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 exit, the No's trends, and latest New England Patriots
Speaker 1: roster moves.
Speaker 2: And I'm usually into the numbers. Okay, we do this.
Speaker 2: I'm into the tangible numbers. There's there's tame here.
Speaker 3: Just give me.
Speaker 4: There's the advantage. In fact, you haven't know how to
Speaker 4: work it. I'm surprised an old man over here. I
Speaker 4: thought maybe I'd have to show you, like a tutorial
Speaker 4: or something.
Speaker 1: How am I old man search for Patriots Catch twenty two?
Speaker 1: Anywhere you get your podcast?
Speaker 5: Patriots rasta.
Speaker 6: Dream of.
Speaker 3: La La La. We do have to have a reverse
Speaker 3: camera on him. I've just said we have to do this.
Speaker 3: We have to have the reverse camera on marine.
Speaker 2: So I keep saying, enjoy the songs. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: we like it that you enjoy the song.
Speaker 3: Totally rocks out in there, right, I.
Speaker 4: Have the people probably feel bad that they don't get
Speaker 4: to see you enjoy the song.
Speaker 3: We should have it. Why don't we have a camera
Speaker 3: in then anyway? Because I mean, you're looking for that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're looking into it.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 3: There should be a way to we could do that.
Speaker 3: Where would be like a voice activated thing maybe you
Speaker 3: know where you know, whenever you speak, the camera flashes
Speaker 3: onto you sitting there with your you know, at your
Speaker 3: control board with the microphone.
Speaker 4: It's like the camera for the dog, and it tells
Speaker 4: you when something moves in the house.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, precisely, Yes, that's what we need from that.
Speaker 2: We need a dark legs detected.
Speaker 3: We did pet camera. Yeah, yeah, for marine. I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it. That works for me. All right, Welcome
Speaker 3: into the playbook, every one. Patriots fans. If you want
Speaker 3: to see Toyota's best offers, including those not seen on TV,
Speaker 3: go to buy a Toyota dot com. It's Toyota's official
Speaker 3: website for deals from the official vehicle of the New
Speaker 3: England Patriots, Toyota. Let's go places. I'm John, He's Evan. Hey,
Speaker 3: we got a win to talk about, which is a
Speaker 3: little bit of a I mean, I would have to
Speaker 3: say pleasant surprise. But I'm left really with two overwhelming
Speaker 3: thoughts about the game on Sunday. First of all, I
Speaker 3: expected the Bears to be better. I don't know why. Basically,
Speaker 3: you know, given you know how they let end of
Speaker 3: the game, but I expected that team to be better
Speaker 3: than it was. Second of all nine sacks. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: that tells me either the Patriots are really better on
Speaker 3: the defensive front than we've been given the credit for,
Speaker 3: or the Bears are really bad on the offensive line.
Speaker 3: And I'm wondering if it's not some both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely some of both.
Speaker 4: I would say that my rewatch of the game, I
Speaker 4: was more impressed with the coverage.
Speaker 2: Than I was with the rush.
Speaker 4: And I would also then say the overall game plan
Speaker 4: and scheme from Girodmeo and DeMarcus Covington, this was their
Speaker 4: best coach game on that side of the ball, and
Speaker 4: it's not particularly close. You know, they had a really
Speaker 4: great plan, they executed it, and we can get into
Speaker 4: like the nitty gritty of some of those you know,
Speaker 4: schematic twists that they had. But they played Mansaman coverage
Speaker 4: against Chicago. They said, you know, our guys can cover
Speaker 4: your guys, especially with you know, the issues that are
Speaker 4: going on with that Bears team and against a lot
Speaker 4: of backups on the offensive line, which is you know
Speaker 4: context we should include the pass rush was able to
Speaker 4: have themselves a day so not to take anything away
Speaker 4: from the guys up front, and I thought, especially as
Speaker 4: the game wore on, they started to wear down the
Speaker 4: Bears offensive line and get some quicker pressures. But in general,
Speaker 4: I thought that this game started by setting the tone
Speaker 4: in the back end that you guys you know and
Speaker 4: now and Dj Moore Romadoonze, those guys were going to
Speaker 4: have a tough time uncovering against the Patriots.
Speaker 3: Second one, what did you what did you notice in particularly?
Speaker 3: You thought that was maybe a little bit of a
Speaker 3: switch schematically for this team. What was the philosophy other
Speaker 3: than I mean than Manda Man. We could tell and
Speaker 3: I was actually impressed with that. We've actually seen when
Speaker 3: this team is physical with Manda Man coverage, they can stick.
Speaker 3: They can stick with a lot of teams. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I've actually been impressed with that slow improvement. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3: been a little unsteady. They will take two steps forward,
Speaker 3: then they'll take one back, then they'll take another two
Speaker 3: steps forward, and then they might take another one back,
Speaker 3: but they're still just slowly moving the needle that way.
Speaker 3: What else did you see out there?
Speaker 4: Well, I would say the biggest thing obviously is schooler
Speaker 4: you know, using a schooler as a spy. I thought
Speaker 4: was really innovative and really smart. Now I'm going to
Speaker 4: write something about this this week. This wasn't the first
Speaker 4: time that the Patriots have done that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: The origins of it, so it's called the Longhorn package,
Speaker 4: which I'm sure you really like, John, you know, there
Speaker 4: you go hook them right, But it was actually originally
Speaker 4: called the Auburn package because the player who was spying
Speaker 4: the quarterback was Jonathan Jones, not Brendan's schoolers. So it
Speaker 4: was originally called the Auburn package, and they started doing
Speaker 4: it in twenty nineteen when they played Lamar Jackson for
Speaker 4: the first time. So it's not something that hasn't been
Speaker 4: done here before, but I would say it hasn't been
Speaker 4: done here in years since that matchup in nineteen, and
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit in twenty when they played Lamar
Speaker 4: again the following year in that rainstorm here at Gillette,
Speaker 4: But in general, it isn't something they've done recently. And
Speaker 4: they got into third down, they got that package on
Speaker 4: the field, and they allowed themselves to do some pretty
Speaker 4: cool things, so you could obviously whittle it down to upfront,
Speaker 4: they were stouter they were more physical, they were more
Speaker 4: fundamentally sound, they were better in the run game, which
Speaker 4: was a big part of what they did on Sunday.
Speaker 2: But I also thought the coaches did a great job.
Speaker 3: Look at this then, as you know, making gradual steps
Speaker 3: in the right direction, or did they just really did
Speaker 3: the Bears just kind of play down a level and
Speaker 3: the Patriots just have a better day. I'm the point
Speaker 3: that I'm trying to drive that here is are we
Speaker 3: singing now that we're past a halfway point of the season,
Speaker 3: are we seeing now measurable improvement?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Uh, I'm not ready to go there yet. I mean,
Speaker 4: let's see what it looks against them.
Speaker 3: That's fair, because I would agree with you in that regard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not ready to go there yet.
Speaker 4: But I think the main reason why I'm not is
Speaker 4: because I didn't really feel like it was this way
Speaker 4: against the Titans just the week before. Where I came
Speaker 4: off that game, I could not have told you that
Speaker 4: this defensive performance was coming from the Patriots in Chicago
Speaker 4: based off of what we had seen against Tennessee. They
Speaker 4: were they were decent against the Jets, and you know,
Speaker 4: there was a lot of things similar with the Jets
Speaker 4: as what the Bears underperforming, you know, quarterback not playing
Speaker 4: as well, coordinators and coaches getting fired right like, so
Speaker 4: there's a lot of the same stuff going on with
Speaker 4: the Jets that that was with the Bears. But let's
Speaker 4: call a spade a spade, Like the Bears passing game
Speaker 4: is broken, like they're schematically broken. Caleb is not playing
Speaker 4: very well and not seeing the field very well, his timing,
Speaker 4: his rhythm is off. So there's a lot of things
Speaker 4: wrong with Chicago. That being said, I didn't necessarily think
Speaker 4: the Patriots had that kind of defense performance in them regardless.
Speaker 4: I'll give up three points, one hundred and something yards
Speaker 4: of total offense one for fourteen on third down where
Speaker 4: the Bears in that game, Like even to the Patriots
Speaker 4: going up against the opponent that's wounded or opponent that
Speaker 4: is not firing at all cylinders, I still think that
Speaker 4: they deserve kudos for just how well they played. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's a different level, and I.
Speaker 3: Think we realize that. You know, the Patriots have been
Speaker 3: short a few sticks throughout the course of the season
Speaker 3: with the injuries, with the suspensions, everything else that's been
Speaker 3: going on up the middle. But Chicago's performance has taken
Speaker 3: a step backward. They started out well this year, now
Speaker 3: they've hit a bump in the road, whereas the Patriots
Speaker 3: since an game notwithstanding, started out slower but seemed to
Speaker 3: be slowly incrementally moving. And I'm wondering at least if
Speaker 3: in the direction that they go in this week against
Speaker 3: the Rams being an opportunity and now to kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, stack week upon week upon week, you know,
Speaker 3: try to get some good things back together. I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't believe I'm even thinking about a winning streak,
Speaker 3: but I didn't think we'd be saying that with this
Speaker 3: football team this year. But there's a very real possibility
Speaker 3: that that could happen if, of course, you try to
Speaker 3: play and can play mistake free football. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, I mean, if you stack the Rams roster up
Speaker 4: against the Patriots roster, you're right. So I don't want
Speaker 4: to get too ahead of ourselves, but just based off
Speaker 4: of what they have done, I think the part that
Speaker 4: irks me a little bit now is that that game
Speaker 4: in Tennessee that goes to overtime was so winnable for
Speaker 4: this team like that this team easily could have won
Speaker 4: in Nashville a week ago and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: you win that. You're talking about the three game winning
Speaker 4: streak that you got cooking right now. And so I'm
Speaker 4: not trying to talk about playoffs or like get any
Speaker 4: crazy way ahead of ourselves. But I know which, I know,
Speaker 4: I know, let's calm down, let's let's come back down
Speaker 4: to earth a little bit. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: it's been better. You know, they were they they are
Speaker 4: now in games and they're now able to dominate a
Speaker 4: lesser opponent or an opponent that's not all tied together
Speaker 4: like the Chago Bears right like that that game, Like,
Speaker 4: let's face it, you know they were They've played games
Speaker 4: like that against opponents in the last couple of years
Speaker 4: and they haven't been able to win those games. They
Speaker 4: played a bunch of those games. Last year they lose
Speaker 4: to Tommy DeVito and uh, you know whoever was that? It
Speaker 4: was a Gardner Minshew in German and Germany for the Colts,
Speaker 4: And you know, they they lose games like that.
Speaker 2: Last year.
Speaker 4: They lost those games and now it looks like they
Speaker 4: maybe against Chicago they won one of those games.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well they were. Look, we'll give credit what credit
Speaker 3: is due. They took advantage of the situation that they had.
Speaker 3: The game plan was proper, the effort was proper, the
Speaker 3: mistakes were somewhat minimized other than you know, maybe you
Speaker 3: know Drake Matho in a bad pass every now and then,
Speaker 3: but you are better than at least a handful of
Speaker 3: teams in the NFL, even with the roster not being
Speaker 3: where you think it needs to be in order to
Speaker 3: be a contender in this league. And so I think
Speaker 3: there's something to be said for the core here that
Speaker 3: undoubtedly is going to end up probably you know, coming
Speaker 3: back in some form or fashion at least competing for jobs.
Speaker 3: And if you can augment that core properly, this really
Speaker 3: puts the onus on player personnel to get the right
Speaker 3: people in here to complement what you already have so
Speaker 3: you can continue the growth. To me, this team is
Speaker 3: improving now because we're actually seeing improved coaching. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: know we were critical of coaching or in the if
Speaker 3: we were critical on this show. I know you guys
Speaker 3: were critical week because twenty two, we were critical last week.
Speaker 3: We're critical of it almost every week, and yet we're
Speaker 3: critical even though we know that it's a rookie head coach,
Speaker 3: a first year's staff, guys who are largely inexperienced at
Speaker 3: their positions, in the primary positions, and you know, and
Speaker 3: fair or not, they're the ones that you know, shoulder
Speaker 3: a lot of the burden here, and so they're the
Speaker 3: ones that are paid for fans for the league to
Speaker 3: see incremental improvement. We saw some of that this week.
Speaker 3: So it's hard for me to bash anybody this week
Speaker 3: because the bottom line, and I've always said this, this
Speaker 3: is a bottom line league. Let's just win, move on.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how you win. You just win and
Speaker 3: you move on. Style points do not matter. We keep
Speaker 3: trying to put style points in the NFL. We keep
Speaker 3: trying to say, well, yeah, but they don't have this,
Speaker 3: or they don't have that, or the quarterback's not any good,
Speaker 3: or they don't have a third down pass rusher, or
Speaker 3: they don't have situation. I mean, I'm like, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: And this is where I kind of sided with guys
Speaker 3: like you know, Bill Belichick and some of the older
Speaker 3: coaches in the league that had come through. And I
Speaker 3: still think that, you know, there are a couple of
Speaker 3: coaches around that that adhere to a lot of this
Speaker 3: that analytics aside, just win the game, Yeah, move on
Speaker 3: and win the game. And I think that's exactly what
Speaker 3: the Patriots did this week. And so if you're looking
Speaker 3: for some kind of glimpse of hope of promise, they
Speaker 3: went old school on you this last week. They did
Speaker 3: exactly what they had to do. They game planned to
Speaker 3: beat that opponent. I was impressed with the running game.
Speaker 3: It looked like the offensive line got out of their
Speaker 3: own way, which they haven't been able to do. And
Speaker 3: again it's it's still a work in progress. Okay, there's
Speaker 3: still a lot of work to be done here, but
Speaker 3: at least, you know, Remandre Antonio Gibson and let's throw
Speaker 3: Jamichael Hasty in there. You know, some good days and
Speaker 3: bad days, but let's face it, he is what he is.
Speaker 3: I was just I was impressed, and I think it
Speaker 3: was because of you know, Drake made some mistakes that
Speaker 3: I know he said already he'd like to have back,
Speaker 3: but I'm willing to live with a few of those
Speaker 3: because we all know that he's a playmaker, that he's
Speaker 3: an instigator, that he's a bleep starter, whatever you want
Speaker 3: to call it. But that's what he's doing for this team,
Speaker 3: and they need that element. And with that element, it
Speaker 3: allows everybody to almost kind of like pin their ears
Speaker 3: back and go after it a little bit more. And
Speaker 3: that's the kind of an attitude that they need. I
Speaker 3: loved his explanation this week of you know, why he
Speaker 3: went for that slide head first, and I just I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm just like, wow, Okay, I like the attitude. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And so I can live with one or two bad
Speaker 3: throws a game. Obviously, these are things he'll have to
Speaker 3: clean up if he's gonna really have any success for
Speaker 3: the long haul. But to me, I'm sensing almost sense
Speaker 3: like week six or seven and attitude Adjustment has.
Speaker 4: A real belief in the quarterback. And I've believed in them,
Speaker 4: you know, I.
Speaker 3: Know you have. You've been a long time, been straightforward
Speaker 3: with that and and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: This is sort of what I had seen. I'm not
Speaker 4: like trying to take a victory lap, but this is
Speaker 4: what I was seeing with him and just being around
Speaker 4: teams and being in the locker room and understanding how
Speaker 4: these things work. You know, that is the most important
Speaker 4: position on the team, but it's not all that different
Speaker 4: than other team sports. You know, when you have a
Speaker 4: you know, just because it got across sports every once
Speaker 4: in a while, when you have a Jason Tatum and
Speaker 4: you're starting five, and when you have a David Pasternak
Speaker 4: on your you know, power first, power play, and you
Speaker 4: have these superstar players, it makes it a lot easier
Speaker 4: for the rest of the roster to just kind of
Speaker 4: start pulling on the rope a little bit stronger because
Speaker 4: you have you have a leader, you have a guy
Speaker 4: that can carry you to the promised land that you
Speaker 4: have confidence in.
Speaker 3: And and and Okay, now I'm going to go back
Speaker 3: to what I was harping on earlier in the year.
Speaker 3: You start this guy at the beginning of the year
Speaker 3: because he's clearly the better of the more talent of
Speaker 3: the quarterbacks. Yeah, this team is likely five and five
Speaker 3: right now. I truly believe that. And we could legitimately
Speaker 3: be talking about a playoff contempt.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, it's hard to say. You know, revision is history.
Speaker 3: Not hard for me to say it is.
Speaker 2: Revision is history.
Speaker 3: But it's not hard for me to say.
Speaker 4: Well, it's hard to say because you know, you just
Speaker 4: don't know if he starts Week one against I have
Speaker 4: no doubt if he starts week one that he would
Speaker 4: be better off now than he would have been back.
Speaker 3: Then, that much further ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2: You would think.
Speaker 4: But I don't know for a fact that they win
Speaker 4: in Cincinnati if he turns the ball over three times
Speaker 4: and you know, we get the exact same Drake May
Speaker 4: start that they got against Houston in his very first
Speaker 4: start in the league. Yeah, and he turns it over
Speaker 4: three times and gives the Bengals three extra possessions. I
Speaker 4: don't know if that rest of that game goes the
Speaker 4: exact same way, but I hear. I mean, look, I've
Speaker 4: been wanting them to start since week one, since April, so,
Speaker 4: like you're peaching to the choir there, I've just kind
Speaker 4: of moved on from it because it is what it is.
Speaker 4: But I just think the biggest thing with with Drake
Speaker 4: May and we can talk about his play specifically, but
Speaker 4: you know, we had him micd up this week and
Speaker 4: that's out now. You can watch that on all of
Speaker 4: our platforms and you just see the leadership. You see
Speaker 4: that ability to rally people in all Yeah, the positivity
Speaker 4: and you know, that sort of thing out of this
Speaker 4: twenty two year old kid and the poiss. You know,
Speaker 4: I feel like is off the charts with him as well.
Speaker 4: So all those things are are great things for the team.
Speaker 4: And I say coaching like, this is why I sound
Speaker 4: like a broken record because I go on, you know,
Speaker 4: three different shows in a week and say the exact
Speaker 4: same thing after they lose to the Titans. But I
Speaker 4: hate sounding like a broken record. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: when the coaching gets out of its way, you know,
Speaker 4: the old belichickism is that coaches lose games, players win games.
Speaker 4: And I felt like in Tennessee, the coaches lost them
Speaker 4: a game. You know, they shuck up the offensive line,
Speaker 4: they blew the situation before halftime, they didn't know which
Speaker 4: way the win was blowing, and overtime, like these were
Speaker 4: things that actively lost the Patriots the game. This week
Speaker 4: in Chicago, you know, they start the same offensive line
Speaker 4: that they ended the game with in Tennessee. Finally, some
Speaker 4: continuity and some you know, foresight to do that they
Speaker 4: scored before the end of the half. They executed that
Speaker 4: situation pretty much flawlessly before the end of the half
Speaker 4: to get that field goal to go up by ten points.
Speaker 4: And they played the situation in the game correctly. And
Speaker 4: that's if you if you get that from coaching every
Speaker 4: single week. I understand they're not loaded talent wise, but
Speaker 4: this is the NFL. They have players that can go
Speaker 4: out there and make plays on offense. They have players
Speaker 4: that can go out there and make plays on defense.
Speaker 4: This is not you know, Bimigie State versus Alabama, right like,
Speaker 4: this is not like we're not talking about like this.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I just made that one up Appalachian State.
Speaker 2: There you go. This is not like, you know, some
Speaker 2: a huge, huge.
Speaker 4: Talent gap that like you walk off the bus and
Speaker 4: you just have no chance on the game. Every NFL
Speaker 4: team has a chance on Sunday. Sure you can win
Speaker 4: any game. Yeah, And so when you look at that,
Speaker 4: when the coaching is an actively an anchor to what
Speaker 4: they're trying to do, I'm not saying that they're gonna
Speaker 4: rattle off six in a row. I'm just saying they're
Speaker 4: gonna be competitive, they're gonna beat in games. They're gonna
Speaker 4: have chances to win football games, and they have, and
Speaker 4: if the players then go out and put them over
Speaker 4: the top, then yeah, they could maybe start to stack
Speaker 4: some wins together. But the first step was not beating
Speaker 4: yourself and on Sunday. They were able to go out
Speaker 4: there and not beat themselves. That they can do that consistently.
Speaker 4: We're gonna see some competitive football.
Speaker 3: I'm bringing you guys up to day and what we're
Speaker 3: gonna do here with the show coming up in i'd
Speaker 3: say about ten twelve minutes, we're going to I'm getting
Speaker 3: I'm getting, I'm getting a missive from control. Oh. I
Speaker 3: was gonna say Phil Perry and he's not going to
Speaker 3: be here now because he show has been moved. Okay,
Speaker 3: so we'll probably hear from Drake May coming up a
Speaker 3: little bit. Phil Perry was going to join us, but
Speaker 3: his schedule change. I got wear you just in time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know, I'm glad you did that. But Greg Beacham,
Speaker 3: who covers the rams for the Associated Press, is going
Speaker 3: to join us, so we'll get into some of the
Speaker 3: rams a little bit, and of course Russell Backshew will
Speaker 3: be along as well. In our number two. I want
Speaker 3: to make sure that you know that the phone lines
Speaker 3: are always open eight five five pats five hundred eight
Speaker 3: five five p ats five hundred. You can hit us
Speaker 3: up on podcasts at Patriots dot com. You can find
Speaker 3: my handle on x and submit something that way as well.
Speaker 3: I'm at JR Broadcaster and I hope that you'll you'll
Speaker 3: check in with us on this one, but we'll we'll
Speaker 3: entertain your questions as well. Coming up. I want to
Speaker 3: know what you think of I saw the report that
Speaker 3: was out there about I think it was put out
Speaker 3: originally by Bert Breer, who said that the Patriots were
Speaker 3: looking for the outside advice on how to develop Drake
Speaker 3: may And I think it's because if everything's true true,
Speaker 3: and I'm not surprised by this if it is true,
Speaker 3: but they wanted to make sure that they don't stub
Speaker 3: their tool again, kind of like they did with Mac
Speaker 3: Jones in that situation over the last few years. What
Speaker 3: do you make of that, if anything at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would love to know the timeline of when
Speaker 4: that happened, because asking, you know, guys like I'm just
Speaker 4: throwing this out there.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that this is who they asked.
Speaker 4: But let's say, uh, girod Mayo or mister Craft or
Speaker 4: AVP or any of them put in a call to
Speaker 4: Brian Dable and said to Brian Dabele, how did you
Speaker 4: go about developing Josh Allen? Because we think that we
Speaker 4: either drafted or are going to draft. Yeah, a Josh
Speaker 4: Allen type. So like, how did you go about doing that?
Speaker 4: You know, I don't think that that is all that
Speaker 4: crazy and I don't necessarily find that nefarious. Like I
Speaker 4: think a lot of people are trying to make this
Speaker 4: out to be and you know, I think that that
Speaker 4: stuff goes on. You pick each other's brains. You know,
Speaker 4: it's a it's a small world of coaching in the NFL.
Speaker 4: Not a lot of guys are in that position or
Speaker 4: where are those hats. There's thirty two head coaches, there's
Speaker 4: thirty two coordinators. Like, it's not like there's you know,
Speaker 4: it's not optim here where there's five thousand people that
Speaker 4: work at the company here, right, Yeah, So I think
Speaker 4: you go around and you talk to people, and you
Speaker 4: talk to guys that have been through similar things. And
Speaker 4: I think the players do it with other players. I
Speaker 4: didn't coaches do it with other coaches. I don't find
Speaker 4: this to be I don't think. I don't want to
Speaker 4: speak for Burt, but like, I don't find it to
Speaker 4: be as smoking gunny as it's like or nefarious as
Speaker 4: it's being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, I didn't you know.
Speaker 3: When I looked at it, I said, well, that actually
Speaker 3: kind of makes sense to me. And I didn't find
Speaker 3: that anything terribly revealing on that because look, if I'm
Speaker 3: mister Kraft, I damn sure want to make sure that
Speaker 3: I don't make the same mistakes again. So what do
Speaker 3: we do as an organization to keep from falling into
Speaker 3: those traps and in those those potholes to speak? Because
Speaker 3: I think we understand where some of that, maybe even
Speaker 3: a lot of that occurred to the previous regime. But
Speaker 3: now that we have, you know, a guy that we
Speaker 3: think can lead us back to where you know, this
Speaker 3: franchise wants to go, which is back to the postseason
Speaker 3: and then have success in that postseason. They might have
Speaker 3: a guy here who's capable of that, provided you surrounding
Speaker 3: with the right pieces. So how do we nurture him?
Speaker 3: What what do we need to do in an effort
Speaker 3: to not get in the way of his development? And
Speaker 3: how can we help augment that development? To me, one
Speaker 3: of the things would be would be to have some
Speaker 3: consistency in his learning curve, which mac Jones did not have.
Speaker 3: And with everyone crying for Alex van Pelt, Pelt so
Speaker 3: to speak. I'm not sure so sure that I just
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that's the direction you want to go
Speaker 3: here right now at this stage of his development.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the way I look at it, and I know
Speaker 4: I've come off as a as an AVP defender a
Speaker 4: little bit, but I look at it as almost two
Speaker 4: separate jobs. So Alex Van Pelt, to me's job right
Speaker 4: now isquarter back development, Like his job is to develop
Speaker 4: Drake May. It's his footwork, it's his mechanics, it's his
Speaker 4: reads and his you know, the upstairs stuff, the between
Speaker 4: the years stuff.
Speaker 2: It's developing a quarterback.
Speaker 4: I don't necessarily think that's that's the same as designing
Speaker 4: an offense or calling plays during the game. So there
Speaker 4: might come a time and place where, let's say two
Speaker 4: three years down the line now, when Drake May is
Speaker 4: about as finished up a product as he possibly can be,
Speaker 4: that the Patriots needs somebody that's a little bit more
Speaker 4: innovative and a little bit more creative and a little
Speaker 4: bit better at calling plays during games to kind of
Speaker 4: get them to that next step. But I don't necessarily
Speaker 4: know if that guy is the guy that develops the quarterback.
Speaker 4: If you understand what I'm saying, Like, I feel like
Speaker 4: right now I'm subject to change. If their offense goes
Speaker 4: into the tank for the last eight games of the season,
Speaker 4: then I'm going toge my mind on this. But for
Speaker 4: right now, I think Alex Van Pelt has done his
Speaker 4: job in terms of developing Drake May And that's item
Speaker 4: number one. Like, I understand that people have gripes with
Speaker 4: the way he calls plays during games and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: but frankly, it's that is not seeing the forest for
Speaker 4: the trees, right like that is right now we're getting
Speaker 4: a little bit ahead of ourselves of where this team is.
Speaker 4: And at this point in time, I would take the
Speaker 4: quarterback developer over the fancy offensive coordinator. Now, if you
Speaker 4: could find an offensive coordinator that's good at both, then
Speaker 4: you've hit the jackpot. But most likely that guy's got
Speaker 4: the head job. He doesn't have the officers coordinator.
Speaker 3: That person exists, because if he does, he's probably a
Speaker 3: head coach somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean most of the time.
Speaker 4: Now, you know, I think the one guy everybody always
Speaker 4: points to is Ben Johnson in Detroit. But like Ben
Speaker 4: Johnson in Detroit has Jared Goff, who's a veteran quarterback
Speaker 4: in this league. I don't know what Ben Johnson does
Speaker 4: with rookie quarterbacks. I know what he's done with the
Speaker 4: guy that's been there and done it before. I mean,
Speaker 4: we can say what you want about Jared Goff, but
Speaker 4: he made a Super Bowl with another team and another coach.
Speaker 4: So how Ben Johnson's a great, great coordinator. I'm not
Speaker 4: trying to say he's not. But right now, quarterback development.
Speaker 4: Trump's let's call some cool stuff on Sundays, right, And
Speaker 4: I'm all for the cool stuff?
Speaker 2: You know me?
Speaker 3: Well, can we, though, maybe get a little more help
Speaker 3: to where we could eventually call more cool stuff because
Speaker 3: it's one thing to call the cool stuff and not
Speaker 3: be successful. Yeah, I'd like to see the cool stuff
Speaker 3: be successful. Yeah. I don't think they have the personnel
Speaker 3: to do that all.
Speaker 4: The time, right, So I would say that if I
Speaker 4: were in a position of power, which I am totally not,
Speaker 4: the one thing that I would maybe do, whether it's
Speaker 4: spending time with another coordinator or another offensive mind, or
Speaker 4: it's hiring somebody actually to be on staff, is in
Speaker 4: the off season, I would like to see them try
Speaker 4: to improve their play design and try to be little
Speaker 4: bit more creative on the offensive side of the ball.
Speaker 4: So if that means bringing in somebody who is sort
Speaker 4: of one of these wizards that is more of an
Speaker 4: expert in that sort of thing. Like, I think Van
Speaker 4: Peltz a really good fundamentals coach. Like I think he's
Speaker 4: getting Drake May's footwork is better. I think his mechanics
Speaker 4: are better. I think his processing and his timing and
Speaker 4: his speed in the in the between the ears stuff
Speaker 4: is better than it was at North Carolina. I think
Speaker 4: you're seeing small increments of improvement, but the offensive line
Speaker 4: and the fundamentals and the techniques and like all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff is starting to slowly improve with lesser talent.
Speaker 4: So I actually really believe that Van Pelt's a decent
Speaker 4: football coach. I just don't know if he's Kyle Shanahan
Speaker 4: right where like he's gonna get into games and he's
Speaker 4: gonna really out fox the opposing defensive coordinator.
Speaker 2: Is he not that guy? Probably?
Speaker 4: Probably not, Probably not to be frank, But when we
Speaker 4: get to that point where that's what this team needs,
Speaker 4: then we can have that conversation comparison. I keep on
Speaker 4: using is Lamar Jackson because Lamar Jackson started off with
Speaker 4: Greg Roman as his offensive coordinator, who worked with Kaepernick
Speaker 4: in San Francisco and ran a wing te you know,
Speaker 4: triple option style offense in college. So he was really,
Speaker 4: you know, like buttoned up in terms of how to
Speaker 4: use that kind of quarterback. So he had Roman for
Speaker 4: a couple of years when MVP of the league with
Speaker 4: Roman by the way, and then eventually they got to
Speaker 4: the point where Lamar had evolved past just being an
Speaker 4: option quarterback, and he had evolved past the Greg Roman offense.
Speaker 4: So the Ravens hired Todd Monkin as their offensive coordinator
Speaker 4: and fired Greg Roman, and Todd Monkin came in and
Speaker 4: put more on Lamar's plate, ran more pro style concepts,
Speaker 4: and now all of a sudden, you see this version
Speaker 4: of the Ravens. So the Todd Monkin might not be
Speaker 4: what Drake may needs today. He might need Todd Monkin
Speaker 4: in three years, but today he might need Alex Van Pelt,
Speaker 4: and he might need a guy that has played the
Speaker 4: position before in the league, who knows quarterbacks, who knows
Speaker 4: how to coach quarterbacks. And we'll get to the point
Speaker 4: where we're talking about scheme in a.
Speaker 3: Little bit isn't that originally why Van Pelt was brought here,
Speaker 3: thinking that he could help bring along, you know, whatever
Speaker 3: rookie quarterback that they ended up you know, drafting, whether
Speaker 3: it was you know, Drake May, Jayden Daniels, whoever ended
Speaker 3: up being at that pick. They want him to basically,
Speaker 3: you know, be the quarterback whisperer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that was the original premise. We
Speaker 3: kind of lost sight of that once, you know, we
Speaker 3: knew it was Drake May, and it's kind of like,
Speaker 3: all right, now, let's see what, you know, Let's gore points,
Speaker 3: let's score touchdown, let's win games. But the one thing
Speaker 3: that I keep kind of harkening back to myself is
Speaker 3: is that this staff, even when it came in new
Speaker 3: they kept saying this is going to be a developmental process.
Speaker 3: There's going to be a slow, probably painfully laborious process. Yeah.
Speaker 3: They haven't lied to us in that regard. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, I look at Jayden Daniels I
Speaker 4: think as a cool kind of foil to the Drake
Speaker 4: May thing, because we talked about this all draft season
Speaker 4: and it's rung true. You know, Jayden Daniels spent six
Speaker 4: years in college football, He made over fifty career starts
Speaker 4: in college football. He was by far and away the
Speaker 4: most pro ready quarterback out of this group, and he,
Speaker 4: you know, was just further along in his development. So
Speaker 4: the Commanders they hired Cliff Kingsbury, who is one of
Speaker 4: these schemers, who is one of these creative offensive minds,
Speaker 4: because they didn't necessarily need to hire a guy that
Speaker 4: was going to work on footwork with jayde and Daniel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you wondered what would happened if the roles
Speaker 3: were reversed and Kingsbury was here taking care of May.
Speaker 3: If in that position, would we still be at the
Speaker 3: same stage we are now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I do wonder, because you know, look, I think Kingsbury
Speaker 4: the one thing that I have been you know, the
Speaker 4: couple things I've been critical with AVP and of the
Speaker 4: actual design of the plays and the play calls themselves
Speaker 4: are one. I don't necessarily feel like he's catered the
Speaker 4: offense to Drake May. I feel like he's asked Drake
Speaker 4: made a fit into his offense. And before everybody's you know,
Speaker 4: takes that that's not just an AVP thing. I would
Speaker 4: say Josh McDaniels did the exact same thing with Mac Jones, like,
Speaker 4: this is our system, this is what we run, this
Speaker 4: is what we're gonna ask you to do, and you
Speaker 4: have to go out there and do it. And if
Speaker 4: you can't do it, we'll get another guy to do it, right,
Speaker 4: Like that's a lot of coordinators think that way. But
Speaker 4: Kingsbury he got his hands on Jaden Daniels when Washington
Speaker 4: drafted him, and he went to LSU and basically took
Speaker 4: the LSU playbook and they took the things they liked,
Speaker 4: and they took they throughout the things they didn't like.
Speaker 4: But a lot of the things that they run in
Speaker 4: Washington are what Jaden Daniels was running at LSU. You know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of read options and quarterback run and
Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff that was all going on
Speaker 4: at LSU. They're now doing yeah in Washington, and I
Speaker 4: don't necessarily see the Patriots doing that for Drake. So
Speaker 4: that's a big thing. And I would also just say that,
Speaker 4: you know, in general, I think some of the play
Speaker 4: calling lacks sequencing, Like it lacks cohesion where you know, okay,
Speaker 4: we're running this play, We're running this play, and now
Speaker 4: here's the counter, Like here's the punch off of that.
Speaker 4: I don't necessarily see that going on and often enough.
Speaker 3: All Right, I want to get back to that in
Speaker 3: just a moment, But I want to pause here for
Speaker 3: just a moment and bring in Greg Beacham, who covers
Speaker 3: the Rams, amongst other things, for the Associated Press in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. Greg, it's John Rook and Evan Lazar here
Speaker 3: in Foxborough. Thanks for taking a little time today.
Speaker 7: Hey John, Hey Heaven, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Sure, so I get the obvious question I have is
Speaker 3: is what the hell happened this last weekend? I mean,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure that's a question that you know, the
Speaker 3: Rams are asking themselves. I'm sure that that's a question
Speaker 3: that Rams fans are asking themselves, especially after having a
Speaker 3: couple of pretty good offensive performances leading into that and
Speaker 3: getting this team back into you know, some kind of contention. Man,
Speaker 3: that was a semi stinker against the Dolphins, I thought, Yeah.
Speaker 7: Especially offensively for a team to admit a lot of
Speaker 7: progress on offense for the last couple of weeks. I mean,
Speaker 7: a lot of it came down to red zone execution,
Speaker 7: as you saw. I mean, they repeatedly, you know, failed
Speaker 7: to convert opportunities. Even when there were open receivers, Matthew
Speaker 7: Stafford didn't find them. And all that is just play
Speaker 7: to play stuff. But overall, the overarching theme is that
Speaker 7: this team is struggling to get its run game going
Speaker 7: for some reason, even though they've got Karen Williams back there,
Speaker 7: who is an elite running back. In Blake Krum the
Speaker 7: rookie who looks like a really good backup. I think
Speaker 7: you have to credit that partly to the offensive line,
Speaker 7: which has been constantly influx this year injuries every week,
Speaker 7: but also Charmavay's play calling. He's calling a lot of passes.
Speaker 7: He's in the top quarter of the league for passes called,
Speaker 7: or that's falling behind when they were struggling earlier this year,
Speaker 7: But it doesn't explain everything. They've been trying to move
Speaker 7: the ball through the air, particularly since Cooper Cup and
Speaker 7: Pukinikua came back, but it did not work against the Dolphins.
Speaker 7: They struggled to get the ball in the end zone,
Speaker 7: they struggled on third down, right, they struggled everywhere where
Speaker 7: they'd been doing pretty well the previous two weeks.
Speaker 3: I would ask you why you think maybe they've struggled.
Speaker 3: I mean, I saw that they were pretty good in
Speaker 3: terms of possessing the ball, but when it got to
Speaker 3: the red zone, they just they came up with they
Speaker 3: fired blanks. Is it because of anything that either Nikoua
Speaker 3: or Cup were doing, or is it because they don't
Speaker 3: lack they lack a running game? Was it the play calling?
Speaker 3: I mean, have you been able to kind of look
Speaker 3: at it and say, well, maybe was this or that.
Speaker 7: It's occurred a lot during Sean mcvay's eight years. He's
Speaker 7: an excellent coach, he's one of the best.
Speaker 6: In the league.
Speaker 7: But in terms of his you know, short field play calling, execution,
Speaker 7: all those kinds of things that we talk about, he's
Speaker 7: lacked at times. And he's to be the first to
Speaker 7: admit it. He's like, you know, I didn't put my
Speaker 7: guys in the position to succeeed.
Speaker 6: He'll put you know, Stafford back there with a couple.
Speaker 7: Of options if one of them's not open. Matthew Stafford
Speaker 7: is not the most elusive quarterback in the world. He
Speaker 7: needs to make a quick decision. They'll take a chance.
Speaker 7: He's also a gambler. He made a couple of mistakes
Speaker 7: on Monday Night overall.
Speaker 6: I just say it's an overall not having a sense
Speaker 6: of being able to establish the running game and go
Speaker 6: from there. That's been the repeated problem this year is
Speaker 6: just not getting the ball moving on the ground enough
Speaker 6: to where you can set up the pass properly. And
Speaker 6: a lot of teams do it the opposite way, obviously,
Speaker 6: but the Rams when they've been at their best when
Speaker 6: they had Todd Gurley, when they had no Kiren going
Speaker 6: nuts last year, where a team that would use the run,
Speaker 6: set up the pass and have a lot of success
Speaker 6: that way, they have not been able to do that.
Speaker 6: Even when they've played well this year, it hasn't been
Speaker 6: really impressive. They're rushing offenses like twenty six in the league,
Speaker 6: I believe before Monday night. So it's just not getting
Speaker 6: it going, and to me, that's the biggest problem. And
Speaker 6: I think again you have to come back to the
Speaker 6: offensive line on that they've had injuries, that just hasn't
Speaker 6: worked out.
Speaker 3: Seemed like everybody is having major offensive line issues. The
Speaker 3: Patriots offensive line is well documented issues that they've had.
Speaker 3: We saw that this last week from the Bears the
Speaker 3: Patriots played, and now we're seeing it from the Rams.
Speaker 3: Have you been able to put your finger on why
Speaker 3: this is. Are there just not enough good players out there?
Speaker 3: Or is it because of the physicality of the game.
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of curious what you're your point of
Speaker 3: view might be on why we're seeing so many offensive
Speaker 3: line issues.
Speaker 7: Well, that might be it. I mean I always talk
Speaker 7: about this with hockey, that there's so many, so many
Speaker 7: players in the NHL right now who would be in
Speaker 7: the AHL a few years ago because they've expanded so much.
Speaker 7: Maybe it's it's a fact where there's just not that many,
Speaker 7: not that many difference makers at this level. But but
Speaker 7: the Rams offensive line issues started early. They lost, they
Speaker 7: lost three guys in the first two games, and after
Speaker 7: that they're just they're just patching holes all over the place.
Speaker 7: They're playing a rookie at center who did his best.
Speaker 7: You know, they're playing they're they're switching tackles. They had
Speaker 7: they had their left tackles suspended for two games, so
Speaker 7: they haven't had any continuity to work on something. And
Speaker 7: that was something that they went into the offseason really
Speaker 7: wanting to address. They signed Jonah Jackson, paid a top
Speaker 7: dollar for a guard who turned out to be a center.
Speaker 7: They drafted Steve Avola in the second round last year.
Speaker 7: They've paid Kevin Dottson to stay, paid him big money
Speaker 7: after after very smartly acquiring him in a trade. They
Speaker 7: thought that the interior of their offensive line would be
Speaker 7: their strength. I don't know that you can blame injuries
Speaker 7: on any specific, you know thing. I don't know that
Speaker 7: that works. They did rely on Joe Noteboom as their
Speaker 7: swing tagle, who's been injury prone his entire career, and
Speaker 7: he got hurt again, only came back last week and
Speaker 7: didn't do so good because Rob Havnstein was out at
Speaker 7: the right tackle. So I don't know that you can
Speaker 7: tag it on one particular thing. Some of that's the
Speaker 7: role of the dice as that every team knows. You know,
Speaker 7: you come into a season with a plan and then
Speaker 7: you get punch in the mouth.
Speaker 6: But I think, I think if they can just get
Speaker 6: a couple of few weeks together to build some continuity,
Speaker 6: build some stability, I think the running game will come
Speaker 6: because Karen Williams looks just as good as before, except
Speaker 6: his yards per carry his way down, and that's hurting
Speaker 6: everything the Rams.
Speaker 7: Are trying to do.
Speaker 3: Philosophically speaking, and then I kind of tossed this out
Speaker 3: to both of you. Here, is this a problem on
Speaker 3: the offensive line that could be solved with expanded rosters?
Speaker 3: Because we're getting ready to even think about the eighteen
Speaker 3: game regular season in the next few years, certainly by
Speaker 3: the time the next contract, you know, with the NFLPA
Speaker 3: rolls around, I'm wondering if this is a solvable problem
Speaker 3: so that teams can improve them with some added depth. Greg,
Speaker 3: I'll let you take it first.
Speaker 7: That's a good question. I'd be curious. I do know
Speaker 7: that the Rams you know, have they have depth in
Speaker 7: the building. They have a practice squad full of guys
Speaker 7: who they you know, they drafted or they think can
Speaker 7: step up. Some of them have tried and have failed. Though,
Speaker 7: I don't know whether the only way you get better
Speaker 7: is to play. Then if you can't play, then how
Speaker 7: do you get better. I don't know how that works.
Speaker 7: I would love to see.
Speaker 6: I'm all in.
Speaker 7: Favor of expanded rosters.
Speaker 6: I think anything you can do to help people get
Speaker 6: better at football and be part of the team and
Speaker 6: all that kind of stuff would work. But in terms
Speaker 6: of like fixing you know, injuries and depth, that's gonna
Speaker 6: be really tough, just because the level is so high
Speaker 6: in the NFL. The defensive lineman you're going against are
Speaker 6: so good. You know, you're not gonna lose your backup tack,
Speaker 6: lose your tackle and then have him go up against
Speaker 6: the backup defensive end.
Speaker 7: That's not the artworks. You guys just gonna get murdered
Speaker 7: by an elite guy on the other side.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I just I think a bigger problem to
Speaker 4: me is the lack of padded practices and the lack
Speaker 4: of you know, contact, especially in the summertime, because look,
Speaker 4: that's offensive line play is just fundamentals and you know,
Speaker 4: physicality and all that kind of stuff. And if you
Speaker 4: don't have those reps under your belt, especially and we're
Speaker 4: talking about depth guys that get even less reps than
Speaker 4: the guys that are starting, and a lot of places,
Speaker 4: it's just kind of compounds itself that these guys just
Speaker 4: don't have a ton of experience. And I've always wondered
Speaker 4: if like there was a way to you know, now
Speaker 4: we have all these like spring leagues and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: like if you start sending some of those guys like
Speaker 4: that are going to be eighth, nine, tenth offensive lineman
Speaker 4: on NFL rosters practice squad guys like, give those guys
Speaker 4: opportunities to get more live reps other places. You know,
Speaker 4: maybe that would help him out as well. But you know,
Speaker 4: that's the biggest thing to me, because you do look
Speaker 4: at the NFL and you can see, especially teams that
Speaker 4: are at least able to stay somewhat healthy on the
Speaker 4: offensive line. By the end of the year, it's a
Speaker 4: lot better than it was at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 4: And that's not a coincidence.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: They build to that sort of thing. I think we're
Speaker 4: even seeing that here a little bit, is that the
Speaker 4: Patriots have been able to build at least in some spots.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it goes back to the old adage.
Speaker 3: And I've said this all along, he who has the
Speaker 3: most toys wins. And if you're if you're if you're
Speaker 3: able to keep that some semblance of depth for the
Speaker 3: long haul here, you're going to be one of those
Speaker 3: teams that is truly a contender. That's what Kansas City
Speaker 3: has done so marvelously well over.
Speaker 2: The last few years and blocked field goals.
Speaker 3: Yeah field is that unbelievable, right, I know? And really
Speaker 3: can't Yeah, really can't they just lose and get it
Speaker 3: over with, you know, I mean, honestly, it's it's like,
Speaker 3: but they've got, you know, some of that sunshine. Uh yeah,
Speaker 3: sprang up their skirt, so to speak, Uh, like the
Speaker 3: Patriots had a few years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, very similar.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Greg.
Speaker 4: I had a couple of questions for you, just since
Speaker 4: we're on the topic of offensive line. Do you expect
Speaker 4: it to be the same group as it was last week,
Speaker 4: because I know they had got a bunch of guys
Speaker 4: back and it didn't exactly go the way that they
Speaker 4: were hoping it would.
Speaker 7: We have not talked to Sean yet today. He talked
Speaker 7: in about an hour. But the expectation with Rob Hanstein,
Speaker 7: their starting right tackle, was that he would have a
Speaker 7: chance to come back this week. Joe Noteboom played for
Speaker 7: him last week. Didn't play that well overall. I mean,
Speaker 7: he's doing his best. He was coming back from his
Speaker 7: injuries first time since week one, so he was just
Speaker 7: being thrown into the fire. They did get they did
Speaker 7: get their center back, and they got their they got
Speaker 7: their left guard back. There was one bad snap that
Speaker 7: showed a little bit of rustiness from those two guys
Speaker 7: who'd been injured, but they'll both feedback. They're both okay.
Speaker 7: So they're going to be close to one hundred percent
Speaker 7: this week. They're either going to have their five starters
Speaker 7: from from week one, which will be the first time
Speaker 7: they've had their five starters from week one, or they're
Speaker 7: going to have four starters and they're they're dependable, very
Speaker 7: well paid backup tackle at right at right tackle who's
Speaker 7: going to be expected to produce. So they're close to
Speaker 7: one hundred percent as they can be right now, and
Speaker 7: you know, at week whatever week we're at, and so
Speaker 7: we'll see if that pays dividends on the field.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then just to flip over to the other
Speaker 4: side of the ball to talk about some more positive
Speaker 4: things for the Rams right now. Obviously that defense is
Speaker 4: playing lights out over the last month or so.
Speaker 3: Loved your adverse, Yeah, does what do you.
Speaker 4: See from the group overall? And Chris Sula and his
Speaker 4: scheme seems pretty pretty good right now too.
Speaker 7: They've made a lot of improvements that the story from
Speaker 7: September to October was night and day. And I give
Speaker 7: credit to Chris Shula because there are a lot of
Speaker 7: raised eros at that higher because he you know, he
Speaker 7: was Shawn's college teammate, college roommate, you know, old friend,
Speaker 7: had not really been a candidate for a lot of
Speaker 7: defensive coordinator jobs. And Shawn is a.
Speaker 6: Guy who's gone outside of his organization, thought outside the
Speaker 6: box to find defensive coordinators. He you know, his three
Speaker 6: coordinators were West Phillips, who's never worked with before, I
Speaker 6: mean yeah, and then Uh and then Brandon Staley, who
Speaker 6: he you know, knew, didn't know Raheem Morris, who was
Speaker 6: a former colleague but hadn't worked with him in the Rams.
Speaker 6: To get stay in, to stay in the organization and
Speaker 6: to go with that was a bit of a surprise.
Speaker 6: But they're making a lot of strides and a lot
Speaker 6: of it's about that defensive front. You guys are gonna
Speaker 6: love getting the first first hand look at Jared Verse.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 7: Just kind of a monster on the edge, just relentless motor,
Speaker 7: just has great instincts. Once once he learns how to
Speaker 7: put down you know, every tackle that he has an
Speaker 7: opportunity to make. Like a veteran, he's going to be
Speaker 7: one of the best, you know, one of the best
Speaker 7: ed rushers in the NFL. He might already be. I'm
Speaker 7: not sure, but that's not the only guy. That've got
Speaker 7: Kobe Turner at nose tackle, who's a very active, very
Speaker 7: aggressive nose tackle, has done a great job of filling
Speaker 7: a lot of the of the gap that Aaron Donald's left.
Speaker 7: That've got Byron Young on the other side, who is
Speaker 7: a nice book nd pass rusher for Jared Burst. He
Speaker 7: doesn't pop off the screen quite as much as Burst does,
Speaker 7: but he's very effective and very relentless as well. And
Speaker 7: then they've just got They've got a bunch of guys
Speaker 7: you know, on the interior who filled good roles as well.
Speaker 7: So and Braden Fist, their other rookie, is also showing
Speaker 7: real promise on the interior defensive line. So a lot
Speaker 7: of the success is built on this young defensive line
Speaker 7: really coming into its own after just a half a
Speaker 7: season together. It really bodes well for the future of
Speaker 7: the Rams. They do have problems at the other two
Speaker 7: levels of the defense, but right now that their team,
Speaker 7: their team is getting a lot of pressure and stopping
Speaker 7: a lot of stuff at the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 4: I was sort of sorry, just you know, just as
Speaker 4: a team right now in the Patriots that are obviously rebuilding,
Speaker 4: you know, there was there's clearly a philosophical shift with
Speaker 4: less Need and Sehn McVay about how they were going
Speaker 4: to approach team building from the you know FM picks
Speaker 4: era to now right, So like what sort of changed,
Speaker 4: Like why did they go this direction? And now we're
Speaker 4: talking about you know, Verse and Fisk and all these
Speaker 4: first and second round picks that are making impacts because
Speaker 4: they have picks.
Speaker 7: Again, Lester p Sneed likes to zig when the world's aggs,
Speaker 7: and that's what he's done twice. I mean, he realized
Speaker 7: that people were overvaluing their high picks. He took advantage
Speaker 7: of that by landing a bunch of difference making veterans
Speaker 7: to win a Super Bowl. And then when the last
Speaker 7: of the league cut up to him and started realizing, hey, wait,
Speaker 7: these are worth something and we can get a guy
Speaker 7: who's really good right now, he was like, we need
Speaker 7: to rebuild our base. He you know, the fmpis thing.
Speaker 7: They always said it was sustainable long term. They didn't
Speaker 7: feel like they were loading up and putting all their
Speaker 7: cards on the table in twenty twenty one. Having said that,
Speaker 7: when they had twenty twenty two that went so poorly,
Speaker 7: they decided, Okay, wait, we need to restock this base,
Speaker 7: and so they've approached that deliberately intentionally. They've they've deliberately
Speaker 7: stayed away from long term, major commitments to guys who
Speaker 7: will not be here in three years, and they've they've
Speaker 7: restocked everything they needed. And they've started on the defensive line,
Speaker 7: because that was the most obvious place to start, particularly
Speaker 7: after Aaron Donald retired, but even before that they needed
Speaker 7: stuff there. So they've done that, they're doing it again,
Speaker 7: and now when you look around the league, it's funny.
Speaker 7: At the trade deadline, you stop people starting to really
Speaker 7: value those high picks again and maybe not making a
Speaker 7: move that would make them more of a Super Bowl
Speaker 7: contender this year, which makes us think maybe Less is
Speaker 7: going to be like, hmm, well, if I, you know,
Speaker 7: if I have a competitive team here and I have
Speaker 7: a first round pick that I can trade for a
Speaker 7: difference making cornerback or a difference making receiver, maybe I'm
Speaker 7: Gonnazig when they're going to zag again. I don't know.
Speaker 7: We'll see, but it's very interesting to see the way
Speaker 7: the league has been following Less around. It's been funny.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating, it's also, Yeah, and the other obvious thing here,
Speaker 3: just to kind of cut to the chase, is that
Speaker 3: I've noticed in some of the headlines about the Rams
Speaker 3: the last few weeks, they've gone from streaking to struggling.
Speaker 3: How does that happen so quickly? And at four and five, five,
Speaker 3: four and five? Is this team that far away from
Speaker 3: being that contender that somebody thought they would be?
Speaker 7: We thought they were. They had turned the corner until
Speaker 7: until Monday night. Actually, they had a one and four
Speaker 7: start with injuries. They had their top two receivers out,
Speaker 7: their top tight end has already been out for the season.
Speaker 6: You know, they had two key offensive linemen out. We thought,
Speaker 6: you know, well, this is this is turning into twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two again. They're just they're just too injured to compete.
Speaker 7: They turned it around. They won three games in a row.
Speaker 7: They looked really good in all three of those games,
Speaker 7: defensively particularly, but also offensively. After Cup and Nickula came back,
Speaker 7: and then you know, on Monday night against Miami, they
Speaker 7: could not execute for the multiple reasons we already talked about. Yea,
Speaker 7: they couldn't get the ball on the end zone. If
Speaker 7: Matthew Stafford gets Karen Williams open in the end zone,
Speaker 7: it might be a different dicussion. You know, that changes
Speaker 7: the entire dynamic of the game. That was you know,
Speaker 7: every NFL played, every NFL game comes down to a
Speaker 7: handful of plays like that. But having said that, you know,
Speaker 7: they lost. They looked, they looked really poor on offense.
Speaker 7: They couldn't they couldn't do anything when it really mattered,
Speaker 7: even though they outgained the Dolphins fandily. So I think
Speaker 7: this game against against New England, they got New England,
Speaker 7: Philadelphia and New Orleans coming up back to back, you know,
Speaker 7: that's going to show you a lot about where they're at,
Speaker 7: and that's going to really determine whether they're actually a
Speaker 7: contender for a playoff spot. They've they've come down to
Speaker 7: the point in the season where it's going to really
Speaker 7: matter what they do in New England on Sunday. This
Speaker 7: is a really important game for them.
Speaker 3: Really good stuff, Greg, thanks for taking a little time
Speaker 3: to visit with us today. We do appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Oh, thank you so much. John and Nevian appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Have on the game.
Speaker 3: Thanks you got it. Greg Beacham covers the Rams for
Speaker 3: the Associated Press in Los Angeles joining us here in
Speaker 3: the playbook. I you know, to me going into the season,
Speaker 3: the Rams one of those teams that are like, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: they'll probably be back. You're thinking, you know, Sean McVay
Speaker 3: is still one of the you know, the up and
Speaker 3: coming coaches of all you know, and the Patriots of
Speaker 3: course match witch with him a few years ago in
Speaker 3: the Super Bowl when he was just starting out, and
Speaker 3: certainly you would think that with a little seasoning and
Speaker 3: having to gone through some adversity, here's a team in
Speaker 3: an organization that's got to be on the uptick, which
Speaker 3: is why when they started out struggling this year, I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 3: what's going on? Is the blame all to go with McVeigh.
Speaker 3: Admittedly probably some of that turning it around, okay, on
Speaker 3: the back on the right track, and then they took
Speaker 3: a huge step back, and I have you know, look,
Speaker 3: I think tour Toungo Viiloa is a better quarterback than
Speaker 3: we've given him credit for over a long period of time,
Speaker 3: especially since he's been in the NFL. Uh you know win, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: In the regular season, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: But I can't believe he would be that much of
Speaker 3: a difference maker for the Dolphins and and and maybe
Speaker 3: he is, and maybe we need to give him credit
Speaker 3: for that. But what I saw, the little I saw
Speaker 3: of the game this past week, I'm like, I was
Speaker 3: just I was more amazed at the rams inability to convert.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they had a lot of injuries the Rams, did
Speaker 4: you know, pukin Akua, Cooper Cup injuries on the offensive
Speaker 4: line that Greg was talking about, and the whole thing
Speaker 4: with them has been and that they are just hoping
Speaker 4: they get everybody back at the right time and then
Speaker 4: they can go on a run in the second half
Speaker 4: of the season and make the playoffs and get into
Speaker 4: the playoffs and and be that you know, team that
Speaker 4: nobody wants to play as a six seed or seventh
Speaker 4: seed or something like that. But the issue is is
Speaker 4: when that happens, like you have no margin for error, right,
Speaker 4: Like you can't lose games that you should win. And
Speaker 4: I don't know if Miami was necessarily a game you
Speaker 4: should win because the Dolphins have a lot of talent
Speaker 4: and well, definitely talk about Miami next week, so he can,
Speaker 4: we can talk about them then. But in terms of
Speaker 4: the Rams now, they're at a point where, like Greg
Speaker 4: was saying, they have to win pretty much every game,
Speaker 4: like they.
Speaker 2: Don't have any margin for error anymore.
Speaker 4: Now, the one thing I would say, you know that
Speaker 4: we didn't really touch on too much just now with Greg,
Speaker 4: that Nikua and Cup. To me, I don't necessarily see
Speaker 4: Cooper Cup as being as dynamic of a receiver as
Speaker 4: he maybe was a couple of years ago on film.
Speaker 3: I do think that's why he was a rumor for
Speaker 3: trade possibility before the deadline.
Speaker 2: It's possible. I and this is just my opinion.
Speaker 4: I just watched film of the Rams now and I
Speaker 4: don't necessarily see the same guy that won Super Bowl
Speaker 4: MVP a couple of years ago. You know, Like I
Speaker 4: don't think that he is quite as electric of a
Speaker 4: route runner as he once was. And I think these
Speaker 4: injuries that he's had, and he has had quite a
Speaker 4: few nagging injuries, some serious ones too, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 4: those seem to be catching up to him maybe a
Speaker 4: little bit this at this stage of his career. So now,
Speaker 4: you know, the Dolphins, they played a lot of zone,
Speaker 4: but like when they were playing man to man, and
Speaker 4: I always watched the man to man tape a couple
Speaker 4: times because the Patriots are going to play a lot
Speaker 4: of man to man against opponents. And when I watch
Speaker 4: the Rams and watch them try to get open against
Speaker 4: man to man coverage, like Cup used to just be
Speaker 4: uncoverable one on one when you played him in straight up.
Speaker 4: Now I don't necessarily see that.
Speaker 2: And with Nakua, I think.
Speaker 4: That he's a really good catch and run receiver, but
Speaker 4: he's someone that I believe is more of a product
Speaker 4: to Sean McVay and in the scheme, right, like get
Speaker 4: once they get him open with the scheme, then he
Speaker 4: can catch and run with the football and do the
Speaker 4: things that he does with the ball in his hands.
Speaker 3: How then do you see the Patriots trying to match
Speaker 3: up then with the Cup and Cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely think they're going to play man again. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a tough on.
Speaker 4: I definitely think they're going to play man. I mean
Speaker 4: I think that's their college for now. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 4: they do now.
Speaker 2: They know that.
Speaker 4: And the one thing that you look at with with
Speaker 4: these Rams receivers outside of maybe too too atwell who
Speaker 4: is a burner, but you like kind of that Marcus
Speaker 4: Jones matchup probably on at well. I think the one
Speaker 4: thing you look at with with cup and and Puka
Speaker 4: is that they don't necessarily run by people. You know,
Speaker 4: they're not receivers that are going to threaten you really
Speaker 4: at the third level. They are more guys that want
Speaker 4: to run you off the line of scrimmage and then
Speaker 4: break at the intermediate level on crossing routes, out corners,
Speaker 4: comebacks like things like that. So if you can give
Speaker 4: corners leverage, you know, help into the middle of the
Speaker 4: field and those situations and they can sit outside of
Speaker 4: these receivers and just you know, follow them around or
Speaker 4: trail them as we would call it in terms of
Speaker 4: the technique, then you can have some success. And that's
Speaker 4: what Miami was able to do was you know, they're
Speaker 4: gonna okay, you know, Cooper Cups got like an option
Speaker 4: on this. He can break in or he can break out. Well,
Speaker 4: we're gonna put a defender right in the middle of
Speaker 4: the field, so if he breaks in, it's gonna break
Speaker 4: right into the help. If he breaks out, then the
Speaker 4: corner's sitting right there for him on the out. So
Speaker 4: that's what the Dolphins were able to do against this team.
Speaker 4: And right now, you don't necessarily see them separating a
Speaker 4: ton on film.
Speaker 3: If the Rams don't solve their red zone issues, which
Speaker 3: they clearly had. Yeah last week, is this winnable game
Speaker 3: for the Patriots?
Speaker 4: Yeah, look at their red zone issues are definitely documented.
Speaker 4: And I would also just say there are a couple
Speaker 4: of possessions in that game against the Dolphins where they're
Speaker 4: just going backwards like on their own unforced errors like
Speaker 4: bad snaps or bobbled exchanges with the running back and
Speaker 4: like just weird things like they would get over the
Speaker 4: fifty and then all of a sudden they take like a
Speaker 4: twelve yard sack because the snap went over Stafford's head. Like,
Speaker 4: you know, that's not necessarily the Dolphins, Like, that's that's
Speaker 4: the Rams.
Speaker 3: Issues that you talk too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, getting in their own way.
Speaker 4: So if they continue to shoot themselves in the foot,
Speaker 4: then yeah, they're gonna find themselves in a little bit
Speaker 4: of a game here with the Patriots on Sunday. But
Speaker 4: if they play their best, and even if you play
Speaker 4: your best, and I would pick the Rams in the game,
Speaker 4: and I probably would pick the Rams anyways, But if
Speaker 4: the Rams keep on shooting themselves in the foot, then
Speaker 4: sure anything can happen at that end.
Speaker 3: It is it likely then, and I want to expand
Speaker 3: on that for just a second, Is it likely then
Speaker 3: the Patriots won't be favored in a single game this year.
Speaker 4: I think they have a chance to be favored against
Speaker 4: the Colts. The Colts are going to go back to
Speaker 4: Anthony Richardson. It sounds like, at least for the time being,
Speaker 4: he's got to stay healthy. If in three weeks the
Speaker 4: Patriots play the Colts here at Chalette Stadium, uh, it's
Speaker 4: either going to be Flacco or Anthony Richardson in the
Speaker 4: Indianapolis Colts. And if the Patriots win another one of
Speaker 4: these two games coming up in between now and then,
Speaker 4: and they're you know one four, six or three or
Speaker 4: five or whatever the heck the math is, then like
Speaker 4: I could see them maybe being favored here.
Speaker 3: Well, that's something I think to potentially look forward to.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, you know, small steps, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're still in that stage where you've got to take
Speaker 3: small steps. What needs to be seen this week for
Speaker 3: you to continue to think this team is moving in
Speaker 3: the right direction.
Speaker 4: I would say offensively, they got a nice performance I
Speaker 4: thought from the supporting cast for Drake May. They ran
Speaker 4: the ball a little bit. The offensive line wasn't a
Speaker 4: complete sieve. The coordinating and the coaching, like we talked
Speaker 4: about earlier, was decent enough. Like I don't again, I
Speaker 4: still have not crazy about Alex van Peltz, you know,
Speaker 4: play calling and scheming and x's and o's.
Speaker 2: But it was fine. It was good enough. He did,
Speaker 2: you know, Tay.
Speaker 4: They took advantage of some busts and some opportunities that
Speaker 4: the Bears gave them, and they, to their credit, they
Speaker 4: hit them right. You know, they got a hooper coming
Speaker 4: across the field with nobody on them, and they didn't
Speaker 4: screwed up. They hit the open receiver. If they can
Speaker 4: continue to get that level of performance from the offensive
Speaker 4: line and Alex van pel and then have Drake may
Speaker 4: play a little bit better on top of that, then
Speaker 4: I can really start to get excited about this offense
Speaker 4: and see where they're going. I thought in this game
Speaker 4: against the Bears, I thought Drake took a little bit
Speaker 4: of a step back, and I thought the rest of
Speaker 4: it took a little of a step forward. So if
Speaker 4: we can kind of get those things going together, then
Speaker 4: we can start talking about them progressing on that side of.
Speaker 3: The ball tell you what I want to see. I
Speaker 3: want to see. I realized that they're not going to
Speaker 3: hold the Rams to one of fourteen on third den
Speaker 3: like they held the Bears.
Speaker 5: Probably, which to me is ahough, the Rams are bad
Speaker 5: on third down. Last week they weren't good. They weren't good,
Speaker 5: but one of fourteen that was astounding to me. I
Speaker 5: want to continue to see the defense figure out a
Speaker 5: way to get off the field and hold the opponent
Speaker 5: to thirty thirty three percent something like that conversion on
Speaker 5: third day. If they can do that, that tells me
Speaker 5: they're giving their offense enough opportunity to have the ball,
Speaker 5: hold on to the ball, and maybe even score some
Speaker 5: points with the ball fair enough.
Speaker 4: I think a big part of that. To me, I'm
Speaker 4: a big believer in that funneling from early down defense.
Speaker 4: And a big part of this Bears game was that
Speaker 4: they stopped the run. You know, they were able to
Speaker 4: stop the run. They were able to stop the Bears
Speaker 4: on first down, and then you get into second and long,
Speaker 4: you get into third and long, you know, so obviously
Speaker 4: it goes without saying that it's easier to play third
Speaker 4: and long defense than it is to play third and
Speaker 4: short defense. So if you can get these teams into
Speaker 4: longer down and distances. You know, we talk so much,
Speaker 4: and myself included about the Longhorn package and about Brendon's school.
Speaker 3: Are going there and I just going there again.
Speaker 4: And it's fun, Like it's fun to talk about it,
Speaker 4: it's fun to write about. But the bottom line is,
Speaker 4: if you're not in third and ten, then Brendon's Schooler
Speaker 4: is not going to have an opportunity to come on
Speaker 4: the field because he's not going to play on third
Speaker 4: and three. Yep, He's going to play in a certain situation.
Speaker 4: So they did a nice job against the Bears of
Speaker 4: playing on a good stout run defense, and we're able
Speaker 4: to get them into those some of those long yardages.
Speaker 3: You know, like Saturday, I once told us more cow Bell,
Speaker 3: more schooler, more scholar, I need more Brendan school Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know if Stafford's not really the mobile quarterback
Speaker 4: that you necessarily have to worry about like Caleb is.
Speaker 4: So I don't know if this week will it will
Speaker 4: be a big long hold package. Yeah, but I definitely
Speaker 4: love Schooler's energy that he brings to the defensive side
Speaker 4: of the ball. And they've needed you know, last year
Speaker 4: they used mac Wilson a lot as a spy, you know,
Speaker 4: in that sort of role in their five man rush package.
Speaker 4: And you know, they didn't necessarily have a player like
Speaker 4: that that that could do those sort of things the
Speaker 4: way that mac Wilson could. And so it's nice that
Speaker 4: they've found someone that you get him into third and
Speaker 4: ten and you have a guy that can improvise or
Speaker 4: run around a little bit back there. Now they'll have
Speaker 4: that ability. Like I'll give you, you know, just an
Speaker 4: example off the top of my head. We just talked
Speaker 4: about am Anthony Richardson. Like if he's the court back
Speaker 4: for the Colts in three weeks and the Patriots are
Speaker 4: playing ar then maybe he's somebody that they do run
Speaker 4: the Longhorn package.
Speaker 3: A final one that I want to hit you upset
Speaker 3: of the head with. Yeah, okay, after seeing what you
Speaker 3: saw last week in Chicago, all right, would you go
Speaker 3: with the Williams or May at quarterback? Oh?
Speaker 4: That's tough because I don't want to get too caught
Speaker 4: up in like recency bias, because my draft analysis was
Speaker 4: that Caleb was the better prospect, and so I think
Speaker 4: to be fair to him, It would be kind of
Speaker 4: unfair to then reverse on that. But the one thing
Speaker 4: that was definitely true for both of these guys and
Speaker 4: why I was so high still on Drake May was
Speaker 4: I felt like Drake May could win playing more traditional
Speaker 4: quarterback than Caleb could. I thought that too much has
Speaker 4: been and was made of Drake May the improviser or
Speaker 4: Drake May the athlete, like great athlete. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 4: I'm not saying he's not, but I thought a little
Speaker 4: bit too much was made of that being a crutch
Speaker 4: for him. This is a guy that North Carolina won
Speaker 4: from the pocket a lot and run from the pocket
Speaker 4: a lot so far and his first five career starts,
Speaker 4: whereas I feel like with Caleb, Caleb is truly one
Speaker 4: of those guys that is going to want that to
Speaker 4: be a big part of his game. So I feel
Speaker 4: as though this is not that surprising that it's gone
Speaker 4: this way just because of that, because you know, I
Speaker 4: think Drake May is doing a lot more of the
Speaker 4: traditional quarterback stuff than Caleb is right now for Chicago,
Speaker 4: And you do see throws from Drake in structure that
Speaker 4: are in rhythm and on time and to the right
Speaker 4: read and accurate and on the move, and you see
Speaker 4: the Patriots be able to generate some big plays off
Speaker 4: of those things. I thought, in general, you still saw
Speaker 4: some of that against Chicago, even though I had him,
Speaker 4: As you know, this is probably his worst start in
Speaker 4: my mind for Drake, out of all five of them.
Speaker 4: But I still think that you saw plenty of that.
Speaker 3: He had better help.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you had a little bit better help, a little bit
Speaker 4: better help. And I'm probably being too hard on him
Speaker 4: for one play. Like, look, we're just at the point
Speaker 4: to me where the the interception like he throw through
Speaker 4: on Sunday against Chicago, Like we gotta get rid of
Speaker 4: those like the You know, it's not to say that
Speaker 4: he's not still a twenty two year old rookie, because
Speaker 4: we're all aware that he is. He's gonna make mistakes,
Speaker 4: but those are mistakes that you can avoid, like if
Speaker 4: he throws a pick because he just throws a bad
Speaker 4: ball and it's intercepted. I keep going back to the
Speaker 4: very first picky through against Houston where he just sailed
Speaker 4: it over Pop Douglas's head in the safety caught it
Speaker 4: behind him. Like those plays I can kind of live
Speaker 4: with because it's the right read. It's the right throw.
Speaker 4: It just wasn't a good throw, right.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: But the picky through against Chicago we got. Those have
Speaker 4: to be nipped in the butt immediately, like you can't
Speaker 4: keep doing that kind of stuff. Uh, and you know,
Speaker 4: get away with it. So that play bothered me a lot,
Speaker 4: I guess. So maybe I am looking too much into
Speaker 4: one play. Uh, But I thought on the whole, you know,
Speaker 4: grading it played by play, I still thought that it
Speaker 4: was his worst performance.
Speaker 2: But I'm still I'm still a drake guy. Don't worry.
Speaker 3: Don't worry. We won't give up the ship on him now. No,
Speaker 3: I don't think I will either. Ev Thanks for the
Speaker 3: help today, man, anytime there go all right, the one
Speaker 3: and only Evan Lazar at Easy Lazarre on X is
Speaker 3: where you'll find him, and that's where we That's kind
Speaker 3: of where we are going into this thing. So at
Speaker 3: this point in time, phone lines are open. I mentioned
Speaker 3: that a little earlier. I'm going to get to a
Speaker 3: couple of calls here in just a moment. But eight
Speaker 3: five to five PATS five hundred toll free on the
Speaker 3: TPX hotline eight five five p A t S five
Speaker 3: hundred you've got podcasts at Patriots dot com as the
Speaker 3: email address. You can also hit me up on x
Speaker 3: at JR Broadcaster Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy bud
Speaker 3: like the official beers sponsor of the New England Patriots.
Speaker 3: And if you want to spend Black Friday weekend watching football,
Speaker 3: I do, although h I don't know if I should
Speaker 3: say this or not. What the hell? It's just me
Speaker 3: and you, isn't it right, Matt okay and thousands of listeners?
Speaker 3: Thousands millions? You're right, millions? Yeah, exactly, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be elsewhere on Black Friday weekend? Should I say?
Speaker 3: Is that even? Is that even? Should I even? Should
Speaker 3: I even mention that? I mean, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: want anybody feel sorry for me. I just looked. I
Speaker 3: don't feel sorry for you. I get to I'm going.
Speaker 3: I'm going to cover the Battle for Atlantis. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 3: which is it's a pretty cool thing to do over
Speaker 3: the Thanksgiving holiday. But I do enjoy a good Black
Speaker 3: Friday weekend and I love football over the Thanksgiving weekend
Speaker 3: right Anyway, if you wanted to make it a good
Speaker 3: deal on some Coco Locos out there, Coco Coco locos. Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, all right, I'll have to take your word
Speaker 3: for that. I don't do any of that stuff. I
Speaker 3: don't do any you'll love that drink. I don't do that.
Speaker 3: I lie too a lot. Uh what I want? It's
Speaker 3: been black Friday weekend watching football instead of waiting in line. Well,
Speaker 3: this November, Bob's is unboxing unbeatable values for your home
Speaker 3: all month long, so you can skip the phony sales
Speaker 3: and stock up early on everything from sofas to bedroom sets,
Speaker 3: to stocking stuffers and plenty of well wowworthy gifts. Right,
Speaker 3: so stop in and see how much you can say
Speaker 3: when you dare to compare with Bob's Discount Furniture, the
Speaker 3: official furniture store of the New England Patriots. All right,
Speaker 3: let's get to some of the phones here as well.
Speaker 3: Eight five five Pats five hundred. Also going to get
Speaker 3: to a couple of emails our buddy Sean and Vancouver Sean.
Speaker 3: Thanks for hanging in.
Speaker 8: My friend, No problem, John, Great to speak with you again.
Speaker 3: Always good to have you, you know.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, it's always great to speak with it. Now
Speaker 8: your friend from the Rams media mentioned that we're he said,
Speaker 8: you're gonna love seeing Verse on Sunday. I don't think
Speaker 8: he's talking to me because I have a feeling I'm
Speaker 8: not gonna love seeing Verse or Fisk or any of
Speaker 8: those young, ferocious defensive linemen on the Rams. But I
Speaker 8: don't want to see the making life difficult for the
Speaker 8: Patriots and Drake May.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I understand that, I'm you know, looking
Speaker 3: at it from a purely New England point of view.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling that that could end up being
Speaker 3: the difference in the game. That if the Patriots offensive
Speaker 3: line does not come to protect and to play as
Speaker 3: well as they did, you know last week for the
Speaker 3: most part, that, yeah, a guy like Jared Vers could
Speaker 3: make it really difficult on Drake May to be able
Speaker 3: to find his receivers in time, which is where I
Speaker 3: think the Patriots will largely have to have some semblance
Speaker 3: of a controlling the clock running game again to take
Speaker 3: the pressure off of the edge. And if they can
Speaker 3: run the ball against the Rams, then I think you'll
Speaker 3: see the Patriots just probably hanging there as long as
Speaker 3: they're not shooting themselves in the foot. But if they're
Speaker 3: forced to go to the air because they fall behind
Speaker 3: early this one, this one could be over. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Well, speaking of offensive line, what we saw last Sunday
Speaker 8: with the Bears is a great example of what happens
Speaker 8: when you don't have a great offensive line. They were
Speaker 8: missing three of their starters, yes, as the guard got
Speaker 8: hurt early in the game, and they just I mean, sure,
Speaker 8: the Patriots defense played really well, but that was less
Speaker 8: than subpar players on offensive line, and Chicago couldn't do anything,
Speaker 8: which is a big contrast to what they were doing
Speaker 8: earlier in the season. So it makes you think, you know,
Speaker 8: as a Patriots fan, hey, you know what, we don't
Speaker 8: have it so bad. Our offensive line with just one
Speaker 8: player who's actually a starter in a nu and everyone
Speaker 8: else has backups like finding people off the street. Scott Peters,
Speaker 8: this has done a really excellent job. We actually have
Speaker 8: something of a semblance of the decent offensive line. Is
Speaker 8: not good, but it's passable, and we're able to make
Speaker 8: things work at times.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, like like we were discussing a little
Speaker 3: bit earlier, they're hardly a team in this league at
Speaker 3: this stage when you're in week eleven now, there's hardly
Speaker 3: a team in the league at this stage that isn't
Speaker 3: doing something that could be considered patchwork. Whether it's the
Speaker 3: offensive line, defensive line, linebacking corps, secondary receivers, somebody somewhere,
Speaker 3: Every team has got what they would consider to be
Speaker 3: patchwork from what they originally intended for it to be.
Speaker 3: So which teams are best suited to cover up the
Speaker 3: warts to you know, bandage the boo boo so to speak?
Speaker 3: Right now, I see one team. I see the Chiefs. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's the team.
Speaker 8: I mean, they've had problems, but they were able to overcome.
Speaker 3: It because well, and they've been able to overcome it
Speaker 3: because they've got you know, singular standout talent at key
Speaker 3: positions that can win you football game. And let's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's Patrick Mahomes. Let's start with him. And you know
Speaker 3: there are a couple of other teams. Detroit I think
Speaker 3: is right there with them. And you know, frankly, I
Speaker 3: was talking about this with somebody at school earlier today.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, man, you know what, it would
Speaker 3: be real easy to enjoy a Kansas City Detroit super
Speaker 3: Bowl if we get to that far, because I'm gonna
Speaker 3: root like hell for the Lions. And you know, I understand. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I think I think there'd be a lot of
Speaker 3: people that would do that because the Lions have never
Speaker 3: won a Super Bowl. They haven't won anything in the
Speaker 3: NFL since what nineteen fifty six when it was the
Speaker 3: old NFL Championship. So yeah, I'd be really easy to do.
Speaker 3: And nobody wants to really see not enybody in New
Speaker 3: England anyway it. I know, I wants to see the
Speaker 3: Chiefs win three in a row because the Patriots, you know,
Speaker 3: tried and couldn't quite get through themselves. But you got
Speaker 3: to I think at some point in time, you got
Speaker 3: to give credit where credit is due. Now that having
Speaker 3: been said, you also have to watch for teams that
Speaker 3: peak too early, and I'm wondering if the Chiefs are
Speaker 3: not in that category, doesn't mean that they won't it
Speaker 3: kind of, it doesn't mean that they won't do it.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I just get the feeling
Speaker 3: that maybe, you know, because they're struggling and they're finding
Speaker 3: different ways to win. I think, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of that is karma, and a lot of that is
Speaker 3: their talent. A lot of that a lot of that
Speaker 3: as they're coaching. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 3: you can only go to the well once so often.
Speaker 3: I look for teams now that are starting to get
Speaker 3: on a little bit of a roll, and I would
Speaker 3: tell you that Buffalo falls into that category. I think
Speaker 3: the Lions are still in that category. You know, They're
Speaker 3: probably a couple of others as well that I'm not
Speaker 3: thinking of off the top of my head. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure the Chiefs are.
Speaker 8: Well, that's what I want to see. I don't remember
Speaker 8: the last time I've rooted for the Bills, but I'm
Speaker 8: going to root for them against the Chiefs, even though
Speaker 8: they might be missing some of their top weapons. And
Speaker 8: I think Coleman could be out as well as Kincaid,
Speaker 8: and you know, they could be missing some some top
Speaker 8: grkets in the passing game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. And here's another team that is totally
Speaker 3: off the radar that I think has an opportunity. It's
Speaker 3: a team that plays the Thursday night games, the Commanders.
Speaker 3: They got to go on the road and they're gonna
Speaker 3: play the Eagles. But I I got listen, that's gonna
Speaker 3: be a heck of a game, I think on Thursday night,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, going to play Philadelphia and the winner
Speaker 3: of that game is going to be right there in
Speaker 3: the hunt for everything, you know, and all in all
Speaker 3: the marbles, and probably as a primary contender. I'm still
Speaker 3: not going to sell the forty nine ers short. Even
Speaker 3: if the you know, the the forty nine ers, you know,
Speaker 3: with their you know, current struggles on the field, you know,
Speaker 3: then they were able to you know, get by Tampa
Speaker 3: this past week. But I'm just you know, I think
Speaker 3: there's some really good football teams and in the NFC.
Speaker 3: I'm not sold on the AFC beyond Kansas City in
Speaker 3: Buffalo maybe right now, I don't think I don't think Baltimore. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't think the Ravens were consistent enough for my
Speaker 3: for my liking, to be honest.
Speaker 8: With you, Their defense, the problems, especially when they lost
Speaker 8: they lost one of their best corners in our last game,
Speaker 8: and that really, I mean, I think I gave up
Speaker 8: tons and tons of points to Cincinnati because of it.
Speaker 8: So yeah, they need they need help on defense. But yeah,
Speaker 8: it's there's there's some interesting things and I'm really looking
Speaker 8: forward to to that Thursday game because I want to
Speaker 8: see what Jayden Dianels can do against the Eagles. And
Speaker 8: there's some there's some great, great football to come, so
Speaker 8: I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 3: Well, let me ask you, then, Sean, what your your
Speaker 3: thoughts are about, you know, the steps forward that this
Speaker 3: Patriots team has taken. You know, uh where? I mean,
Speaker 3: what surprised you the most about last week? And was
Speaker 3: that smoke and mirrors or is this actual progress?
Speaker 8: Well, it's some progress. They certainly took advantage and as
Speaker 8: you should of a very weak offensive line. I didn't
Speaker 8: anticipate the win, and I'm glad that it happened.
Speaker 9: I wasn't.
Speaker 8: I'm still scratching my head of as to why they
Speaker 8: played Osborne over Borne. I'd like to see Bourne get
Speaker 8: another chance because I think he has talent and I
Speaker 8: think Drake may confined him as it looked like he
Speaker 8: was a couple of weeks ago against I was it
Speaker 8: was it the Jaguars. I can't remember the game, but
Speaker 8: Bourne looked like he was he was taking a turn
Speaker 8: after the injuries. So I'd like to see that happen
Speaker 8: and you know, some other players stepping forward. I want
Speaker 8: to see what the secondary can do this week, because
Speaker 8: last week they looked great, but again, you know they
Speaker 8: the the Bears didn't have the time to throw the
Speaker 8: ball because Kid Williams was under so much pressure. So
Speaker 8: I'd like to see how how they hold up against uh,
Speaker 8: some some great receivers, you know. I know Evan said
Speaker 8: that Cooper Cup doesn't really have what he had a
Speaker 8: few years ago, but then they have other receivers as well,
Speaker 8: and Robinson and and even at Well, and of course
Speaker 8: they have a Puk Natua who's who's still a tremendous weapons.
Speaker 8: So it's going to be a good challeance to see
Speaker 8: what they can do defensively against that passing game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that. I'm gonna I'm going to
Speaker 3: look forward to the challenge. I hope that the Patriots
Speaker 3: secondary is up to it because they may not face
Speaker 3: a better one two punch at receiver than what they're
Speaker 3: going to face this weekend. I've always kind of liked
Speaker 3: Matthew Stafford at quarterback, even though I think he you know,
Speaker 3: got a little bit of a bill of goods. But
Speaker 3: I was happy to see him, you know, having won
Speaker 3: a Super Bowl because I think he's got some real talent,
Speaker 3: but he definitely needs help. And the one thing that
Speaker 3: the Rams haven't been able to get and one of
Speaker 3: the things that really killed them last week against the
Speaker 3: Dolphins was the lack of a running game. So if
Speaker 3: I'm the Patriots, if I'm the Patriots, look, I don't
Speaker 3: want Stafford to beat me with his arm. I want
Speaker 3: to make sure that you know we're doing what we
Speaker 3: need to do to make sure that you know, those
Speaker 3: two guys, you know, maybe they catch a few over
Speaker 3: the middle, I don't want them damaging in the red zone.
Speaker 3: So I might have to think, you know, similarly like
Speaker 3: the Dolphins did in that.
Speaker 8: Regard, they something to set the edge, because you don't
Speaker 8: want Williams to finding tons of yards going around you
Speaker 8: like that to make sure that they cover that up.
Speaker 3: Sure, yep, I agree.
Speaker 8: All right, well I'll let you go. Thanks a lot done,
Speaker 8: Thank you, Sean. Be another great game. We're not going
Speaker 8: to make any predictions, but I hope the Patriots have
Speaker 8: a good showing.
Speaker 3: So yep, sounds like a plan. Sean of Vancouver eight
Speaker 3: five five Pats five hundred. Russell Baxter will join us
Speaker 3: here at the top of the hour. Let me let's
Speaker 3: hit a couple of emails here and then we'll hear
Speaker 3: from Drake. May you know coming up in just a
Speaker 3: couple of moments. But in case you missed him today,
Speaker 3: we'll reprise that for you. Jacob the pool guy checks in,
Speaker 3: you know on email. I love you guys. But all
Speaker 3: this talk about if May had started, we'd have a
Speaker 3: better record and May would be better is just silly.
Speaker 3: I'm talking revisionist history through ruby tinted lenses here. That
Speaker 3: old line we had during those games was an absolute mess.
Speaker 3: Brissette was running for his life at the snap of
Speaker 3: the ball. He took a ton of hits, made some
Speaker 3: neo and the matrix type evasions. Yes, May is better
Speaker 3: of a com on. He wasn't ready, probably would have
Speaker 3: been hurt and even turned the ball over more. Okay,
Speaker 3: fair points, Jake, fair points, And you're right, it's really
Speaker 3: probably hard to make that even sort of comparison because
Speaker 3: he likely was not ready yet to do what they
Speaker 3: needed him to do in order to be able to
Speaker 3: run the offense that we're seeing him run right now.
Speaker 3: Be that as it may. We knew those of us
Speaker 3: that watched practice, we knew in training camp he was
Speaker 3: the more talent of the two quarters. And I'm really
Speaker 3: not disparaging Jacoby said, they're different quarterbacks. They have different talents.
Speaker 3: They have different abilities, and the Patriots brought Jacoby was
Speaker 3: set in for a specific reason, and that was basically
Speaker 3: to man the fort until they felt Drake was ready. Now, look,
Speaker 3: they made the change. When they made the change, there
Speaker 3: are many of us who observed the team who thought
Speaker 3: that Drake was ready a little earlier than when he
Speaker 3: actually got in there. Look, it's it's just a point
Speaker 3: of conjecture. They're the ones that get paid to make
Speaker 3: these decisions. We don't, so obviously their decision is what's
Speaker 3: going to go down. I think my general point is
Speaker 3: is that, look, if he had had an opportunity to
Speaker 3: play a little bit earlier, that the Patriots would have
Speaker 3: had a chance to win some of these games, if
Speaker 3: not outright win one or two of those. And you're
Speaker 3: looking at the difference maybe between three and seven and
Speaker 3: five and five right now with this team. I don't
Speaker 3: think that's just I don't think that's far fetched. Now,
Speaker 3: could he been running for his life, sure, Could this
Speaker 3: team put him in harm's way? They might have, which
Speaker 3: is one of the reasons why they decided to err
Speaker 3: on the side of caution. And again it's all revisionist
Speaker 3: history here. I understand that. But when you're in a
Speaker 3: business to win football games, and you've already seen with
Speaker 3: your two eyes, who is better equipped for the long
Speaker 3: haul to win football games in this league? Why do
Speaker 3: you not play him? This argument of well he's not ready, Well,
Speaker 3: who says he's not ready? You don't know. Unless you
Speaker 3: put someone under the gun. You don't know. Unless you
Speaker 3: put someone in the frying pan, right in the fire,
Speaker 3: you don't know. And the best way to learn. And
Speaker 3: coaches say this, players say this. People have been in
Speaker 3: the media who covered the NFL say this all over
Speaker 3: the place. All Right, I'm gonna say this, and I've
Speaker 3: covered the NFL for four decades. I'm in my fifth decade. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's how old I am.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 3: I started covering the NFL in the nineteen eighties. Right,
Speaker 3: But here's the thing you learn by playing. There is
Speaker 3: no better experience than guys playing. This is the problem
Speaker 3: that teams that are successful versus teams that are not
Speaker 3: successful run across all the time. Oh, I got a
Speaker 3: kid who's really great, but he's not ready, Well make
Speaker 3: him ready. Well they got to prove it in practice.
Speaker 3: Well I saw it in practice, And so that's really
Speaker 3: the basis for what I'm saying, play Drake, what Evan's saying,
Speaker 3: Play Drake. I don't have any problems really with the
Speaker 3: way the Patriots handle this situation. Zero. It's hard for
Speaker 3: me to criticize because, again, they're paid to make these decisions.
Speaker 3: Our job here is to bring up what if. Our
Speaker 3: job here is to scrutinize. Our job here is to
Speaker 3: put it under the microscope. We don't necessarily have to
Speaker 3: agree with everything. We don't disagree with everything. It's okay
Speaker 3: to like some of the things that get done. It's
Speaker 3: okay to also dislike some of the things that are done,
Speaker 3: because this is what creates conversation. This is what creates conjecture,
Speaker 3: This is what creates interest in the team, the program,
Speaker 3: and the welfare of the franchise. The conversation. So all
Speaker 3: we're doing is creating and continuing conversation. Doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: we're experts, but you have to at least admit that
Speaker 3: there are people throughout the league who say the best
Speaker 3: way for a guy to learn is by playing. I
Speaker 3: don't know what else. I don't know what if you
Speaker 3: can do? What else you can say? And when you
Speaker 3: see with your own two eyes that he's the better player.
Speaker 3: How much worse could it have been? And Jacob, you
Speaker 3: actually bring out a good point. You know, the old
Speaker 3: line we had on those games was an absolute mess.
Speaker 3: Sure it was. Who's to say though, he couldn't have
Speaker 3: made more plays with his legs? Right? Who's to say that?
Speaker 3: We don't know that? And again this is all conjecture.
Speaker 3: We don't know that. Could you put him in harm's way? Look,
Speaker 3: you're in harm's way every time you snap the football
Speaker 3: in the National Football League? Have you ever stood on
Speaker 3: an NFL sideline for an actual game. I'm going to
Speaker 3: throw that one out there to anybody and everybody. Have
Speaker 3: you stood on an NFL sideline? Have you seen? Have
Speaker 3: you heard? Have you smelled what the rock is cooking?
Speaker 3: Have you? I mean literally, have you experienced the physicality
Speaker 3: of an NFL satelline. Now I've covered college football for
Speaker 3: a long time too. It's night and day almost between
Speaker 3: the college game, because you got the raw rah, you
Speaker 3: got the emotion, all that stuff, and the pro game,
Speaker 3: which is all about winning. And if you're truly all
Speaker 3: about winning, then you need to put your best foot
Speaker 3: forward and you put your best players on the field.
Speaker 3: That's the only real criticism I ever had of the
Speaker 3: Patriots not playing Drake Maine from the start. You took
Speaker 3: the guy with the third pick. He should be a player, Okay,
Speaker 3: you want to bring him along more slowly because you're
Speaker 3: not sure that everything else around him was up to stuff.
Speaker 3: I get that. Not gonna argue that point, but I'm
Speaker 3: all about winning football games. I'm not sure quite that
Speaker 3: this franchise, in this coaching stat was about that. If
Speaker 3: you want to criticize, that's a criticism. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: they were about that. I think they were gunshy with
Speaker 3: Drake because of what happened here previously with Mac Jones.
Speaker 3: I believe that. That's my own personal opinion, and I
Speaker 3: think they wanted to avoid that kind of a comparison
Speaker 3: at all costs. So they were just gonna go the
Speaker 3: opposite way, and they were gonna do it, and they're
Speaker 3: gonna let people yell and scream and complain and criticize
Speaker 3: like like we did. Okay, that's fair. Again, they're the
Speaker 3: ones that get paid to make these decisions, all right,
Speaker 3: So it kind of is what it is. But I
Speaker 3: think it's also reasonable to assume that this patrio his
Speaker 3: team would have been a little better then, maybe not appreciably,
Speaker 3: but a little better. I think it's also reasonable to
Speaker 3: assume that they'd be better now. They'd be that much
Speaker 3: further ahead of the game now if he'd had that
Speaker 3: extra experience to learn from, especially through adversity. My two cents,
Speaker 3: you want to call that revision is history, you can
Speaker 3: call it revision is history. I don't know necessarily that
Speaker 3: that's the case, but just my two cents, I'd love
Speaker 3: to hear your thoughts on it, if you want to
Speaker 3: agree or disagree eight five to five, Pats five hundred
Speaker 3: or podcasts at Patriots dot com. Austin and Illinois writes,
Speaker 3: I have no knowledge of any of this, but could
Speaker 3: Bourne not play last Sunday be due to Soldier field
Speaker 3: being grass instead of terf for his knee? The field
Speaker 3: didn't look terrible on TV, but I know in the
Speaker 3: past that field can look and be pretty awful. You know,
Speaker 3: that's an interesting thought and I never really thought about it,
Speaker 3: but it kind of lines up with some of the
Speaker 3: reasoning that we've heard for that the Patriots wanted to go.
Speaker 3: At least they said they wanted to go with the
Speaker 3: younger receiving set and the fact that bourn really didn't
Speaker 3: have a good game the week before, a couple of
Speaker 3: drops in there. You know, he stumbled, you know, on
Speaker 3: the pass that was intercepted. You know, he just didn't
Speaker 3: have a very good game, and they wanted younger slash
Speaker 3: fresher legs against the Bears. Ended up working out right,
Speaker 3: because the bottom line again is, Hello, they won the game, right,
Speaker 3: where's Herman Edwards and we need him? Hello, you play
Speaker 3: to win the game. Okay, that's that's kind of what
Speaker 3: they did.
Speaker 6: Hello, you play to win the game.
Speaker 3: Thanks, coach, appreciate you. So I think they felt like
Speaker 3: physically those receivers were better at that moment. Maybe they
Speaker 3: were thinking about Kendrick in that regard. I think you
Speaker 3: actually bring up a really good point, Austin, but nobody
Speaker 3: ever really verified that this week. Look, the fact of
Speaker 3: the matter is is that I think the Patriots are
Speaker 3: better receiving corps with Kendrick then without him, especially over
Speaker 3: the long haul. Like Kendrick Born, I think he's a
Speaker 3: good locker room guy. I think that the players like him.
Speaker 3: I think he's a good you know, uh stirr. He's
Speaker 3: the stir that you know, he's the straw that stirs
Speaker 3: the drink type of guy back there. And I think
Speaker 3: they need savvy. I think they need veteran leadership, you know,
Speaker 3: at a position that particularly has struggled with a lot
Speaker 3: of that this week so or this this year, last
Speaker 3: week in particular. So anyway, good one, good question if
Speaker 3: you have another one fire Away Podcasts at Patriots dot
Speaker 3: Com overall, all right, before we get to Russell Baxter,
Speaker 3: in case you missed it, I wanted to dial in
Speaker 3: to Drake Main for just a little bit and what
Speaker 3: he had to say earlier today here at Jillette Stadium
Speaker 3: in previewing not just the Rams, but talking a little
Speaker 3: about last week against the Bears. And and here's the
Speaker 3: thing that I noticed about Drake. He's more and more confident.
Speaker 3: In case you missed this, He's more and more confident
Speaker 3: when he's at the podium. You can sense almost a
Speaker 3: little brashness about Drake, which I like, this is what
Speaker 3: you're hearing, this is what you're seeing in his leadership
Speaker 3: skills with this football team overall. And while some of
Speaker 3: the guys are really stopping and actually now beginning to
Speaker 3: listen to what the rookie quarterback has to say, see
Speaker 3: what you think for yourself?
Speaker 6: Great.
Speaker 9: A lot of said this weekend of Sets of Urgency
Speaker 9: was drag message.
Speaker 7: How do you take that?
Speaker 9: And we kind of talked about kind of what you
Speaker 9: said to your offense after practice one day last week.
Speaker 9: What kind of things go through your mind is to
Speaker 9: try to get back to back wins.
Speaker 3: For the first time.
Speaker 10: Is build on it from last week. I think, you know,
Speaker 10: a big winning in Chicago and a you know, way
Speaker 10: away game in a big time atmosphere. Remember so the
Speaker 10: time I was yelling set hut for the snap a
Speaker 10: few times on a fourth down before I called time
Speaker 10: out and they couldn't hear me. So, you know, a
Speaker 10: big one from there, and just build on it, like
Speaker 10: I said, Like I said, since Sergercy, what what coach
Speaker 10: Mayo's a preaching? I think it starts with cleaning up,
Speaker 10: you know, from from the game Sunday. Clean up some
Speaker 10: little things that I think we could have ended up
Speaker 10: being a bigger, bigger margin victory for us, you know,
Speaker 10: especially offensively, defense did about all they could scoring in
Speaker 10: the red zone and obviously my turnover. Gotta just keep
Speaker 10: on you know, these little things that can kind of
Speaker 10: help build the complementary football like coach Mayo's preaching about.
Speaker 10: So I think, you know, got another chance here at home,
Speaker 10: and l has come off a short week, so I
Speaker 10: gotta help prepare for them. And they're good upfront on defense,
Speaker 10: so I'm preparing for them.
Speaker 6: How important is Alex f Alex ben Felt then team
Speaker 6: his scenes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been huge.
Speaker 10: I think he's just a confidence booster for a quarterback.
Speaker 10: You know, you love playing for the offense quarter like
Speaker 10: a v P. You know, he's he's positive and also
Speaker 10: at the same time, we'll coach you hard. You know,
Speaker 10: he's done it. He's played quarterback, played quarterback in this
Speaker 10: league and at a high level, so he knows what's
Speaker 10: you know, what it needs to be done, and in
Speaker 10: the task he knows his tall task as well, which
Speaker 10: is pretty you know him and TC both kind of
Speaker 10: you have the quarterback minds and coach McAdoo, So those
Speaker 10: those three are I know, it's like how hard it
Speaker 10: is to play quarterback in this league and give a
Speaker 10: lot of leeway, but at the same time, you know
Speaker 10: what's you needs to be done. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 10: think I'm I'm working towards that. I think that's more
Speaker 10: of a perfective thing. I wouldn't say, you know, for me,
Speaker 10: I'm just trying to build on every day. I think,
Speaker 10: you know, it's more of a thing for the outside
Speaker 10: crowd to say. I think I'll come a long way
Speaker 10: within the system of learning the system, knowing what to do,
Speaker 10: knowing where guys line up, getting run in and out
Speaker 10: of run checks and and past things. So I think,
Speaker 10: but I wouldn't say, better to say more comfortable. I think,
Speaker 10: you know, a lot of stuff is coming to tie together.
Speaker 10: You know, I think still a lot of the same players,
Speaker 10: and you know, still the same player and the same
Speaker 10: players that you have made in college is making today.
Speaker 10: So I think just building on getting more comfortable in
Speaker 10: this offense and just growing as a you know, a
Speaker 10: young young young adult.
Speaker 6: You asked the question.
Speaker 2: You were talking about a people said, like when the
Speaker 2: film comes up with him Pittsburg.
Speaker 10: Yes, cool, he saw some of his guitar fakes and
Speaker 10: his play action and at center and he threw it well,
Speaker 10: so he could throw the football. So it's it's cool
Speaker 10: seeing he doesn't throw very much anymore that he's like
Speaker 10: throwing like one time, you know, this season. But seeing him,
Speaker 10: you know, do some of the same actions or you know,
Speaker 10: throwing the same concepts. It's pretty cool and it's pretty neat,
Speaker 10: you know, sitting out there on some old you know,
Speaker 10: granny film.
Speaker 3: So drink with the support.
Speaker 9: But like Kobe potentially took over as the starter and
Speaker 9: wasn't at all difficult to find when to speak up
Speaker 9: as a leader, knowing he's still a captain.
Speaker 10: And so step Yeah, it's a good question, you know.
Speaker 10: I think Jacoby is still, you know, a big time
Speaker 10: leader on this football team. Especially he's in my ear
Speaker 10: and I don't know if you'll see him on the sidelines,
Speaker 10: but it's basically like he's he's playing the game over there.
Speaker 10: He's yelling and yelling at me, youlling at the rest
Speaker 10: on the sideline. So he's very animated and that's his personality.
Speaker 10: I think everybody respects him on this football team, has
Speaker 10: a lot of respect. And see what he did in
Speaker 10: the Jets game. I think that even just you know,
Speaker 10: raised the bar of him coming in after you know,
Speaker 10: me being the starter and him coming in and getting
Speaker 10: a big time win at home.
Speaker 3: Think those guys just respect him.
Speaker 10: And he's been, uh, it's been a lot to me
Speaker 10: of some mentor and and just trying to learn everything
Speaker 10: I can. He's probably tired of me asking questions, but
Speaker 10: now I think he enjoys and we enjoy, you know,
Speaker 10: be in the same room together.
Speaker 3: The virtual reality headsets, we're a bit of a storyline
Speaker 3: this summer.
Speaker 2: Was curious how much of those help you before you
Speaker 2: actually got to play.
Speaker 7: Do you still use them now that you're actually out.
Speaker 6: On the field.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they give just some of the base concepts and
Speaker 10: some of the concepts of carrying weekend week out, a
Speaker 10: little bit of the two minute stuff we have in
Speaker 10: some of the VR, but the vrs, you know, been
Speaker 10: a nice edition. Thankful to the pages Orgulation for forgetting
Speaker 10: that and using that. And I think it's some you know,
Speaker 10: every week just going back to the base stuff and
Speaker 10: sometimes we can throw in, you know, the different team
Speaker 10: or the stadium we're playing in and get different looks.
Speaker 10: So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: When he learned about yourself over the past five stars.
Speaker 10: That you've first starts learned about myself, I think just
Speaker 10: battling back from university and versity and times in the
Speaker 10: game and times in this season. You know, starting the season,
Speaker 10: obviously you plan on he wanted to be the starter
Speaker 10: and handle university, you know, throughout the locker room or throughout, uh,
Speaker 10: just being on the football team and then the anniversity
Speaker 10: when up you're actually in there playing, So just channeling times,
Speaker 10: you know, difficult times and and bouncing back and no
Speaker 10: one at this position that you know, these guys look
Speaker 10: to me and and know that you know kind of
Speaker 10: get a you'll keep a keep a up kind of
Speaker 10: upbeat mindset and up your personality because these guys you'll
Speaker 10: follow me and listen to me, and you'll expect me. Sorry,
Speaker 10: I know you mentioned you know as a football fan,
Speaker 10: you know getting the face guys like Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 2: This week you get to face Matthew Stafford. What is
Speaker 2: uh is he somebody you followed as a kid, and
Speaker 2: what is it against?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is you know mass staverage?
Speaker 10: I think you know back in the days watching lines,
Speaker 10: if you you know, I always saw him play on
Speaker 10: Thanksgiving and seeing him play is is pretty cool with
Speaker 10: thanks having coming up. So anytime you play a Super
Speaker 10: Bowl winning quarterback and you know, guy in this league
Speaker 10: has done a long time and play at a high level,
Speaker 10: it's cool to watch. I think I'll definitely take a
Speaker 10: moment and always try to watch them up see what
Speaker 10: they do or see how he's throwing it. That's kind
Speaker 10: of cool thing that I try to do. And other
Speaker 10: than that, just hopefully get a chance to meet him
Speaker 10: and you know, respect his game and you hope that
Speaker 10: you get a chance to come out with a win
Speaker 10: against you big time quarterback like that. It's always a
Speaker 10: pretty cool feeling.
Speaker 2: Sure on no sliding, and that's why you have a
Speaker 2: plant out of the sis.
Speaker 6: You know, he joked that there might.
Speaker 4: Be a sliding period of practice to say, has that
Speaker 4: been conveyed to often been coaching out in terms just
Speaker 4: working on sliding and things like that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I wouldn't say working on You know, I play
Speaker 10: baseball growing up, and you know I've slid and the
Speaker 10: one time I slid against the Jets, I got hit
Speaker 10: in the head. So I think there's times and places
Speaker 10: for it. I think I definitely do a good better
Speaker 10: job of getting down, taking care of my body, and
Speaker 10: and I know that I took one and you know
Speaker 10: the Bears game that was done with the kind of
Speaker 10: third quarter, So you know, I'm I'm mindful of it,
Speaker 10: and the coaches are doing good job.
Speaker 2: TC.
Speaker 10: Does guys job emphasizing it, So I think it's, uh,
Speaker 10: you know, it's kind of different when you're between the
Speaker 10: lines and you're trying to show your competitive side, so.
Speaker 11: You can show a lot of frustration.
Speaker 9: I guess I would say the field is not letting
Speaker 9: your emotions get the best and you were not showing
Speaker 9: emotions something he comes naturally or is that something.
Speaker 6: You are talking about.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think it's come naturally, you know. Growing up,
Speaker 10: I think I was always kind of you know, even
Speaker 10: kill mindset. And at the same time, I think, you know,
Speaker 10: showing frustration at times can be good, can be good
Speaker 10: for the offense, and you can kind of fire those
Speaker 10: guys up, so kind of mixing and kind of feeling
Speaker 10: that out of you know, when I could use the
Speaker 10: expecially in practice, I think getting frustrated and and showing hey,
Speaker 10: you know you pick it up is a is sometimes
Speaker 10: can be good. So I think you're just bouncing that
Speaker 10: aspect of it. And at the same time, you know,
Speaker 10: remind those guys of pumping them up, and that's everybody
Speaker 10: you know, feels good when you get pumped up.
Speaker 9: So ing people haven't talked about having a short memory
Speaker 9: of being a fans, specially in the games.
Speaker 3: If you agree and you so, how do you manage
Speaker 3: to keep the number short?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Short, re membery, that's it, you know. I think it's
Speaker 10: one of the biggest things for playing quarterback in this league.
Speaker 10: I think you see you know this past Sunday. You
Speaker 10: know Jared Goff, I think you know his game, you
Speaker 10: just turnovers and what he does to come back and
Speaker 10: lead that football team to win. I think there's so
Speaker 10: many times throughout the season you see, you know quarterback,
Speaker 10: especially you know at this level that are you handle
Speaker 10: a university and you know, it's tough.
Speaker 3: It's tough.
Speaker 10: It's a tough feeling going out there after throwing an
Speaker 10: interception and jogging back out there, you know, throwing it again.
Speaker 10: So I think it's something that it's kind of, you know,
Speaker 10: brushed under the rug when you're facing you know, good
Speaker 10: defense and you go out there and make a bad
Speaker 10: play and have to run back out there and facing
Speaker 10: those same guys and have to throw it again. So
Speaker 10: I think it's definitely having a short memory, like you said,
Speaker 10: and just trusting those guys around you. I think our
Speaker 10: team does a good job and especially the veterans and
Speaker 10: Jakobe has been great on the sideline with you know plays,
Speaker 10: and I think just bouncing back and seeing how you
Speaker 10: bounce back.
Speaker 9: The team released the micd up piece view from the
Speaker 9: game the other day, and a significant percentage of it
Speaker 9: was you basically popping up teammates.
Speaker 7: Encouraging them during the game.
Speaker 9: Why is that important for you to sort of take
Speaker 9: time during during game day to make sure that you're.
Speaker 7: Doing that for your teammates.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think, you know, pregames, kind of checking those
Speaker 10: chicking on the guys, see how they're feeling. I think
Speaker 10: I think I was saying a lot of the same
Speaker 10: things over and over, you know, and the miked up,
Speaker 10: so I kind of kind of keep it simple and
Speaker 10: and don't try to know bug me by too much
Speaker 10: because everbody's kind of got their own thing on game day.
Speaker 10: But uh, yeah, I think pumping them up, like I said,
Speaker 10: you know, everybody feels feels good when you say, hey,
Speaker 10: you know, let's go, or hey nice play, or hey,
Speaker 10: great job up front. I think little things like that
Speaker 10: can go a long way. And being the leader on
Speaker 10: the offense and pumping those guys.
Speaker 9: Up with your with your lineman said again, they caught
Speaker 9: you in the locker room, say let's go get something
Speaker 9: to eat tomorrow.
Speaker 10: Yeah when somebody, uh we got somebody, let's say wednesday,
Speaker 10: we have some need Monday. So yeah, we went somewhere.
Speaker 10: So went somewhere good, So.
Speaker 3: Thank you. All right, So there you go. He carries
Speaker 3: himself with a heck of a lot more poise than
Speaker 3: you expect for what a twenty two year old kid.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: Uh, I'm becoming a more of a fan every day.
Speaker 3: I also become more of a fan as the Patriots
Speaker 3: get him more help. So he's got more weapons that
Speaker 3: he can throw, to hand off, to block for him.
Speaker 3: That kind of sign, that kind of thing on that
Speaker 3: side of the football. I'd be remiss if I didn't
Speaker 3: mention here though. That The other thing that I think
Speaker 3: that you know, we we haven't talked about her all today,
Speaker 3: that I think will be a factor for someday's game
Speaker 3: against the Rams is the acquisition of Jannikin Gotway, who
Speaker 3: was claimed by the Patriots last week, veteran linebacker pass
Speaker 3: rusher from Baltimore. And think about what his world has
Speaker 3: been like. He's gone from a first place team in
Speaker 3: Baltimore to a last place team in New England. So
Speaker 3: it'd be real easy to get down on yourself, Bill,
Speaker 3: be real easy to think, ah, woe is me? You know,
Speaker 3: I had a chance to go to the playoffs and
Speaker 3: maybe you know, win a ring or whatever to a
Speaker 3: team now that wow, clearly is rebuilding for the future.
Speaker 3: But he just got through, you know, talking in the
Speaker 3: locker room not too long ago, and I could admit,
Speaker 3: let me read your quote, it didn't really matter to
Speaker 3: me where I was drafted. It was a team that
Speaker 3: didn't win a lot. That's when he was with Jacksonville.
Speaker 3: Remember he was on that Jacksonville team that ended up
Speaker 3: developing and coming here and losing the AFC Championship game
Speaker 3: to the Patriots. He said, the next year, you were
Speaker 3: in the AFC Championship. It's all about perspective. It's all
Speaker 3: about how you can build team camaraderie and change those things. Now,
Speaker 3: he's a nine year veteran, he's got more than seventy
Speaker 3: career sacks. He certainly has been an important part of
Speaker 3: both what they built in Jacksonville and what they were
Speaker 3: trying to build and maintain in Baltimore. And now he's
Speaker 3: in New England, and obviously he's in New England for
Speaker 3: a reason, because Baltimore didn't see a fit for him anymore,
Speaker 3: especially beyond this year. But here's an opportunity now for
Speaker 3: a veteran presence for a team that needs that in
Speaker 3: the locker room. Here's an opportunity for a guy who
Speaker 3: might still have we don't know yet, and we'll probably
Speaker 3: find out more this weekend, that might still have a
Speaker 3: little gas left in the tank. Here's a guy that
Speaker 3: drov Meyos says can play three downs as opposed to
Speaker 3: being just a situational player. Boy, do they need that
Speaker 3: because we know sometimes they've had trouble stopping the run
Speaker 3: up the middle, and we know that they've had some
Speaker 3: big gaps in the linebacking corps since Jowan Bentley went
Speaker 3: down early in the year. I'm excited to see what
Speaker 3: in Gocwa can provide this team on and off the field.
Speaker 6: A real woman could stop you from drinking.
Speaker 3: Y's a real big woman.
Speaker 2: It's time to go around the NFL with football guru
Speaker 2: Russell Baxter.
Speaker 3: Now the name is Flounder on Patriots playbook. I'm also
Speaker 3: excited to hear what Russell Baxter might be able to
Speaker 3: think about and getting some of his thoughts on a
Speaker 3: guy like in Gokwa going from a first place team
Speaker 3: to a last place team, but at the same time,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe providing a little leadership. And here's a
Speaker 3: guy that probably has some perspective on moves like this.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Russell over what the last thirty thirty
Speaker 3: five years or so.
Speaker 6: Well, obviously, now John in free agency and by the way,
Speaker 6: how are you if you're doing well?
Speaker 3: Excellent, yes, sir, thank you, Jo.
Speaker 6: And you know free agency now which began in earnest
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety three, Now you see these kind of
Speaker 6: moves that take place. We saw a lot of action
Speaker 6: during the trade deadline, it just wasn't wide receivers. But
Speaker 6: what's intriguing about in Gocway is he has been a
Speaker 6: professional pass rusher for a number of teams, and early
Speaker 6: in his career, I wouldn't even say early in in
Speaker 6: the middle of his career, which he's only played nine years. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 6: He hasn't seen a lot of action necessarily the last
Speaker 6: you know, year or two, so I think there is
Speaker 6: a lot left in the tank. I think they'll probably
Speaker 6: start him out using him more situationally than anything else.
Speaker 6: But you'll remember he was traded more time. He didn't
Speaker 6: really hit the free agency market. A lot of times
Speaker 6: we traded. You know, he was with the Jaguars, as
Speaker 6: you said, and then there was a you know, if
Speaker 6: necessarily in the same word at Baltimore, Minnesota, the Raider,
Speaker 6: the Colt, the Bear. He's like the and you'll appreciate this,
Speaker 6: like the Brandon Cook of defense who spent most of
Speaker 6: his time going from team to team and being traded
Speaker 6: and not being a free agent. So you know, considering,
Speaker 6: you know, the Patriots gave up the top pass rusher
Speaker 6: in a trade to Kansas City. Now they get a
Speaker 6: very veteran experience guys that now have a draft pick
Speaker 6: next year. So the key will be here is can
Speaker 6: he perform down the stretch and more importantly, does he
Speaker 6: have enough by the end of the year that they
Speaker 6: warn't a series look at him bringing him back next year.
Speaker 6: So you can't you can't go wrong with the move
Speaker 6: like that, and you know, I have to go back
Speaker 6: to look, I don't I don't think. I think he
Speaker 6: barely played with the Ravens this year if at all. Okay, again,
Speaker 6: don't quote me on that one, but let's put it
Speaker 6: this way, if he did play for the Ravens, no
Speaker 6: one noted, and that's not a knock on him, that's
Speaker 6: a knock on the Baltimore defense.
Speaker 3: Sure, yep would agree. The one thing that stands out
Speaker 3: to me is I remember early in his career he's
Speaker 3: a Pro Bowl player. I think he actually led the
Speaker 3: NFL and forced fumbles one year, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3: So here's a guy that knows how to hit. Here's
Speaker 3: another here's a guy that knows how to lead by
Speaker 3: example and let his play do the talking. And that's
Speaker 3: the kind of culture that as this team continue, this
Speaker 3: franchise continues to rebuild and get back maybe some semblance
Speaker 3: of what we had a few years ago. This is
Speaker 3: the kind of guy I think that can help you
Speaker 3: get there.
Speaker 6: Well, this is the kind of guy. Now listen, you know,
Speaker 6: and I don't have a whole shark in front of me. Okay, yep.
Speaker 6: There are guys who pile up back and get the
Speaker 6: quarterback on the ground. There are guys who would impact
Speaker 6: stack makers and the ball is on the ground as well. Okay,
Speaker 6: the quarterback on the ground and the ball out. That's
Speaker 6: why a guy like TJ. Watt is so invaluable. He's
Speaker 6: got over one hundred stacks. I think he now has
Speaker 6: thirty one force fumbles in his There are other guys
Speaker 6: who are great back artists, but they don't have that
Speaker 6: abillit with the strip sack, the sud to hit with
Speaker 6: the ball popped out and stuff like that. Those are
Speaker 6: game changing play. They flipped the field. They make life better.
Speaker 7: For the offense.
Speaker 6: So you have somebody here who can is that kind
Speaker 6: of a player? And dare I say, going against the
Speaker 6: team this week that certainly had problems protecting their veteran
Speaker 6: quarterback on Monday night?
Speaker 3: Sure? All right? So then I got to ask you
Speaker 3: the obvious question. Here a guy that was in Jacksonville,
Speaker 3: you already mentioned it. Then he went to Minnesota. Then
Speaker 3: he went to the Raiders. You know, he went to
Speaker 3: the Ravens, he went to the Colts. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: bounced around a little bit.
Speaker 6: Why, well, he's maybe more stop than Amtrak.
Speaker 3: I know that true.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I don't know. You know, I think
Speaker 6: early in his career he was I got the sense
Speaker 6: he wanted to get paid because he was not a
Speaker 6: high draft voice. And you know, in this league, unless
Speaker 6: you're a first round pick, that second contract is very,
Speaker 6: very important to you. I think some of it has
Speaker 6: also been a circumstanced with him the right opportunity to
Speaker 6: get the right player. You know, early in this you remember,
Speaker 6: you remember ant Kwine Boulder, who was one of the
Speaker 6: most respective players.
Speaker 11: In the league.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, yes, you.
Speaker 6: Know, but he didn't wind up testing free agency until
Speaker 6: very late in his career. He was a guy who
Speaker 6: got traded to a bunch of teams. Okay, So sometimes
Speaker 6: that's part of it as well. I think sometimes you
Speaker 6: have to be alarmed when you see a guy who
Speaker 6: comes in and is not productive and disgruntled, and that's
Speaker 6: not necessarily been the case when in gotway. So, like
Speaker 6: I said, he could make a big impact on Sunday
Speaker 6: in this game. And again I'd have to go back
Speaker 6: to look at how many plays he actually played this
Speaker 6: year with the Ravens, which I know was not a lot.
Speaker 6: Their pass rush and their defense overall has been one
Speaker 6: of the big disappointments in the league, and so I'd
Speaker 6: like to pick up. I think it's a no lose
Speaker 6: move for the Patriots, and you know, let's see if
Speaker 6: they can win two games in a row, which it's
Speaker 6: been a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very true. That kind of puts us right where
Speaker 3: we are a team that has a chance to win
Speaker 3: too in a row and get in on a winning
Speaker 3: streak for the first time. Really, you know, this year
Speaker 3: a legit opportunity. Although we may be selling the Rams
Speaker 3: a little bit short. And the Rams are a little
Speaker 3: bit confusing because they had a couple of pretty good
Speaker 3: offensive outputs before, you know, coming up short against the
Speaker 3: Dolphins last week, and so we spent a little bit
Speaker 3: of time talking about this earlier in the program, and
Speaker 3: and it seemed like they came up short in the
Speaker 3: red zone. But they've got opportunity. They still got their receivers,
Speaker 3: you know, they've got some health back on the offensive side,
Speaker 3: but the conversion rate wasn't there, and defensively it wasn't
Speaker 3: quite enough in terms of contain And so the Rams
Speaker 3: are just kind of misfiring, and you have to wonder
Speaker 3: whether or not they find their stride again, because they
Speaker 3: look to me to be every bit as dangerous as
Speaker 3: they you know, were what we thought they were at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the year.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, remember they you know, they early in
Speaker 6: the season, there was that horrible losst with Cardinals in Arizona,
Speaker 6: and that had to do with the fact that they
Speaker 6: were very banged up. They were just they had just
Speaker 6: won three in a row. They're very propu. I would
Speaker 6: put them in like the one of the five most
Speaker 6: confusing teams in the league this season. They're sitting at
Speaker 6: four and five and after looking like they were hitting
Speaker 6: their striketh, they didn't score touchdown against Miami. You know
Speaker 6: that's not necessarily no name defense these days. They the
Speaker 6: Dolphins struggled all year to stack the quarterback. They had
Speaker 6: a career, i'm sorry, a season high four stack in
Speaker 6: that game. They turned over Stafford, they turned over Kyrin Williams.
Speaker 6: I thought that was the the game was. Miami's defensive
Speaker 6: front did not let Kyl Williams get loose. He's been
Speaker 6: a standout for them, started late last season. This season,
Speaker 6: he's been you know, as a runner and a receiver.
Speaker 6: You know, we know about Papa, we know Pokin Naku
Speaker 6: and so on. But you know, you mentioned their third
Speaker 6: I think they were three of twelve on third down
Speaker 6: in the game one Monday night, and in some ways
Speaker 6: I think they made Miami's defense look better than well
Speaker 6: it actually is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was. That was kind of where I was.
Speaker 6: The defensive lineman Jared Verse, who created a little havoc
Speaker 6: the other night as well. So I'm not sure what
Speaker 6: version of the Rams was going to see. Remember when
Speaker 6: they beat Seattle and overtime, John, twenty six twenty they
Speaker 6: got one hundred and three yard interception return for one
Speaker 6: of their touchdowns. Okay, and uh, you know all butcher
Speaker 6: the Seahawks wide receivers DK Metcalf didn't play and one
Speaker 6: of the Seahawks wide receivers had one hundred and eighty yards.
Speaker 6: So this is a very perplexing team that last year
Speaker 6: was what three and six, went seven of eight and
Speaker 6: did not you know, made the playoffs, fell short. The
Speaker 6: thing that stands out to mea most about them, And
Speaker 6: even though Miami didn't do a good job running the football, John,
Speaker 6: go back to the opening week when they lost to
Speaker 6: Detroit in overtime twenty six twenty, If memory sirved, Detroit
Speaker 6: got the ball in overtime and never threw the ball,
Speaker 6: never threw it, never threw the ball, and ran right
Speaker 6: down the field into the end zone on about a
Speaker 6: nine or ten plays drive. All runs yeh and if
Speaker 6: it wasn't all runs, there was maybe one pat So
Speaker 6: I think they can be overpowered to young defense a
Speaker 6: lot of no names. I'm trying to think that the
Speaker 6: guy used to Oh that's right, Aaron Donald.
Speaker 3: Isn't there anything not there anymore? Yeah, that's right, you know,
Speaker 3: And they say sometimes you hit strength head on right
Speaker 3: when you're going it. So I mean I might be
Speaker 3: trying to, you know, go right at a guy like
Speaker 3: Verse in order to basically neutralize him, and the Papers did.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons why they won the game
Speaker 3: in Chicago this last week is they basically bludgeoned. The
Speaker 3: Bears had one hundred and forty four yards rushing about
Speaker 3: four and a half yards to carry pretty good output,
Speaker 3: one of the best outputs they've had in some time,
Speaker 3: you know, in the run game, and that might be
Speaker 3: one way to sort of neutralize what the Rams have
Speaker 3: to offer.
Speaker 6: Well, I don't think there's any question about it. I
Speaker 6: think you have to test that RAMS defense, which has been,
Speaker 6: like I said, it's been shaky at best. You know, listen,
Speaker 6: if they had not managed to pull out for less
Speaker 6: than less way to describe it, almost a miracle win
Speaker 6: over the forty nine ers. Earlier in the season, they'd
Speaker 6: be in dire straight Okay, yeah, because there there are
Speaker 6: times that, you know, they have looked like a decent team,
Speaker 6: but too many times this year they looked like a
Speaker 6: subpart team. And again, I think some of that is
Speaker 6: the you know, overall changeover in the roster and so on.
Speaker 6: I think it's a team that's far too dependent on
Speaker 6: its offense and whether people do like it or not,
Speaker 6: you've got to play some defense in this league. You know,
Speaker 6: that's that's going to wind up costing certain teams as
Speaker 6: we get closer and closer to the playoffs. And I
Speaker 6: know we're going to touch on this the AFC. Oh boy, yeah,
Speaker 6: what what a mess right now? I know there's eight
Speaker 6: weeks to go, yep, but it's don't you find it
Speaker 6: odd that there are only six teams in the conference
Speaker 6: that have a winning record?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I was. You know, I mentioned this earlier
Speaker 3: that you know, to me, there are two teams that
Speaker 3: are right now are standing head and shoulders above everybody
Speaker 3: else in the AFC, and one of them is the
Speaker 3: defending champs. So you know, I'm a little surprised at
Speaker 3: the depth. If you want depth. You got to go
Speaker 3: to the NFC, and let's start with the Thursday night game.
Speaker 3: You got the Commanders playing at the Eagles, and that's
Speaker 3: certainly for NFC East supremacy. But you would have knocked
Speaker 3: me over with a feather if you'd told me that
Speaker 3: Washington would be there at this stage of the season.
Speaker 3: Earlier in the year.
Speaker 6: A year ago, they gave up the third most points
Speaker 6: in a season in the NFL history.
Speaker 3: That's nuts, that's nuts.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Now the defense has been Now you know Pittsburgh.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't say Pittsburgh douged them last week, but Pittsburgh
Speaker 6: is certainly able to make some plays against them. And
Speaker 6: if people are knocking them for their three losses Tampa,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry Tampa Bay. Early in the season, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, Okay,
Speaker 6: I mean, listen, they were pretty competitive in all those games. Okay,
Speaker 6: even though Tampa Bay got out big in dan Quinn's
Speaker 6: first game and shatond in this first game, they fought
Speaker 6: in that game. They were toe to toe with the
Speaker 6: Ravens if you remember that game. And last week they
Speaker 6: had a ten point lead on the Steelers. So this
Speaker 6: isn't like a fluky seven and three is not fluky. Okay. Now, now,
Speaker 6: of course they've got two games with the Eagles. Okay,
Speaker 6: they haven't played they haven't played Dallas yet either, and
Speaker 6: I know Dallas is whatever Dallas is and so on.
Speaker 6: So yeah, here come the test and all that and
Speaker 6: the end. And by the way, one of the big
Speaker 6: reasons the NFC has, you know, I think they have
Speaker 6: happ of their teams are above five hundreds because how
Speaker 6: they've done against the AFC this year. Some of those
Speaker 6: records are fattened up in in interconference games. But you know,
Speaker 6: Philadelphia looks like it might be hitting itch stride. They
Speaker 6: won five in a row. Some of it a little crazy,
Speaker 6: the Jacksonville game, would you know, going for two all
Speaker 6: the time and on. But five wins in a row,
Speaker 6: and five wins in a row. I went back and
Speaker 6: looked at this. This is how bad Washington was on
Speaker 6: defense last year.
Speaker 3: John.
Speaker 6: They scored thirty one points in each game with the
Speaker 6: Eagles last year and locked the boat.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, that's not good. That's not good. Hey, you
Speaker 3: mentioned the Cowboys. I wanted to just touch on him,
Speaker 3: even though I know they're struggling. They play Monday night
Speaker 3: football at home, they get the Houston Texans, so they
Speaker 3: get the little rivalry thing going there again. But I
Speaker 3: read earlier today that the Cowboys are in serious danger
Speaker 3: of getting flexed out of some of their national television
Speaker 3: opportunities because they're only three and six and they look
Speaker 3: like they're going to be on the outside looking in
Speaker 3: of any kind of a playoff chase here over the
Speaker 3: stretch run. Now, I know that doesn't sit well with
Speaker 3: anybody in Dallas, especially you know, Jerry Jones, the architect
Speaker 3: of whatever America's team might be today. So could you
Speaker 3: see a scenario where Jones decides to sort of stir
Speaker 3: the drink the way things are going and grab the
Speaker 3: headlines back again by making a coaching change and maybe
Speaker 3: bringing in some guys with the initials B and B.
Speaker 6: I certainly don't rule that out. And if he doesn't,
Speaker 6: does hire B and B? Does he bring p M
Speaker 6: with him?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, that way, that way Bill can coach the
Speaker 6: team and also do the podcast with that back.
Speaker 3: Right, you can just do it right, do it right
Speaker 3: there in the middle of the.
Speaker 6: Field, automatically improve their special teams in the punting game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure, right, No, I could yes, I
Speaker 3: could see it.
Speaker 6: I could certainly see it because I think Jerry, right now, listen,
Speaker 6: I've said this for years. That's the only team in
Speaker 6: the league where the coach speaks to the press, even
Speaker 6: before or during or after the head coach spak. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 6: there's no other team that had a pr situation like that.
Speaker 6: And listen, there what they have now. Go back to
Speaker 6: the playoffs last year, Todd the loss of the package.
Speaker 6: They had won sixteen games in a round at home
Speaker 6: up until then. They have now lost five straight games
Speaker 6: at home and given up two hundred and one points
Speaker 6: in those ones. Oh man, two oh one.
Speaker 3: That's forty forty points a game.
Speaker 6: Yeah, forty points a game in their own building. That's nasty,
Speaker 6: you know, yeah, you know, they obviously and Houston, which
Speaker 6: is kind of broken on offense right now. I think
Speaker 6: they're going to get Nico Collins back this week. They're
Speaker 6: obviously not going to get Stefan Diggs back the rest
Speaker 6: of the year, and hopefully Houston this time is up
Speaker 6: twenty three seven in the fourth quarter, yep, and said
Speaker 6: at a half note. And Houston's kind of struggling right
Speaker 6: now too. By the way, let's let's be on. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: I could see him doing something like that just to.
Speaker 3: Steal the spotlight.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, hey, there's not enough tension on
Speaker 3: the Cowboys and they're taking the national TV games away
Speaker 3: from us because their team is no good. So I
Speaker 3: want to be I want the spotlight back on me.
Speaker 3: I want the spotlight back of the Cowboys. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: make this splashy higher. I could definitely see that scenario.
Speaker 6: Well, Looten, we you know there was an everyday thing
Speaker 6: with the contracts for Ceedee Lamb at desk Dak Prescott.
Speaker 6: When did he wind up agreeing to them? Like on
Speaker 6: the eve of the start of the season.
Speaker 3: Yeah this year?
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, I mean if that wasn't stealing the spot
Speaker 6: like nothing was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 6: So I unfortunately think he thinks that way sometimes. Okay,
Speaker 6: I give credit with credits due. He's been great for
Speaker 6: the league. He's owner of the team. They won three
Speaker 6: Super Bowls in four years, largely because of Jimmy Johnson's
Speaker 6: ability to draft players and so on. But you know,
Speaker 6: he's looking like a he's looking like a more pleasant
Speaker 6: version of Al Davis down the stretch. Does that make sense.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's the comparison.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, listen, the Raiders, God rest his soul
Speaker 6: and so on. I actually got a chance to meet
Speaker 6: Al Davis years in the years ago and can't Ohia,
Speaker 6: So I'm I'm just he was a very pleasant man. Yeah,
Speaker 6: there were there were a lot of headlines made after
Speaker 6: he left. And the Raiders have really I mean, the
Speaker 6: Raiders have won a super Bowl in forty something year, right, right, right,
Speaker 6: they won a playoff game in twenty two years Okay,
Speaker 6: And there was there was an air I think of
Speaker 6: like bitterness and spontaneous moves and constant coaching changes and
Speaker 6: so on, and that was a thing He's usually known
Speaker 6: for its stability, you know, and winning games and so on.
Speaker 6: So you understand why I'm making why I'm making that comparison.
Speaker 6: When when things start to get away from you and
Speaker 6: so on, you you do things you you wouldn't have
Speaker 6: traditionally done. And I'm wondering where Jerry's headed here and
Speaker 6: so on, because this is this has been a disastrous season.
Speaker 6: You know, A lot has been said about them winning
Speaker 6: going twelve and five for years in a row. Well
Speaker 6: they can't even do that this year.
Speaker 3: No, they can't. That's true. Hey, before I let it go,
Speaker 3: because I want to touch on a couple of games
Speaker 3: in the crowded AFC, the jumbled uh you know mix
Speaker 3: here that we talked about in a second. But I'd
Speaker 3: be remiss if I didn't get your thoughts on John
Speaker 3: Robinson passing away this week. You know, I know that
Speaker 3: he was certainly noted, uh you know for his time
Speaker 3: as coach of the Rams, uh, but also in the
Speaker 3: collegiate ranks as well. And here's a football coach that
Speaker 3: I think that a lot of people will remember as
Speaker 3: a perhaps nothing more than just a damn good football coach.
Speaker 6: And and from what I could surmise, a very decent man.
Speaker 6: Yeah as well. Yeah, and uh, you know, when you
Speaker 6: when you're able to succeed at the level he was
Speaker 6: able to and on both college and mL and I
Speaker 6: know they never won a Super Bowl when he was
Speaker 6: at the Rams and saw but I mean he had
Speaker 6: a philosophy, you know, he was just a good football
Speaker 6: man and so on and just uh, you know, I
Speaker 6: was I was sad hear that because he was one
Speaker 6: of those figures of the of the of the eighties yep,
Speaker 6: in the league and so was. And again you know
Speaker 6: his his work at USD. I mean, you know, you
Speaker 6: know when you it, correct me if i'm along, didn't
Speaker 6: he didn't He followed John McKay.
Speaker 3: I believe he did. Yeah, I believe he was the
Speaker 3: coach after John McKay. Yeah, I believe.
Speaker 6: So yeah, so go ahead and fill those footsteps.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, right, yeah, okay yeah.
Speaker 6: And and and unlike you know, so again great players
Speaker 6: on both levels, highly respected man from what I've read
Speaker 6: and heard and stuff. Him and John Madden we had
Speaker 6: a very very good relationship. Another obviously iconic figure who
Speaker 6: was in the poul Football Hall of Fame, John Madden,
Speaker 6: who did everything for football.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 6: It was a little disconcerting. And and unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 6: you and I climb up the charts and I'm not
Speaker 6: talking about billboard, you know, which. You know, we see
Speaker 6: people who were big part of our lives growing up,
Speaker 6: in this profession and in this game we love leave us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's certainly one of them. All right. So
Speaker 3: I've got basically here Russell a final four in the AFC.
Speaker 3: Oh tell me, tell me I'm wrong. When you have
Speaker 3: the Ravens playing at the Steelers and you have the
Speaker 3: Chiefs playing at the Bills this weekend. Is that the
Speaker 3: AFC Final four? And who are the best teams and
Speaker 3: which teams are setting themselves up for you know, success
Speaker 3: of the stretch run here?
Speaker 6: Well, I think at the moment it's the four teams
Speaker 6: that are playing best in the conference. I don't even
Speaker 6: know if you can question that. And the only other
Speaker 6: two teams in the conference that have winning records are
Speaker 6: the Chargers in the Texas, right, And that's not a
Speaker 6: knock on the Chargers. These defense has done a complete
Speaker 6: one eighth, giving up the fewest points in the league,
Speaker 6: the Texans, the Laws three out of four. They're reeling
Speaker 6: a little bit, but Pittsburgh's kind of had an offensive
Speaker 6: resurgence with Russell Wilson. Baltimore, you know, different from the
Speaker 6: Baltimore teams we've seen in the past. This time they
Speaker 6: need all those points to win these games. They I know,
Speaker 6: they've blew Denver out early this year, but forty one
Speaker 6: thirty one over the Bucks, forty one thirty eight over
Speaker 6: the Bengals, and over time thirty five thirty four over
Speaker 6: the Bengals twenty eight to twenty five of the Cowboys,
Speaker 6: they lost twenty seven to twenty six to the Chiefs.
Speaker 6: So I think there's a couple, sure, you know, decent
Speaker 6: bets out there, Decent bets that Lamar Jackson will be
Speaker 6: the league MVP, decent bets that Derrick Henry has a
Speaker 6: great shot at being Offensive Player of the Year, and
Speaker 6: in an incredibly great shot that you can bet the
Speaker 6: over with a Ravens game every week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, just about to bounce.
Speaker 6: I have to say something on Baltimore Pittsburgh, and I'm
Speaker 6: going back to two thousand and eight when it was
Speaker 6: first the first Harbaugh Comlin series. Okay, yep. Now they'd
Speaker 6: squared off now thirty five times, including in the playoffs
Speaker 6: three times. Okay. Twenty seven of those thirty five games
Speaker 6: have been decided by seven points or less, and eighteen
Speaker 6: of the twenty seven by three points.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it. Hey, if the Bills
Speaker 3: hold home field and beat the Chiefs, are the Bills
Speaker 3: legitimate as a contender in the AFC to steal the
Speaker 3: crown away from case.
Speaker 6: Well? They had Casey in their own building last year,
Speaker 6: John and couldn't get it done.
Speaker 3: Right Yep? Okay, That's why I asked the question.
Speaker 6: I think what it would depend on, John if they
Speaker 6: took if they beat k C and use that as
Speaker 6: momentum to gain a winning streak, because you know, I
Speaker 6: don't even remember who Buffalo plays next week. Okay, okay,
Speaker 6: but or the next game. But if they beat KC
Speaker 6: at home and then lose, that kind of goes out
Speaker 6: the window. Okay. Now, last year, remember they were six
Speaker 6: and six at one time in the season and won
Speaker 6: their last five games, and then the Pittsburgh in the playoffs,
Speaker 6: and again they hosted the Chiefs and couldn't get the
Speaker 6: job done. In fact, I think Mahomes, since Mahomes got there,
Speaker 6: this will be like the eighth meeting between these teams
Speaker 6: in five seasons because they played in the playoffs and
Speaker 6: the Bills have won at Kansas City in the regular season,
Speaker 6: but Mahomes and Andy Reid are two and zero at Buffalo,
Speaker 6: and I think they won every postseason game, which I
Speaker 6: think is three of them as a matter of fact.
Speaker 6: So I think people would get very excited, and I
Speaker 6: think Kansas City is certain right for the taking. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know this nail whitter thing they've got going on,
Speaker 6: and I listen, we see the Patriots were great at
Speaker 6: this okay, doing just enough to win. Okay, I mean listen,
Speaker 6: you hit the ball in the woods and hits the
Speaker 6: tree and it rolls onto the green. It's still a one, right,
Speaker 6: like most of my shots are, so nobody cares.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, don't matter how it gets there, just get.
Speaker 6: There, Just just get there. I think it's doesn't depend
Speaker 6: on how they perform. I know Buffalo is a little
Speaker 6: undermanned wide receiver this week. I think Keon Puleman's out
Speaker 6: and Marii Cooper's a little banged up. But this as
Speaker 6: good as the Chiefs deef, I will say, as good
Speaker 6: as Chiefs defensive, and last year I think it was better.
Speaker 6: I don't think it's as good as it was. You know,
Speaker 6: Tampa Bay moved the ball when they had to against
Speaker 6: them h in that Monday night game. And Denver certainly
Speaker 6: didn't have any problems last week until it came to
Speaker 6: the field goal. You know, both Nick's really late. I
Speaker 6: mean we've seen the last couple of weeks. Even though
Speaker 6: Kansas City has won the game, Tampa Bay was able
Speaker 6: to drive the field and tie it to spend it overtime.
Speaker 6: Denver was able to drive it instead up a game
Speaker 6: winning field goal right now, Kansas City survived, okay, but
Speaker 6: that doesn't mean the defense is necessarily playing as well
Speaker 6: as it did a year ago.
Speaker 3: Good, good stuff as usual, my friend. Thank you very
Speaker 3: much for the time today. It's always appreciated.
Speaker 6: Oh my pleasure. And let me tell you something.
Speaker 7: This is to me.
Speaker 6: This is the first really big week of the season.
Speaker 6: And that's not the that's the first ten because I
Speaker 6: love them all. But when you have the three matchups
Speaker 6: that we have on Thursday and then the two to
Speaker 6: one Sunday, yep, all right, I listen. If I would
Speaker 6: just I would just call grubhub.
Speaker 3: Now, yes, sir, right up my alley. Yep. It's going
Speaker 3: to be some good foot, gonna be some good football.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Russell, talk soon, you got it. The one
Speaker 3: and only at Backs Football Guru on X. Bridgestone is
Speaker 3: the official tire of the New England Patriots, Proud to
Speaker 3: partner with Sullivan Tire, New England's headquarters for quality Bridgestone tires.
Speaker 3: Visit Sullivantyre dot com to find a location near you,
Speaker 3: and of course our programming here brought to you by
Speaker 3: bud Light. Easy to drink, easy to enjoy bud Light,
Speaker 3: the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots. By
Speaker 3: the way, the bills next week are off, then they
Speaker 3: will play the forty nine Ers and the Rams. Patriots
Speaker 3: don't get him until December the twenty second, as you
Speaker 3: well know, so they got a ways to go before
Speaker 3: New England will see them. A lot of stuff can
Speaker 3: happen between now and then, as we know. Thanks to
Speaker 3: Russell Baxter, Thanks to Evan Lazarre. Thanks to Greg Beacham
Speaker 3: from the Associated Press covering the Los Angeles Rams for
Speaker 3: joining us here on the program. Patriots and Rams one
Speaker 3: o'clock kickoff again right here at Jillette Stadium on Sunday.
Speaker 3: We will recap it and look forward again, same patch time,
Speaker 3: same patch next Wednesday, right here in the Patriots playbook.
Speaker 3: Thanks to the Marine. Thank you for your service one man.
Speaker 3: Appreciate you until next time see it. Thank you for
Speaker 3: downloading this podcast.
Speaker 11: Subscribe on Apple, Google Play, and everywhere else you listen.
Speaker 11: Like the show, Please rate and review us. Listener comments
Speaker 11: and ratings help keep us high in the podcast rankings
Speaker 11: so new listeners.
Speaker 3: Can find us.
Speaker 11: Be sure to check Patriots dot com for more news
Speaker 11: and more podcasts.
Speaker 1: Patriots Unfiltered the world's original podcast, Patriots Unfiltered brings you
Speaker 1: inside Jette Stadium for rousing conversations on everything New England, Patriots,
Speaker 1: and NFL. Join host Fred Kersh alongside Patriots dot COM's
Speaker 1: Paul Parillo, Mike des Evan, Lazar Tamara Brown, and Alex
Speaker 1: Francisco as they bring you in depth coverage of the team.
Speaker 4: He's a redshirt rookie at that point, so it's really
Speaker 4: that's his rookie season essentially too, so now we're really
Speaker 4: not talking about them, really new extreme until twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Search for Patriots Unfiltered anywhere you get your podcasts.