Chicago in that respect, so it'll be
Speaker 2: a nice little test for him against a pretty good defense.
Speaker 3: Andrew Billings out, Jakwan Brisker out according to the latest
Speaker 3: Chicago reports as well, So it's gonna be an opportunity there.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, a couple guys that will be out.
Speaker 2: I don't know about Montes's sweats status. He was didn't
Speaker 2: play in the game last week, so we'll see. He's
Speaker 2: their best pass rusher on the edge, so if he
Speaker 2: doesn't play, that's obviously big. But statistically they've been very
Speaker 2: very good against the pass this year in Chicago when
Speaker 2: they rush the passer extremely well to you know, top
Speaker 2: ten pressure raid win rate, you know all those fancy
Speaker 2: metrics that measure pass rush. So they're a good defense. Now,
Speaker 2: where they're vulnerable is where the Patriots have struggled, and
Speaker 2: that's running the football. You can run on them. The
Speaker 2: Cardinals ran for two hundred and thirteen yards last week
Speaker 2: and only six of them came from Kyler Murray. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't like Kyler just running around and you know
Speaker 2: we saw from Drake. Yeah, like we've sign from Drake.
Speaker 2: This is that was conventional traditional run game. We're gonna
Speaker 2: come right at you with James Connor and we're.
Speaker 3: Gonna run Andre Stevenson, I'm like licking my chops if
Speaker 3: you can get the run block and get the run
Speaker 3: blocking right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they are a team that's vulnerable there. They
Speaker 2: struggle against downhill concepts, you know, pull a guard through
Speaker 2: and get downhill on them. They've struggled to get at
Speaker 2: fifty three yard touchdown on the ground last week to Arizona,
Speaker 2: and Connor was was really good in the game, averaged
Speaker 2: over five yards carry. So they have a vulnerability there.
Speaker 3: What do your thought some Matt Eberflus what I mean, clearly,
Speaker 3: he's been up and down almost like a you know,
Speaker 3: like a roller coaster internm of his career. The one
Speaker 3: thing I noticed after last week's loss is that they're
Speaker 3: just three and eighteen on the road. Yeah, so he's
Speaker 3: completely it's a completely different team home versus road. So
Speaker 3: this is to their advantage by playing at home this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one. I didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they with eber Flus. I think there's some of the
Speaker 2: things that are being said about him are similar in
Speaker 2: some respects that you're odd and that you know he's
Speaker 2: a good defensive mind, but they don't know if he's
Speaker 2: a good head coach right in terms of game management
Speaker 2: and game plan and uh, you know, situational football and
Speaker 2: like all this kind of stuff. Like when you're the
Speaker 2: head coach of the team and you give up a
Speaker 2: hail mary on the last play of the game to
Speaker 2: lose the game. As much as you can blame Tyree Stevenson,
Speaker 2: like that comes down to coaching and knowing the situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, Stevenson's taunting before well the game was going
Speaker 3: on all the snaps. Yeah, that's I mean to me,
Speaker 3: that's just karma playing off right there. Yeah you know, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but that's that's an egregious error in oversight from the
Speaker 3: coaching staff to not have that be prepared for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and not to mention, you know, the play before
Speaker 2: the hall mary. They set up like it's gonna be
Speaker 2: a hail mary before the hell Mary, and they give
Speaker 2: up like a free ten yards, you know, so that
Speaker 2: they didn't get a little closer so that Daniels can
Speaker 2: make the throw at the end of the game. So
Speaker 2: their situational football, their game plan, like all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff has sort of come into question with them.
Speaker 2: But defensively, I do think he runs a pretty sound
Speaker 2: unit on that side of the ball, and he is
Speaker 2: the primary guy running that defense. But like I said,
Speaker 2: you know, Walder and their offensive coordinator has been catching
Speaker 2: some heat for the things that they're doing offensively.
Speaker 3: Then I guess the last one on the Bears that
Speaker 3: whatever you hear, is in Caleb Williams. Do they have
Speaker 3: their guy?
Speaker 2: I'm a Caleb fan, you know. Look, I full disclosure.
Speaker 2: I had him as the consensus number one overall pick,
Speaker 2: like everybody else did, right, So I really felt like
Speaker 2: going into the draft it was Caleb one to one,
Speaker 2: no questions asked, and then I could be swayed.
Speaker 3: What does he do that Daniels does not?
Speaker 2: I would say that, you know, in college Caleb was
Speaker 2: a more capable field reader and passer than Jayden Daniels was.
Speaker 2: But I would, you know, in a stronger arm, certainly
Speaker 2: stronger off platform things of that nature as well. But
Speaker 2: what Caleb has struggled with, in my opinion just watching
Speaker 2: his film from the last couple of weeks, it is
Speaker 2: really like timing and anticipation within this framework of the scheme.
Speaker 2: So you see him like late to things or holding
Speaker 2: the ball, and you know, a lot of the time
Speaker 2: when you're late to throws like that is actually what's
Speaker 2: to blame for the poor accuracy and not actually control
Speaker 2: of the football, Like I actually think he throws with
Speaker 2: pretty good control of the football and ball placement when
Speaker 2: he's on time. But when you're a beat late to
Speaker 2: a crossing route or you're a bit behind a deep
Speaker 2: ball or something like that, that's when you start to
Speaker 2: see the balls behind the receiver of the ball is
Speaker 2: under throw and the ball, you know, so on and
Speaker 2: so forth. So sometimes what we look at is saying, oh,
Speaker 2: he just missed the throw is actually more based off
Speaker 2: of like the timing and the anticipation of the play.
Speaker 2: And you know where Waldron's come into this, as you know,
Speaker 2: some of his route combinations are a little bit conflicting
Speaker 2: for the quarterback of like where am I supposed to
Speaker 2: go with the football here? I actually watch their offense
Speaker 2: and see a lot of similar issues as what the
Speaker 2: Patriots offense has. And they're both West coast you know systems,
Speaker 2: they're both West Coast guys, and they have a lot
Speaker 2: of the same sort of rudimentary route concepts and like
Speaker 2: not a whole great spacing and like timing and rhythm
Speaker 2: within the passing game and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So I think that Caleb's really talented. There's certain things
Speaker 2: that he does really well. I think that he is
Speaker 2: amazing off script. You know, you get him in playground
Speaker 2: mode and you get him running around, his arm is
Speaker 2: as loose as a un armed as you're gonna find
Speaker 2: on the move. But in structure, he's got some work
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 3: Okay, And he then thoughts overall about the real opportunities
Speaker 3: for this week and whether or not the Patriots havorship.
Speaker 3: What's the spread? I haven't even seen it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Bears are favored by six right now.
Speaker 3: Six?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah at home. Uh, you know, they're they're five hundred.
Speaker 2: They're a better football team. They certainly have more talent
Speaker 2: on their on their roster.
Speaker 3: This far away from being that kind of team themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're two and seven. It doesn't take much stretch of
Speaker 3: the imagination put this team at four and five. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, I I think there's there's a chance that this
Speaker 2: game is is close on Sunday.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: The main reason why I would say that is because
Speaker 2: I just believe a lot in what Drake May is
Speaker 2: doing and what he's putting out there. And I thought
Speaker 2: he said all the right things today about needing to
Speaker 2: walk the tightrope a little bit better of aggressiveness versus
Speaker 2: taking care of the football and knowing when the play
Speaker 2: is over or knowing when sometimes the best thing to
Speaker 2: do might be to just throw it away instead of
Speaker 2: try to force something sure, uh, and or something along
Speaker 2: those lines. And I think, you know, two of the
Speaker 2: two interceptions on Sunday, he felt like he forced it,
Speaker 2: Like he could have just thrown it away or checked
Speaker 2: it down or you know whatever and live to play
Speaker 2: another day and that sort of thing. And he tried
Speaker 2: to force it down the field. And that's where you
Speaker 2: can get yourself into trouble. So I do with the
Speaker 2: good thing about the the the things he's doing wrong
Speaker 2: is that I feel like every time I do feel
Speaker 2: him learning from it. And and that's all you can
Speaker 2: really ask for. But Chicago, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Like you look at their offensive roster and you say.
Speaker 3: Well, who's blowing you away?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, DJ Moore, Dunsay, Keenan Allen, Like,
Speaker 2: how many of these receivers would you take on the
Speaker 2: Patriots right now? You're right, so you have to say
Speaker 2: they have more talent you have to on paper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but again they're sort of underachieving a little bit
Speaker 3: there as.
Speaker 2: Well offensively for sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and we'll see
Speaker 2: what happens. You know, I know a lot of Chicago
Speaker 2: fans are already getting justin Field's flashbacks like Okay, you
Speaker 2: know you can see how talent like his raw talent
Speaker 2: and you can see all that, but it's not it's
Speaker 2: not translating right now to production.
Speaker 3: And that's translating football. Yeah right right, yeah, thanks man, anytime,
Speaker 3: appreciate you. Thank you all right for me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will ask him how the Rick Springfield concert was. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's where he was.
Speaker 3: He was at Rick Springfield.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's Jesse's girl, right right, Yeah, I don't know, ye.
Speaker 3: Do we have any Rick Springfield to bring Mike Greesese
Speaker 3: into the show in a little bit.
Speaker 2: We don't have the rights to that.
Speaker 3: Well, that's right, do not have the rights to Yeah,
Speaker 3: we don't have rights I know, doesn't I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: this is the Internet. Come on right, I know, see
Speaker 3: you next week. Yeah, thanks buddy, appreciate you. Hey, bud Light,
Speaker 3: easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Bud Light the official
Speaker 3: beer sponsor of the New England Patriots. So we thank
Speaker 3: Evan for his insight on the Bears and on the Patriots.
Speaker 3: And look, I mean I think it's pretty easy to see. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we got to take you know, small victories
Speaker 3: when we can get them. That. This is a huge
Speaker 3: wip work in progress, maybe a little bit bigger than
Speaker 3: a lot of us, including myself anticipated. There are multiple
Speaker 3: issues in play here, and I think it's going to take.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to take a lot of patients,
Speaker 3: a lot of patients, more than maybe I was even
Speaker 3: initially ready to invest as a fan and as a follower,
Speaker 3: and is someone who works around here, you know, you
Speaker 3: want it to happen. Now, let's go, we know what
Speaker 3: to do. Let's go do it. You know the old
Speaker 3: adage rome wasn't built in today. I think that's appropriate here.
Speaker 3: I think that's appropriate here, all right, Mike Grease is
Speaker 3: going to join us here in a couple of minutes
Speaker 3: in the meantime eight five five pats five hundred, toll
Speaker 3: free eight five five pats five hundred on the TPX hotline.
Speaker 3: It is podcasts at Patriots dot com if you want
Speaker 3: to send the email you got some thought, maybe some
Speaker 3: questions over some of the things that Evan and I
Speaker 3: talked about, or something coming up this weekend or beyond
Speaker 3: fire away at JR Broadcaster. That's how you can follow
Speaker 3: me on X. I want to thank Todd in North
Speaker 3: Carolina for sticking around as long as he did during
Speaker 3: that conversation. Hey Todd, how's it going bad?
Speaker 7: You're sure I was there though. That was kind of
Speaker 7: a gamble, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: It was? It was, And if I'd gotten beat beat beat,
Speaker 3: you know, then I would have you crushed you. That's all.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, I'm gonna ask a favor, John, shoot
Speaker 7: one old part to another. Okay, stop saying that the
Speaker 7: business of the team is to win games.
Speaker 3: But it is the business of every team the professional
Speaker 3: sports is to win games.
Speaker 7: The team that's the business of the sport is to
Speaker 7: build the team, and the team includes the coaches.
Speaker 3: On the way, on the way to on the way
Speaker 3: to winning. Yeah, you got to build the team on
Speaker 3: the way. But the bottom line is still winning.
Speaker 7: Behind the card, dude, the turn ain't gonna go get
Speaker 7: the donkey back there.
Speaker 3: You got to have the horse to pull the cart.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 8: You.
Speaker 3: You got to have people in order to be able
Speaker 3: to win. They don't have the people.
Speaker 7: They haven't even built the cart yet, John flew down.
Speaker 7: I'm glad you.
Speaker 3: Said the cart. The cart is in place. The cart
Speaker 3: is in place, Todd, The cart is in place. Okay,
Speaker 3: it has been in place. The cart is the franchise.
Speaker 3: The cart is the team. Right now, there's there's no driver.
Speaker 3: There's no there's no driver on the cart, and the
Speaker 3: horse is lame.
Speaker 7: Well, no, the horse right now, i'd actually have to say,
Speaker 7: is our young quarterback. But he ain't got nothing.
Speaker 3: Well that's true, that's true. But he doesn't have anybody
Speaker 3: to run with him. He doesn't have anybody to spell him.
Speaker 7: He's got nobody to run with him, and he's got
Speaker 7: nobody to, you know, to keep his back end safe either.
Speaker 7: Because there's no driver for this thing other than you
Speaker 7: know what he's got going.
Speaker 3: So that's that's where we'll agree.
Speaker 7: You say, I just feel that sometimes, John, you get
Speaker 7: caught up because you're not a you're not a Massachusetts guy.
Speaker 7: You're not a big mass guy. You're a you're a Texan.
Speaker 7: What a god man? You had?
Speaker 3: What? Wait?
Speaker 7: Wait?
Speaker 3: Wait o, hold on, hold on, hold on, I am
Speaker 3: a wait hold on, Todd. No, no, no, I'm not letting
Speaker 3: that go. All right. First of all, First of all,
Speaker 3: hold on, hold on. I am a card carrying Masshole.
Speaker 3: Okay number one, John, Yes, absolutely, one hundred ten percent.
Speaker 3: I'm proud of my state. I've been here well over
Speaker 3: half of my life. I may have been born someplace else,
Speaker 3: but I understand what it takes to you know, work
Speaker 3: when compete in New England. That's one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why I moved to New England as a very young man,
Speaker 3: because I wanted to be in a marketplace like this,
Speaker 3: where things like this matter history here with the Red
Speaker 3: Sox and the Celtics and the Bruins, and the mindset,
Speaker 3: you know, the lunch pale work set, you know, the
Speaker 3: that that's what I wanted out of life.
Speaker 7: We remember the Celtics with you know Bird, all those
Speaker 7: old guys.
Speaker 3: Those are some of my favorite teams. And I hated
Speaker 3: the Celtics growing up. And you know why I hated
Speaker 3: him because they won all the time. That's why. And
Speaker 3: that's the only reason I could ever come up with.
Speaker 3: I wanted to live, work, and play in that environment.
Speaker 3: So I feel like I made the right choice in
Speaker 3: that regard. And I love Texas dearly. That's where I
Speaker 3: was born and raised. My entire family is still there.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not a big fan of the Cowboys
Speaker 3: anymore because I'm just not a Jerry Jones fan. But hey,
Speaker 3: that's yeah, I listened there. I get it. But you know,
Speaker 3: anybody who's listened to the show for any linked to time,
Speaker 3: you know, I went to the University of Texas, so
Speaker 3: you cut me. I probably still bleed orange, right, And.
Speaker 7: We all know what happens once a year. There's a
Speaker 7: specific game, you know, the red River gets on, and
Speaker 7: there's there's the there's we know what John's up to.
Speaker 3: That's all I can say. Okay, it's it, you know,
Speaker 3: hook of Horns, that's it. That's all I got, you know.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I believe it was thirty four
Speaker 3: to three. Sorry to bring that up in the Strippers,
Speaker 3: but it was thirty four to three this year, so
Speaker 3: you know, but that's okay, that's fine. But still, you know,
Speaker 3: I've been around long enough and I've worked for this
Speaker 3: team now, in this organization for more than half of
Speaker 3: its existence.
Speaker 7: So I just put you on the spot, John, go
Speaker 7: if this is how you want to be and you're
Speaker 7: the card carrying you know, massoll, et cetera.
Speaker 6: Here you go.
Speaker 7: I've given you right.
Speaker 6: Now a choice.
Speaker 7: Are you keeping Male, AVP and Wolf are not ye
Speaker 7: or any combination?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 7: Are you keeping any of them?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 7: Some of them?
Speaker 3: Yep. I'm keeping them because I just I feel it's
Speaker 3: unfair to give somebody a year to turn things around.
Speaker 3: That's just unfair. Okay, So I'm keeping them, yes, but
Speaker 3: I need to see significant improvement. And if I don't
Speaker 3: see it this.
Speaker 7: Time right to be ich type stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, I'm just saying. And if we don't see
Speaker 3: significant improvement, then yeah, then listen, all bets are off
Speaker 3: this time of year from now, so I'm willing to
Speaker 3: write it one more time. But this has to be
Speaker 3: a team thing, you know, Elliott and and and the
Speaker 3: entire crew. They've got to bring talent in. They've got
Speaker 3: the cap space.
Speaker 7: A VP worked with Mayo in any form or shape previously.
Speaker 3: To my knowledge, No, No, And like I said, I've
Speaker 3: known Alex for a long time too, so yeah, and
Speaker 3: and you know, I know what he's capable of, and
Speaker 3: I was thrilled when he came here, you know, And
Speaker 3: I just I just I just think that there, it's
Speaker 3: almost like you've got a bottle cap on something that's
Speaker 3: ready to go. And that's kind of how I picture this.
Speaker 3: He needs, he needs weaponry, and it's it's up to
Speaker 3: the player personnel people to get them here and then
Speaker 3: we might actually see this thing take off. And that's
Speaker 3: kind of what I'm That's how I'm looking at it.
Speaker 7: How much time is it going to take to recover
Speaker 7: from what they used to do, because I think AVP
Speaker 7: scheme is a little different than what they used to
Speaker 7: do here with McDaniels, And I don't think they have
Speaker 7: all the right people, you know, on the old line
Speaker 7: to do it.
Speaker 3: They you know, they don't.
Speaker 7: I think they're missing a few key pieces, right.
Speaker 6: I think there's.
Speaker 7: Somewhere in a kind of a zone between the two places,
Speaker 7: and that's kind of where they play. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 7: why it looks kind of awful at times. It looks
Speaker 7: just as you said, I think you discombobulated or something.
Speaker 3: Yes, discombobulated that too. Yeah, right, doesn't look right, No,
Speaker 3: it doesn't. It doesn't. And that's why they've been mixing
Speaker 3: and matching, like you know, pieces in a puzzle, you know,
Speaker 3: and they just never they you know, they can't find
Speaker 3: here's a good analogy. They don't have the corner piece
Speaker 3: to this puzzle right now. They can't find it. It
Speaker 3: doesn't exist. No, okay, I agree, And the corner piece
Speaker 3: that puzzle is definitely at left tackle. That's that's all
Speaker 3: there is to it. And so it's got to start there.
Speaker 3: And so here's what I heard, John, I heard somebody
Speaker 3: earlier this week say, Okay, well, you know, if they
Speaker 3: end up with the first pick, which right now they would,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that they end up with that. But
Speaker 3: if they end up with the first pick, you know
Speaker 3: they ought to just trade that off and go get
Speaker 3: a boatload of other picks. Well why no, why go
Speaker 3: get the best guy that can help you win football games?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I agree, wholeheartedly with that.
Speaker 7: So let's see what they do. Right, So I'm with you,
Speaker 7: not no, John, I'm gonna let you go. My kids
Speaker 7: running out of school waving at me frantically, and he's
Speaker 7: probably wondering what dad's doing on the Phone's God, I
Speaker 7: bet you miss both days, don't you? John?
Speaker 3: Always always trust me. They will go by fast.
Speaker 7: They are, they have been.
Speaker 3: You'd be good Todd? Now, Yeah, thank you? Enjoy it,
Speaker 3: Todd in North Carolina. All right, let's bring in the
Speaker 3: one and only Mike Reese, ESPN dot Com, ESPN NFL
Speaker 3: Nation reporter and apparently lover of all things Rick Springfield.
Speaker 9: John, I also have to say to Todd in North Carolina,
Speaker 9: I'm gonna be running around after this interview doing a
Speaker 9: little carpool, get my kids where they need to go.
Speaker 3: Yes, together, good dad, you are good Dad? You are?
Speaker 3: I like that. See, I've I've graduated from that stage though.
Speaker 3: I just married off my youngest about two weeks ago,
Speaker 3: so I'm now granddad stage, except my grandkids. My grandkids
Speaker 3: call they call me pop pop. So there we go.
Speaker 6: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 6: Do you miss it? John? Uh?
Speaker 3: I miss I missed some of the hockey practices I do. Uh,
Speaker 3: I missed coaching baseball, which I coach for twenty years.
Speaker 3: I do so, but I try to see, you know,
Speaker 3: my grandkids as much as I can. They have their
Speaker 3: own lives, you know, and uh and I respect that.
Speaker 3: And you know, their father's a busy you know, entrepreneur
Speaker 3: as well. He you know, has his own business and
Speaker 3: so it's it's tough. But at the same time, I'm
Speaker 3: always here if they need me, and I'd love to
Speaker 3: have that, that fallback measure when they need me, and
Speaker 3: I'm I'm happy for that. So I was ready to
Speaker 3: move into a different stage where I don't have to
Speaker 3: be dad anymore. I can be friend and I can
Speaker 3: be pop pop and that's kind of where I like.
Speaker 3: And you'll enjoy that that time too. But while you
Speaker 3: can brother enjoy the time with the kids, definitely definitely
Speaker 3: do so. Springfield, come on, I need to know the
Speaker 3: details about this. You know, I didn't realize you were
Speaker 3: such a fan, because to me, Rick Springfield is the
Speaker 3: epitome of the late seventies and early eighties rock and roll.
Speaker 3: Loved him. My wife actually Ms Robin, she she loved
Speaker 3: Rick Springfield as an actor on General Hospital. Do you
Speaker 3: go that far back?
Speaker 9: I do, John, And I'm gonna text you a short video.
Speaker 9: I stepped from a show I went to see Friday
Speaker 9: Night in when Pocket, Rhode Island at this Stadium Theater.
Speaker 9: So I liked him, John. I like live music where
Speaker 9: everyone is happy and yeah, you're in. It's one of
Speaker 9: the few environments to me in the world where we
Speaker 9: can all come together and everyone can put their differences
Speaker 9: of died and for two hours we can simply have
Speaker 9: joy together.
Speaker 3: That's one hundred percent. I'm with you on that one.
Speaker 3: Uh Miss Robin and I just went to a concert
Speaker 3: like that a little over a month ago. We went
Speaker 3: to see uh Elo at the TD Garden and Uh
Speaker 3: it was. It was freaking awesome. It was awesome concert.
Speaker 9: I heard really good things about that show.
Speaker 3: John jeff Lynn still got it. He still got it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I'm all too sorry that this is their farewell
Speaker 3: tour because I think the man could play and and
Speaker 3: but I don't blame him. He wants to retire. Let's
Speaker 3: let the man retire, right, But I just I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 3: he totally and completely reformed that band, reformed his orchestra,
Speaker 3: and they sound just like they did in the seventies,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, wow, I felt like I stepped back
Speaker 3: into a time warp. And and so that's why I
Speaker 3: was interested when uh, you know, Evan mentioned, Hey, ask
Speaker 3: ask Mike about you know, Rick Springfield, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that you were such a big fan
Speaker 3: of you know, that that era rock and roll, because
Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan of seventies and eighties. Miss Robin
Speaker 3: knows the lyrics to every song ever performed in the
Speaker 3: rock genre in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 6: Amazing. I listen, I get sent the video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she blows me away every time we turn on
Speaker 3: you know, seventies on seven on Serious Exam and she's
Speaker 3: singing along with the Little Rex and I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't even remember this song. I don't even remember it,
Speaker 3: and she's singing it and I'm just like, I don't
Speaker 3: get it. And here's the kicker. Wait second, Mike, here's
Speaker 3: the kicker. Miss Robin is well younger than I am. Okay,
Speaker 3: she wasn't. I'm not going to give her birthday. I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna say she's younger, okay. And so nineteen seventies
Speaker 3: were my teenage years, right, and yeah, I was twenty
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy nine, so that gives you a bit
Speaker 3: of an idea how old I am now. But I'm
Speaker 3: just saying she's well younger. What is that?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 3: Oh, did you text me on my phone? Okay, here
Speaker 3: it is. I'm looking at it right now. Oh, this
Speaker 3: is awesome. Look at this, John.
Speaker 9: As John's looking at it, I'll just teake over it
Speaker 9: so you can enjoy it.
Speaker 3: This is great. You had great seats, great seats, like,
Speaker 3: holy crap boat.
Speaker 9: It would be like for those listening, it would be
Speaker 9: like being at the fifth say, the twenty yard line, yeah,
Speaker 9: front row.
Speaker 3: Sweet, All right, now you're talking. All right, Mike, I
Speaker 3: have a whole new found respect for you, and and
Speaker 3: and here and here's the and here's the other thing.
Speaker 3: Here's the other thing. Dude. We need to go to
Speaker 3: a concert. We need to go that.
Speaker 9: You want to swift my arm on that one?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, We're gonna have to do that because
Speaker 3: it sounds to me like we'd like the same music,
Speaker 3: even though I'm I'm a little older than you. So
Speaker 3: I have a I have a real appreciation for people
Speaker 3: who like that that aaro rock and roll because that's
Speaker 3: to me. That music speaks to me, still does and
Speaker 3: it probably always will. Right, all right, should we talked
Speaker 3: some football now and get off the music.
Speaker 9: Let's get it, Let's do it, Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, buddy, I appreciate your time as always. So
Speaker 3: I guess my biggest issue with his team, and I
Speaker 3: was talking with Evan about this a little bit earlier,
Speaker 3: has to do with Man, they get to a certain
Speaker 3: point and they just can't seem to get over the hump.
Speaker 3: And I think there are several things that are keeping
Speaker 3: them from getting over the hump. This last week. It
Speaker 3: might have been a little game management, It might have
Speaker 3: been a little strategy, you know, whether or not you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, hey they went into the wind
Speaker 3: in overtime, or they didn't go for two and they
Speaker 3: tried to kick the extra point, or I mean there's
Speaker 3: some things there. They're close enough, but they can't go
Speaker 3: over the hump. What are they missing, Mike? To get
Speaker 3: them over the hump at this stage so then they
Speaker 3: can begin to learn how to win.
Speaker 9: But I think you nailed it. John Tuckin's the todd
Speaker 9: Sires to be coming on with the offensive line. It's
Speaker 9: just the part to win when you don't have that
Speaker 9: area of the team squared away. And so I guess
Speaker 9: I look at a team like the Lions of one
Speaker 9: of the class teams in the.
Speaker 6: NFL right now, Yeah.
Speaker 9: Why is that? I mean, I think they got that
Speaker 9: foundation on the offensive line, and I don't know if
Speaker 9: that'll get if that can get sick you know this
Speaker 9: during the season. I think you can just try to
Speaker 9: piece it together and hope to catch lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 9: But I think big picture, that's the top of the
Speaker 9: list that be done.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right? So I think also that are we
Speaker 3: wrong from a fan or a media perspective? Are we
Speaker 3: wrong to criticize a coaching staff that Tennant's rookie season
Speaker 3: around here? Or is criticism warranted? Is it fair game?
Speaker 3: Because you know, you'd like to think that we know
Speaker 3: a little about football after covering for many as many
Speaker 3: years as we have, we'd like to think that we
Speaker 3: know a little bit about it, even though we haven't
Speaker 3: ever played it at that level. What are you your
Speaker 3: thoughts on on on You're odd and for that matter,
Speaker 3: Alex van Pelt and Marcus Covington, you know, deflecting, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, the bullets that come at them.
Speaker 9: So so I think it's fair to criticize the coaching
Speaker 9: as long as the critique is rooted in fairness. And
Speaker 9: I believe that all three of the coaches that you
Speaker 9: talked about, right, they're john they they wouldn't expect it
Speaker 9: otherwise because they're critical of themselves. I guess the balance
Speaker 9: for me, and this is what's been hard for me,
Speaker 9: and I don't know where you stand on this, is
Speaker 9: I feel like the talent level on the team is
Speaker 9: lower on a week to week basis than the other
Speaker 9: team they're playing. So when I'm critiquing the coaching, it's
Speaker 9: it's a balance of like, they're not they don't have
Speaker 9: a talented of players most weeks at the other team,
Speaker 9: So are they getting the most out of what they
Speaker 9: have which still might not be enough? And how do
Speaker 9: you sort of balance the critique with those dynamics?
Speaker 6: Point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, that's the only thing. I
Speaker 3: do want to be fair because we all like Giraft,
Speaker 3: I like a VP. I've known you know this. I've
Speaker 3: known alexand Pelt since he was in high school and
Speaker 3: covered him for a long time too. Since he was
Speaker 3: a quarterback at San Antonio Churchill. You know DeMarcus Covington.
Speaker 3: I'm learning this year, but I think he's extraordinarily bright,
Speaker 3: intelligent guy, good football guy, good football mind. The players
Speaker 3: like him, and yet we ain't seeing any results out there,
Speaker 3: and maybe that's maybe it's a personnel issue, whatever it
Speaker 3: may be. Clearly we know that this is going to
Speaker 3: be a w IP, a work in progress for quite
Speaker 3: a bit of time. But when you see them with
Speaker 3: opportunity and they can't quite meet that opportunity, who is
Speaker 3: it fair to point the finger at.
Speaker 8: Oh Man?
Speaker 6: Like I will start with this.
Speaker 9: I mean, I just had this note today. I didn't
Speaker 9: realize it, and I'm always sasitant to delve into the
Speaker 9: sports wagering aspects of the business. But so they had
Speaker 9: been an underdog in all ten games, right, and so
Speaker 9: it's the first time since nineteen ninety two that they've
Speaker 9: had a ten game in a row streak. So I
Speaker 9: think when I look at that, it tells me that
Speaker 9: it's a So who do you appoint the plane to?
Speaker 9: It's never like one thing I think in fairness when
Speaker 9: we talk about fair critique, they took over a tough situation.
Speaker 9: The covered It wasn't like they were walking into a
Speaker 9: the covered and stocked situation. But at the same time,
Speaker 9: they could have probably done more because not probably John,
Speaker 9: they could have done more to get better players in here.
Speaker 9: And when I say that, I'm thinking about they signed
Speaker 9: chuk Sakora for they signed nick Lesrett, they signed kJ Osb.
Speaker 9: These are players that are even either no longer with
Speaker 9: the team or they're not contributed to the team, so
Speaker 9: they're blamed there. I think some of the coaching decisions,
Speaker 9: some of the development of players, are the coaches getting
Speaker 9: the most out of the players.
Speaker 6: Some of this on the players.
Speaker 9: So I think it's all as I hate to col.
Speaker 6: Bill Belichick but used to use the words.
Speaker 9: It's a mosaic, and I think that I'll quote him
Speaker 9: and say that it's all those pieces together.
Speaker 3: Were you surprised that they didn't make any real moves
Speaker 3: for the before the trade deadline. I know they've They've
Speaker 3: added since added a couple of pieces of the puzzle
Speaker 3: off of other practice squads. They brought the kid in
Speaker 3: from Oklahoma, the guard Robinson.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 3: I think they signed another one that was just in
Speaker 3: for practice or for trout yesterday too.
Speaker 9: Correct, Yeah, linebacker Monty Race.
Speaker 3: That's Monty Rice right at.
Speaker 9: The University of Georgia. Yeah, and he's on the practice squad.
Speaker 9: And I think my only I wasn't surprised because I
Speaker 9: think the only question I was curious about would any
Speaker 9: team give up an asset for Taekwon, Thornton or kJ Osbourne.
Speaker 9: I thought, if anything, the Patriots would be trading players,
Speaker 9: not acquiring players.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I kind of was a little surprised by that too,
Speaker 3: But I guess what that told me though, was they
Speaker 3: still feel like they're in a developmental stage and they
Speaker 3: still want to see what they might turn some of
Speaker 3: these guys into before they cut bait. Does that make
Speaker 3: any sense?
Speaker 6: It does make sense.
Speaker 9: And another scenario that I've thought about is maybe those
Speaker 9: players just didn't have a market, you know, because usually
Speaker 9: when you're another team and you're thinking about trading for
Speaker 9: a player, the first thing you do is turn on
Speaker 9: the tape and watch those players they are. Let's see
Speaker 9: how they would get And in fairness, what Taypwon, Thornton
Speaker 9: and kJ Osbourne has put on tape this year, it
Speaker 9: might not be worthy of trading anything for at this point.
Speaker 6: And so I think that's another.
Speaker 3: Thought had on how sure and very quickly before we
Speaker 3: let you get out of here? Did did they get
Speaker 3: what they should have gotten for josh Ushe should they
Speaker 3: have given up on him, oh man.
Speaker 6: And that's so tough for me, John.
Speaker 9: So I'm gonna I hope I don't play both sides
Speaker 9: of the fence here because I felt like they actually
Speaker 9: missed him in this last game.
Speaker 3: That's why I asked the question on one pass rushing.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, and so yeah, what were you gonna say?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I was just gonna say that's that's
Speaker 3: kind of what I thought too, which is why I
Speaker 3: asked the question.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I thought they missed.
Speaker 9: Him in this last game, and I hate to give
Speaker 9: up a pass rusher. I guess they just felt like
Speaker 9: it what they weren't going to bring him back next.
Speaker 6: Year, and he was.
Speaker 9: He's limited in what he does. He doesn't play much
Speaker 9: on special teams, so they took a modest staff in return.
Speaker 9: That was the death. I think a five or six
Speaker 9: you know that you could get. I don't know, John,
Speaker 9: it's just sort of to me. I probably would have
Speaker 9: kept them, just because I like pass rushers, But I
Speaker 9: don't know it's probably what if they say six to
Speaker 9: one half or whatever.
Speaker 3: It is, Yeah, six and one half a dozen another, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I agree with that. There you go right precisely. Well,
Speaker 3: the Chicago team has got its own problems right now.
Speaker 3: They've got a couple of defensive starters that it looked
Speaker 3: like they'll be out for Sunday, and they've got some
Speaker 3: gross inconsistencies going on offense. Stop me where you've heard
Speaker 3: this story before. But even though they're a five hundred
Speaker 3: team right now, it sounds to me like they're looking
Speaker 3: for a little identity, just like New England is.
Speaker 6: It does look that.
Speaker 9: Way to me. And here's the thought from the Patriots perspective.
Speaker 9: A couple of weeks ago, you were going to London
Speaker 9: to play the Jaguars, and everyone was saying do they
Speaker 9: want to play for their coach Doug Peters? And you
Speaker 9: got up on them early, and you had a chance
Speaker 9: to put them away, and you let them stick around
Speaker 9: and you're faded, you know, down the stretch. And here
Speaker 9: you got a situation where you got a team they're
Speaker 9: asking the same question. After the Bears lost on that
Speaker 9: Hail Mary two weeks ago, and then they had a
Speaker 9: gug coming back last week. You know, they might be vulnerable. John,
Speaker 9: I don't know that, but what you know, like, let's
Speaker 9: see what you got. Can you come in there and
Speaker 9: throw a punch, you know? And I will say the
Speaker 9: lost eight quarters at least have been competitive and a
Speaker 9: little bit better than what we saw the final three
Speaker 9: in London. So can you go off that, you know,
Speaker 9: and go make it happen and let's.
Speaker 6: See what they can do?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's I'm just that's all I'm looking for right now.
Speaker 3: I just you know, I've stopped worrying about wins and losses.
Speaker 3: I want to see positive steps forward for this team
Speaker 3: to get back to creating some kind of an identity
Speaker 3: about itself. And I think that has to start now.
Speaker 3: If it hasn't, if it didn't start weeks ago, that's right,
Speaker 3: that's right, you know, Mike, I wish that I had
Speaker 3: Jesse's girl.
Speaker 9: Yes, he's a friend.
Speaker 3: You're all right, Thank you, buddy. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 3: Enjoy the time with your kids today, bro, Thanks, thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you, Bud. I appreciate you. Thank you. The one
Speaker 3: and only Mike Reese at Mike Reese ore E. I
Speaker 3: S s On X. Yeah, that's he's a good dude.
Speaker 3: Uh he is, he tweeted earlier this week. Uh jeez, Wow,
Speaker 3: Patriots are one of nine teams with two or fewer wins,
Speaker 3: which ties for most through week nine since nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: Holy crap, right, yeah, yeah, this is very reminiscent of
Speaker 3: of uh, you know, the teams that struggled here in
Speaker 3: New England, you know, like under Coach Rust. You know,
Speaker 3: back in nineteen ninety ninety one, that was the year
Speaker 3: that nobody wanted to do a television show, a coaches show,
Speaker 3: and so we volunteered to do it. When I was
Speaker 3: working at what is now the CBS affiliate in Providence.
Speaker 3: We did the Rod Rust Show, if you will. I
Speaker 3: think we called it something differently because we didn't want
Speaker 3: to attract attention to it necessarily. But as I recall,
Speaker 3: we did like a monthly show. It wasn't even a
Speaker 3: weekly show. And Coach Rust could not have been nicer,
Speaker 3: more polite, smart guy. He wasn't a bad guy at all.
Speaker 3: He wasn't terribly engaging, God rest his soul, but he
Speaker 3: was He understood the drill, He knew it, he knew
Speaker 3: what was expected of him. You know. So that's why,
Speaker 3: you know, talking to Todd earlier, it's kind of like,
Speaker 3: you know, hey, can we do some building here? Can
Speaker 3: we build the cart? Before we know it's about winds.
Speaker 3: Coach rush knew that back in ninety one when they
Speaker 3: were one in fifteen. No, they weren't one in fifteen.
Speaker 3: They were one in How many games do we play
Speaker 3: back then? Sixteen? Yeah, one in fifteen, Right, I'm trying
Speaker 3: to remember when did we go to the sixteen game schedule.
Speaker 3: I don't even remember now. I think it was then
Speaker 3: we are in sixteen, so they were one in fifteen. Ugly, ugly. Nevertheless,
Speaker 3: it's I mean, this is you know, I can understand
Speaker 3: that there's a certain amount of frustration, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to try to take one or two small things out
Speaker 3: of every week and hopefully plant them like seeds in
Speaker 3: the garden. This has probably even been discussed by the
Speaker 3: coaching staff, but I want to plant small seeds in
Speaker 3: the garden. I want to nurture them, I want to
Speaker 3: water them, I want to make sure there's plenty of
Speaker 3: sunshine on top of them. By the way, eighty one
Speaker 3: degrees in Boston today, what is up with that? Don't
Speaker 3: tell me that's global warming. Okay, that's a freak show
Speaker 3: on decent. Wait, not December. I get a head. I'm
Speaker 3: geting ahead of myself now, November sixth, unbelievable. I think
Speaker 3: this is the warmest it has been this late in
Speaker 3: the calendar year in maybe like one hundred years. Am
Speaker 3: I right about that? I think it got to eighty
Speaker 3: one in Boston today. Here in Foxborough it was seventy seven,
Speaker 3: seventy eight. I think it got to I know when
Speaker 3: I got into my car off of campus today. Okay,
Speaker 3: when I was leaving campus to come to the stadium,
Speaker 3: the thermometer in my car is at eighty four.
Speaker 1: It's currently seventy six in Foxborough right now.
Speaker 3: Holy crap, November sixth. I'm not at four pm, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. I'm just I don't want to
Speaker 3: look the gift tourists in the mouth. I used that
Speaker 3: phrase a couple of times today showing my age. Now
Speaker 3: that was one for my grand mother. But I feel
Speaker 3: like I want to just go out and drop trial
Speaker 3: and run around. We don't. I'm not gonna do that.
Speaker 3: First of all, it's scare the hell out of everybody.
Speaker 3: Second of all, I don't want to go to jail,
Speaker 3: so I'm not gonna do that. Sorry, fight that war. Sorry,
Speaker 3: State police, which is right down the street. Don't don't
Speaker 3: come over here. Okay, I'm not gonna do it. Not
Speaker 3: gonna do it. We're going streak.
Speaker 7: Hang.
Speaker 3: It feels like it outside, man, a spring day, shocking.
Speaker 3: Oh look what we have here, Eldred? We found you, Eldred?
Speaker 6: How are you?
Speaker 3: How you doing it? It's all good, brother, How are you?
Speaker 8: I'm doing good?
Speaker 6: Y'all?
Speaker 8: Seventy six seventy seven, and I can't believe it's November two?
Speaker 3: Why how is it in? How it is in Carolina today?
Speaker 3: What's the temp there? Set? Seven seventy seven? Okay, good,
Speaker 3: all right? You said that? All right?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Simms Charlotte, Yes, or nice a.
Speaker 3: Little rain here and there, and see we're not getting
Speaker 3: we're not getting any of that. We're not getting any
Speaker 3: of that here, which is why we've got these brush
Speaker 3: fire warnings going on right now. They don't want you
Speaker 3: to even put fires on in your fire pits out
Speaker 3: and your you know, your back patio or anything you know,
Speaker 3: like a lot of people have, like I built during
Speaker 3: COVID and all that kind of stuff. They don't want
Speaker 3: you lighting fires because they're afraid of the sparks setting
Speaker 3: brush on fire. So okay, that's fine. We haven't had
Speaker 3: rain here in a month over a month.
Speaker 8: No, yeah, yeah, I'm raying to shoe. We got a
Speaker 8: good last week this week too. Yeah, so it's getting
Speaker 8: coming down pretty good here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Green, can you bleed it?
Speaker 3: Yes? Mine still is too. I mean and I I've
Speaker 3: had a couple of freezes, a couple of frost. You know,
Speaker 3: when I get up in the morning, I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 3: it looks like it snowed because there's a cover of
Speaker 3: frost right on top of the of the lawn. But
Speaker 3: it hasn't killed everything off yet, so everything is still green,
Speaker 3: and and uh, you know, the color color is still beautiful. Hey,
Speaker 3: what's your hauling today?
Speaker 8: I'm off right now. I took an hour and a
Speaker 8: half lunch break and been to go home. Matter of fact,
Speaker 8: when I blew my horn, I was parking the truck
Speaker 8: hoping on the Boston come outside and looking like, what
Speaker 8: are you blowing the horn from me?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Hey, he's in trouble. Let's help them out. Yeah, yeah, somebody,
Speaker 3: somebody's trying to tell them if the Patriots are worth
Speaker 3: the damn. Oh, let's give him to some mouth. Well, okay,
Speaker 3: I get it, I get it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's true too.
Speaker 3: Do all of your friends and your family and the
Speaker 3: people that you work with, do they know how much
Speaker 3: of a die hard you are? Oh?
Speaker 8: Yes, sir. At first they thought I was joking and
Speaker 8: should have heard me a couple of times on the radio.
Speaker 8: Then I pay you back some of the podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 8: And then like I told him, I said, I've been
Speaker 8: doing fifteen years. They knew me by by name, yeah,
Speaker 8: only by face on face on the picture. But they
Speaker 8: haven't haven't met in person besides Melvin and you know,
Speaker 8: I like to meet met Trey. But one of the
Speaker 8: day to come to tennis. SI, I'm gonna look Tray
Speaker 8: up because uh used to be married to one of
Speaker 8: them missus girls. Oh yeah, yeah, yes, sir, that was
Speaker 8: my first ex wife.
Speaker 3: We all have We all have those. You know what,
Speaker 3: I would love, Eldred one day that me and you,
Speaker 3: Me and you and Trey and Melvin and anybody else
Speaker 3: that wants to join in. We got to get together
Speaker 3: and we got to strap on a feedback.
Speaker 6: I was glad. I would love to do that.
Speaker 8: So would I want to be here North Carolina or
Speaker 8: Memphis or Atlanta or now Boston. Don't gonna have a
Speaker 8: little problem getting now.
Speaker 3: I think I understand, I understand, but I don't.
Speaker 8: I don't time to get off.
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't mind meeting you guys south of the Mason
Speaker 3: Dixon I don't.
Speaker 8: Okay, Okay, So I'm looking forward to that too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got to do that. We have to. We
Speaker 3: have to talk that up and figure out a way
Speaker 3: to get that thing done. Brother, we do.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I got mad because I missed an opportunity with
Speaker 8: a big head and Paul and Fred and Eric back
Speaker 8: in the day when we played the Carolina Panthers here
Speaker 8: at the ticket just because me, we was gonna meet
Speaker 8: one day after the barrow or drink.
Speaker 6: So it never did get to do that. You know.
Speaker 8: That's when that's when Luke Lee passed in drunking end zone.
Speaker 8: Everybody saw it blatantly, but Carolina won the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I loved Still that's great, big head love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah all right, So what's trouble in you after this week?
Speaker 8: This week, I knew the beginning of the year. I remember,
Speaker 8: I told you if it's going to be a minute.
Speaker 8: You know, I give him a little minute. But everybody,
Speaker 8: you know, I've been saying this for ten to fifteen years.
Speaker 8: Letting you said, I always called the talent. And even
Speaker 8: when Bill was here, when we had Brady, you know,
Speaker 8: that's what Brady left in the nineteen because he had
Speaker 8: enough talent. You know, he could win no more year.
Speaker 8: He needed some help, Becauldn't you know he's forty needed
Speaker 8: some help. So what's the puzzling me is grow and
Speaker 8: Wolf was here when Bill was here. Yeah, and like
Speaker 8: I said during the draft, besides me, the drafting, the
Speaker 8: same player you gotta Osbourne, that's that's uh, the guy
Speaker 8: that can't catch now.
Speaker 3: You know from Washington you know yeah, Jayleno Polk, Jalen Polk,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 8: So they you know, you got the same type of guy.
Speaker 8: Like I said, you need the athlete. That's why I
Speaker 8: wanted Mitchell. Uh uh, the guy from Jack the Jack Wars.
Speaker 8: There's Thomas that's doing real good right now. Or you know,
Speaker 8: I understand you need a quarterback first, but some of
Speaker 8: them other guys went after you got the quarterback, you know,
Speaker 8: and then you could have been aggressive and then you
Speaker 8: know what you inherit from Bill. The cover was always
Speaker 8: bare from the last five years. Sure you know the
Speaker 8: draft for you know, So to me, if you're gonna
Speaker 8: take old GM said, okay, it was mainly Bill making
Speaker 8: all the all the bad picks. I can't tell now
Speaker 8: because you pick it and just like him, you know.
Speaker 8: And then you say you don't go to pack them
Speaker 8: away with the wide receivers, Yeah, they six two, didn't
Speaker 8: range from four to three to four four maybe four
Speaker 8: or five speed. They can block whatever. You didn't do
Speaker 8: that here, you know, focus slow Baker, he's you know,
Speaker 8: I don't know what to make of him yet.
Speaker 3: You know we can't we can't. Yeah, we can't make
Speaker 3: a judgment. You can't make a judgment on any of
Speaker 3: these guys.
Speaker 8: Really, no, no, because that line won't let you do anything.
Speaker 8: But like I said, you the GM, you should already
Speaker 8: recognize the fault on this team. So if you ain't
Speaker 8: got no confound good line or left tackle, why you
Speaker 8: want to get somebody on the right, try to make
Speaker 8: him play left when they can't do it, or put
Speaker 8: yourself and rookie go to me. And that's bad GM,
Speaker 8: you know. And you said you donna fall behind your.
Speaker 6: Dad footstep or whatever.
Speaker 8: I don't think I remember seeing the Packers with a
Speaker 8: bad line, maybe a couple of years before Rogers left,
Speaker 8: But wasn't that they had pretty good run line, good
Speaker 8: line pass running, even with Far and H and everybody.
Speaker 3: Else, you know.
Speaker 8: So I just can't see that. And you see them
Speaker 8: the problems here, and I would have traded. I'd have
Speaker 8: kept it for six for the following year. That's dumb.
Speaker 8: That's dumb. I'm sorry, sir, I'm just calling what it is.
Speaker 8: That's dumb. We'll always get our pieces. I know they
Speaker 8: might be valuable for us, maybe not vau for somebody
Speaker 8: else we say left, but we go after their pieces
Speaker 8: high and their piece to be worse than what we got,
Speaker 8: you know. And then I see making a bunch of
Speaker 8: players Monday night.
Speaker 3: And ever now, yeah, I mean in a couple of tackles,
Speaker 3: but I mean he's being used as a situational player.
Speaker 6: And the situation player.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we know he wasn't gonna be an every
Speaker 3: down guy, I know. Yeah, So I mean he's not down, no,
Speaker 3: which is why I think they found it. I think
Speaker 3: that's why they found him expendable in terms of well,
Speaker 3: we're probably not gonna resign this guy because he's not
Speaker 3: really what we need. So okay, I I can allow
Speaker 3: for that, I give him.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but I'm also ain't gonna ain't gonna kill him
Speaker 8: too bad. I'm gonna wait and see, you know, until,
Speaker 8: like like I said there before, May I got I gotta.
Speaker 8: I meant to tell Evan, I don't change my mind
Speaker 8: a little bit. Bro, You got me coming around a
Speaker 8: little bit more on. Maybe I want to go in
Speaker 8: there next week and get that truck and get that jersey. Okay,
Speaker 8: but like you know, you gotta show me, and he
Speaker 8: showed me a little bit. Still a little bit like
Speaker 8: North Carolina, but it's a little bit better than North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Listen the first time he took off, the first time
Speaker 3: he took off running with the football last week, And
Speaker 3: I'm like no, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: you know because because he's you know, first of all,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's coming off a concussion protocol and he's
Speaker 3: got to understand, you know, rookies have to understand. You know, guy,
Speaker 3: you gotta you gotta learn to protect yourself. This is
Speaker 3: a violent, violent, physical game. And he's like you know,
Speaker 3: I gotta make plays with my legs because I can
Speaker 3: for my team. And I'm like, that's a guy I
Speaker 3: can play with. That's a guy I can play four,
Speaker 3: you know. And one of the things that has been
Speaker 3: a big criticism of the Patriots, you know, over the
Speaker 3: last year or two is who do they have now
Speaker 3: that people want to come play with. They've found the guy.
Speaker 3: So now it's gonna be up to the veterans who
Speaker 3: are going to be on this team for any you know,
Speaker 3: next year or two or whoever it is, to be
Speaker 3: vocal about this and lead like this and go outad
Speaker 3: and recruit if they have to, just like if they're
Speaker 3: you know, out there recruiting for colleges, and just like
Speaker 3: they did when you know, they went out and tried
Speaker 3: to open up other free agent doors when you know
Speaker 3: TB twelve was playing here, Hey we got a guy
Speaker 3: here that you're gonna want to play with and play
Speaker 3: for and and so now it's now it's time to
Speaker 3: start looking at it in that respect. And to me,
Speaker 3: I know, they lost the game. They probably shouldn't have
Speaker 3: lost the game. It might have been a little mismanaged
Speaker 3: down at the end, but that's my My big huge
Speaker 3: takeaway from Tennessee was I saw a spark that frankly,
Speaker 3: I think we can you know that we can. We
Speaker 3: can hang on, Yeah, give you something to deal with.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, but but uh, mister rook, mister legend, we're
Speaker 8: gonna always be on demand because out of town level
Speaker 8: don't meet everybody that we play.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't. That's and that's why you're losing games.
Speaker 8: That's the major problem. Yeah, that's the major problem.
Speaker 3: That's why you're losing.
Speaker 6: Might be yes, the govenment might.
Speaker 8: Be a great desp of mind, but you ain't got
Speaker 8: the right people to do it, you know. And then,
Speaker 8: like I said, that's called what he was left with.
Speaker 8: And then you lost your three main ones, traded off
Speaker 8: one good one. I know he was older, you know, Judie,
Speaker 8: but I think I would held on one more year,
Speaker 8: just just to see what was going on. But then again,
Speaker 8: I'm not JM. But with me, I will try to
Speaker 8: beat the books, try to get me service for left
Speaker 8: tackle that I know you can't get a good one
Speaker 8: right off the bat. But I ain't going up to
Speaker 8: praps peak. I'm going after somebody that got the stuck
Speaker 8: a string maybe whatever they've got a little talent they
Speaker 8: ain't playing and got still on the younger contract.
Speaker 6: Let's see what you got here.
Speaker 8: And just like Paul was saying, I either going up
Speaker 8: to Slaton or Jadon Jaydon Miles. What uh where that
Speaker 8: wide receiver from Tennessee with the Giants that got knocked
Speaker 8: down because neighbors the man now and Jalen Hight excuse
Speaker 8: me him, that name scoot Yatt and that brought least
Speaker 8: they are exits because we got twos and threes over it.
Speaker 8: We ain't got no x booty trying to be but
Speaker 8: you know, uh, I tried somebody else, special slate, special slate.
Speaker 8: I already did that draft and just see and he
Speaker 8: got eight games. If that's not the guy, well you
Speaker 8: know we still draft one.
Speaker 3: I didn't have him for I think that's exactly Eldred
Speaker 3: why they didn't make deals by the trade deadline, because
Speaker 3: I really felt strongly they wanted to see more of
Speaker 3: what they had to so they could make an easier
Speaker 3: decision on whether or not to bring him back or
Speaker 3: cut bait.
Speaker 8: I understand that, but sir, it's okay, you got a
Speaker 8: young Well the line is.
Speaker 6: The other problem. It's the major problem.
Speaker 8: And then sometimes, like I said, you know, you see
Speaker 8: the guys they get on sometimes they can't get over
Speaker 8: all depends on whose that corner is. They're not good.
Speaker 8: They can press to get gainst their cheam, and I
Speaker 8: think this week they're gonna have a problem getting loose
Speaker 8: with that secondary for the Bears.
Speaker 6: But you know, it's the it's the talent graph.
Speaker 8: You know, we ain't got that speed guy, you know
Speaker 8: like Arizona had. You know, I think my boy got hurt.
Speaker 8: Harrison got hurt in that game a little bit, you know,
Speaker 8: but he was torching so the other.
Speaker 6: Guys, but they got speed.
Speaker 3: Hey, Eldred, here's one for you. I just got this
Speaker 3: this tweet from NFL Stats Drake Drake May is the
Speaker 3: first quarterback in NFL history to have all of the
Speaker 3: following stats in his first four career games. First four
Speaker 3: career stats all right, here we go. Seven hundred plus
Speaker 3: passing yards, sixty completion or better, six plus passing touchdowns,
Speaker 3: two hundred plus rushing yards, and one or more rushing tds.
Speaker 3: He's the first quarterback in NFL history to have those
Speaker 3: stats in his first four games.
Speaker 8: Well to having I get that jersey Friday.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 8: I put a picture on the play, I mean on
Speaker 8: the Should I ask him that network?
Speaker 3: Should I ask the Patriots for a little commission for
Speaker 3: selling him on that jersey?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 3: Good luck?
Speaker 8: Yeah, because I was the big giftic well I saw
Speaker 8: in North Carolina. But I feel a little bit more of.
Speaker 6: A different if game go on.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, but then I gotta remember he was
Speaker 8: the kids playing over here nineteen twenty. You know, it's
Speaker 8: a little bit more mature. But he's getting it. But
Speaker 8: I like that what he said the last time. I'm
Speaker 8: gonna keep playing right, but I'm gonna come it down
Speaker 8: a little bit. But you know that's what I want
Speaker 8: to hear from quarterback too.
Speaker 3: Yep, I agree with you. You know, all right, buddy,
Speaker 3: you'd be safe out there, my man.
Speaker 6: Get jersey, all right, go get it.
Speaker 3: Go get it? Yes, sir, all right, I need you
Speaker 3: just you'll need to send me a picture of you
Speaker 3: in it. Oh, I will, all right. I'm most definitely okay.
Speaker 3: Good to talk to you, Bud, the one and only
Speaker 3: Eldrid in North Carolina. Hey, football season is here. Sullivan
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Speaker 3: and go Patriots.
Speaker 8: A real woman could stop you from drinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a real big woman.
Speaker 10: It's time to go around the NFL with football guru
Speaker 10: Russell Baxter.
Speaker 3: Now your name is Flounder on Patriots playbook hung and
Speaker 3: the man who brings his spare tire with him everywhere
Speaker 3: he goes Russell Baxter. Sorry, Russell, that was all right.
Speaker 6: I'm just hoping that Sullivan Tire sale wasn't from February thirty.
Speaker 3: That was too easy. That was too easy to go
Speaker 3: for though.
Speaker 6: Hey I have when there's a high lob the day.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. Oh I can say the same thing about
Speaker 3: myself too. How are you man, I'm good.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry I missed you last week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's okay. Listen, family comes first, and I failed.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: The one thing that I really missed out on was
Speaker 3: to talk to you about our favorite call, Halloween candies again,
Speaker 3: did you?
Speaker 7: Did you?
Speaker 3: Guys?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 3: You know have a big crowd at the Baxter household.
Speaker 6: No, you know, we do not. And for this reason,
Speaker 6: I live in the area which is very nice in Cheshire.
Speaker 6: There's no sidewalks in front of my house. The ants
Speaker 6: are very hesitant about bringing the kids over too, you know.
Speaker 6: And that's the fact that they have a changeaw out front.
Speaker 6: They probably disparages them out a little as well.
Speaker 3: Not really.
Speaker 6: That's a friend of mine of Frank, years and years ago,
Speaker 6: when a bunch of kids came out of his house,
Speaker 6: well snarky attitude and the kids and he had kin
Speaker 6: saw in his living room with the blade out. Okay,
Speaker 6: but it's still it's still made the noise, oh okay, Okay.
Speaker 6: So when they came up with the attitude, he read
Speaker 6: that thing up and all I can tell you is
Speaker 6: that I saw three of those kids in the Olympics.
Speaker 6: The fuck a couple of years down the road, that's
Speaker 6: how fast they moved moved out.
Speaker 3: Of that out, all right, jeez, fast enough? So what
Speaker 3: what what was that? What did you say?
Speaker 6: It's a safe formless prank, no to get good because
Speaker 6: there was no play.
Speaker 3: Involved, right right? Okay, that makes sense to me. All right,
Speaker 3: so you know how our situation is here is clearly
Speaker 3: you know that. You know, we got a bunch of
Speaker 3: teams that are all kind of stacked with two wins
Speaker 3: right now at the bottom of the NFL. If the
Speaker 3: draft were to be tomorrow, the Patriots would hold the
Speaker 3: number one pick, which is great, but I'm not so
Speaker 3: sure that's going to hold. Uh and we get a
Speaker 3: long way to go before we get to next April.
Speaker 3: What what do you find that a lot of teams
Speaker 3: that find themselves at this position. We're just now past
Speaker 3: the halfway point in the NFL season. But let's say
Speaker 3: they're two and six, two and seven somewhere around those
Speaker 3: and clearly you know that range the playoffs are really
Speaker 3: not an option. What should teams be doing? And traditionally,
Speaker 3: what do teams in your estimation who turn it around quickly?
Speaker 3: What do they do at this stage of the game
Speaker 3: when they are two and seven?
Speaker 6: Well, first thing I think you need to do is
Speaker 6: take a very very close look at what your situation is.
Speaker 6: Just because you are two and seven or four and
Speaker 6: five or four and four doesn't mean necessarily do It
Speaker 6: depends on what's going on within your own division. It
Speaker 6: depends on what's going on within the conference. Now, we
Speaker 6: have a lot of two win teams this year, two
Speaker 6: win or three win teams. I mean, as I pointed
Speaker 6: out Buffalo as the venue wins and the other three
Speaker 6: teams in the AFC is combined seven. So then when
Speaker 6: you get down to other divisions where teams aren't necessarily
Speaker 6: wrapping in the field, and so I mean, look at
Speaker 6: Arizona in the NFC West, they're five and four, start hearting.
Speaker 6: No one else is above five hundred, so that division
Speaker 6: is very very much up for grabs. Chicago is very intriguing.
Speaker 6: They're four and four, they're in last place. They haven't
Speaker 6: played anybody in the division yet, so they can they
Speaker 6: kind of hold the cards in terms of determining their
Speaker 6: own fate. Let's say they go four and two in
Speaker 6: the division and so on. That's why Green Bay's sitting
Speaker 6: there at five and at six and three, John but
Speaker 6: yet they've lost two divisional games at home to Minnesota
Speaker 6: and Detroit, so they've kind of boxed themselves in the
Speaker 6: Little Borough corner. So I think you have to just
Speaker 6: evalue this situation. And also it depends on who your
Speaker 6: general manager and how the organization is run, if you're
Speaker 6: willing to cut beat, start selling those players and so on.
Speaker 6: You know, you get the sense of the Cleveland Brands
Speaker 6: over the last couple of weeks. The area is that
Speaker 6: Zadarius Smith yesterday, Amari people a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 6: You know, they've done themselves a big hole. They've already
Speaker 6: lost more games than they did all last year when
Speaker 6: they were eleven and six, and they're in a powerhouse division,
Speaker 6: even though Cincinnati is at four and five in Pittsburgh
Speaker 6: and Baltimore off to a tremendous start. So I think
Speaker 6: it's an individual thing more than anything else. You know,
Speaker 6: you're looking at the Raiders who are chasing three teams
Speaker 6: that are all above five hundred. So again, a two
Speaker 6: and seven or a three and six in one division
Speaker 6: may not necessarily be the same as in other divisions.
Speaker 6: That might sound like an easy answer, but as we know,
Speaker 6: all you got to do is get in. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: who knows what can happen in terms of the post.
Speaker 3: Team, Yeah, right right. I got a few teams that
Speaker 3: don't want to ask you about this week. Then the
Speaker 3: first one are the is the eight to no Kansas
Speaker 3: City Chiefs? When and where in your estimation do the
Speaker 3: Chiefs stumble first this year or do they at all?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean if they've been a high wire act.
Speaker 6: They finally scored thirty points in the game. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 6: think was the first time since we twelve of last year.
Speaker 6: But they've won fourteen games in a row and now
Speaker 6: they're still ways away. They're two thirds of the way there.
Speaker 6: But I don't have to remind you. There are two
Speaker 6: NFL records in terms of winning streaks in NFL history
Speaker 6: most regular season wins, which is the Colts twenty three
Speaker 6: in a row, and then there's the Patriots in a
Speaker 6: row which includes the postseason. And remember twenty years ago
Speaker 6: in Halloween they lost at Pittsburgh. They eventually went back
Speaker 6: to Pittsburgh to beat them in the AFC title Game.
Speaker 6: How fun would this be and how ironic if the Patriots.
Speaker 6: If the Chiefs win their next seven games, they will
Speaker 6: tie the record by the Patriots the most overall consecutive wins.
Speaker 6: One do you know where they go for game number
Speaker 6: twenty two, Pittsburgh Wow, Karma and instead of Halloween, instead
Speaker 6: of Halloween, John, It's going to be Chris us Wow.
Speaker 6: Twenty years later that. I mean, it's a long way
Speaker 6: to go. I know the Chiefs still have Buffalo on
Speaker 6: the schedule, which they've kind of owned. But you know,
Speaker 6: you look at the makeup of this Chiefs team, which,
Speaker 6: by the way, DeAndre Hopkins has certainly made a difference.
Speaker 6: Travis Kelsey won fourteen passes the other day. Okay, so
Speaker 6: Kareem Hunt getting settled in with his old team and
Speaker 6: one of us womb the Chiefs and led the league
Speaker 6: in Russian years ago with the Chiefs, which was treating
Speaker 6: the homes, I believe. So, I don't know, They've got
Speaker 6: this uncanny way of winning games, which is not that
Speaker 6: unusual if you remember the Patriots of the early dynasty
Speaker 6: days in the early two thousands, where you know, they
Speaker 6: all three of their Super Bowl wins were by a
Speaker 6: field goal and many they just were smarter than everybody else.
Speaker 6: Right now, the Chiefs looked like a very smart football team,
Speaker 6: taking care of the ball at times. Patrick Holmes said
Speaker 6: have been super sharp, and he's been super timely. And
Speaker 6: I understand, you know, Todd Bowles got a lot of
Speaker 6: crap this week about not going for two, but I
Speaker 6: know if you would have missed the two, they would
Speaker 6: have you know, they would have given them crap for
Speaker 6: that too. So it's hard to tell because it's not
Speaker 6: like you can point to the Chiefs and say, you know,
Speaker 6: they've been lighted out in the Even their defense this year,
Speaker 6: which is still very very good, has shown some words.
Speaker 6: I mean, Tampa Bay really didn't have any problems to
Speaker 6: move in the football up and down the field on
Speaker 6: the on day. So I think this is a vulnerable team,
Speaker 6: but it's a resourceful team. So you know that's me
Speaker 6: in seventh seventh week, I would but I'm guessing the
Speaker 6: Buffalo game has certainly got a bit on the radar.
Speaker 6: And I'll also throw out the fact that and I'm
Speaker 6: trying to right to look at the schedule, I don't
Speaker 6: think they closed it Denver. That would be interesting because
Speaker 6: if you were they played Denver this week, okay, and
Speaker 6: then last year they got humbled by the Broncos in Denver,
Speaker 6: and that's where they are. They closed the season at
Speaker 6: Denver and Denver beaten twenty four to nine. Last year,
Speaker 6: Denver snapped a fifteen game losing streak to the Chiefs
Speaker 6: when they knocked the moves in this game. So again,
Speaker 6: it's going to be fascinating to see how this unfold.
Speaker 6: But I will say that if we have seen teams.
Speaker 6: It happened with the Patriots one year, it happened with
Speaker 6: the Steelers four years ago. Some of these teams get
Speaker 6: up to ten and oh elevens start and for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: when I'm at a gas and you know, things certainly
Speaker 6: don't go their way. That's why to me, it's always
Speaker 6: interesting see the team rip off along losing street and
Speaker 6: then when they finally lose, John, see how they react
Speaker 6: to week after that, because one loss to become three
Speaker 6: losses in a row. Real real quickly saw the Vikings
Speaker 6: who went five to oh and then in the span
Speaker 6: of five days games.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Right, the other team that I wanted to ask
Speaker 3: you about, Russell of the Washington Commanders, to me, I mean,
Speaker 3: I didn't see this coming. Seven and two. They're at
Speaker 3: home against the Steelers, who you've already talked a little
Speaker 3: bit about. Uh, I mean, and certainly Jayden Daniels has
Speaker 3: been a catalyst here. But what else has Washington done
Speaker 3: really to you know, establish themselves within the NFC East.
Speaker 6: Well, the one thing that they've basically done better than
Speaker 6: any other team in the league is take care of
Speaker 6: the football. Okay, they have now going nine games into
Speaker 6: the season, yep, and you've turned over the ball three times.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. That is amazing.
Speaker 6: That's amazing that in the context the Patriots has three
Speaker 6: turnovers last week again Tennessee.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, I mean, that's that's that's attention to detail,
Speaker 3: that's discipline, that's everything that the Patriots have had struggles
Speaker 3: with this year. But Washington has it, and you can
Speaker 3: see what a huge difference it has made in the
Speaker 3: over we all win lost fortunes of their team.
Speaker 6: No doubt. And this was the team last year that
Speaker 6: gave up the third most points in one season in
Speaker 6: NFL history and turned over the ball thirty two times
Speaker 6: in seventeen games. So this is a completely different. If
Speaker 6: I want to say the Saints three or four years ago,
Speaker 6: or maybe even longer ago, that set the NFL record
Speaker 6: for fewest turnovers to the season, I think it was
Speaker 6: either eight or nine, and then as if they're going
Speaker 6: to happen, they wound up to over the ball twice
Speaker 6: and lonched the Minnesota and the wild Carts to pay
Speaker 6: off an overtime. So yeah, that a very balanced offense.
Speaker 6: That's not Paul Jayden games. As we found out when
Speaker 6: he heard his arrabe a couple of weeks ago. Marcus
Speaker 6: Mariotas stepped in and they were on prodge control. They
Speaker 6: have proven they can win ugly, and they have proved
Speaker 6: then they can win lopsided. Now I will say this,
Speaker 6: they still haven't played Dallas. I know Dallas has down
Speaker 6: in the luck but still rivalry game. They've not played
Speaker 6: Philadelphia yet, so it's going to be interesting. You know,
Speaker 6: Washington and Arizona are just like the latest examples of
Speaker 6: teams that finished last place a year ago and now
Speaker 6: all of a sudden in convention for a playoff or
Speaker 6: a division title. Remember last year it was the Texans
Speaker 6: and the Browns who were in last place. In twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two, they both bounced back made their playoffs. In fact,
Speaker 6: Houston won the AFC South and then beat Cleveland in
Speaker 6: the wildcard game. And a couple of years ago, you know, Obviously,
Speaker 6: there's eight last place teams john four of them in
Speaker 6: one year made the playoffs the following year.
Speaker 3: I asked these questions, Russell, because I'm trying to give
Speaker 3: people some hope or at the very least discover how
Speaker 3: it's being done. So that could be a part of
Speaker 3: the template for you know, next year and beyond.
Speaker 6: You know, well, you know what you know would have
Speaker 6: been a good segment. It would have been with all
Speaker 6: the with all the respective faith was producing the show today,
Speaker 6: you could.
Speaker 7: Have had hope and fake oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: For sure. All right, two other quick teams. Lions have
Speaker 3: to be I mean to me right now, to me,
Speaker 3: I think they're the best team in football. They may
Speaker 3: very well not be, but we don't know that. But
Speaker 3: they're certainly one of the easiest teams to root for
Speaker 3: because they've never been to the big game. And I
Speaker 3: certainly can understand why people want to get a little
Speaker 3: bit on that bandwagon. And you're talking about a team
Speaker 3: that was going through a lot of the same stuff
Speaker 3: just a couple of years ago and now they're one
Speaker 3: of the best in pro football. What is it about
Speaker 3: Dan Campbell though, that you've seen that has really caught
Speaker 3: on maybe with his team. I mean, I know they
Speaker 3: have talent, and it's really hard to beat talent, but
Speaker 3: they seem to have the intangibles in place as well.
Speaker 6: I think it's an orthodox style of coaching in terms
Speaker 6: of what he has to say to the media, biting kneecaps,
Speaker 6: which I think is a crime. But I think the
Speaker 6: fact that he rallied to round his own players and
Speaker 6: believes in them, I think is very contagious for an
Speaker 6: organization that is the only team in the NFC that's
Speaker 6: never been to the Super Bowl. The other three teams
Speaker 6: that have ever been to the Super Bowl Houston, Jacksonville,
Speaker 6: and Cleveland. So you have to go back to nineteen
Speaker 6: fifty seven, which is two years before I was born,
Speaker 6: and I tell you something, and the last time the
Speaker 6: Lions won an NFL title. It would be fun to
Speaker 6: see the lines in the super Bowl and maybe against
Speaker 6: the team in the AFC that's never been there, although
Speaker 6: you know, could it be Houston or be a team
Speaker 6: that you know, like say Buffalo with them but he's
Speaker 6: never won the Super Bowl. I think that would attract
Speaker 6: a lot of attention. And would you know, with the
Speaker 6: Lions and the build it's two very very you know,
Speaker 6: one groups fighting kneecaps, the other one is jumping on
Speaker 6: folding tables. Yeah, I mean, what more can you get
Speaker 6: than that? That would be for a fun And by
Speaker 6: the way, could you imagine those two fan bases in
Speaker 6: New Orleans?
Speaker 3: That would be off the hook? In New Orleans that
Speaker 3: totally would be off the hook. And I'm I'm kind
Speaker 3: of personally right now at this stage, I'm rooting for
Speaker 3: Detroit Buffalo. I kind of am, and that not because
Speaker 3: I'm anti Chiefs or anything, but I'm just kind of
Speaker 3: rooting for you know, hey, somebody's got to win the
Speaker 3: damn thing, and somebody who hadn't won it before is
Speaker 3: gonna win it, which is actually pretty cool.
Speaker 6: You watch the Arnans play. I mean, you know, power
Speaker 6: rankings on the side. Obviously the Chiefs there right now, yep,
Speaker 6: and the Lions are for seventy one. They don't have
Speaker 6: the semement loss, right, Yeah, but Detroit's point differential, it's
Speaker 6: already one hundred and ten plus. Okay. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: they stubbed their toasted whom against the Buccaneers back in
Speaker 6: Week two. They've won six games in a row. We
Speaker 6: won many of them by by double digits. We saw
Speaker 6: that they did, you know, to the Cowboys. We saw
Speaker 6: that they did to the Titans last week. They were tied,
Speaker 6: but the Titans fourteen fourteen and then scored the last
Speaker 6: thirty eight points of the game. They went into Green
Speaker 6: Bay last week and supposedly the Lions don't play well outdoors.
Speaker 6: I think it was their first outdoors that not only
Speaker 6: was it outdoors, it was in the rain, and they
Speaker 6: won that game by ten and then you know, did
Speaker 6: it with offense defense They got to pick sick. So
Speaker 6: I think this is the team playing with an enormous
Speaker 6: amount of confidence. They have a tricky game with the
Speaker 6: Texans this week. But for a team like Houston who
Speaker 6: has given up a slew of sacks and we saw
Speaker 6: eight saxophones on c J Shoud on Thursday night against
Speaker 6: the Jets, you lose Aiden Hutchinson to an injury, you
Speaker 6: swing a deal and you get sa Darius Smith from
Speaker 6: the grounds.
Speaker 3: Right the final team, I'm going to ask you about
Speaker 3: the Dallas Cowboys three and five, which to me is
Speaker 3: a stunner. But I'm wondering if it gets much worse
Speaker 3: than where it is right now. Is Mike McCarthy a
Speaker 3: candidate to be the next in season guy to go
Speaker 3: since the Saints made of firing this week when we.
Speaker 6: Saw the Jets make a fire firing earlier this season, is.
Speaker 3: Right, right, So that's two, so he'd be three. Yeah right.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to think the last time, the last time
Speaker 6: Jerry Jones did an in season firing, in fact, it
Speaker 6: might have been the only time he did an in
Speaker 6: season was when he dumped Wade Phillips. Okay, he said
Speaker 6: Jason Garrett right off the top of my head, and yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I think you're no, No, no, I think you're
Speaker 3: right there. I was just gonna say, I know it
Speaker 3: wasn't early in his tenure. I want to say that
Speaker 3: was Jason Garrett. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, I know this. It's going to take a hell
Speaker 6: of one the Cowboys to go twelve and five. Yeah,
Speaker 6: for the fourth consecutive season. And it's it's interesting. And again,
Speaker 6: no one's been eliminated yet. Okay, obviously they have dug
Speaker 6: themselves a huge hole against both Washington and Philadelphia, and
Speaker 6: they played Philadelphia this week. But is this an interesting
Speaker 6: to note John that no team has repeated in the
Speaker 6: NFC East in twenty years.
Speaker 3: That's that to me. We talked about that earlier this year.
Speaker 3: That's one of the more amaze saying undersold stories in
Speaker 3: the entire NFL that you've got all these different teams
Speaker 3: winning every different year and nobody repeats. And this year
Speaker 3: Washington is on top of the heap, going from what
Speaker 3: last to first.
Speaker 6: Right, and they've got a four game lead. Well, it
Speaker 6: was funny when you can win the super Bowl in
Speaker 6: twenty seventeen. They were in last place in twenty sixteen, Yeah,
Speaker 6: and then bounce back in one the whole thing. So,
Speaker 6: but I mean the last time the Washington won the division,
Speaker 6: they weren't even a five hundred team. They were seven
Speaker 6: to nine, yeah, in twenty twenty. So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 6: very bizarre considering the high profile the legacy a lot
Speaker 6: of those franchises instead of them in this steel it's
Speaker 6: a division where every one of those teams has won
Speaker 6: at least won Super Bowl, and all of them have
Speaker 6: won multiple NFL titles. Yeah, but they can't seem the same.
Speaker 6: Andy Reid led them to four straight NFC East titles
Speaker 6: from two thousand and one to two thousand and four,
Speaker 6: and no one's been able to get back back to
Speaker 6: back since.
Speaker 3: And and and and may not do for for a
Speaker 3: little while longer. Yeah, that's the that's the that's the
Speaker 3: reality of it. And in this day and age, all right, Russell,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let you. I'm gonna let you get off
Speaker 3: to other things. And I appreciate your checking in with
Speaker 3: us again today, and and uh, we'll see about doing
Speaker 3: it again next week and figure out how uh, you know,
Speaker 3: two and seven moves either to three and seven or
Speaker 3: two and eight And what's left ahead for us.
Speaker 6: Well, listen, there are there were definitely some positives that
Speaker 6: came out of last week's game. There's no question about that.
Speaker 6: And that's the kind of thing you have to build
Speaker 6: up me. You know, we don't wasn't building the day
Speaker 6: because there was no free agency back then.
Speaker 3: That's also very true. We do know that we can
Speaker 3: hang the hat on number ten. I think in a
Speaker 3: Patriot's uniform. I think we saw, uh, the future is here.
Speaker 3: He just needs a little help right now. Yep, thanks buddy,
Speaker 3: appreciate you. You got you got you next week, Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: The one and only at Backs Football Guru on x
Speaker 3: Russell Baxter on week ten around the NFL A reminder.
Speaker 3: Easy to drink, It easy to enjoy. Bud Light is
Speaker 3: the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots, and
Speaker 3: Massachusetts is made for everyone, lease papers, corn, maize, strollers,
Speaker 3: regatta lovers, pumpkin pickers, and anyone else you can think of.
Speaker 3: So come to where there's something for everyone this fall, Massachusetts,
Speaker 3: where everything has made possible. Plan your trip at visitma
Speaker 3: dot com. I want to wrap up by.
Speaker 6: Oh, pardon me.
Speaker 3: I got to reach forward here, sorry, and bring in
Speaker 3: a couple of emails because I know there were a
Speaker 3: couple in here, so I wanted to share them with
Speaker 3: you here at the end of the program. Bob from
Speaker 3: Fort Lauderdale, great show. I listened regularly from Florida. The
Speaker 3: team is going through a tough time now, but we
Speaker 3: will get back to being relevant. Okay, Thank you, Bob.
Speaker 3: I appreciate your time to decided he didn't have enough
Speaker 3: earlier when he yelled at me on the phone. Hey rook,
Speaker 3: let me know when you guys are going to a concert.
Speaker 3: I may need to go on a road trip and
Speaker 3: meet up with you. Guys. Would love to get together
Speaker 3: with Eldred for a beer and talk some football. You
Speaker 3: need to set up an events board people can sign
Speaker 3: up for. You want to help me with that? Marine,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know. Well, if Tana's in
Speaker 3: North Carolina and Eldred's in North Carolina and Trey is
Speaker 3: in Memphis, you know, I mean, I guess there's we
Speaker 3: We guess we need to do a playbook road trip
Speaker 3: one of these days. Maybe we get this. Maybe you
Speaker 3: and I will take off from here and we'll just
Speaker 3: drive down and meet those suckers. And if we're gonna,
Speaker 3: if we're the ones that are going to them, they
Speaker 3: gotta buy us lunch. Okay, deal right now, wears in
Speaker 3: gas thirty dollars lunch. Ah, all right, Okay, we spend
Speaker 3: listening to two hundred others in gas three hundred dollars
Speaker 3: for a hotel, and they're going to buy us a
Speaker 3: twenty dollars barbecue. Okay, yeah, let's say that's fine. Whack oh,
Speaker 3: this is why I don't go any plays in life.
Speaker 3: I know our buddy Howard in Connecticut. Just some musings
Speaker 3: about this team. We have a QB. Now they need
Speaker 3: to build around him. Wolf needs to have an A
Speaker 3: plus plus plus plus plus five pluses. Needs to have
Speaker 3: that draft and free agency offseason. They have top picks
Speaker 3: in every round, and they have more money than any
Speaker 3: other team in cap space. There are no excuses why
Speaker 3: he can't load this team up with talent that it
Speaker 3: currently lacks. AVP has been a disappointment to date. Perhaps
Speaker 3: it's lack of talent, but the play calling has also
Speaker 3: been unimaginative, static and predictable. That has to change. I
Speaker 3: couldn't agree more as far as Covington, again disappointing. Not
Speaker 3: as much as AVP, but still not as good as
Speaker 3: I thought it was going to be. A lot of
Speaker 3: that is due to the injuries we talked about earlier
Speaker 3: in the program. Again, I get that he lost three
Speaker 3: of his key horses up the middle, but the d
Speaker 3: he needs to figure that out and scheme to cover
Speaker 3: the weakness. And how about bringing in Vrabel as a
Speaker 3: consultant to Mayo. He brings in prior head coaching experience
Speaker 3: and there is a familiarity there. I don't know would
Speaker 3: he view something like that as a positive or as
Speaker 3: a threat something um Classy Claire also chimed in, here
Speaker 3: feels like a chicken an egg discussion, But I was
Speaker 3: hoping to get your take with regards to the landscape
Speaker 3: of the NFL, especially at the moment. It seems that
Speaker 3: teams can pick up quality wide receivers with trades and
Speaker 3: free agency, but the same can't be said for quality tackles.
Speaker 3: That's kind of interesting. Um, I don't know why that is.
Speaker 3: I think it's because tackles are valued differently, and everybody
Speaker 3: knows that they need a cornerstone piece, you know, as
Speaker 3: we talked earlier, the piece of the puzzle, the corner
Speaker 3: piece of the puzzle, and those I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: when you're doing a puzzle, right, there's only four corners
Speaker 3: to the puzzle. There just aren't many of these guys
Speaker 3: out there. Wide receivers like you see, you can always
Speaker 3: get guys that can catch a ball or run faster
Speaker 3: than somebody else, so they seem like they're more prevalent tackles.
Speaker 3: Franchise tackles not so not so so. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: just an observation, but I kind of sort of feel
Speaker 3: like that's really the the the answer to your question.
Speaker 3: You know, he's I've got this one from Courtney in Houston,
Speaker 3: who says, I want to comment on girod Mayo. I
Speaker 3: believe what we're seeing from Grod is very similar to
Speaker 3: downfall years from post down Tom Brady, you guys discussed
Speaker 3: the brain drain that happened in New England towards the end.
Speaker 3: I solely believe Grod is going to need his arning,
Speaker 3: like we talked about. Hopefully Wolf can be as GM
Speaker 3: and grow and be director of scouting, but he needs
Speaker 3: more than Unfortunately means that maybe Covington has to go,
Speaker 3: or that could mean maybe they really hit on coaches
Speaker 3: like a run game passing coordinator. Either way, I don't
Speaker 3: think it would be wise to roll this staff out
Speaker 3: completely the same for year two unless there's going to
Speaker 3: be an aggressive commitment to learning. Okay, I can understand that.
Speaker 3: I can understand that. All right. I appreciate you taking
Speaker 3: the time to do that. Thank you. Thank you for
Speaker 3: your comments and your criticisms and everything that you've got
Speaker 3: on the show. Or thanks to Mike Reese, our thanks
Speaker 3: to Evan Lazarre, our thanks to Russell Baxter, and most
Speaker 3: of all, my thanks to you for tuning in, and
Speaker 3: my thanks to the Marine for helping put this thing together.
Speaker 3: Every week when we're here visiting. So the Patriots and
Speaker 3: the Bears on Monday, same patch time, same patch channel.
Speaker 3: Next Wednesday for the next edition of the Patriots Playbook,
Speaker 3: we'll recap that, we'll look ahead again, and we'll find
Speaker 3: other things that we can, you know, talk about, like
Speaker 3: you know, Rick Springfield or Halloween candy or other team's success. Hey,
Speaker 3: kick us while we're down. It won't last forever. See ya.
Speaker 3: Thank you for downloading this podcast.
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