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Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. Welcome into the playbook everyone, I'm John Rook.
Speaker 4: You know Evan Lazar is here. We're gonna jump into
Speaker 4: it pretty quickly today. Obviously there's a little news going
Speaker 4: on today kind of makes things seem like we're starting
Speaker 4: over again a month into the regular season. We'll be
Speaker 4: joined shortly by Mark VanderMeer, who's the radio voice of
Speaker 4: the Houston Texans, a longtime New England guy himself, former
Speaker 4: voice of the UMass Minute Man a number of years
Speaker 4: ago as well, and now he's been in Houston since
Speaker 4: the since the franchise, basically he's been there. So he'll
Speaker 4: join us as well, and we'll hit some of the
Speaker 4: regulars as well. In Chris Price from the Boston Globe
Speaker 4: will join us and Russell Baxter on Week six around
Speaker 4: the NFL Patriots fans. If you want to see Toyota's
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Speaker 4: Let's go places, Let's go to the locker room, f
Speaker 4: because I've got a new quarterback in here, and I
Speaker 4: can't say it's something that we haven't talked about. You
Speaker 4: and I have talked about it on this show. We've
Speaker 4: been talked about it since draft day last April. That
Speaker 4: you know you're gonna draft a guy third you need
Speaker 4: to see what he can do now, whatever plan, And
Speaker 4: I'm i gotta be honest, I'm not sure there really
Speaker 4: was a plan. It's the plan as it now stands
Speaker 4: is as as uh Gerad has mentioned it several times,
Speaker 4: it seems almost retroactive. Seems like it's almost been reactionary
Speaker 4: to what the public thinks, to what the media has
Speaker 4: been hammering for. And we know the media can be
Speaker 4: relentless around here, uh As in a lot of ways,
Speaker 4: but this is just part of the game at least,
Speaker 4: you know, in a market like Boston, a market like
Speaker 4: New England. Overall, whatever the plan was, it hasn't been working.
Speaker 4: And so he said today it was his decision alone
Speaker 4: to start Drake may over Jacoby. Okay, I'll buy that
Speaker 4: to an extent, but there still had to be some
Speaker 4: extenuating circumstances.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 6: So, I guess I'm on the on Mayo's side here
Speaker 6: a little bit because I feel like it would be
Speaker 6: disingenuous of me to argue the other side after I've
Speaker 6: been you know, patting the table for him to make
Speaker 6: this move for weeks. So the biggest thing to me
Speaker 6: with this whole situation is that is two things. One,
Speaker 6: one hundred and nineteen passing yards per game is not
Speaker 6: NFL offense, Like you can't keep rolling that out there
Speaker 6: every single week. If the offense which Chikobe were said
Speaker 6: under center, was producing at a better rate, then yeah,
Speaker 6: maybe we wouldn't be talking about this. But this is
Speaker 6: this is truly rock bottom when it comes to passing
Speaker 6: offense in the modern NFL, Like in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 6: to be throwing for under one hundred and twenty yards
Speaker 6: a game, is unheard of and something that just can't
Speaker 6: really continue.
Speaker 5: So that's one.
Speaker 6: Number two is that I really like this from Mayo
Speaker 6: because it isn't good enough and it shouldn't be acceptable
Speaker 6: that they're going out there and losing games on Sunday.
Speaker 6: So as you know, fifteen to ten on Sunday, a
Speaker 6: win winnable game against the Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 5: There's a line.
Speaker 6: I understand that none of us expected them to be
Speaker 6: a playoff team this year, but there's a line of
Speaker 6: acceptance that the organization and that Mayo needs to put
Speaker 6: up with and the circumstances, whether this was the plan
Speaker 6: or not, the circumstances on the ground changed to the
Speaker 6: point where their bridge quarterback was not holding up the
Speaker 6: end of the bargain enough to make this move.
Speaker 4: If you wanted a bridge quarterback, I think there were
Speaker 4: the candidates out there. I wonder whether or not they
Speaker 4: would have wanted to fork out the kind of money
Speaker 4: for it. Hello, Joe Flacco is coming to mind right
Speaker 4: now off the top of my brain. And I think
Speaker 4: even there for a while, Kirk Coussins was considered a
Speaker 4: bridge there for a while as well, so there were
Speaker 4: other choices. Whatever the case may be that in particular,
Speaker 4: without completely throwing Jacobe on the bus, because I think
Speaker 4: what he's done here is he's really taken one for
Speaker 4: the team, and he's taken that to a different level
Speaker 4: maybe in this regard, because I think he hasn't been saying,
Speaker 4: he hasn't been separated, he hasn't been surrounded with the
Speaker 4: kind of people that you expect a starting quarterback in
Speaker 4: the NFL to be surrounded by. Let's be honest here, Yeah,
Speaker 4: So no, I don't throw him under the bus at all.
Speaker 4: This is not Jacoby's fault, you know, just putting that
Speaker 4: right there where it is out in front, it was
Speaker 4: pretty clear to see that we didn't have to go
Speaker 4: very far into the season before this decision had to
Speaker 4: be made. There were two three games that might have
Speaker 4: been winnable that could have been differently. I'm not saying
Speaker 4: they were, but could have been different had a change
Speaker 4: been made when we started clamoring for it. I'm not
Speaker 4: giving us all the credit on this either. Sometimes these
Speaker 4: guys know more football, you know, you know, than we
Speaker 4: know in our little fingers, So I get all of that.
Speaker 4: The fact of the matter is, though, is that I
Speaker 4: don't feel like there's been complete There hasn't been truthfulness here,
Speaker 4: and I think that part of that is because of
Speaker 4: the way that the coaching staff in particular, and maybe
Speaker 4: the way that we've all acted around here. Under the
Speaker 4: previous reason, everything was very close to the best. We
Speaker 4: kept our cards. You know, we weren't showing our cards.
Speaker 4: You know, we're holding our hand. You know, we're not
Speaker 4: flashing it out in front of anybody because we don't
Speaker 4: want the other guys to see. Now that having been said,
Speaker 4: the decision being made this week, the way that it
Speaker 4: was made. First of all, it was leaked. I think
Speaker 4: we can all kind of figure that one out. It
Speaker 4: got leaked, and rapapoor. You are a lucky son of
Speaker 4: a gun because you know the right people. And that's okay.
Speaker 4: That's the way the game is played. This is how
Speaker 4: insiders get to be insiders because they have the confidence
Speaker 4: of a lot of these reporters. I know this because
Speaker 4: I've been a reporter covering the NFL for forty years myself,
Speaker 4: so I get it. I just wow, I'm gonna get
Speaker 4: caught up here for just a second, because this is
Speaker 4: it's not the right way to do things. And if
Speaker 4: we're gonna change the way that things are done, then
Speaker 4: we need to have some clarification. We need to have
Speaker 4: some consistency. We need to have you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: if it's going to be your way or the highway,
Speaker 4: that needs to be said. Bill Belichick was very clear
Speaker 4: about that years ago, and we understood that. But at
Speaker 4: the same time, you know, media in this position, the
Speaker 4: position like you and I are in, Okay, there has
Speaker 4: to be some autonomy here for us to be able
Speaker 4: to do our jobs properly. Otherwise nobody gets taken seriously.
Speaker 4: So I think where we need to go from here,
Speaker 4: at least at this stage of the game, is just look,
Speaker 4: there really wasn't a plan. If there was a plan,
Speaker 4: then there should have been some kind of a of
Speaker 4: an inkling that there was. This seems very haphazard, It
Speaker 4: seems very thrown together. It seems very reactionary. Why else
Speaker 4: would you start a quarterback like Drake against one of
Speaker 4: the better defenses in the NFL as opposed to starting
Speaker 4: him at home against one of the worst defenses in
Speaker 4: the NFL just a week before. He can't have improved
Speaker 4: that much in a week's time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's fair. I guess the biggest thing to me.
Speaker 6: And this is what I was trying to say last
Speaker 6: week before I stepped in my pile of you know what.
Speaker 5: And by the way, you don't have to say anthing.
Speaker 4: Okay, well but no, but I feel like I need
Speaker 4: to say this. All right, I think we understand that
Speaker 4: this is a reactionary business. Yeah, okay, you're speaking your feelings,
Speaker 4: you're speaking your insight. You're in the locker room, you
Speaker 4: see it. You talk to everybody. Now, maybe some of
Speaker 4: the guys thought what you said was BS. Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 4: That doesn't mean everybody thought it was BS. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I appreciate you saying that. I again, this has been brewing,
Speaker 6: and that, I guess is where the conversation is about
Speaker 6: plans and all that kind of stuff. It's very easy
Speaker 6: to sit there in May and say no pun intended,
Speaker 6: and say we're gonna sit him for the year. Then
Speaker 6: you get into training camp, and to be frank, it
Speaker 6: wasn't great right out of the gate for him. In
Speaker 6: training camp. He had some lumps and growing pains. But
Speaker 6: then when you saw him in that Eagles preseason game,
Speaker 6: turn a corner, and then he comes out in practice
Speaker 6: and he's practicing better, that he plays decent against Washington,
Speaker 6: and he's you know, it keeps on getting better and
Speaker 6: getting better. And what I was sort of getting at
Speaker 6: last week was that you can't lie to the other
Speaker 6: fifty one players in the locker room and you can't
Speaker 6: get in there and you can't say we feel as
Speaker 6: though Jacobe Brussette gives us the best chance to win
Speaker 6: football games on Sunday, when.
Speaker 4: Part of the truth stuff that I was just talking about.
Speaker 6: When the other fifty one guys in the locker room
Speaker 6: see practice every single day, the eye and the sky
Speaker 6: don't lie on the film like they watch the film.
Speaker 6: They watch the tape and you look at all of
Speaker 6: these opportunities at this offense ad and I'm not sitting
Speaker 6: here telling you that they're going to go out there
Speaker 6: and average thirty five points a game with Drake may
Speaker 6: But the tipping point to me, from my opinion, was
Speaker 6: the game. Again, Miami had situations within the game where
Speaker 6: they needed a play from the quarterback to put them
Speaker 6: over the top, and Jacoby Brissett just couldn't give them
Speaker 6: that play and that would listening to Mayo, that to
Speaker 6: me was the tipping point was it was a very
Speaker 6: winnable game. We had a possession at the end of
Speaker 6: the game, and I understand the rookie receiver didn't get
Speaker 6: both feed and bounds, and that that's a fair criticism
Speaker 6: or stupid rule the way it's it's a fair point.
Speaker 4: But we took the tuck rule out of the thing.
Speaker 4: Should we take the the toe heel thing out?
Speaker 6: Maybe there were multiple plays in this game on Sunday
Speaker 6: where it felt like a little bit of a better throw,
Speaker 6: just a little bit of a better throw would have
Speaker 6: been the difference in the game.
Speaker 4: There's no guarantee that Drake would have made that kind
Speaker 4: of a throw. There's no guarantee that he would have
Speaker 4: made that kind of a throw, especially under direct under pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so you know, could he have thrown a bitter ball?
Speaker 4: I personally thought he could have, you know, could you know,
Speaker 4: Jalen Polk, I mean, you got to realize he's coming
Speaker 4: out of the college ranks where only one foot is
Speaker 4: required to be in bounds, right, so he I naturally
Speaker 4: I even saw his Instagram photo of him with his
Speaker 4: second foot in bounds.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The problem was it's the toe and there's this rule
Speaker 4: called the toe heel rule. That if you don't tap out,
Speaker 4: then the entire foot's gotta be in. I think that's
Speaker 4: one of the stupidest rules I've seen since the tuck
Speaker 4: rule and the tough rule benefit of the Patriots, this
Speaker 4: one bit him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I just when you look at going back to
Speaker 6: the the other fifty one guys in the room, Drake
Speaker 6: made today said in his press conference, and I don't
Speaker 6: think that he was meaning it to throw anybody under
Speaker 6: the bus or anything like that, but he put it
Speaker 6: very honestly. He said, it's a winning league. This is
Speaker 6: league is about wins and losses. We're one and four
Speaker 6: and the guys in the locker room want to win.
Speaker 6: And if it's not working, then you have to make
Speaker 6: a change. And when guys in that locker room can
Speaker 6: look at the physical skill set that he brings to
Speaker 6: the table, and they can watch him making progress in practice,
Speaker 6: and they can see him going out there, and this
Speaker 6: is all public, and we have coaches from the defensive
Speaker 6: side of the ball. A couple of weeks ago ooing
Speaker 6: an eyeing over some of the throws that Drake May
Speaker 6: is making on the scout team in practice.
Speaker 4: We mooed an odd yeah, especially since you know that
Speaker 4: late in the preseason when we saw when he started
Speaker 4: to pick stuff up, it's kind of like, w ohoh,
Speaker 4: this kid may be ready before week four or week
Speaker 4: five or whatever was being rumored at the time. You know,
Speaker 4: this kid might be ready. Let's play him. And everybody's
Speaker 4: pushing it int the brakes on it, and then we're
Speaker 4: buying into this narrative that well, there's no offensive line
Speaker 4: around him, and look, football is football, Okay, Guys are
Speaker 4: gonna get beat up regardless. Okay, And if you're really babying,
Speaker 4: and I'm sorry, but I'm going to use the term baby,
Speaker 4: if you're babying your quarterback, what does this say to
Speaker 4: the other fifty two guys your trend? You know, Okay,
Speaker 4: they can go out there and bust their tails and
Speaker 4: have their next broken potentially, but not your starting quarterback really.
Speaker 6: Right, and you know you see you hear Mike Pelgreno,
Speaker 6: their cornerbacks coach, when we were talking to the defensive
Speaker 6: assistance a couple of weeks ago, said that Drake May
Speaker 6: made a throw so good in practice that Pellegrino went
Speaker 6: back and watched it on.
Speaker 5: The tape later that day.
Speaker 4: Love it.
Speaker 6: They hate Drew Wilkins. They're outside linebackers. Coach is talking
Speaker 6: about how they're trying to throw pressure at him and
Speaker 6: dial things up against him, and he's reading it out.
Speaker 6: He's looking off safeties, he's baiting guys out of coverage
Speaker 6: and you know, manipulating coverage with his cadence and things
Speaker 6: like that. And you look at you hear all this
Speaker 6: stuff from these coaches and so you're you know it,
Speaker 6: it's going on behind the scenes. It's really difficult for
Speaker 6: that to continue. And then for them to go out
Speaker 6: there on Sundays and throw for one hundred and nineteen
Speaker 6: yards a game, and then to keep going into those
Speaker 6: squad meetings. If you're a Jeried Mayo and saying Jakobe's
Speaker 6: our starter, right, you know, at some point the other
Speaker 6: guys are going to start asking someone.
Speaker 4: This had to have been sure he made. He made
Speaker 4: the decision on his own. I think it's great if
Speaker 4: he did, and he should be making the decision without
Speaker 4: any other outside influence, unless, of course, he wants the
Speaker 4: input from his other offensive coaches. They're the ones that
Speaker 4: should be making the decision, not from above, not from outside,
Speaker 4: not from the media, especially not from the fans clamoring
Speaker 4: for Drake. May it should be Girodmeo's decision. But if
Speaker 4: it's taking him that long to realize what he has here,
Speaker 4: to see what everybody else has seen here, wait what? Okay?
Speaker 4: So if there is a plan that he's wanted to follow,
Speaker 4: then there needs to be at least some kind of
Speaker 4: a I don't know, an explanation. I mean, otherwise you're
Speaker 4: really no better off than you know, or you're not
Speaker 4: being You're not different from what we went under for
Speaker 4: twenty three years around here with Bill Belichick. Around we
Speaker 4: knew we weren't getting aything from Bill, even though people
Speaker 4: rasking questions during the course of the week, and you
Speaker 4: knew we wouldn't ask it, but you had to ask
Speaker 4: the question anyway.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would just say that because I know there's
Speaker 6: a lot of talk about this right now about them
Speaker 6: basically throwing the plan out and being reactionary in plan.
Speaker 4: So think there was any plan. You can't convince me
Speaker 4: there was a plan.
Speaker 6: I I don't know exactly because one thing he has
Speaker 6: kept very close to the chest, Girod is this this
Speaker 6: mythical plan.
Speaker 4: That's why I think it's nothing but unicorns. And rainbows.
Speaker 4: That's all it is.
Speaker 5: I don't know about that. He has not disclosed that
Speaker 5: to us what this plan was.
Speaker 6: And I know that not everybody's gonna believe this when
Speaker 6: I say it, but I truly do feel this way.
Speaker 6: I believe that Drake may took the plan and burned
Speaker 6: it down.
Speaker 4: And burned it. He burned it because of his progress. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so now the coaches are forged too. Well, if
Speaker 4: there was a plan, now we got to play the yeah,
Speaker 4: because he's showing and showing in practice. Yep. All right,
Speaker 4: let's turn the direction of the program here for a second.
Speaker 4: We're gonna get back to more on Drake and getting
Speaker 4: the start here this weekend. Eight five five PATS five
Speaker 4: hundred is the total free telephone number. We'd love for
Speaker 4: you to take part in the discussion, whether you agree
Speaker 4: with the decision or not, one way or the other.
Speaker 4: I'd like to hear your opinion. You can also, you know,
Speaker 4: send it out to us as well. On what the
Speaker 4: hell is the new email address? Again? Podcasts at Patriots
Speaker 4: dot com. Oh it's on top of the live read.
Speaker 4: Oh it's not. Oh yes it is. See I can't read.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, Matt Marien.
Speaker 5: He tries. He gives you all the tools, everything I need.
Speaker 4: It's right here and I'm blind podcast at Patriots dot Com. Okay,
Speaker 4: So now joining us on the herego This is for
Speaker 4: you Marine on the TPX hotline. Okay, joining us on
Speaker 4: the TBX hotline is the play by play voice of
Speaker 4: the Houston Texans, Mark Vandermier, A longtime friend. Mark. Thanks
Speaker 4: for taking a few minutes out of your busy dayppreciate you.
Speaker 8: Hey, I'm doing great. Guys. You sound a little choppy.
Speaker 8: Do I sound shoppy to you?
Speaker 4: You sound perfect?
Speaker 8: All that's fine. I can deal with shoppiness on the
Speaker 8: other end. But okay, I'm doing great. Looking forward to
Speaker 8: coming to Gillette Stadium on Sunday.
Speaker 4: I'll bet you are. I bet you are. You got
Speaker 4: to get back and we'll hold some champ We'll hold
Speaker 4: some clam chowder for you.
Speaker 9: Bro.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I know I'm looking forward to that too. I mean,
Speaker 8: this is one of the staples of the league as
Speaker 8: far as the press food. You know, you have the
Speaker 8: crab cakes in Baltimore, you have plam chowder, and in
Speaker 8: New England and it's awesome.
Speaker 4: Gotta do it all right, So I know your time
Speaker 4: is short, so thanks again. But first things first, Nico
Speaker 4: Collins gets placed on IR and I know that's a
Speaker 4: bit of a blowout for you know, CJ, for the
Speaker 4: entire offense. How do the Texans overcome that kind of
Speaker 4: an absence here for at least four weeks.
Speaker 8: Well, it's the moneyball thing. You cannot replace them. You
Speaker 8: hope to recreate him, you know. And Stefan Diggs is
Speaker 8: having a nice year for the Texans, sort of under
Speaker 8: the radar compared to what Nico Collins has been doing.
Speaker 8: Nobody here is surprised about Nico's star and how good
Speaker 8: he's been based on what we saw last year. And
Speaker 8: I figured this would be the case, especially with Diggs
Speaker 8: creating more of an attention getter scenario, so Nico could
Speaker 8: be freed up for some things. But now they have
Speaker 8: to go with tank Dell Diggs, see what Xavier Hutchinson
Speaker 8: can do. Maybe John Metshi. You know the other guys too.
Speaker 8: You know, Dalton Schultz is a good receiving tight end.
Speaker 8: They have other weapons. Daria gon Bowally has been really
Speaker 8: handy for them with these running back injuries they've had.
Speaker 8: He's caught some balls lately and came up big against
Speaker 8: Jacksonville and against the Buffalo Bills, so they'll try to
Speaker 8: piece it together. The good thing is they have number
Speaker 8: seven pulling the trigger and he's really good all right.
Speaker 4: So you know, obviously sitting number seven was where I
Speaker 4: was going next. Why has CJ. Stroud made the strides
Speaker 4: that he, you know, at least to me, started making
Speaker 4: late last year and picked it up this year. What's
Speaker 4: allowed him to just make the game shorter? It seems
Speaker 4: like it's it's slowed down for him a little bit.
Speaker 8: Well, it definitely has, and it did from the get go.
Speaker 8: You know, they played that preseason game in Foxborough August
Speaker 8: of twenty twenty three, and I don't think anybody could
Speaker 8: have thought or projected that he'd be as good as
Speaker 8: he became, but they saw signs of it in practice.
Speaker 8: And what do we always say about all of these players.
Speaker 8: Everybody needs to get better, everybody needs to improve, and
Speaker 8: some guys don't, some guys do. And if you could
Speaker 8: tell this pre draft, then we'd have a lot of
Speaker 8: geniuses out there. But clearly people are wrong about so
Speaker 8: many quarterbacks drafted because they don't get better. Stroud gets better.
Speaker 8: He's devoted to it. He sees the field as well,
Speaker 8: and you know, it's kind of like when you're playing
Speaker 8: pick up basketball. Certain guys see the floor, all of
Speaker 8: a sudden the ball ends up in your hands. He
Speaker 8: sees the field. And you had, you know, the best
Speaker 8: quarterback of all time who could see the whole field
Speaker 8: very easily. The game was so slowed down for him.
Speaker 8: He was just, you know, a maestro. And I don't
Speaker 8: have to tell you that. I'm not saying Stroud is that.
Speaker 8: But Stroud has that ability to see who's open, keep
Speaker 8: the eyes downfield by time, within the pocket and outside
Speaker 8: the pocket. And this year I think he's better in
Speaker 8: the pocket than he was last year. And he's starting
Speaker 8: to run a little bit very selective. Just ten yards here,
Speaker 8: ten yards there, Just get a first down, reload first
Speaker 8: and ten nothing fancy. Just keep the ball matriculating down
Speaker 8: the field, like Hanning Stram used to say. And it's
Speaker 8: fun to watch. I mean, the guy is a pleasure
Speaker 8: to be around and really enjoyable to watch win these
Speaker 8: really close games.
Speaker 4: Let's do a little comparison here, Mark, because I think
Speaker 4: you know that the Patriots have announced that they're going
Speaker 4: to start. You know, the rookie Drake May at quarterback
Speaker 4: against you guys this week. So when CJ first got
Speaker 4: it going in Houston, clearly every rookie has a learning curve.
Speaker 4: When did he turn it on? And what was the
Speaker 4: Texans attitude at the time about letting him have the
Speaker 4: opportunity to kind of play through this and try to
Speaker 4: develop himself or did they want to put the brakes
Speaker 4: on him at least initially and his talent just took over.
Speaker 4: Take us back a year or so ago.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 8: In OTAs and training camp in twenty twenty three Strouds
Speaker 8: rookie season, Davis Mills was the starter. Davis Mills took
Speaker 8: the first team reps, Stroud second team reps. Then they
Speaker 8: started to mix them, and then it was obvious to everybody,
Speaker 8: because you know, we're all allowed to watch every training
Speaker 8: camp practice. It was obvious to everybody that Stroud is
Speaker 8: better than Mills. How good is he? Ultimately you couldn't tell,
Speaker 8: but you knew that he was ahead of Davis Mills
Speaker 8: and that looked good, so go ahead and start him.
Speaker 8: It wasn't until the second half in week two where
Speaker 8: we really started to see a cup alive against the
Speaker 8: Colts at a loss. They were down, but he was
Speaker 8: spreading the ball around, throwing it around the yard, making
Speaker 8: plays through for a lot of yards in that game.
Speaker 8: And then week three they torched Jacksonville on the road,
Speaker 8: and this was a Jacksonville team that was coming off
Speaker 8: a playoff win season and they were the favorites to
Speaker 8: win the AFC South. And then you got a lotside
Speaker 8: of victory at their place, and they were often running
Speaker 8: with CJ.
Speaker 3: Strout.
Speaker 8: I think the Tampa game last year was the one
Speaker 8: where it took even on greater level. When he came
Speaker 8: back with minimum time on the clock, I mean minimal,
Speaker 8: it was inside a minute to go, found Tankdell on
Speaker 8: a beautiful sideline pattern to set up a last second
Speaker 8: touchdown pass to Dell, and there it was. He saw
Speaker 8: that this was going to be a special player. And
Speaker 8: he's shown nothing but I mean, he had a couple
Speaker 8: of turnovers against the Bills in the fourth quarter of
Speaker 8: this past week, but he shakes that off real fast,
Speaker 8: very calm, very cool, and these things don't affect him
Speaker 8: other than to make him want to get even better.
Speaker 8: And again, it's just fun to be around a player
Speaker 8: like this.
Speaker 4: Well, knowing now that you know what you know about CJ,
Speaker 4: are you at all surprised the Patriots have made largely
Speaker 4: a similar remove in giving Drake May his debut against
Speaker 4: you guys.
Speaker 8: You know it's funny because Brissette is a Texans killer. Okay,
Speaker 8: He's five and one all time against Houston with three
Speaker 8: different teams. He won that game in Week three twenty
Speaker 8: sixteen as a rookie when both Brady and Garoppolo were out.
Speaker 8: He won a few games with the Colts. He beat
Speaker 8: the Texans as a dolphin in twenty one and we
Speaker 8: were going over this. We thought, is this the best? Well,
Speaker 8: I think it's the best winning percentage for a quarterback
Speaker 8: against the Texans minimum six games played. I believe it's
Speaker 8: the case because it's Peyton manning Brady and then Brissette.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 8: So we're happy not to see Brissette at least I am.
Speaker 8: I don't think the coach has any opinion on the subject.
Speaker 8: But with Drake May, look, it's just it's like I
Speaker 8: just described, you won't know it until you see it,
Speaker 8: and you hope to see it, but you don't know
Speaker 8: when you're going to see it. You hope to see
Speaker 8: it early. You just don't know until you know. And
Speaker 8: I think that goes with all of these rookie quarterbacks,
Speaker 8: all of these young qbs, even Jordan Love, you know,
Speaker 8: he had to sit behind Aaron Rodgers and the times
Speaker 8: he got out there, I don't know. Right now you're
Speaker 8: seeing it, so that's good for them. So you won't
Speaker 8: know until you know. And maybe it happens this weekend,
Speaker 8: maybe it takes a few more weeks, maybe it takes
Speaker 8: another year. We don't know sure.
Speaker 4: And I guess really, you know, you would know what
Speaker 4: your defense, you know, would like to do against a
Speaker 4: guy like Drake at least to you know, make sure
Speaker 4: that his debut is a little bit rude out there
Speaker 4: on the field on Sunday. What do you think, in particular,
Speaker 4: Houston as defense does well that mike him some problems.
Speaker 8: Well, the Texans look, if you look at the sack numbers,
Speaker 8: they look decent league Wie, I think you're top ten
Speaker 8: in the league, but seven of them were in one game,
Speaker 8: and you know we're still relatively early in the season.
Speaker 8: What they do well, though, is get the posing quarterback
Speaker 8: off his launching point, and they did that with Josh Allen.
Speaker 8: It wasn't a sack best last week, but Allen went
Speaker 8: nine for thirty. How many times do you see him
Speaker 8: do that? Even his rookie year, he wasn't doing that.
Speaker 8: So the Texans forced them bad throws, forced him to
Speaker 8: be uncomfortable because they do spend time in the backfield.
Speaker 8: Even in their lopsided loss to the Minnesota Vikings, they
Speaker 8: still had four sacks and they got Donald to move around.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 8: Donald was able to keep his poise and make the
Speaker 8: plays Allen wasn't. And we'll see what a rookie can
Speaker 8: do against this defense. But they have to make sure
Speaker 8: they get into the backfield because Will Anderson, Junior, Daniel Hunter,
Speaker 8: these guys are good, and the defensive tackles are underrated. Fully.
Speaker 8: Fotacasi's having a nice year, best of his career so far.
Speaker 8: Mario Edwards has been around the block in this league,
Speaker 8: but he's felt a resurgence playing for this squad, and
Speaker 8: I think that's a tribute to really the entire staff.
Speaker 8: But Demiko ryans so positive, so encouraging, the kind of
Speaker 8: coach people really want to play for. And you're seeing
Speaker 8: the results on the field, and it's particularly noticeable because
Speaker 8: they win the close games. You know, this lead over
Speaker 8: this league is it's a one score league basically all
Speaker 8: the every week, all the time. And who wins these
Speaker 8: close games. The teams that are together play together and
Speaker 8: feed off each other. That's what this squad is doing.
Speaker 6: Mark just one for me. I just wanted to ask
Speaker 6: you about the offense. And Houston is nineteenth in scoring
Speaker 6: with all this talent, like, it's kind of hard to believe,
Speaker 6: right and you watch them and it doesn't feel that way.
Speaker 6: Is there anything you can point your finger on as
Speaker 6: to why they haven't scored more points?
Speaker 8: Tatastrophic mistakes in their four victories. Against the Colts on
Speaker 8: opening Day, they got a punt block and it results
Speaker 8: in a gift touchdown. A play later against the Bears,
Speaker 8: they fumble at the five yard line when they're about
Speaker 8: to punch it in and it turns could be two
Speaker 8: score games into a one score game. Ultimately, need I
Speaker 8: go on the Jags. I mean, NaN's a rally in
Speaker 8: that one because they muffed the punt early, gave them
Speaker 8: a gift touchdown off that. And lastly, two fourth quarter turnovers,
Speaker 8: one of them resulted in a field goal, and it
Speaker 8: just kept things close when they didn't really need to be.
Speaker 8: The Texans have also been penalized a lot. Last week
Speaker 8: they cleaned it up a bit. It kind of reared
Speaker 8: its ugly head after halftime. The two weeks prior one
Speaker 8: to loss. Want to win. They had a lot of
Speaker 8: false starts things like that. They've been messy, they've been
Speaker 8: a little sloppy. They got to tighten up and that's
Speaker 8: what enabled the opponent to stay close, and that's why
Speaker 8: the Texans haven't been able to score a ton of points.
Speaker 8: But when you look at the yards, they're definitely moving
Speaker 8: the football. I mean there's the number one passing attack
Speaker 8: in the league and yards per game Stroud is amazing.
Speaker 8: They've got the weapons. Even without Nico Collins, they should
Speaker 8: be able to get some yards through the air. They
Speaker 8: want to run it better. They have not run the
Speaker 8: ball as well as they want to do. There's no
Speaker 8: question about that, and we'll see if that materializes. I
Speaker 8: think Damian Pierce should be back this week. So I'm
Speaker 8: at practice today. I'm hoping, I'm crossing my and hoping
Speaker 8: he can stay healthy and get out there. So we'll
Speaker 8: see how it goes. But yeah, they have not scored
Speaker 8: points to their liking. Twenty nine is the season high
Speaker 8: and that was week one.
Speaker 4: All right, Mark, I know you got to go, but
Speaker 4: I appreciate a little time here today. Thank you. Save
Speaker 4: travels this way, and I will personally make certain that
Speaker 4: the clam chowder is still warm for you when you
Speaker 4: decide to come out of the booth.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Please, And let's get some U Mass fans in
Speaker 8: the crowd. Please, I'd like to see.
Speaker 7: Some of that.
Speaker 4: Wait, you mess has fans football fans.
Speaker 8: What's that?
Speaker 4: I said, you mess has fans?
Speaker 8: Yes, they do. Don't do that to me, you know,
Speaker 8: I'm just you and I go back to Big East days,
Speaker 8: Miami versus Providence.
Speaker 4: We do fun, we do well well beyond that. I
Speaker 4: don't remember your days at you Mass. Absolutely, thanks buddy,
Speaker 4: appreciate the time.
Speaker 3: All right, Thanks guys, you got it.
Speaker 4: Mark Vandermeir the one and only voice of the Houston Texans.
Speaker 4: You can follow him on x at Texan's Voice. That's
Speaker 4: where you find him on that. So yeah, good handle.
Speaker 4: It was very good handle. And you know, Houston's listen.
Speaker 4: This is a team that for a number of years
Speaker 4: we all thought, you know, would have potential for whatever reason,
Speaker 4: they have never been able to get over the hump.
Speaker 4: You remember the whole you know, letterjacket thing that went
Speaker 4: on here with Jed J. Watt over a few years ago,
Speaker 4: and can you forget that stuff? Right? And so whenever
Speaker 4: I think Houston Texans, that's actually what I think of,
Speaker 4: because I just think of man alive. You know, they
Speaker 4: just kept their mouths shut, but that seemed to, you know,
Speaker 4: go right in their face. Now, I think they've got
Speaker 4: enough talent, especially on the offensive side of the ball,
Speaker 4: as you alluded to, to overcome whatever foibles they have. They
Speaker 4: seem to certainly be quick enough defensively where they can
Speaker 4: play well enough with everybody else. But as he pointed out,
Speaker 4: they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot, not unlike
Speaker 4: what the Patriots are doing. But they've already got a
Speaker 4: better offense on the field. So I think the secondary,
Speaker 4: while the Patriot's secondary has been good at times, is
Speaker 4: going to be extremely challenged. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I wanted to ask Mark that question because it's often
Speaker 6: something like that where it's like turnover, is it inoperate
Speaker 6: tune times or poor situational football? And as somebody on
Speaker 6: the outside looking in, you don't necessarily think of those
Speaker 6: little things all the time because you look at their
Speaker 6: numbers right now, a quarterback a team quarterback by c. J.
Speaker 6: Stroud with the number one receiver in football is nineteenth
Speaker 6: in scoring. That doesn't really make much sense, you know.
Speaker 6: He said that they're number one in the league in
Speaker 6: passing yards right now, but they're only scoring twenty points
Speaker 6: a game. Yeah, that doesn't necessarily compute their early down offense.
Speaker 6: They're expected points added on early downs right now is
Speaker 6: worse than the Patriots. They are a worse first and
Speaker 6: second town team than New England is like this offense
Speaker 6: right that's changing their quarterback. So it is a weird
Speaker 6: one of those weird anomalies with Houston right now.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: On the defensive side of the ball, they've been lights
Speaker 6: out really the entire year. They've been really impressive on
Speaker 6: that side of the football. Number three in DVOA on defense,
Speaker 6: Umber one in pressure rate. They're playing a lot more
Speaker 6: man to man. They're playing more aggressive style under Demiko
Speaker 6: Ryans this year, so it's a tough defense to go
Speaker 6: up against. But I continue to just be baffled by
Speaker 6: how you could watch the tape and see how good c. J.
Speaker 6: Stroud is and he is fantastic in the pocket. And
Speaker 6: then the production just you know, you go to the
Speaker 6: box score and it's it's nineteen to thirteen.
Speaker 5: Or you know, or whatever they're shoot him.
Speaker 6: So yeah, and I'm just or twenty I think it's
Speaker 6: twenty three twenty against Buffalo last week on Sunday.
Speaker 5: So it's just like, how do we get there?
Speaker 4: And yet, defensively, this team is impressive what they've done
Speaker 4: against opposing quarterbacks this far. Yeah, they gave you know,
Speaker 4: Josh Allen perfect example last week, gave him Molly can
Speaker 4: handle and then some gave him a concussion probably. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's it's and then let's get back to the original
Speaker 4: premise of the show today, which we're talking about Drake
Speaker 4: May's debut. He is going to have his hands full
Speaker 4: in trying to figure out what he was going to do.
Speaker 4: If I'm Houston, I'm throwing everything, including the kitchen sink
Speaker 4: at him, And why wouldn't you in a competitive game
Speaker 4: in a competitive world. I'm gonna do everything I can
Speaker 4: to make life as difficult as possible for the air
Speaker 4: apparent at quarterback.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the one thing that he maybe has going for
Speaker 6: him in this particular game. Is I wouldn't call Houston
Speaker 6: to spin the dial defense. This isn't necessarily a defense
Speaker 6: that is is a disguise heavy or isn't showing their
Speaker 6: cards before the ball is snapped. You know, when they
Speaker 6: want to come after a quarterback, they're gonna put five
Speaker 6: or six guys up on the line of scrimmage, and
Speaker 6: you know they're coming like you know something. Maybe it's
Speaker 6: not all six, maybe it's you know, four and they
Speaker 6: drop two out or whatever the case may be. But
Speaker 6: they they show their cards a lot, so you're not
Speaker 6: necessarily gonna be in a position where you're gonna be
Speaker 6: scrambling post snap to try to figure out what the
Speaker 6: defense is in.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: That's really this system, This system that I was gonna
Speaker 6: say Robert solid, but no longer. The Jets run the
Speaker 6: forty nine ers a run obviously. The Houston Texans run
Speaker 6: under Damiko Ryans is a we do what we do
Speaker 6: kind of defense, and they just a couple of weeks
Speaker 6: ago played this defense twice in a row. The Jets
Speaker 6: and the forty nine Ers both run the same system,
Speaker 6: so they should know relatively what Houston's going to do. Defensively.
Speaker 6: I'd also just look at Week two against Caleb Williams
Speaker 6: and another rookie quarterback and say, well, that work for
Speaker 6: them against Caleb, So that's probably what they're gonna do
Speaker 6: against Drake May on Sunday. So they should know what's
Speaker 6: reason right, Yeah, they should know what's coming. That doesn't
Speaker 6: make it easier, but they should know what's coming.
Speaker 4: All right. So that means I got two questions for
Speaker 4: you before I get you out of here. Number one.
Speaker 4: Drowd Mayo said earlier today that Drake May gives the
Speaker 4: Patriots the best chance to win the game. Yeah, is
Speaker 4: there a chance to win this game on Sunday?
Speaker 6: It's an unknown because if I'm right about Drake May
Speaker 6: and he goes out there and he plays like a star,
Speaker 6: then yeah, Obviously, when you have a quarterback that's pulling
Speaker 6: that hard on the rope and you can certainly win
Speaker 6: any game that you're in.
Speaker 5: We know that all too well.
Speaker 6: Then when you go into a game with a quarterback
Speaker 6: like that, that you have a chance. So I'm willing
Speaker 6: to say that they have a chance, mainly because of
Speaker 6: what Mark was talking about. Houston hasn't really pulled away
Speaker 6: from anybody yet this year I mentioned the Bears game.
Speaker 6: They sacked CAYLEB Williams seven times, they picked him off twice,
Speaker 6: and they won the game nineteen to thirteen. It was
Speaker 6: a one score game when all was said and done.
Speaker 6: So if the Texans don't clean their act up on
Speaker 6: that side of the football, if they're not crisper and
Speaker 6: they're not sharper with their execution, then they will leave
Speaker 6: the door open for the Patriots in this game a
Speaker 6: little bit. So there's gonna be a lot of juice
Speaker 6: in the building. I'm sure he's gonna be jacked up.
Speaker 6: Maybe he does give them a spark offensively. So I'm
Speaker 6: saying there's a chance, But I'm also willing to be
Speaker 6: a little bit realistic.
Speaker 4: Just gonna say, because I heard today before I came
Speaker 4: into the studio, both on radio and from you know fans,
Speaker 4: you know on campus, you know where I teach, that
Speaker 4: it's kind of like this is the season opener all
Speaker 4: over again, you know, like we can eliminate the last
Speaker 4: month almost and start all over. And in a sense,
Speaker 4: I understand that mindset, and I also get what the
Speaker 4: fans would feel like that, and that's why I agree
Speaker 4: with you I think the stadium will be full of
Speaker 4: juice on Sunday, and it kind of leads to well,
Speaker 4: maybe this is why we had to make the move,
Speaker 4: because they wanted the juice from the fans.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's possible to me where what that means at
Speaker 6: the start of the season.
Speaker 5: I always think about week one.
Speaker 6: Nobody really knows what you are in terms of schematics, Like,
Speaker 6: you don't really know, especially when you have so much
Speaker 6: turnover on the roster, new coordinator, new quarterback.
Speaker 4: That's right, we don't know who this team is.
Speaker 6: We don't know what they have planned right for Drake
Speaker 6: May as the quarterback. I like to hope and this
Speaker 6: is something that will judge off of this game and
Speaker 6: moving forward.
Speaker 5: But I would like to.
Speaker 6: Hope that Alex van Pelt, Ben McAdoo, the offensive coaching staff,
Speaker 6: has been preparing the Drake May playbook since.
Speaker 4: Muzzle comes off. That's what we want, you know, the muzzle.
Speaker 4: We want the leash loosened, we want everything off. And
Speaker 4: he needs to show his coaches, his teammates, the fans,
Speaker 4: the meeting. You need to show everybody. This is why
Speaker 4: you know, I need to justify being taken third.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it and their coaches too. Like, to me, the
Speaker 6: onus right now is not so much on Drake, it's
Speaker 6: on the coaches, Like the coaches need to not only
Speaker 6: call things that he's comfortable running, but show me some
Speaker 6: schematic tweaks, show me some creativity on the offensive side
Speaker 6: of the football, show me some innovation on that side
Speaker 6: of the ball, because now you don't have the excuse
Speaker 6: anymore of well, we're limited at quarterback, Like you don't
Speaker 6: have that excuse. Nope, you can say that you're mentally limited,
Speaker 6: maybe that he's a rookie in his first career start
Speaker 6: and he's not going to read defenses and be that
Speaker 6: type of guy just yet. But physically he can reach
Speaker 6: every single area of the field. He can run instruct
Speaker 6: sure at a structure, he can improvise like you have
Speaker 6: everything at your fingertips now, So what are they thinking
Speaker 6: of doing from a schematic perspective, which Drake may is
Speaker 6: going to be huge? I want to I want to
Speaker 6: be dazzled a little bit, like, show me something, show
Speaker 6: me what you.
Speaker 5: Got right you have to have.
Speaker 4: We're dying, I know.
Speaker 6: But I'm not just talking about being dazzled just by
Speaker 6: the quarterback. Like the quarterback is going to do it
Speaker 6: like I'd.
Speaker 4: Be dazzled if the offensive line made a block.
Speaker 5: I am not.
Speaker 6: I am not concerned that we won't see flashes from
Speaker 6: Drake because we saw it all summer long and all
Speaker 6: preseason long. The question is is schematically, what's the Drake
Speaker 6: may offense look like. What is the way that they
Speaker 6: are going to get him involved in more ways than
Speaker 6: just with his arm, Because we also saw this in
Speaker 6: the preseason. You have designed quarterback run at your disposal now,
Speaker 6: so when you get on the goal line and you
Speaker 6: need to punch the ball in, you can zone read,
Speaker 6: you can RPO, you can have draw, you can do
Speaker 6: all sorts of things at your disposal now to pick
Speaker 6: up a first down, to run it in on the
Speaker 6: goal line if you want to go for it on
Speaker 6: fourth and one. Now you're eleven on eleven, you're no
Speaker 6: longer playing with a quarterback that can't be a factor
Speaker 6: into that. But in order for that to be the case,
Speaker 6: they need to scheme it up that way. So I'm
Speaker 6: really curious to see how that goes. I think that
Speaker 6: can change a lot for this offense.
Speaker 4: Well, the second question I had for you is unattached
Speaker 4: to the Drake May discussion. But I need to get
Speaker 4: your opinions on Robert Sola's firing of the Jets. Yeah,
Speaker 4: after only four weeks, and really after five weeks rather
Speaker 4: and only two weeks after, they just thumped you as
Speaker 4: bad as anybody has thumped you this year. I just
Speaker 4: thought that was highly ironic.
Speaker 6: Well, we talk about knee jerk reactions. That's what it
Speaker 6: feels like in New York. And I get it that
Speaker 6: they would each Johns and their owners said that this
Speaker 6: is the most talented Jets team ever assembled. And I
Speaker 6: don't necessarily think that that's hyperbolic, like that could be accurate,
Speaker 6: Like it's certainly the most talented Jets team in my lifetime.
Speaker 6: I can tell you that I don't go as far
Speaker 6: back as some, but I can tell you in my lifetime,
Speaker 6: this ain't the Chad Pennington New York Jets. This ain't
Speaker 6: the Gino Smith or Mark Sanchez Jets. This Jets team
Speaker 6: is loaded on both sides of the football. When they
Speaker 6: played the Patriots on Thursday Night a few weeks ago,
Speaker 6: that talent gap is what won that game so decisively
Speaker 6: for the Jets. It was very crystal clear who had
Speaker 6: more talent on the field that night. Now they're trying
Speaker 6: to win games, not against the Patriots, They're trying to
Speaker 6: win games against the the cream of the crop. And
Speaker 6: that's where coaching can come in because coaching. Belichick always
Speaker 6: used to say that coaching can lose you games. Players
Speaker 6: win games. And what they felt like was happening was
Speaker 6: that Robert Salla and the coaching staff would losing football
Speaker 6: games for that team because they have all this talent
Speaker 6: that they should be winning.
Speaker 5: So I get it was.
Speaker 4: There butting of hits between him and Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 6: Rogers says, no, you want to take his value. What
Speaker 6: I believe with that situation is that Rogers has his
Speaker 6: guys in that building, one of them being in Nate Hackett,
Speaker 6: who is one of his good friends in the business
Speaker 6: and as somebody that he trusts. And look, Rogers is
Speaker 6: a tough We had this with Brady, and I understand
Speaker 6: that it was a much more successful level than where
Speaker 6: the Jets are right now. But Brady had his way
Speaker 6: of doing things. You know that he ran his offense.
Speaker 6: He didn't necessarily want much input. He didn't allow receivers
Speaker 6: in the circle of trust very easily. When they had
Speaker 6: new receivers on the team. Rogers to me, strikes me
Speaker 6: as that maybe even ramped up a little bit times ten.
Speaker 6: There are certain things schematically and certain things from a
Speaker 6: play design perspective that Aaron Rodgers just doesn't want a
Speaker 6: piece of, Like apparently he doesn't He's not a big
Speaker 6: fan of motion at the snap or pre snap motion.
Speaker 6: So he just wants to get to the line of scrimmage,
Speaker 6: pick his matchups, and go to work. He doesn't want
Speaker 6: all these bells and whistles that you see from all
Speaker 6: these innovative offensive minds around the league, you know, the Miami's,
Speaker 6: the San Francisco's, the Rams.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: He doesn't want any of the bells and whistles. He
Speaker 6: just wants to line up and I'm better than you, right,
Speaker 6: and that sort of thing. So it seems to me
Speaker 6: like there might have been some issues in that regard
Speaker 6: of like how do we want to play the game,
Speaker 6: like how do we want to win football games? And
Speaker 6: just you know, to relate it back a little bit
Speaker 6: to Drake May That was the biggest thing to me
Speaker 6: with with this whole operation in the last five weeks
Speaker 6: when it comes to the head coach you are not
Speaker 6: necessarily going into the game and calling the offense or
Speaker 6: calling the defense. But you have to go to your
Speaker 6: coordinators and to your assistant coaches and with a plan
Speaker 6: every single week. Of these are the four to three
Speaker 6: you know, three things, four things that we have to
Speaker 6: do that are non negotiable to win this football game.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: I'll give you an example when they are before the
Speaker 6: half on Sunday against Miami. Poor situational football. In that scenario,
Speaker 6: they run the ball for seven or eight yards on
Speaker 6: first down, and then they pass it twice and they
Speaker 6: end up punting the ball back to the Miami Dolphins
Speaker 6: without wasting any time. Practically, if your girod Mayo, I'd
Speaker 6: like to hear Darrod Mayo get into the headset to
Speaker 6: Alex Van Pelton, say we're running the ball here, we're
Speaker 6: backed up on our own goal line. We can't allow
Speaker 6: them to get the ball back before the half. This
Speaker 6: has to be the last possession of the half. You
Speaker 6: call it like whatever run play you want to call.
Speaker 6: You want to call gap, you want to call it
Speaker 6: outside zone, you want to call power like you call it.
Speaker 6: But this is what we're doing, and for I know
Speaker 6: everybody thinks there is no plan for once. I feel
Speaker 6: like there is a direction. Like girod Mao went in
Speaker 6: on Monday and said, we're making the change. I'm the
Speaker 6: head coach and this is what we're doing. Everybody else
Speaker 6: needs to just get on board. And this whole collaborative stuff.
Speaker 6: You know, we gotta run it by Elliott, and you
Speaker 6: gotta run it by AVP and we got to run
Speaker 6: it by mcadude.
Speaker 5: Like, no, you're the head coach, like this is your team.
Speaker 4: Maybe this is something he just wasn't comfortable doing. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but he's decided no, I gotta do it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I feel I know I'm going to be
Speaker 6: on an island on this. I feel that that's growth.
Speaker 6: I feel that that's growth. I feel like we've gotten
Speaker 6: to the point now where he is putting his foot
Speaker 6: down and he is saying, no, this is how we
Speaker 6: are going to do things.
Speaker 5: This is my football.
Speaker 4: He needs to do that. I agree, he needs to
Speaker 4: do that. I think there has to be more of
Speaker 4: a demonstrative measure here from Gerrod Mayo. Yeah, I think
Speaker 4: maybe this is the first step toward that. Yeah.
Speaker 6: He was asked on Monday about changing play callers and he.
Speaker 4: Threw cold hater.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it sounds like that I would have to
Speaker 5: begree with that.
Speaker 4: By the way, I'm gonna I'm gonna take the coach's
Speaker 4: side on this one because it's unfair to Alex van Pelt,
Speaker 4: largely because of who he's had to work with.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I and he's also a first time play caller,
Speaker 6: So let's let him go through his lumps, since, yeah,
Speaker 6: he gets better.
Speaker 4: At You're gonna give gerard Is lumps. You're gonna give
Speaker 4: Jacoby Is lumps. You're gonna give Drake his lumps. A
Speaker 4: VP needs the lumps.
Speaker 5: Yeah, one hundred.
Speaker 6: I just I feel as though a lot of what's
Speaker 6: happened here is that there's a lot of voices. And
Speaker 6: this is just my opinion. I have to preface that
Speaker 6: now every time I talk. This is just my opinion.
Speaker 6: I feel as though there's been a lot of cooks
Speaker 6: in the kitchen. Yeah, and it's coming from upstairs, or
Speaker 6: it's coming from the coordinator level, or it's coming from
Speaker 6: here and there and everywhere, And Gerrod Mayo is trying
Speaker 6: to just straighten out this ship of This is what
Speaker 6: I want to do. They need to start building a
Speaker 6: culture like they need to start building roots of a
Speaker 6: foundation here.
Speaker 4: This is who we are right.
Speaker 6: And now, this to me is a big first step.
Speaker 6: I give him kudos. I think he stood up to
Speaker 6: everybody on Monday, and I'm just again my opinion, he
Speaker 6: stood up to everybody on Monday and he said this
Speaker 6: is what we're doing, get on board, And I can't
Speaker 6: say he's.
Speaker 4: Done that a lot previously.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so I'm happy you.
Speaker 4: Left you wondering, kind of scratching your head. Yeah, Hey,
Speaker 4: you know what the bottom line is out of all
Speaker 4: of this right now? What's that Patriots are only two
Speaker 4: games out of first place.
Speaker 6: Look, I'm not going there. I'm not going there. I'm
Speaker 6: not going there. But it's exciting that. You know, we
Speaker 6: had people calling to PU and stuff and talk about Okay, well,
Speaker 6: you know, it felt rudderless before, like we're on this
Speaker 6: road to nowhere because Jacob Brissett isn't the future. The
Speaker 6: product isn't watchable, he's not the quarterback of the future,
Speaker 6: So like, what are we doing here now? At least
Speaker 6: even if they don't win on Sunday, they could have
Speaker 6: a similar game to what they had in San Francisco,
Speaker 6: and it could look just as bad, right in terms
Speaker 6: of the other three two phases and the whole operation
Speaker 6: and all that kind of stuff. But if Drake May
Speaker 6: gives us three or four or five Wow plays, then
Speaker 6: it's gonna feel different. It's gonna feel like there is hope,
Speaker 6: and hopefully that becomes more consistent, and hopefully he becomes
Speaker 6: more consistent and we grow from there. Now it really
Speaker 6: does feel like we have a new lease on life
Speaker 6: around here a little.
Speaker 4: Bit the season opener, Yeah, all over again, as I said, right, yep, absolutely,
Speaker 4: thanks buddy. Of course, make sure you're sticking around a
Speaker 4: little extra here, all right. The one and only Easy
Speaker 4: Lazar at Easy Lazar on X joining us here on
Speaker 4: the program, of course. This program is also brought to
Speaker 4: you by bud Light, Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy,
Speaker 4: bud Light, the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots.
Speaker 4: Eight five five PATS five hundred, the toll free telephone number.
Speaker 4: It is podcasts at Patriots dot com. That's podcast with
Speaker 4: an s plural at Patriots dot com is the new
Speaker 4: web address to join us if you want to follow
Speaker 4: along on Twitter, even submit a question on Twitter or X.
Speaker 4: Because I always screwed that part up. You can hit
Speaker 4: me up at JR Broadcaster. That's the ex address. All right,
Speaker 4: you want to do what now? Oh you texted me?
Speaker 4: Should I take a time out here? Let's just do
Speaker 4: it live on TV. I'm going to read what Marines
Speaker 4: texts has to say here. Oh yeah, right, we do
Speaker 4: we have a we can hear from Drake May. All right,
Speaker 4: let's do that in a moment, just in a moment,
Speaker 4: have it ready to roll, because we should hear from
Speaker 4: the star of the day, Drake May. But I also
Speaker 4: want to acknowledge the fact that I got two gentlemen
Speaker 4: hanging on for quite a time here, Patty and Agawam,
Speaker 4: you're up first here in the playbook. Look up, Johnny, Patty,
Speaker 4: what's happening today with you?
Speaker 9: Just a work just sort of winding the day down?
Speaker 4: And are you on board? Are you on board with
Speaker 4: the decision here?
Speaker 9: Okay? Any of the guys will tell you that, like I,
Speaker 9: for a lack of better term, John, I've been calling
Speaker 9: and bitching the last few shows on TU saying that
Speaker 9: you know nothing personal against Jacobe, but to me, he's
Speaker 9: a backup quarterback. He kind of always has been a
Speaker 9: backup quarterback. Sorry about the echo.
Speaker 4: That's right, You're good, I hear you fine.
Speaker 9: To me, it was just well, like like what everyone
Speaker 9: else said, I mean, no matter what, I was going
Speaker 9: to watch the product, but I was watching it like begrudgingly, like,
Speaker 9: oh my god, I can't believe this is this is
Speaker 9: our team this year, and you know, is this going
Speaker 9: to go on all year? You know, are we going
Speaker 9: to are we going to win another game? And I
Speaker 9: didn't think we were with Jacoby as our starting quarterback.
Speaker 4: No, and we said as much, We said as much
Speaker 4: last week. I think that I really thought one in
Speaker 4: sixteen was in play if we can continued. If this
Speaker 4: team had continued down the road that was traveled last week,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how much that really would have changed
Speaker 4: had they won the game last week. I don't believe
Speaker 4: that even if that pass to Jalen Polk had been
Speaker 4: complete in the back of the end zone, I'm not
Speaker 4: sure that it necessarily would have saved Jacoby's job. I'm
Speaker 4: not necessarily sure that you know that Drake may wouldn't
Speaker 4: have been you know, rushed in as the court. I'm
Speaker 4: not sure that any of that would have changed. If,
Speaker 4: of course, we are to believe what has been said
Speaker 4: all along that there was going to be a process
Speaker 4: in bringing Drake along in this, but it was clear
Speaker 4: when they didn't win it that something needed to change.
Speaker 4: So maybe that was a convenience factor. I don't know,
Speaker 4: but this is something we've all seen coming for a while.
Speaker 4: I've been an advocate for doing it since day one,
Speaker 4: because then you might actually have you might be a
Speaker 4: few weeks ahead of the game. You might be where
Speaker 4: Jaden Daniels is, you might be where you know Caleb
Speaker 4: Williams is. You might We don't know, and we're never
Speaker 4: going to know the answer to that. So well, that's
Speaker 4: why I was an advocate for starting now back when
Speaker 4: the season got started. At the very least, it's happening now,
Speaker 4: and that's why it's kind of like, hey, this is
Speaker 4: the season opener all over again.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 9: And I was on the fence before the season started,
Speaker 9: but leading up to Week one, I said, you know what,
Speaker 9: screw it, I want to see the kid play.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we need to see that. We need to see
Speaker 4: what he can do. We need to see what he
Speaker 4: can do with the ball, We need to see what
Speaker 4: he can do under duress. We need to see you know,
Speaker 4: if he's been listening to the calls, and we've seen
Speaker 4: the shots of him on the sideline, you know, with
Speaker 4: a year piece end, he's listening to all the calls.
Speaker 4: He know what it is. He can make his own decision.
Speaker 4: He's playing the game in his own mind. So all right,
Speaker 4: how much has he retained? Look, this guy is not
Speaker 4: he's a little bit of a novidge when it comes
Speaker 4: to football because he's only started X number of games
Speaker 4: in his entire career. Remember he only started for like
Speaker 4: a season and a half at North Carolina before you know,
Speaker 4: he moved into the central role. He's still relatively brand
Speaker 4: new at this when you look at the bigger picture.
Speaker 4: But he comes from a great pedigree. You know, his brothers,
Speaker 4: you know, we're great athletes. His whole family's dad. You know,
Speaker 4: he knows how to play. He's an athlete, you know,
Speaker 4: at H A. L. E. T. He's an athlete. And
Speaker 4: we need to see that because if we don't get
Speaker 4: what we think we got with the third pick, then
Speaker 4: you really got to start looking at the big picture.
Speaker 4: I don't think that'll be the case, but we got
Speaker 4: to find out because you know, you got to worry
Speaker 4: about the team first more than anything else.
Speaker 9: Yeah, right, and I can't I don't know if I
Speaker 9: haven't said it on fewer if he just said it
Speaker 9: on this on the playbook with you where this team's
Speaker 9: talent offensively might not be good enough for them to
Speaker 9: win at least like four more games this year. But
Speaker 9: it's all right, you know, all I'm really looking for,
Speaker 9: I think all fans are really looking for is something new,
Speaker 9: something exciting, something to get excited about, and eventually progress.
Speaker 9: You want to see the kid progress and eventually get
Speaker 9: better as as the weeks go on. I mean, if
Speaker 9: you look at what Houston did to Josh Allen last week,
Speaker 9: he completed like what nine of thirty passes. Look at
Speaker 9: Caleb Williams first week, it was almost the exact same statline.
Speaker 9: He completed nine of like probably nine of thirty, and
Speaker 9: he's progressively gotten better.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Jaden Daniels weeks one and two didn't look like anything,
Speaker 9: and now he's like he's in MVP consideration.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, and so even if he comes out, if
Speaker 4: Drake comes out and struggles this week against Houston, you know,
Speaker 4: there's no reason to get overblown about this. Okay. You
Speaker 4: know we've seen it with the other rookie quarterbacks in
Speaker 4: this league, the three that are actually you know, starting
Speaker 4: with their teams. Let's throw boone Nicks into the mix
Speaker 4: as well. They've all struggled at times this year because
Speaker 4: their rookies. This is why, again I'm gonna repeat myself here,
Speaker 4: I was an advocate for starting him early so you
Speaker 4: could get by the rough stuff and hopefully he'd started developing,
Speaker 4: like by week five or week six. But okay, that's over,
Speaker 4: that's done. We got to move on now. And so
Speaker 4: now you're going to start the clock and he's gonna
Speaker 4: struggle at times, so we have to allow for that.
Speaker 4: You can't say, oh my god, he was terrible, where's
Speaker 4: Jacoby bringing back? No, no, no, this is what we have.
Speaker 4: This is what we do. We need to see if
Speaker 4: this guy can play. He gets the entire rest of
Speaker 4: the season to figure this thing out, and that at
Speaker 4: the very least, that's what he's gonna get, and he
Speaker 4: should be getting because he is the future. Otherwise, you
Speaker 4: don't take a guy at number three if he's not
Speaker 4: the future of your franchise. So I know there's gonna
Speaker 4: be people that want to shoot their own selves in
Speaker 4: the foot. If he doesn't have a good game this week,
Speaker 4: if the Patriots get blown out or whatever happens, there's
Speaker 4: gonna be people saying, Oh, they should have never done it. Look,
Speaker 4: he got killed behind that awful offensive line. I'm not
Speaker 4: buying that. I'm not buying that. If he gets killed
Speaker 4: behind the offensive line, then that's as much his fault
Speaker 4: as it is the offensive line's fault. He's got the ability,
Speaker 4: he's got to know how. I think, frankly, we'll see
Speaker 4: him do a lot of rolling out of the pocket.
Speaker 4: I think he's gonna have to move the pocket a
Speaker 4: little bit in order to avoid a rush that's clearly
Speaker 4: gonna pit its ears back and come after him. So
Speaker 4: in that regard, you'll you'll probably see, you know, a
Speaker 4: VP dial up some plays that we just haven't seen
Speaker 4: before because it's not in Jacoby's wheelhouse to be able
Speaker 4: to run those kinds of plays, right.
Speaker 9: And if you know, if they come after him and
Speaker 9: he's able to get the ball down the field and
Speaker 9: they switch up and start playing men, he'll we've seen
Speaker 9: him like or those that have like watched them play
Speaker 9: in college.
Speaker 7: He's not afraid to take off.
Speaker 4: No, No, he's moving. That's right. He'll he'll take off
Speaker 4: he has to, and he's not afraid to make mistakes. Okay,
Speaker 4: I thought that, you know, well, Jacoby again deserves to
Speaker 4: have a statue erected. I think because of him, you know,
Speaker 4: taking the bullets here, so to speak. The fact of
Speaker 4: the matter is that he's limited in what he can
Speaker 4: do with the football. Drake can do more with the
Speaker 4: football than Jacoby can. That's not a slam on Jacoby.
Speaker 4: It's just a credit to the town that Drake may has. Okay,
Speaker 4: Jacoby's a great guy. He's a leader, his teammates respect him.
Speaker 4: He's an adequate quarterback. Frankly, he's great as a backup.
Speaker 4: He's exactly what you want, you want a game manager.
Speaker 4: I also believe, quite frankly, that he was kind of
Speaker 4: told to, you know, we need to be conservative at
Speaker 4: the stage of the game until we get you know,
Speaker 4: more bullets in our holster. And I don't know that
Speaker 4: they have that yet, but it's kind of like, well,
Speaker 4: we may never get it, so we got to play
Speaker 4: the young guy. And I really believe the decision to
Speaker 4: play him boil down to basically that, you know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of like We don't know when we're going to
Speaker 4: have more bullets in the holster to be able to
Speaker 4: shoot from our gun. So let's play him before he
Speaker 4: gets too late. Bingo, that's why he's starting.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and just a couple more points down and I'll
Speaker 9: get off and yeah, you know what, probably they don't
Speaker 9: have the bullets in the holster. But I'll tell you
Speaker 9: what I like. I'll tell you what I like what
Speaker 9: I saw this past week. You know, kat Osbourne, he
Speaker 9: was injured, but he was inactive. They pretty much even
Speaker 9: though he was there and active for the game, Taekwon
Speaker 9: Thornton was essentially obstensively just an active you know, for
Speaker 9: the game last week. And they gave Kisham Boudi a chance.
Speaker 9: And Kishan Boudi is actually talented.
Speaker 4: Kishan Boudi got his job. Kaishan Boudi got his playing
Speaker 4: time based on what he's done at practice and what
Speaker 4: he's done at practice well from the little that we've
Speaker 4: seen plus the reports that we've seen and gotten from
Speaker 4: the coaches, he's he knows how to block downfield, he
Speaker 4: knows how to block right and he's in a superb
Speaker 4: job of that in order to be able to try
Speaker 4: to spring guys. So it just tells me that the
Speaker 4: guys that are doing the little things to earn their
Speaker 4: playing time are the ones that are being rewarded as
Speaker 4: it should be.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and I'm not saying the kids. The next coming
Speaker 9: up Stefan Diggs, but there is a reason why he was,
Speaker 9: you know, consensus number one, number two wide receiver coming
Speaker 9: out of high school. Because the kid's talented. So I'm
Speaker 9: glad he's getting a chance. Pop Polk, let these young
Speaker 9: kids place. You have to see what you not only
Speaker 9: what you have with May, but now that you have
Speaker 9: him starting there and you actually have like an uber
Speaker 9: talented quarterback, you need to see what you have at
Speaker 9: the wide receiver position too, before the start of the
Speaker 9: next offseason. And listen, fans, fans out there and anyone
Speaker 9: that's listening. I know you were saying, you know, Drake
Speaker 9: May gets the calls. Drake, if you're listening to this call,
Speaker 9: everybody needs to temper their expectations down because this is
Speaker 9: essentially your one of a rebuild.
Speaker 4: It's week one, baby, It's week one all over again.
Speaker 4: That's why we started with that today. This is the
Speaker 4: season opener all over again.
Speaker 9: It's gonna take time. It's gonna take patience. You know,
Speaker 9: you don't go from going fourteen or four and thirteen
Speaker 9: last year and not really upgrading other than possibly, you know,
Speaker 9: a couple pieces here at the wide receiver position with
Speaker 9: with Polk, you know, getting a healthy born back and
Speaker 9: taking a quarterback number three overall and expect to win
Speaker 9: twelve games and win the division the next year. It
Speaker 9: doesn't happen.
Speaker 4: Yep, you're right, you know.
Speaker 9: But now that I said that, now that I've sort
Speaker 9: of grounded myself in reality, I'm going to enter fantasy
Speaker 9: land for a second. John, here's my prediction for the game. Okay,
Speaker 9: Patriots pull off a huge upset. I think the crowd
Speaker 9: is going to be juiced. I think that place is
Speaker 9: going to be loud. Gillette's going to be freaking, you know,
Speaker 9: chopping at the bit to see this kid come in
Speaker 9: and have a big game.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 9: I think May's going to be amped up. I think
Speaker 9: he's going to have a few big time throws, and
Speaker 9: I'm I'm picking the Patriots to win twenty eight to twenty.
Speaker 4: Wow, Well, the Patriots can score twenty eight points. I
Speaker 4: tell you what, There'll be a lot of people with
Speaker 4: eyes wide open. I'll put it to you that way,
Speaker 4: you the man, Patty, thank you, all right, you got it,
Speaker 4: Patty and agawam for twenty eight point healthy for twenty points.
Speaker 4: I think would be at least on the right track,
Speaker 4: wouldn't we. Eldred in North Carolina? What's up, Eldred?
Speaker 2: Mister?
Speaker 4: It's all good today. Clearly you're on the road. Be
Speaker 4: safe out there, and that guy's dead.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm riding around and wish to Salem right now,
Speaker 2: so huh dropping one load off there and I'm done
Speaker 2: done for the day.
Speaker 4: All right, very good, all right, be safe out there.
Speaker 4: Are you guys gonna get You're not gonna get it. No, see,
Speaker 4: you're not gonna get any of the aftermath of the
Speaker 4: of the hurricane that's hitting Florida because it's going to
Speaker 4: go out to the Atlantic. So I think that's probably
Speaker 4: a good thing, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, because the mountains and Ashfield still having problem.
Speaker 4: Oh I know, I feel I feel so badly for
Speaker 4: the people of Asheville. I've got uh, I've got a
Speaker 4: dear friend of mine who lives in Greenville, South Carolina,
Speaker 4: which is you know, is not far away, and uh
Speaker 4: uh you know, and he took a tree right in
Speaker 4: the middle of his house, so you know, he's got
Speaker 4: his power back, but he can't get the tree out
Speaker 4: of the house until somebody comes by, like an insurance
Speaker 4: adjuster to give him an estimate on the repairs. And
Speaker 4: that may take a while, so crazy.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, that is.
Speaker 3: Kind of slow.
Speaker 2: Yeah uh Threeville and s Farmer, South Carolina. Like I
Speaker 2: got family there too, Yeah, and day too long got
Speaker 2: their power on like yesterday and day before. Wow, you know,
Speaker 2: And that what I'm saying. I'm like, I'm just glad
Speaker 2: he just didn't have him that bad up in Charlotte.
Speaker 2: We had some powers and stuff out, but wasn't that bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: But but like I said before, I'm glad he got
Speaker 2: a shot. But like I told you a little while back,
Speaker 2: I would have started him day one.
Speaker 4: Yes, three, Yes, yes exactly. We're you and I are
Speaker 4: in agreement. We're on the same page here. Yep, there's
Speaker 4: I would not have sat him. I would have started
Speaker 4: him day one, no question, I would have.
Speaker 2: I would have. But even though I'm not in a
Speaker 2: wheelhouse yet. But like I say, you got to show
Speaker 2: me now in mister S three, you just got to
Speaker 2: show me. But like I said, maybe buy a made jersey.
Speaker 2: Ain't about a Patriot jersey. In a while. I still
Speaker 2: got Brady's and mouth.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm gonna like this weekend, though, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna really like seeing the patriot red jersey with a
Speaker 4: white ten on it and and the white helmet with
Speaker 4: the old pat Patriot on it. I'm gonna enjoy the
Speaker 4: heck out of there this weekend.
Speaker 2: Me too, Me too, I'm gonna enjoy that. But uh,
Speaker 2: i'd be working for a little bit. But I should
Speaker 2: get back in town to see the second half. But
Speaker 2: one thing I heard but May in this press Carson conference,
Speaker 2: and I hope you don't do that. Well he's talking
Speaker 2: about the coach will tell him, don't try to say
Speaker 2: too much offstrip. No, let that guy play, don't put
Speaker 2: no muggle on him, Let him play. Let him play.
Speaker 2: You know, if you gonna put a muggle on him,
Speaker 2: to the back there in that pocket, you know, and
Speaker 2: let that guy. Let let that guy play.
Speaker 4: That's why I think they'll get it. That's why I
Speaker 4: think they'll run him out of the pocket. You know,
Speaker 4: he's gonna be moving. I don't think he's gonna be
Speaker 4: a statue by any stratechy the imagination back in the
Speaker 4: in the in the in the offensive backfield. He's going
Speaker 4: to be moving, uh you know, And so yeah, go.
Speaker 2: Ahead, but I'm sorry, sir, but but I won't. You
Speaker 2: have to take his victory lap. So I keep taking mind.
Speaker 2: You every time y'all mentioned CJ Strout, I keep taking mind.
Speaker 2: So that's what I told y'all two years ago to
Speaker 2: be coaching well, Joe.
Speaker 4: Well, that's why I asked Mark vandermir from the Texans
Speaker 4: earlier about to take us back to a year ago
Speaker 4: when largely c J. Stroud and Drake and May were
Speaker 4: in the same position, and we were talking a lot
Speaker 4: about how, you know, the two were comparable, how they
Speaker 4: got started. But CJ picked it up really quickly, you know,
Speaker 4: and so it was not a hard decision, you know,
Speaker 4: for the Texans to make to put him into the
Speaker 4: starting lineup. So Davis Mills was the starter, just like
Speaker 4: Jacoby Brissett was the starter here. And you know, so
Speaker 4: I can appreciate, you know, the similar path that both
Speaker 4: of these guys are taking the starting in the end, fell.
Speaker 2: Yep, can I ask you a question that I see
Speaker 2: be spetch in my head because you know, I'm a
Speaker 2: receiver guy, right, yeah, so I know we've got the
Speaker 2: new wide receiver coaches. Okay, and Hikwon, if you can
Speaker 2: hear me, why you're not putting your ballad to use
Speaker 2: where you can be that top eight. That's what I
Speaker 2: can't understand. I can't understand it.
Speaker 4: We can be Yeah, look, Eldred, I wish I could
Speaker 4: answer that one for you. I mean, I'm not even
Speaker 4: sure Taekwon can answer it for you, to be honest
Speaker 4: with you, I got to hike the speed and he
Speaker 4: put on weight in the off season. You know, he
Speaker 4: knew he needed to get stronger, he needed to do
Speaker 4: and yet it's still not So the only thing I
Speaker 4: can tell you is is that it looks to me
Speaker 4: and based on the things that I've seen for myself,
Speaker 4: and maybe you can even pull it out a little
Speaker 4: bit yourself, being a receiver, as you suggested, he's just
Speaker 4: not doing the things you need to do to get open.
Speaker 4: There's no separation. They're getting very little separate from anybody.
Speaker 2: Thats me, because he had a full two speed.
Speaker 7: That what kills me. Well, that's okay, Yeah, and I
Speaker 7: can't understand why you ain't.
Speaker 4: That tells me that he's in decisive okay. But Eldrick,
Speaker 4: that tells me with four two speed, if he's not
Speaker 4: getting open, he's indecisive on the route that he should
Speaker 4: be running and the route that he is running, there's
Speaker 4: indecision on there. There's doubt he's not cutting it loose.
Speaker 4: That's that's what that tells me, okay. And if he's
Speaker 4: not willing or able even to cut it loose, dude,
Speaker 4: we got to put somebody in there that is willing
Speaker 4: to do that, real simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I betrayed him too. Try I look at
Speaker 2: somebody with that count of speed, with that height, and
Speaker 2: see if I can make him into it if I
Speaker 2: have to go in through the draft or get my
Speaker 2: boy like I wanted into nineteen DK metcalf Sure after
Speaker 2: all count.
Speaker 4: Of absolutely, Harry, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: You have a good days, always, good times, you, mister legend.
Speaker 4: Be safe out there, big boy, Yes, sir, all right,
Speaker 4: you got it, Eldred in North Carolina, all right out
Speaker 4: on the road in Winston Salem. Be safe out there.
Speaker 4: Everybody be safe out there. Let's move now to Chris
Speaker 4: Price Covers the Patriots, of course, for the Boston Globe,
Speaker 4: been a friend of this program for a number of years.
Speaker 4: Noted sports book author as well. We talked about this
Speaker 4: a few weeks ago. He's got another hockey one coming
Speaker 4: out soon enough. Chris, how's it going today?
Speaker 3: I'm doing great here? How you doing, my friend?
Speaker 4: Awesome? Awesome Chris, by the way, brought to us on
Speaker 4: the TPX Hotline, which of course is a great sponsor
Speaker 4: for us again, and of course the program brought to
Speaker 4: you by bud Light, Easy to Drink, easy to enjoy,
Speaker 4: bud Light, the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots.
Speaker 4: All right, so what do you make of I guess
Speaker 4: this could be considered officially day one of the Drake
Speaker 4: May era in New England. And are you at all
Speaker 4: surprised that the decision to insert him at starter came
Speaker 4: when it did?
Speaker 3: I think that, first of all, this is you know,
Speaker 3: the I'm not surprised. I'll say that the idea of
Speaker 3: needing to jump start this passing game, there's no one
Speaker 3: else coming, There's no other kind of card they can
Speaker 3: play when you look at them, when you look at
Speaker 3: this offense, you look at the way it's currently set up,
Speaker 3: that there's no one waiting to come back from you know,
Speaker 3: pup or you know they're they're certainly not going to
Speaker 3: trade for anyone. So this is the move that they
Speaker 3: made to at least theoretically try to give the passing
Speaker 3: game a spark. The only question I have here and
Speaker 3: is about the timing up. And I imagine you feel
Speaker 3: kind of the same way that you know, maybe you
Speaker 3: could have done it last week against a banged up
Speaker 3: Miami defense, or maybe you wait another week against the
Speaker 3: Jacksonville team that's really struggling. This Houston team, and this
Speaker 3: Houston pass rush is pretty good. I mean they just
Speaker 3: knocked around Josh Allen pretty good, no question. And so look,
Speaker 3: it's it would be a tall task for any young quarterback,
Speaker 3: much less a quarter back starting his first game in
Speaker 3: the National Football League. But I think, and again I
Speaker 3: think we're in agreement here. You know this was going
Speaker 3: to happen sometime this year. I think Drake accelerated the
Speaker 3: process by his performance in practice and maybe some of
Speaker 3: Jacobi's ineffectiveness over the course of the first five games
Speaker 3: that also contributed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was an inevitability. It's curious, and I know
Speaker 4: a lot of the folks that thought that this was
Speaker 4: the wrong move to make because of the status of
Speaker 4: the offensive line, and some of the talent around him
Speaker 4: are questioning, you know why now because of them playing
Speaker 4: Miami last week and playing a stout Houston defense this week.
Speaker 4: But I would tell you that if there is a plan,
Speaker 4: and I've long said, whenever we first heard the words
Speaker 4: the plan, and I'm putting quotes around the plan, Chris,
Speaker 4: whenever we first heard that, whatever the plan may be,
Speaker 4: the plan doesn't include who the opponent is, Okay, that
Speaker 4: the plan would involve whenever we feel he's ready to go.
Speaker 4: That's when he goes, regardless of who the patriot opponent is.
Speaker 4: And that's the part of the plan, if it actually
Speaker 4: exists or existed, that's the part I would agree with.
Speaker 4: You go on your time, you go on your schedule,
Speaker 4: You go when we think you're ready to go. Now,
Speaker 4: maybe the way it planned out last week helped move
Speaker 4: that time frame along a little bit more. I don't know.
Speaker 4: That's probably for Gerrod to know and maybe to keep
Speaker 4: to himself in that regard, but it's pretty clear that
Speaker 4: we've all seen that this was bruin for some time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly too, And I'll say this to JR. I
Speaker 3: think that there is value to the unknown if you're
Speaker 3: the Patriots, because obviously, look, Houston has a bunch of
Speaker 3: film on Jacoby Brissett. They know what he can do.
Speaker 3: They know what he's capable of at a national football
Speaker 3: league level. From a regular season perspective, we don't know.
Speaker 3: We don't know about Drake by his ability to perform
Speaker 3: when you know, when the real bullets are flying, for
Speaker 3: lack of a better terms. So I think that that
Speaker 3: can kind of play into things if you're the Patriots. Look,
Speaker 3: the hope is here that Drake will be able to
Speaker 3: play quicker than Jacoby did, and I'm going to be
Speaker 3: fascinated to see how that might manifest itself. I'm that
Speaker 3: thing that they're going to go up tempo, but just
Speaker 3: the christness in getting in and out of the huddle,
Speaker 3: looking to move the ball as quickly as possible. Things
Speaker 3: that kind of bogged down the last few weeks, in particular,
Speaker 3: would Jacoby under center. Now, I think that ultimately might
Speaker 3: manifest itself in maybe another turnover or two, because I think,
Speaker 3: you know, for all of his for all of the
Speaker 3: attributes he had, I think Jacoby is also very careful
Speaker 3: with the football. Yeah, and I think that's necessarily a
Speaker 3: bad thing. But you're going to see a little bit
Speaker 3: of the youth here kind of come to the floor
Speaker 3: with Drake May and I think that might manifest itself
Speaker 3: in an interception or two. But I also think it's
Speaker 3: going to manifest itself in some faster football than what
Speaker 3: we've seen over the last few weeks.
Speaker 4: Right, Chris, I gotta ask you a sort of a
Speaker 4: silly question here. I don't think there's ever such thing
Speaker 4: as a dumb question, but I'd certainly categorize this, maybe
Speaker 4: you as silly, but I got to ask it anyway.
Speaker 4: What would you categorize as a win for the Patriots
Speaker 4: this week short of actually winning the game?
Speaker 2: I think you want to.
Speaker 3: See trending in the right direction, particularly on the offensive
Speaker 3: side of the ball. I think that if Drake is
Speaker 3: let's say, if he goes twenty for thirty for two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty yards and can show an ability to
Speaker 3: move the ball consistently up and down the field, short
Speaker 3: of a win, I think, you know, you could take
Speaker 3: a positive out of that. But you know that's I
Speaker 3: want to say, that's the only question I have because
Speaker 3: it's weird when you talk about a one and four
Speaker 3: team that in my mind might not be one and
Speaker 3: four if it weren't for a few brings here or there.
Speaker 3: But you just want to see some christness, some efficiency,
Speaker 3: some energy in the passing game that we just haven't
Speaker 3: seen over the first you know, really over the first
Speaker 3: five games. I think the running game has done as
Speaker 3: well as could be expected. Ramondre Stevens's all security issues
Speaker 3: to sign. I think the defense has remained competitive even
Speaker 3: after losing so many key pieces.
Speaker 2: All I want to see.
Speaker 3: Is Drake may show an ability to run the offense,
Speaker 3: run the you know, execute in the passing game, and
Speaker 3: you'll really move the ball up and down the field.
Speaker 3: I'd like them to stay competitive. I think that the
Speaker 3: seven point line is fairly on point when you talk
Speaker 3: about this game, at least, you know, on the surface.
Speaker 3: But yeah, ultimately the answer your question, you just want
Speaker 3: to see the young quarterback do well. You want to
Speaker 3: see him continue to act.
Speaker 4: So steps made in the right direction. And then the
Speaker 4: other analogy that we've kind of used today here is
Speaker 4: that this is really weak one all over again that
Speaker 4: you know, you know, we know there's going to be
Speaker 4: juice in the building. We know the fans are excited,
Speaker 4: we know the media is going to be anxious to see.
Speaker 4: We're all going to be anxious to see what can happen.
Speaker 4: And and we might already be putting a little bit
Speaker 4: too much on it, but look, you know the guy
Speaker 4: is is, he's an He's an excellent talent. He wouldn't
Speaker 4: be uh wouldn't have been selected where he was if
Speaker 4: he wasn't. But we need to see if that talent
Speaker 4: is justified. He needs to play. Now is the time
Speaker 4: because it certainly wasn't going to improve with the things
Speaker 4: that the way they were, regardless of the relative strength
Speaker 4: or ability of the offensive line, or the receivers to
Speaker 4: get open, or the running backs to hold onto the
Speaker 4: football or whatever it may be, we got problems in
Speaker 4: all aspects of the game. Maybe, just maybe this guy,
Speaker 4: what he can do with the football can help make
Speaker 4: the others around him better.
Speaker 3: I love the line. We're probably putting too much on this. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're going to use this single game. We won't even
Speaker 3: wait till the end of the game. It's gonna be
Speaker 3: the first half. It's going to be a referendum on
Speaker 3: how he's going to do the rest of his career. Look, ultimately,
Speaker 3: he's either going to be on the CEO by by
Speaker 3: Sunday at four point thirty, he's either going to be
Speaker 3: in the trash heap or first ballot Hall of Famer.
Speaker 3: And it's a whole lot of people. So yeah, look
Speaker 3: it's unfair. Look, but you know what, man, that's life
Speaker 3: in the big city. That's why the quarterbacks, you know,
Speaker 3: get the big money and get the covers of the
Speaker 3: magazines and get state the supermodels, you know, because they
Speaker 3: get too much of the credit, too much of the blame.
Speaker 3: So yeah, look it's all on his shoulders. There's there
Speaker 3: are problems with this team that extend beyond the quarterback,
Speaker 3: namely the offensive line and developing some consistency and continuity
Speaker 3: upfront and like at the ball security when it comes
Speaker 3: from Andre Stephenson, and you know, the depth on the
Speaker 3: defensive side of the ball. But at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, that's why the quarterback position is the you know,
Speaker 3: arguably the toughest position. And then you know in all
Speaker 3: professional sports, because so much is right as so much
Speaker 3: as is on their shoulders, you know, good or bad.
Speaker 3: And if we're going to see comes Sunday one. If
Speaker 3: this young man can execute right, well.
Speaker 4: I got to bring up now the elephant in the closet,
Speaker 4: or at least the elephant in the room, because all
Speaker 4: of this, you know, hubbub over Drake May getting the
Speaker 4: call to start, has overshadowed the fact that the Patriots
Speaker 4: had an off field issue raised its ugly head over
Speaker 4: the weekend. Would you Bill Peppers charged with assault? Perhaps?
Speaker 4: I don't know, nobody will ever really know the truth,
Speaker 4: but maybe you know. Look, let's face it, that's completely
Speaker 4: been pushed aside in this entire escapade simply because everybody's
Speaker 4: excited about Drake May in the future from this point forward. Today,
Speaker 4: Darrilla has put on the Commissioner exemp list, which means
Speaker 4: the Patriots now can basically wash their hands of this deal.
Speaker 4: He can only come off the list based on Commissioner
Speaker 4: Roger Goodell's decision making. So they're going to let this
Speaker 4: process play out, and I don't think he's even due
Speaker 4: back into court until toward the end of November. What
Speaker 4: I mean, should the Patriots cut bait here? Should they
Speaker 4: let the process play out? What are your thoughts based
Speaker 4: on what we've learned through the media.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll start with this the patrio. The commissioner did
Speaker 3: the Patriots of favor here, because usually the wheels of justice,
Speaker 3: you know, move a lot slower in these instances. The
Speaker 3: Patriots before this announcement, they basically had four options. They
Speaker 3: could keep around, ask him to leave, it's to spend him,
Speaker 3: or just kind of do nothing. And the commission kind
Speaker 3: of took that decision off their hands. So basically, Jabill
Speaker 3: Peppers now has you know, kind of a p leave
Speaker 3: fundamentally while they figure out what to do with them.
Speaker 2: I think it's awful tough.
Speaker 3: It really really is. Man, If a whiff of this
Speaker 3: is true, and look, as a guy who love setting
Speaker 3: aside at the very serious real world implications of what's
Speaker 3: going on, Pepper's is a really talented football player. And
Speaker 3: it pains me to say this, but if a whiff
Speaker 3: of this is true, they should cut they should get
Speaker 3: rid of him, and they should move on from here.
Speaker 3: Because the police report. I've taken a look at the
Speaker 3: police report. It's very very serious, very serious stuff. In
Speaker 3: the past, the Patriots for the most part, have moved
Speaker 3: on from instances like this. I think that we deserve
Speaker 3: to see and kind of hear this thing play out
Speaker 3: a little bit before they know, we anyone else, the Patriots,
Speaker 3: the league makes an ultimate decision. But look, if this
Speaker 3: thing is true, they need to do the right thing.
Speaker 4: Well, he obviously, for what it's worth here, we should
Speaker 4: present both sides of the story. Says he's innocent. In
Speaker 4: his attorney says that there's video that will help vindicate him.
Speaker 4: You know, I realized that. You know, hey, that's all
Speaker 4: fine and good, but this process does need to play
Speaker 4: out quickly. Otherwise then it's if he's really innocent of
Speaker 4: some of the things that he's being accused of doing,
Speaker 4: then it's it's it's gonna hurt him, it's gonna hurt
Speaker 4: the football team, it's gonna hurt a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's true.
Speaker 3: And look, I agree with you wholeheartedly there. You need
Speaker 3: to let the thing play out. You need to hear
Speaker 3: both sides. If there is indeed video evidence that needs
Speaker 3: to be shared, that needs to be kind of combed over,
Speaker 3: You need to make sure everyone does their due diligence
Speaker 3: before they come to an ultimate decision on this, because again,
Speaker 3: this is a very serious thing. This you know, we
Speaker 3: talk about football and it's great, and you know, it's
Speaker 3: the Look, this is the toy department, quite frankly, but
Speaker 3: you know, there are very serious real world implications here
Speaker 3: when you talk about the Patriots in the National Football
Speaker 3: League as a whole, So that has to be examined.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this is again I'll go back to my
Speaker 3: point is that the league did the Patriots a favor
Speaker 3: because they made the decision for them, at least in
Speaker 3: the short term in terms of what to do with
Speaker 3: ja Bill Peppers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, this team defensively, even though they've lost
Speaker 4: a big chunk up the middle, you know, from Christian
Speaker 4: Barmore being out, you know, with the the clocks and
Speaker 4: Juwan Bentley out with you know, his injury, you know,
Speaker 4: and some inconsistent play let's say, maybe the exception of
Speaker 4: you know, Christian Gonzales and the secondary up the middle.
Speaker 4: It's taken a few hits.
Speaker 8: C J.
Speaker 4: Stroud has played extraordinarily well. They're gonna be without their
Speaker 4: leading receiver who just went on ir this week as well.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's a bonus, Maybe it isn't. The running game
Speaker 4: hasn't been great for Houston. They've got good numbers, but
Speaker 4: they really don't score the ball a lot. Is this
Speaker 4: a matchup that actually might help the Patriot defense out in.
Speaker 3: That regard with no Nico Collins in, no Joe mix
Speaker 3: and you know, stop me if you've heard this before.
Speaker 3: You're catching them at a good time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, trip, You know, it feels like we've said.
Speaker 3: That about a number of the Patriots opponents this here,
Speaker 3: but it really is true, you know, with no comments
Speaker 3: and expected to be no mixing in the lineup because
Speaker 3: he's still dealing with that. I believe it's a He's
Speaker 3: suffered a hip drop tackle in an opener against the Bears,
Speaker 3: and he really has. I don't think he's been on
Speaker 3: the field since then. So look, it's all going to
Speaker 3: come down on the defensive side of the ball, to
Speaker 3: being able to contain Stroud, to be able to you know,
Speaker 3: keeping him in the pockets. The Patriots have struggled with
Speaker 3: quarterback contained through their first four or five games of
Speaker 3: the year, and if Stroud is able to operate in
Speaker 3: the pocket without much of a pass rush, I think
Speaker 3: it's going to be much of the same issues here.
Speaker 3: You know, you look at it. If you can figure
Speaker 3: out a way to cut down on his time in
Speaker 3: the pocket if Keon White and Dietrich Wise and you know,
Speaker 3: the rest of that defense in front, that front seven
Speaker 3: can find a way to keep him contained and not
Speaker 3: have him ruught around back there for five six seven
Speaker 3: seconds like we saw from like Rock Purty. I think
Speaker 3: the Patriots are going to have a shot in this thing,
Speaker 3: but you just need to be able to figure out
Speaker 3: a way to slow that down. And look, honestly, you
Speaker 3: could probably take a page, you know, in an ideal world,
Speaker 3: out of the old Patriots playbook in terms of you
Speaker 3: want to slow the game down. You know you're not
Speaker 3: going to beat the Texans if this gets into the
Speaker 3: twenties and thirties, you're gonna want to put together some long,
Speaker 3: extended drives. M Andre Stevenson. That's got to touch the
Speaker 3: ball twenty plus times. You need to be able to
Speaker 3: deliver consistently on the ground because look, if you're picking
Speaker 3: your poison there with the Houston defense, you're gonna want
Speaker 3: to run out and that is the most winnable matchup
Speaker 3: if you're New England. Put together some long drives, keep CJ.
Speaker 3: Strouding that offense off the field for as long as
Speaker 3: possible and hope for some special teams magic and then
Speaker 3: you take your chances from there.
Speaker 4: The irony of the situation certainly has dawned on me
Speaker 4: that you know, Girodmeos has said all along that how
Speaker 4: they beat Cincinnati in Week one simply was not sustainable
Speaker 4: throughout the course of this season based on how this
Speaker 4: team was built. And yet it seems like the Patriots'
Speaker 4: best chance to win games is playing precisely that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. It's about running the football. It's
Speaker 3: about being physical upfront. Look, you've talked to enough offensive
Speaker 3: linement over the course of your life to know that
Speaker 3: offensive lineman much prefer run blocking as opposed to pass blocking.
Speaker 4: Out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that the Patriots have had their best success this
Speaker 3: year when it comes to, you know, really running the
Speaker 3: ball consistently, and so I think that plays into it.
Speaker 3: But look, if they can figure out a way to
Speaker 3: run the ball, and that kind of goes back to
Speaker 3: the Drake may stuff that like, look, you want to
Speaker 3: take some stuff off the plate of the kid, and
Speaker 3: this is a good way to do it because you're
Speaker 3: going up against the team that might have kind of
Speaker 3: a middle of the road run defense, So you're not
Speaker 3: going to ask him to throw the ball thirty five
Speaker 3: forty times this game. You're going to have run, you know,
Speaker 3: hand the ball off to Gibson and Stevenson, try to
Speaker 3: put together some steady, consistent drives and you kind of
Speaker 3: go from there. So yeah, I agree with Girodd that
Speaker 3: it's not sustainable.
Speaker 2: That being said, you know, maybe.
Speaker 3: You can sustain it for a good portion of the
Speaker 3: afternoon against the Texas this.
Speaker 4: Sunday, right. You know, Pete Brock has told me. You know,
Speaker 4: it was always much much easier and much more fun
Speaker 4: for an offensive lineman to block straight ahead, to hit
Speaker 4: rather than be hit, which is why I've never known
Speaker 4: an offensive lineman who preferred pass blocking over run blocking.
Speaker 3: Oh, I remember the conversations I had. I'm going back now,
Speaker 3: I remember. I'm getting all wistful because the conversations I
Speaker 3: would have with Logan Bankings about the joy of delivering
Speaker 3: a pancake block on an opposing defensive tackle and clearing
Speaker 3: the way for you know, like Gerrit Blunt or whoever
Speaker 3: it was behind him to run for twenty thirty forty
Speaker 3: yards at Eclipse. So yeah, you'll, you'll that's the guys
Speaker 3: in the team. Now, the same thing. They'll tell you
Speaker 3: the same thing. They love run blocking. They much prefer
Speaker 3: run blocking to pass blocking. And if you get some
Speaker 3: of that going, just a little bit of it, get
Speaker 3: some of that going Sunday techin, it's going to give.
Speaker 7: You a shot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there might be some continuity there. This could be
Speaker 4: the second straight week and for the first time this
Speaker 4: season they'll started the same five in the offensive line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I agree. And look, you know Nick Leverett
Speaker 3: was a mixed back. Let's be generous here. You know,
Speaker 3: it's center, but you have to win you there at guard.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, you feel decent about the group that
Speaker 3: you have out there. I think so much of it
Speaker 3: now is about developing that consistency in continuity, even if
Speaker 3: they're not the best five past. Look, for years and
Speaker 3: years we've seen it here in New England. It's not
Speaker 3: about the best five offensive linement about the offensive lineman
Speaker 3: who worked the best together, the five guys who like,
Speaker 3: you know, the five fingers in the hand. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just if they're all working in harmony, they're all
Speaker 3: working in unison and that's built through consistency in continuity.
Speaker 3: So maybe we're starting to see a little bit of that,
Speaker 3: you know, over the course of the week, and if
Speaker 3: they can carry that over into Sunday and next Sunday,
Speaker 3: the offensive line will eventually start to get better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Chrish, love talking man. Thanks for taking the time today.
Speaker 4: It's always appreciated.
Speaker 3: My pleasures. Je take care. We'll talk again too.
Speaker 4: But yep, see on Sunday one and only Chris Price
Speaker 4: find him on x at ce Price Globe to cover
Speaker 4: all of his stuff going on out there in the media.
Speaker 4: Eight five five Pats five hundred the toll free number
Speaker 4: podcasts at Patriots dot Com with email funny how I
Speaker 4: have to sit and remember that I've got some of
Speaker 4: those I want to share. Russell Baxter is going to
Speaker 4: hit us up on we gosh. See, that's the problem
Speaker 4: with sitting here in these chairs. I told Marine I
Speaker 4: really wanted to try sitting in these chairs for a while.
Speaker 4: And so today was the day because there's a bunch
Speaker 4: of stuff that was going on in between shows today
Speaker 4: that they had to record. So we just left the
Speaker 4: interview set up today for those that are actually listening
Speaker 4: on audio and not seeing the video, and so we're
Speaker 4: just kind of maneuvering around a little bit here. Oh, good. Look,
Speaker 4: it actually works the computer here, So I want to
Speaker 4: read a couple of emails and Russell Baxter will join
Speaker 4: us right at the top of the hour. Pat and Agawam, John,
Speaker 4: today I turned the ripe young age of forty eight.
Speaker 4: Can I get a birthday shut out?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 4: Shout out, not shutout. I'll give you a birthday shutout too.
Speaker 4: I think that would be outstanding.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 4: But Matt's currently ensconced with somebody in the studio, so
Speaker 4: I was gonna see if he had. Hey, Marine, do
Speaker 4: you have do you have a recording of Happy Birthday?
Speaker 4: I do, because we need to give Patty and Agawam
Speaker 4: a happy forty eighth birthday today. Since he's a regular
Speaker 4: on this show, he listens every time he calls every time,
Speaker 4: you know, should.
Speaker 7: We do that?
Speaker 1: Happy birthday, mister president.
Speaker 4: Who's imitation of Marilyn Monroe?
Speaker 7: Is that.
Speaker 4: Nice? Nice? Okay? Happy birthday? Birthday? Yeah, that's a exactly right.
Speaker 4: You the man, Patty, You are the man.
Speaker 7: What is this?
Speaker 4: Oh okay, somebody's sending me garbage. That's fine, that's okay.
Speaker 4: Aiden in California. John. Just when I thought I was
Speaker 4: done watching this team with Jacoby, they reel me back
Speaker 4: in in a good way. Yeah, like Michael Corleone and
Speaker 4: was that Godfather three? I think I'm done and they
Speaker 4: reeled me back. Okay, that kind of thing. Anyway, this
Speaker 4: is the obvious choice and now we get to see
Speaker 4: what this kid has made of with this move. It
Speaker 4: brings hope and excitement, and with hope, I think the
Speaker 4: Patriots win this and a thriller twenty four to twenty three.
Speaker 4: On a side note, the Boston media sucks, with an
Speaker 4: exception on a very few of a very few, it
Speaker 4: was not cool what they did to Evan. My only
Speaker 4: outlet for content is you guys. You guys are great
Speaker 4: and I will always listen. I appreciate you, aiden thank
Speaker 4: you very much. I mean with the day, this day
Speaker 4: and age and the internet, you can pick up anybody
Speaker 4: from anywhere because everybody's streaming nowadays. What we hope to
Speaker 4: provide is, yeah, we all work in this building. These
Speaker 4: guys cover this team on a full time, everyday basis,
Speaker 4: as opposed to the guys at Wei or ninety eight
Speaker 4: five or Channels four, five, seven, ten, Nessing, you know,
Speaker 4: the stations and Providence. I mean, they don't cover the Patriots.
Speaker 4: Full time. You know, guys like Evan and Paul and Deuce,
Speaker 4: they cover the team full time. And when I'm covering teams,
Speaker 4: I cover this team full time. You guys know that
Speaker 4: I basically split my seasons between football and college basketball
Speaker 4: for the better, well for all of the thirty three
Speaker 4: years that I've been with New England. But it's always
Speaker 4: been that way. You know, there's only a couple of
Speaker 4: teams that I cover, so there's a tendency to believe that, yeah,
Speaker 4: we're too close to it. There's a tendency, I think
Speaker 4: for a lot of people aiden to believe that we're
Speaker 4: touting company policy or that we're saying the things that
Speaker 4: management wants us to say. I could not be more
Speaker 4: emphatic here. That has never been the case before. And
Speaker 4: I've been hosting this particular show now since two thousand
Speaker 4: and one, so this is my twenty fourth year to
Speaker 4: host this show. And I have never been told to
Speaker 4: watch what you say. I just have to use good
Speaker 4: judgment and you know, and Evan even said as much.
Speaker 4: You know, when he was on the program earlier today
Speaker 4: if you tuned in late, he said, look, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm you know, it's emotional I was speaking offhanded. I
Speaker 4: need to preface it, preface things by saying, this is
Speaker 4: my opinion. It's an educated opinion based on his observations
Speaker 4: in the locker room and talking to the guys that
Speaker 4: he's talked to, as he talked to everybody. No, but
Speaker 4: immediately you know that got out, and he got out
Speaker 4: on social media and sometimes social media, Look, it's not
Speaker 4: your best friend. I realize this is where a lot
Speaker 4: of people go to get their news and their information,
Speaker 4: and yeah, sure, your entertainment. I understand that. That's why
Speaker 4: I do it. I do it because I get entertained
Speaker 4: by it. Sometimes I chuckle at it. But yes, I
Speaker 4: also know a lot of good people in this business,
Speaker 4: people who actually know how to cover a story, who
Speaker 4: know what journalism is as opposed to propaganda. I respect
Speaker 4: the heck out of a lot of people, and I
Speaker 4: follow them for that reason. You know, you could choose to,
Speaker 4: you know, follow a guy like me or not. It's
Speaker 4: entirely up to you think what you want to think.
Speaker 4: It's perfectly fine with me. I like to share what
Speaker 4: I know with other people. I like to have fun
Speaker 4: with what I know with other people, with fans, with
Speaker 4: other people in the media. But do I get my
Speaker 4: information from the media, Yes, But I kind of put
Speaker 4: a little bit of a cautionary tag in there, because
Speaker 4: sometimes you don't know, you can't read sarca, and sometimes
Speaker 4: things can be misconstrued in the media because there's not
Speaker 4: enough time to explain it, enough space to explain it.
Speaker 4: You can kind of do that on x now because
Speaker 4: if you go premium you can get more than one
Speaker 4: hundred and forty characters in I understand that. Well, I'm
Speaker 4: too damn cheap. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't make fun
Speaker 4: of them, but I'm just too damned cheap. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: admit it right off the bat. I mean, elon, I
Speaker 4: understand what you're doing. I appreciate that, I appreciate the avenue,
Speaker 4: but I'm too damn cheap, and I'm gonna be honest
Speaker 4: about that. So whatever I have to say, if I
Speaker 4: can't say it one hundred and forty characters, it's out
Speaker 4: real simple. Now, I'll go pay I'm gonna go pay
Speaker 4: for it. Now, don't do it.
Speaker 5: I'll make fun of you.
Speaker 4: Rain will make fun of me. Okay, well that's quite
Speaker 4: possible that could happen. You gotta make up your own mind.
Speaker 4: You gotta do your own reading, you gotta do your
Speaker 4: own research, You got to read a bunch of different people.
Speaker 4: And yeah, it was kind of unfair for a lot
Speaker 4: of people to do what they did, you know, with Evan,
Speaker 4: or do with anybody in that regard when they've got
Speaker 4: a quote unquote scoop. And yes, Evan's right when he said,
Speaker 4: I should have prefaced it by saying, in my opinion,
Speaker 4: that's all, and that would have solved basically every problem
Speaker 4: that we've had this week. But we've never been told, Nope,
Speaker 4: you can't say this, Nope, you can't do that. Nope,
Speaker 4: we don't want you to do that. Nope, we're gonna
Speaker 4: take you off the air. Nope, nope, nope, never never
Speaker 4: said that. Johnathan Craft was very clear with me when
Speaker 4: we first started this operation, you know, twenty four now
Speaker 4: twenty five years ago, and they showed twenty four years ago.
Speaker 4: You know, he knew that we needed to have the
Speaker 4: ability to use our reporting skills in order to be believed,
Speaker 4: in order to have profession to bring in professional integrity along.
Speaker 4: He knew that, mister Craft. Robert Kraft has always said,
Speaker 4: you know, no, you guys do what you need to do.
Speaker 4: Just be fair, and I think we have been. I
Speaker 4: think we have been. If we haven't, then you know what,
Speaker 4: you have the right through coming on to this show,
Speaker 4: through calling, through tweeting, through posting, through email, through whatever,
Speaker 4: to call us out on that, which is fair. It's
Speaker 4: absolutely fair. So you know we're gonna give you our best.
Speaker 4: I think we've done that. I think you know, Deuce
Speaker 4: and Evan and Paul have done it at a high
Speaker 4: level for a number of years. And a lot of
Speaker 4: the local media here in Boston they make fun of
Speaker 4: Team media because they know they like, you know, oh
Speaker 4: sure they're going to report this because they all feel like, well,
Speaker 4: the team is being told, is telling them what to say.
Speaker 4: And I'm here to tell you because I've been on
Speaker 4: both sides of the fence, that's not right. It's not accurate.
Speaker 4: That's all I can say. So you know, it is
Speaker 4: what it is. I felt like I needed to say
Speaker 4: that on Evans's behalf because Evan's a good reporter, and
Speaker 4: I don't know that the Boston media sucks either. As
Speaker 4: you said, Aiden, there's some really good guys in the
Speaker 4: Boston media. We just talked to one we just talked
Speaker 4: to one at Chris Price. Okay, he's one of the
Speaker 4: true good guys in this business. He's a hell of
Speaker 4: a writer. He's a great reporter, he's a great author.
Speaker 4: You know, if you ever read his stuff, takes some
Speaker 4: time to read his stuff. He's good at it. He's thorough.
Speaker 4: He understands journalism, he gets it, and most guys in
Speaker 4: this business do. I would tell you that sometimes when
Speaker 4: you hear through talk radio, sports talk radio in particular,
Speaker 4: guys will stay stuff, will say stuff to get a
Speaker 4: rise out of you, to make a social media splash,
Speaker 4: because it's all about the quote unquote entertainment part of
Speaker 4: the business. They're in the business of entertaining. They're in
Speaker 4: the business of getting listeners and clicks and views. That's
Speaker 4: what they're in the business to do. They're in the
Speaker 4: business of attracting your attention. Guess what they did? It
Speaker 4: didn't they If you're reacting to it, they did it.
Speaker 4: So they're only doing their jobs. We're gonna try to
Speaker 4: stick the reporting. And are we perfect? Are we one
Speaker 4: hundred percent infallible? Nope, nobody is. We're all human. Okay.
Speaker 4: I've had stumbles in my career and I've been doing
Speaker 4: it for a number of years. We step back, we
Speaker 4: think about it, we issue a maya culpa if necessary,
Speaker 4: and we move on. It's real simple. Okay, speaking of
Speaker 4: moving on right now, a.
Speaker 2: Real woman could stop you from drinking.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a very real, big woman.
Speaker 5: It's time to go around the NFL with football guru
Speaker 5: Russell Baxter.
Speaker 7: Now on the name is Flounder.
Speaker 4: On Patriots playbook. Huh, I gotta get this button to work.
Speaker 4: Oh there it works. Good afternoon, Flounder. How are we
Speaker 4: going today?
Speaker 7: Don't flounder with that? You know, I didn't catch any
Speaker 7: of your uh what happened before? You just said what
Speaker 7: you said about the media. But I'm glad you said
Speaker 7: what you said because I'll put this questions everybody listening
Speaker 7: out there. I often here the generalization of the media.
Speaker 7: Are people aware that there's more than like four or
Speaker 7: five people in the media, No, okay, there are thousands
Speaker 7: and thousands and thousands. So I mean, if you've been
Speaker 7: a stereotype and generalize and a lot of them do
Speaker 7: different things. Some are reporters, some are insiders, you are writers,
Speaker 7: Some are shock jock, some are awful shock jocks with
Speaker 7: personal vendettas and agendas. Some people say stuff just to
Speaker 7: get like you said, get a rise and get you listening.
Speaker 7: You know, for the people in my profession who like
Speaker 7: to play the shock jock game, a word of advice
Speaker 7: probably is not a source. And I've heard a lot
Speaker 7: of that over the last couple of days with the
Speaker 7: Robert Sala you know, Aaron Rodgers, Woody Johnson surprisedly and
Speaker 7: Throke Joe Namath in there at the same time. You know,
Speaker 7: they're doing exactly what they're doing. And many of these
Speaker 7: people who play the shock shock game are, for lack
Speaker 7: of better word, just flat out lazy. So don't categorize.
Speaker 7: You know, I've never met Evan, but I know him
Speaker 7: by reputation and he does a pretty solid job. I've
Speaker 7: never met Christopher Price. I've had contact with him on
Speaker 7: social media very very rarely, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 7: His reputation is pretty damn good. So don't lump everyone together. Okay,
Speaker 7: you know, just as it was spent a long time
Speaker 7: on TV, not all detergents are the same.
Speaker 4: I appreciate your saying that we've you know, you and
Speaker 4: I have seen the highs and the lows. Of that
Speaker 4: end of the business, you know, through our time years
Speaker 4: they go together at ESPN. UH and understand that, you know, Uh.
Speaker 4: For whatever reason, sometimes reportersournalists or put up on a
Speaker 4: pedestal like a lot of the athletes. And I guess
Speaker 4: we're held to a different standard. And I would answer
Speaker 4: that by saying, well, we're only held to the standard
Speaker 4: that we hold ourselves to, and we should put ourselves
Speaker 4: up on a pedestal because our job is to get
Speaker 4: the information right, not necessarily first, not necessarily the most salacious,
Speaker 4: but to get it right. And the old adage in
Speaker 4: the business is especially in this day and age of
Speaker 4: social media, which can be as we know, instantaneous, and
Speaker 4: sometimes that's not for the better. But the old adage goes,
Speaker 4: I would rather be last and correct than first and
Speaker 4: wrong with a story.
Speaker 7: Beautifully put, I have a saying that I came up
Speaker 7: with you. I know I've said it to you and
Speaker 7: I'll say it again. And my Jeff Bennett, my former
Speaker 7: Pause at ESPN, told me he loved it, so I
Speaker 7: stick with it. Okay, right, Not everyone is accurate. I'm
Speaker 7: more interested in accuracy. It's true're going to go on
Speaker 7: TV tonight and tell me that Joe DiMaggio at a
Speaker 7: fifty eight game hitting streak. That's your opinion, but you're wrong, yep. Okay,
Speaker 7: So I'd rather be accurate. I'd rather take the time
Speaker 7: to double check it. And I'm not putting myself on
Speaker 7: the pedestal. That's just when you are do what I
Speaker 7: do and you're in research, it's important that the people
Speaker 7: you work with trust you. And I've been pretty trustworthy
Speaker 7: in that regard, and I think that's why I've been
Speaker 7: able to do what I've been able to do for
Speaker 7: a long time. And so on. I mean, I go
Speaker 7: back to the very first Olympics. I've been in this
Speaker 7: business for so long.
Speaker 4: Hey, what kind of a receiver would Jim Thorpe have made?
Speaker 7: I think you would have been an excellent deep threat
Speaker 7: and also very good after the.
Speaker 4: Catch, especially good after the catch. Rights.
Speaker 7: I just it calls me sometimes for the quick fix,
Speaker 7: and there's no reason for that. You know, we're not
Speaker 7: on dead liment. You know. I used to have a
Speaker 7: very good friend of mine who's also no longer that
Speaker 7: ESPN the research and Paul Kinney and I don't know
Speaker 7: if you ever crossed Pad's football when he was thereied
Speaker 7: a lot of college footballs. We would have the occasional plan.
Speaker 7: You'll get this reference spot on. We would have the
Speaker 7: occasional club. Like everybody does. Everybody does make mistakes, okay,
Speaker 7: but we would have the occasional club mistake and jump
Speaker 7: the gun on the story and so on. And I
Speaker 7: can't remember what the subject matter was, but any time
Speaker 7: that happened, I would stand up and Paul was in
Speaker 7: the back of the room and I was in the
Speaker 7: front of the room, and I would just look at
Speaker 7: him and say, Dewey defeats Truman.
Speaker 4: Right, And if you don't understand that phrase, go google
Speaker 4: it right now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and here's the funny part. Uh. There was a
Speaker 7: place in Washington my good friend kilj took me to
Speaker 7: a long time ago called the Newseum, not the museum
Speaker 7: the News. I don't. I think it's not funded anymore.
Speaker 7: The first year I went there, it was the let
Speaker 7: me see was the fortieth I think it was the
Speaker 7: fortieth anniversary the Kennedy assassination. They had to move a camera.
Speaker 7: They had all the document. It was fascinating and as
Speaker 7: I'm looking at newspapers from a whole eras century cities etc.
Speaker 7: I look around and what do you think sitting there
Speaker 7: the front page of doing the feach Truman the actual
Speaker 7: headlooking it's there. I quickly snapped a picture and sent
Speaker 7: to my friend Paul. So it is about getting it right,
Speaker 7: you know. I know this. If that story was about
Speaker 7: me or you, and it was and you were reporting,
Speaker 7: and it was about some of you were close to you,
Speaker 7: sure as ill would take the time to get it
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, without a doubt. So let me ask you the
Speaker 4: obvious question. Now, do you what are your thoughts on
Speaker 4: the Patriots getting it right by making the change to
Speaker 4: Drake May this week? Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 7: Well, I think it seemed inevitable. And you know, we
Speaker 7: are getting to that time of the season as you
Speaker 7: can as you will see this week. Some of it
Speaker 7: due to injuries, some of it due to inefficiency. You know,
Speaker 7: the Raiders are about to start aiding O'Connell after benching
Speaker 7: Gardner Minshew during the game last week, and now Connall's
Speaker 7: going to get the start. So it's about that time
Speaker 7: of the year where you've dug yourself a little bit
Speaker 7: of a hole. The Patriots, you know, a lot of
Speaker 7: hope after the beating the Bengals and haven't won the
Speaker 7: games since. And I get it, third picked in the draft.
Speaker 7: You want to see what he has. Maybe he lights
Speaker 7: his spark and you know it's a tall order. I mean,
Speaker 7: they're playing you know, division leader this week in Houston.
Speaker 7: All the Houston is very, very funny because they're four
Speaker 7: one and they've still given up more points John than
Speaker 7: they scored. Yeah this year. That's because the four wins
Speaker 7: have come by fifteen points and the one loss game
Speaker 7: by twenty seven, right, exactly, so, But I have no
Speaker 7: problem with the move whatsoever. Obviously, the offensive line has
Speaker 7: been a concern and you know, maybe Drake may is,
Speaker 7: you know, on his heels this week running around, But
Speaker 7: this is not and this is a good Houston team,
Speaker 7: but it's not overpowering Euston team. We've been seen a
Speaker 7: lot of overpowering teams so far early in the season.
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody's overpowering Russell. And that includes Kansas
Speaker 4: City at five and zero. Kansas City's won every game
Speaker 4: but the last one by one one score. So no,
Speaker 4: I don't think there's overpowering at all. This is how
Speaker 4: the NFL wants it to be. They want parody like this,
Speaker 4: and guess what they've got it. My biggest problem is
Speaker 4: some of this p r it y can turn into
Speaker 4: p r o D. Why if we're not careful with
Speaker 4: this sport.
Speaker 7: Well, there's no question about it, okay, And that's why
Speaker 7: we see what we see turnarounds. We see the last
Speaker 7: place teams wind up in the playoffs. You know, the
Speaker 7: Eagles were a last played team in twenty sixteen. In
Speaker 7: twenty seventeen, they warned the whole damn thing. You know,
Speaker 7: the year before last year was the Browns and the
Speaker 7: Texans who went from last place.
Speaker 3: To playoff spots.
Speaker 7: I think the year before that for the last for
Speaker 7: the eight last place teams all made the playoffs, and
Speaker 7: I want to say three of them one playoff game.
Speaker 7: So it is crazy. That's why what New England did
Speaker 7: for so long and what Kansas City's doing now is
Speaker 7: more an anomaly than anything else. And you can cite
Speaker 7: the reasons, and I would hope right now, and even
Speaker 7: to a point last year, you know, Kansas City's been
Speaker 7: a better team defensively than they've been offensively for probably
Speaker 7: like a year and a half, to be honest with you,
Speaker 7: And it's not just if Mahomes does not. But that's okay.
Speaker 7: We saw several versions of the Chiefs with the Patriots.
Speaker 7: The Patriots, wo are winning their three Super Bowls in
Speaker 7: four years, they were more defensively and special teams orient.
Speaker 7: I've said it to Young four hundred times. The two
Speaker 7: thousand and one Patriots scored three offensive touchdowns and three
Speaker 7: defensive slash specialty touchdowns in the playoffs and won a
Speaker 7: super Bowl. Okay. Then Tom Brady throws with five hundred
Speaker 7: and five yards in the Super Bowl and they lose. Yeah,
Speaker 7: so take your pick. There's a lot of the beauty
Speaker 7: of football is there's so many different ways to win.
Speaker 7: You know, you could score on offense and defense and
Speaker 7: special teams. You don't have that fucturing necessary necessarily another
Speaker 7: sports and so on. Okay, So, and a good coach
Speaker 7: plays to his strength, and like I said, we're seeing
Speaker 7: that right now with the Chiefs, who will relying more
Speaker 7: with Steve Spagnolo than an offense that you know. Now,
Speaker 7: they ring it at four hundred and sixty yards the
Speaker 7: other night against the Wall Looms, but they only we're
Speaker 7: twenty six points only, I mean, but that was enough
Speaker 7: because of what they're doing on the defensive side of
Speaker 7: the ball. I hope we get to this. I have
Speaker 7: something very it's I'm not projecting, but there's something very
Speaker 7: interesting about the Chiefs and the Vikings. Okay, the loan
Speaker 7: to five no teams, all right, I want to say,
Speaker 7: all right, Well.
Speaker 4: I was just going to say that the Chiefs, you know,
Speaker 4: and the Vikings are two of the four teams that
Speaker 4: you know lead us off with buys this week, you know,
Speaker 4: but they're two five and no teams going into their
Speaker 4: weeks off. What's so special about those two you wanted
Speaker 4: to point out?
Speaker 7: Now, I just went again, this is not a prediction,
Speaker 7: this is an it Okay, but I just find this
Speaker 7: would be funny. Let's say the Chiefs and the Vikings
Speaker 7: both finished with the best record in their respective conferences.
Speaker 7: In other words, they are the number one seeds. Okay,
Speaker 7: m hmm. Then let's say the Chiefs and the Vikings
Speaker 7: actually play in the Super Bowl. Okay. That means that
Speaker 7: during the regular season, both the Vikings and Chiefs would
Speaker 7: have been off the same week. In the regular season,
Speaker 7: they would both be off the first week of the playoffs,
Speaker 7: and they would both have a buy before the super Bowl.
Speaker 4: Which would be nuts. I don't think that's ever happened before,
Speaker 4: has it?
Speaker 7: I can't think of it. If the closest goofy thing
Speaker 7: I can ever remember happening like that, and off the top,
Speaker 7: I had, and I hope I'm right. When the Raiders
Speaker 7: and the Eagles played each other in Super Bowl in
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty seasons, the Raiders wildcard teams, you remember, Jim Plunkin,
Speaker 7: I know you.
Speaker 3: I know that story very very well.
Speaker 7: If I remember correctly, and maybe I'm wrong, they played
Speaker 7: each other in the preseason, the regular season and the
Speaker 7: Super Bowl.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 7: Crazy, somebody, somebody can You can google it, you can
Speaker 7: Yahoo it, you can doing that one right off the top,
Speaker 7: by have, But for some reason that stands.
Speaker 4: Out right certainly does other teams by the way that
Speaker 4: I have the week off this week, Rams and the Dolphins,
Speaker 4: and then as far as the AFC East is concerned,
Speaker 4: the Bills are playing at the Jets on Monday Night Football,
Speaker 4: and of course the Jets made a strange let me
Speaker 4: just say the word strange. It's a strange in season
Speaker 4: move or not even at the halfway point, the Patriots
Speaker 4: are two weeks away from two weeks hints from getting
Speaker 4: thumped by the New York Jets, and yet they fire
Speaker 4: Robert Salah this week. So number one, that doesn't happen often.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you can provide some perspective on that. But
Speaker 4: number two, I mean, can teams who make mid season
Speaker 4: firings recoup enough to where they can finish the year respectively?
Speaker 4: And I don't know, as it has it happened early
Speaker 4: enough for them to try to gather things, gather themselves
Speaker 4: together and make something out of this year.
Speaker 7: Well, usually when this happens, there's something besides what's going
Speaker 7: on on the field. Now that you remember, three years ago,
Speaker 7: John Grutin resigned the Raiders jobs for you know, those circumstances.
Speaker 7: We don't have to get into details, and they promoted
Speaker 7: the special team coach Rich Psakia and they made the playoffs,
Speaker 7: so you know, making the move when you make the move.
Speaker 7: I can't remember. It was probably about a decade ago
Speaker 7: where we saw a whole bunch of early mid season
Speaker 7: firings where we hadn't seen all that, and I'd have
Speaker 7: to go back and do the research to see how
Speaker 7: those teams spared. Sometimes it seems like it happens more
Speaker 7: successfully in other sports than it does. The National Football League.
Speaker 7: Speaking in nineteen eighty in Philadelphia right off the top
Speaker 7: of you know, I'm not decorated at baseball, but I
Speaker 7: remember the Phillies firing their manager and hiring a guy
Speaker 7: named Dallas Green. In nineteen eighty they went on the
Speaker 7: won the World Series.
Speaker 4: I believe, Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, So I mean again, I don't it stands
Speaker 7: out to maybe because it is highly unusual for success.
Speaker 7: But again, yeah, I can remember one year with the Chargers,
Speaker 7: and I'll think they were successful. That they went through
Speaker 7: a season with Kevin gilbrid and then six weeks into
Speaker 7: the next season he was gone. He left at like
Speaker 7: twenty two games, and you know, they was talked of,
Speaker 7: you know, him not being the right man for the job,
Speaker 7: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And now, of course
Speaker 7: Kevin wh I think, But we went on and joined
Speaker 7: the New York Giants staff, and I think he won
Speaker 7: a couple of Super Bowl rings marked with the Giants.
Speaker 7: So you know, it's Robert Sala's been there for a bit.
Speaker 7: You know, he joined the franchise. Let's not forget because
Speaker 7: I know we focus on uh, you know, maybe what's
Speaker 7: going on there now and all that, but you know,
Speaker 7: you kind of got to look at what's happened within
Speaker 7: the organization going back a few years. The Jets have
Speaker 7: the longest current playoff trout in league. Okay, they haven't
Speaker 7: been through the playoffs since twenty ten? Do you know
Speaker 7: how long? Who that was? That was the year Aaron
Speaker 7: Rodgers and the Packers won the Super Bowl. They've made
Speaker 7: the AFC Championship Game. The Packers almost face the Jets
Speaker 7: in Super Bowl forty five. Okay, same thing with Denver,
Speaker 7: you know, Russell Wilson, Miss Sean Payton, Vince Denver hasn't
Speaker 7: been to a playoff game since they won Super Bowl
Speaker 7: fifty Okay, then a nine and seven season in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7: They've had nothing but losing stays contents. So is that
Speaker 7: only won man or is that going home? The continuous change,
Speaker 7: the lack of continuity, et cetera, et cetera. So you know,
Speaker 7: it's it's you have to look at the big picture
Speaker 7: in terms of why a team continues to strow. How
Speaker 7: many years did we see the Browns go through? The
Speaker 7: Browns are going through more quarterbacks than either from potato chips. Okay,
Speaker 7: head coaches, general and managers. Now they've made the playoffs
Speaker 7: two of the last four years. Kevin Stefanski's won Coach
Speaker 7: of the Year two the last four years. But at
Speaker 7: least there's some continuity there. Now. They went through five
Speaker 7: different starting quarterbacks last year. Yeah, because of injuries for
Speaker 7: the most part. And uh, you know, and Joe Flacco
Speaker 7: wound up winning the NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
Speaker 7: I guess, Joe Flacco, maybe you should have been left
Speaker 7: because even though the Colts last week he was gangbusters.
Speaker 4: I know, that's the one guy. That's the one guy
Speaker 4: who if you're talking about bridge quarterbacks. And we mentioned
Speaker 4: this earlier in the show today, I mean, I know
Speaker 4: Jacoby Brissette was brought in as a quote unquote bridge
Speaker 4: here to Drake May. But shoot, it looks to me
Speaker 4: like Flaco. That's the kind of guy you should have
Speaker 4: brought in. He slowly looked like he can still wing it.
Speaker 7: Oh well, that was always Blacosse. That was the fee
Speaker 7: for flacos that far. Yeah, you know, and you go
Speaker 7: back to the year that the Ravens won the Super Bowl,
Speaker 7: when the people were the nine ers and uh, you
Speaker 7: know the long past was the Jacobe Jones in Denver
Speaker 7: Lately game they waned up beat the Broncos and uh
Speaker 7: in overtime in the divisional round. Eventually he beat the
Speaker 7: Patriots that year in the as the title game, and
Speaker 7: then of course the Brothers the Super Bowl and uh,
Speaker 7: you know the like the like. Well the lights went
Speaker 7: out in Louisiana not Georgia. Yeah, but you know you
Speaker 7: sold the results and Flacco I think they made eleven
Speaker 7: touchdown passes and and no picks and the playoff game,
Speaker 7: so you know, he's he's had his moment. You know
Speaker 7: this with strong quarterbacks like that Brett Fars and so on,
Speaker 7: that you know their numbers, crew numbers. Even though there
Speaker 7: are whole a lot of touchdown passes, sometimes they also
Speaker 7: try to squeeze that ball in a lot of places
Speaker 7: and the other players couldn't, which is why their interception.
Speaker 7: So it was are the same. But you know, Laco
Speaker 7: wound up even for lack of a better, really kind
Speaker 7: of got phase to help in Baltimore when they drafted
Speaker 7: with Moore Jackson, he was with the Jets, he was
Speaker 7: with the Broncos. Why did he put the Browns iron
Speaker 7: You know it's ironic. Remember when the Browns came back
Speaker 7: Tippo League in nineteen ninety nine. Remember their first overall
Speaker 7: pick was Tim Couch. Yes, right here, they got Joe
Speaker 7: Flacco off the couch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes they did, Yes, they did. I hate how much?
Speaker 4: How much did Houston last week expose the Buffalo Bills
Speaker 4: or I'm just curious was that more? Was that more
Speaker 4: Buffalo losing or was it really Houston winning that game
Speaker 4: last week?
Speaker 7: Well, Houston did it best to try to give it away.
Speaker 7: I remember they were have twenty to three in third
Speaker 7: quarter and then all of a sudden, it's twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: That's what I say with Houston. Houston is wanted share
Speaker 7: of mail by this this year. And then you know
Speaker 7: they went into Minnesota and got Pancakes thirty thirty four
Speaker 7: to seven. Know what's interesting? They again this is either
Speaker 7: the knee jerk reactions of getting off to a good start.
Speaker 7: Do you remember when Pittsburgh was three and oh, now
Speaker 7: they're three and two.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Remember when Seattle was three.
Speaker 4: And oh now they're three and two. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Remember when Buffalo was three and n three and two.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: By the way, you remember when Baltimore was zero and two.
Speaker 7: There're three and two.
Speaker 4: Well, and that one doesn't come as a surprise, to
Speaker 4: be honest with you, although I do love Baltimore getting
Speaker 4: a test at home this week against those surprising Washington
Speaker 4: commanders at four and one.
Speaker 7: Oh, Listen, I don't know what the over under is, okay,
Speaker 7: and I would I would be tenuous because I'm sure
Speaker 7: people are gonna jump all over it.
Speaker 4: Over under over under is fifty one and a half?
Speaker 7: Is that for one team in both right?
Speaker 4: I think I'd still had to I'd have to look
Speaker 4: at the over on that one. Sure if I were
Speaker 4: a betting man.
Speaker 7: Well, Washington is the highest scoring team in the league.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Baltimore and the second. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So now were the one thing we've seen with the
Speaker 7: Ravens who have bounced back nicely, Derrick Henry, who's got
Speaker 7: a touchdown and every game he's played this year, by
Speaker 7: the way, I'm glad. I'm glad the Titans thought he
Speaker 7: was slowing down their defense leaves a lot. I mean
Speaker 7: Joe Flacker, I mean Joe Burrow had his way with
Speaker 7: him last week. Patrick Mahomes early in the year, even
Speaker 7: Dallas with to comeback, and so on, so you know,
Speaker 7: the Raiders coming back with Gardner Minshew in Baltimore to
Speaker 7: beat them in overtime. So that combination of defense Washington's defense,
Speaker 7: I think we're not sure of, but you know we
Speaker 7: saw them lose Week one, thirty seven twenty. By the way,
Speaker 7: Washington's already won as many games this year as they
Speaker 7: did all of last year. That should tell you something
Speaker 7: about a last Page team. John. They lost their last
Speaker 7: big games last year, and this year they won their
Speaker 7: last four days, so that immediately turn around. Now last
Speaker 7: I'm not sure I know one thing. They do have
Speaker 7: a divisional win this year, and I say that for
Speaker 7: this reason. They were one of two teams in the
Speaker 7: league last year who were winless within their division. So
Speaker 7: they're already one to know, you know who the other
Speaker 7: one was. Who are two the division after going and
Speaker 7: six in the division last year?
Speaker 4: How about that? That's good? Hey. The other game I
Speaker 4: wanted to to kind of point out here is uh
Speaker 4: and I think this could be a dynamite game as well.
Speaker 4: The two traditional you know Thanksgiving Day teams, even though
Speaker 4: they don't necessarily play each other, Detroit playing at Dallas.
Speaker 4: You know, Cowboys are playing at home, and they're oh
Speaker 4: and two out of their three and two. They're oh
Speaker 4: and two at home. Detroit is three and one going in,
Speaker 4: but they're undefeated. We they only one to know what.
Speaker 4: They've won their one road game. And I've I've liked Detroit.
Speaker 4: Detroit's been my sleeper all year. I think Detroit. Actually
Speaker 4: I'm and I'm if I'm rooting for anybody, I'm rooting
Speaker 4: for Detroit to make the super Bowl because they've never
Speaker 4: been there. And I'm wondering if the Cowboys, if they
Speaker 4: continue to stumble. I mean, I know, we heard Bill
Speaker 4: Belichick's name mentioned this week immediately as soon as the
Speaker 4: Jets you know, had an opening, And frankly, I'd be
Speaker 4: shocked if he went to New York just because of
Speaker 4: the history between you know, him and Bill Parcells on
Speaker 4: the Jets and everything else that happened over twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: But I wondered the Cowboys don't become more of a
Speaker 4: factor in this regard if they lose at home again.
Speaker 7: Well, let's go back to the playoffs last year, John,
Speaker 7: they also lost that playoff game, yep, but to the Packers.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 7: John. In their last three home games, the Dallas Cowboys
Speaker 7: had given up one hundred and twenty points. Wow, now
Speaker 7: let me see if I can do that with all
Speaker 7: my fingers at that's forty points game. But on the road,
Speaker 7: the Linus will still some points. And their defense, you know,
Speaker 7: it was kind of better last year, but not really.
Speaker 7: We saw Seattle almost come back on them this year.
Speaker 7: So I think they're better, better team than they were
Speaker 7: last season. But they certainly have their their question with
Speaker 7: on defense. Now I'm going to go and make a
Speaker 7: reference to the game last year. You're the craziness of
Speaker 7: the Dan Campbell and how he handled, you know, going
Speaker 7: for the win last year. I'm going to make the
Speaker 7: prediction that even if the Lions don't score a touchdown
Speaker 7: on Sunday, that Dan Campbell was going to go for
Speaker 7: a two point conversion on every poem.
Speaker 4: There's a part of me that actually thinks that's fun,
Speaker 4: you know. Yeah, Although although if I'm a Lions fan,
Speaker 4: I'm probably screaming at the TV but or at the
Speaker 4: stadium or wherever I am. But I kind of like
Speaker 4: the swashbuckling, you know, right.
Speaker 7: I think the thing about it that was a little
Speaker 7: nutty was, you know, they would get the conversion then
Speaker 7: there'd be a penalty, and kept on getting pushed back
Speaker 7: and pushed back, and then he was insistent on you know, listen,
Speaker 7: we see teams go for a pat there's a penalty,
Speaker 7: the ball gets moved up to the one yard line,
Speaker 7: and then teams go for the two. Okay, this was
Speaker 7: an instance where they pull off the two. There's a penalty,
Speaker 7: the ball goes backwards, and he's still insistent, ongoing on
Speaker 7: the two for the two. So I also know that
Speaker 7: d d Lamb ran around at the toy secondary last
Speaker 7: year in that game almost it will, so I mean,
Speaker 7: that's that's Dax Dye in Saussets. It's a very pivotal
Speaker 7: game for the Cowboys because and anyway in the NCAS,
Speaker 7: because you have a team now with Washington that obviously
Speaker 7: was a surprise last year. I mean, it has been
Speaker 7: a surprise so far this year. And you know, I'm
Speaker 7: not saying the other teams discounted them, but they're off too.
Speaker 7: They're off to what I call when I wrote abound
Speaker 7: this week is startling to start. Okay, I mean, keep
Speaker 7: in mind Philadelphia didn't play last week and lost ground
Speaker 7: into division. Because every every team in the NFC East
Speaker 7: one last week, Dabas one on the road, the Chinas
Speaker 7: win on the road. The Giants could be looking at
Speaker 7: three at three and three when they host the angles
Speaker 7: Ondon night. So, you know, you look around this league
Speaker 7: and when you have somebody you know, like the Bears
Speaker 7: were the last place team last year. Every team in
Speaker 7: the NFC North is about five hundred. So that's that's
Speaker 7: the danger of looking at the schedule in May and
Speaker 7: trying to pick games.
Speaker 4: Trying to pick games, yeah through out the season.
Speaker 7: You know when people in our business can't hit week
Speaker 7: to week, right, No.
Speaker 4: Believe me, I know that one as well. All right,
Speaker 4: one final one for you here, Russell as we got
Speaker 4: just a couple of minutes left here. But I'm just
Speaker 4: kind of curious your perspective on rookie quarterbacks when they
Speaker 4: get their first starts in the league, especially if it
Speaker 4: comes in the season. I don't know if we can
Speaker 4: actually break it down that succinctly, but what's your overall
Speaker 4: impression of, you know, how they do, and whether or
Speaker 4: not it's actually more beneficial for them to take their
Speaker 4: lumps as opposed to having early success in their careers.
Speaker 7: Well, I think it all depends on circumstances. You know.
Speaker 7: Right off the top of my head, I think about
Speaker 7: Ben Roethlisberger who got forced into a game against the
Speaker 7: Ravens after Tommy Max got hurt. Now it was just
Speaker 7: twenty years ago. Tom Brady wasn't a rookie when he
Speaker 7: came in the game against the Jets. Yeah, okay, but
Speaker 7: I mean he had not started a game. I think
Speaker 7: the most important thing you can do as a rookie quarterback,
Speaker 7: and to a degree of rookie in general, it's the
Speaker 7: old Dan reeves never to let them see a sweat,
Speaker 7: and if you can fool them into thinking, you know,
Speaker 7: what the hell you're doing, I think that's half the
Speaker 7: battle if you go in there. That's one of the
Speaker 7: things I look at during the Priests season. It's not stats,
Speaker 7: it's comfort level for somebody who's showing up and playing
Speaker 7: in professional football, which you find, of course, you find
Speaker 7: the difference between preseason irregular season very very rare rapidly.
Speaker 7: But if you can go in there and you know
Speaker 7: you your teammates feel like you're one of the guys,
Speaker 7: and then we have to walk you through and so on,
Speaker 7: I think that's half the battle. That Drake may does
Speaker 7: have a smattering of regular season experience. I know he
Speaker 7: played uh in the preseason. I think I think it
Speaker 7: helps that they're that they're playing at home, you know,
Speaker 7: and and I think they got to let him be
Speaker 7: him now. I'm not saying that they want him throwing
Speaker 7: the ball fifty times and so on, but he's gonna
Speaker 7: have to be on his feet. We obviously know the
Speaker 7: issues of the offensive line, but I will say this
Speaker 7: that they run the football like they like they did
Speaker 7: last week, which I thought they did pretty good job
Speaker 7: running the.
Speaker 4: Football seven per carry exactly.
Speaker 7: So they run the football last year. That's going to
Speaker 7: make life easier. And Drake listens bo nicks the first
Speaker 7: two weeks, I think from two interceptions in each game,
Speaker 7: but he's settled in now. He's not lighting up the scoreboard,
Speaker 7: but you can see the comfort level that he's having.
Speaker 7: That's the problem we expect. I think many people expect teams,
Speaker 7: regardless of what their makeup is, to hit the ground
Speaker 7: running in week one, and it rarely happens. Because of
Speaker 7: the way the preseason is now, you don't get a
Speaker 7: live exposure so on, and maybe even wonder if you
Speaker 7: haven't announced.
Speaker 4: It, ye Russell, you the man. Thanks Buddy for all
Speaker 4: the perspective and the insight, and we'll try to do
Speaker 4: this again next week if you're available.
Speaker 7: Let me see, let me check my tay.
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you, Bud, Appreciate you. You so you got it.
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Speaker 4: Let's step ahead, let's step forward, let's see what happens.
Speaker 4: Let's just throw caution to the wind. It's time to
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Speaker 4: because we go or there the other side of the pond, London, mates, London,
Speaker 4: Well that was actually Australian, so I probably shouldn't do that. Huh.
Speaker 4: Claire would be so disappointed in me, wouldn't she sound
Speaker 4: like it from London? London? Yes, bloke, I've never understood
Speaker 4: the word bloke. What the hell is a bloke? I
Speaker 4: just maybe lady Hell Harry that too? All right, we'll
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