Speaker 1: This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Speaker 1: Lazar and Alex Barth and Lazarre.
Speaker 2: Hello, everybody nailed it. Joined us always by our bark.
Speaker 2: Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars So I went
Speaker 2: with dlphin kin Kate, who I don't really love, to
Speaker 2: be honest with you, said, I don't feel great about it,
Speaker 2: but I just feel like the ball has just.
Speaker 1: Blind love of Josh Allen. That's all that. Everybody's getting
Speaker 1: mad at me blindly hating Josh Allen. You're doing the
Speaker 1: same thing but in the other eard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just doing to miiss you off. You like tonight, Alex?
Speaker 2: The bills Bills? Oh you like the bills?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Well, what do you mean under Mike mcdad Well, so
Speaker 1: two things. One, Yeah, the Bills never went in Miami
Speaker 1: because of the sun, like beating down on that bench.
Speaker 1: They're among other teams, they're not alone in that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no sun tonight, So that helps the Bills also there,
Speaker 1: that's a factor. Come on, we we in New England
Speaker 1: know that as well as anybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then on top of that, Mike McDaniel against
Speaker 1: teams that over five hundred and yes, I do believe
Speaker 1: the Bills will finish the season over five hundred believe
Speaker 1: it or not. Yeah, Mike McDaniel against teams that finished
Speaker 1: the season over five hundred five and ten, he doesn't
Speaker 1: beat good teams.
Speaker 2: That's why early season Bills they're good. That's why I
Speaker 2: picked the Bills in our picks. Patriot's Unfiltered is because
Speaker 2: of McDaniel against cause you.
Speaker 1: Got annoyed me earlier in locker room for having that take.
Speaker 2: I know, because you know I like the cool stuff
Speaker 2: that Miami does. But just really quickly on McDaniel's I know, McDaniel,
Speaker 2: I know this is not Dolphins on catch twenty two.
Speaker 2: I promise we'll we'll get to Patriots here in a second.
Speaker 2: There's not a whole lot of head coaches in the
Speaker 2: NFL that are just like he. I don't even know
Speaker 2: how to say this, because I want to be careful
Speaker 2: like he. It likes to go out on the town
Speaker 2: quite a bit when we're in He enjoys life. When
Speaker 2: we're in Indied in the combine, you can always find
Speaker 2: he's not alone in that Mike McDaniel around Okay, it's
Speaker 2: just it's on my radar. Of like, is he really
Speaker 2: taking it seriously? Well, I see, yeah, I don't need
Speaker 2: with all this stuff that's going on. You know, they
Speaker 2: haven't won a playoff game yet, Like you know, I'm
Speaker 2: just I'm just thinking, oh loud, how Probably shouldn't have
Speaker 2: said it, but I'm just thinking.
Speaker 1: How about you forget that taking it seriously? How about
Speaker 1: when he couldn't get a play calling in a playoff
Speaker 1: game that was against the Bills. Actually I think that
Speaker 1: was against the Bills, right, Uh that came out? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was his first year they had what
Speaker 1: for delay games or should have had without timeouts, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: guy can't get a play call. And I don't need
Speaker 1: to know what he's doing off the field to know
Speaker 1: he's not taking it seriously.
Speaker 2: All right. Hey, hey Patriots fans, if you want to
Speaker 2: see Toto's best offers, including those not seen on TV,
Speaker 2: go to buy at toyota dot com. It's Toyota's official
Speaker 2: website for deals from an official vehicle of the New
Speaker 2: England Patriots. Toyota, Let's go play Seattle. I was gonna
Speaker 2: say to Seattle, but we're not going to Seattle, and.
Speaker 1: Easy didn't go. If you want no, thanks, nothing there.
Speaker 2: Easy to drink, easy to enjoy, bud Light, the official
Speaker 2: beer sponsor of the Newing and Patriots. All right, Evan Lazar,
Speaker 2: Alex Barth with you here. I didn't even say our
Speaker 2: names or the name of the show or anything like.
Speaker 1: I like this because I've read in I've always said,
Speaker 1: going back to our previous podcast, our podcast isn't so
Speaker 1: much a show as much as it is just hitting recording,
Speaker 1: continuing the conversation we were having. And I think we've
Speaker 1: done this the last few weeks. Yeah, where you just
Speaker 1: kind of opened the show with what I mean, before
Speaker 1: we were on the air, we were talking about me
Speaker 1: playing pop worn or football. That's true, and we were
Speaker 1: talking about Mike McDaniel about an hour ago. It's really
Speaker 1: just picks up the conversation or the text chat or
Speaker 1: whatever and we just go from there.
Speaker 2: That's very true. That's very true. But we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about some Patriots begles here at the top of
Speaker 2: the show, and we'll obviously get into Seattle and we'll
Speaker 2: talk take your calls and all that good stuff. But
Speaker 2: my opening monologue, my opening take of the show here today,
Speaker 2: I want to go glass half full, glass half empty,
Speaker 2: because I'm not gonna lie to you, Alex. And I'm
Speaker 2: not just saying this because you know I'm trying to
Speaker 2: be contrarian or you know, anything like that. But the
Speaker 2: the Patriots have gotten a lot of flowers this week
Speaker 2: for winning in Cincinnati. They've gotten a lot of those
Speaker 2: verbal bouquets from people that do our line of work,
Speaker 2: a lot of credit for winning in Cincinnati. I'm all
Speaker 2: for it, right, good for them, goodwin, glad they won,
Speaker 2: all those types of things. My glass half empty, are
Speaker 2: half full? Excuse me, glass half full?
Speaker 4: On this.
Speaker 2: I was listening to Julian Edelman in a clip that
Speaker 2: somebody posted on the X Machine. I believe he was
Speaker 2: on with Colin Coward when he said this, the glass
Speaker 2: half full of what they did on Sunday in Cincinnati
Speaker 2: is that everything that Gerrod Mayo in this coaching staff
Speaker 2: has been preaching since the first squad meeting, going all
Speaker 2: the way back to the spring fundamentals, don't beat yourselves,
Speaker 2: be the more physical football team, conditioning, like all these
Speaker 2: different tenets of the girod Mayo era that they're trying
Speaker 2: to build here, the foundation that they're trying to lay here,
Speaker 2: the fruits of the labor all showed up on Sunday.
Speaker 2: They were the more prepared team. They won the line
Speaker 2: of scrimmage, they tackled better, they were more buttoned up
Speaker 2: in terms of penalties and turnovers. They were the better
Speaker 2: fundamental football team on Sunday in Cincinnati. So I agree
Speaker 2: with Edelman wholeheartedly when he says that makes Gid and
Speaker 2: Mayo's life now moving forward a tiny bit easier because
Speaker 2: now there there's buying, like now you understand, oh, like validation.
Speaker 2: There's validation exactly like what they're selling. We're actually buying
Speaker 2: now because we won a game playing this way.
Speaker 1: It works.
Speaker 2: It worked, and that's big for this team. I want
Speaker 2: to say that off the top before I get to
Speaker 2: some of my grievances, like that's truly is big for
Speaker 2: the team. And now we can work on some of
Speaker 2: the things that they didn't do so well in the
Speaker 2: game and hopefully improve on those. But the core philosophies
Speaker 2: of girod Mayo's football team physicality, run first offense, really
Speaker 2: good defense, be the more conditioned team, be the more
Speaker 2: sound team. All those boxes were checked on Sunday, and
Speaker 2: they beat a team that nobody thought they were gonna
Speaker 2: beat So that's my glass half full about this win
Speaker 2: in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that works. And I make your
Speaker 1: other point because I kind of have an overarching point
Speaker 1: of both of them.
Speaker 2: So my glass half empty to it is this. I
Speaker 2: look this up because I was curious since the start
Speaker 2: of the twenty twenty three seasons of all over the
Speaker 2: last two seasons teams who threw for under one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty five passing yards on over twenty attempts. So,
Speaker 2: basically Jacob Brissett's stat line from the game on Sunday,
Speaker 2: there are thirty two such instances in the league over
Speaker 2: the last two years. How many wins do you think
Speaker 2: those thirty two teams had a handful? Eight? They were
Speaker 2: eight and twenty four two handfuls, so twenty five percent
Speaker 2: win percentage. I just won't don't want to come in
Speaker 2: here and say that team is all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: we're gonna pick them every week and they're gonna they're
Speaker 2: on a roll here. They they are going to have
Speaker 2: to pass better, score more, and I have, like, you know,
Speaker 2: individual categories here we can get into, but the overarching
Speaker 2: or the big picture is that they are not going
Speaker 2: to win a whole lot of football games with the
Speaker 2: passing offense that they had on Sunday. Just because they
Speaker 2: won this game this way this week doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: that's going to carry over into that next week and beyond.
Speaker 2: And as great as it is that they won the game,
Speaker 2: and as much as Girodmeo deserves kudos and we should,
Speaker 2: you know, gets the gatorade bath and everybody feels good
Speaker 2: about it, and all that's great, I don't want to
Speaker 2: lose sight of the big picture, which is one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty one passing yards in twenty twenty four is
Speaker 2: just not gonna win you very many football games.
Speaker 1: Funny, we have a big TV up here that has
Speaker 1: Felgrin Maas on. Yeah, and I'm just watching his body
Speaker 1: language as he's delivering what I'm sure is the same
Speaker 1: take as you. And you were doing a lot of
Speaker 1: the same hand motion. Oh okay, so I found that
Speaker 1: kind of funny. But no, here my takeaway, and I'll
Speaker 1: go back to, honestly the same thing I said after
Speaker 1: they beat the Bills last year. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember the take I gave after that game. Basically,
Speaker 1: most NFL teams when they play to their ceiling, whatever
Speaker 1: their ceiling is, depending on how they're built, it's going
Speaker 1: to be hard to beat a team that's playing to
Speaker 1: its ceiling, whatever the team is. Even the worst rosters
Speaker 1: in the league, when they play to their ceiling, they're
Speaker 1: usually pretty hard to beat. What separates the great teams
Speaker 1: from the good teams from the bad teams on top
Speaker 1: of talent, I mean, talent's part of it, but part
Speaker 1: of talent is consistency, and what separates the great teams
Speaker 1: from the bad teams oftentimes in a league where talent wise,
Speaker 1: there's really not that much of a difference between the
Speaker 1: best teams and the worst team's top to bottom on
Speaker 1: the roster is how often can you go out and
Speaker 1: throw your best punch. The best teams in this league
Speaker 1: in a seventeen game season fourteen fifteen times will give
Speaker 1: you their best game, and they're pretty consistent with it,
Speaker 1: whereas some of the worst teams. They might have That
Speaker 1: Patriots beat the Bills last year like that game, but
Speaker 1: and that team was capable of that. I don't think
Speaker 1: that team necessarily punched above its weight in that game,
Speaker 1: but it was they they just didn't have for whatever
Speaker 1: intangible reason. Didn't have the ability to put that effort
Speaker 1: out consistently.
Speaker 2: So do you think this was the not to cut
Speaker 2: you off? Because do you think this was the Patriots'
Speaker 2: best I don't think it was their best puncause if
Speaker 2: this is their best punches and they're gonna win four game,
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's their best punch because it's week one,
Speaker 1: and I still think they're figuring a lot out. But
Speaker 1: I think you saw a team that like it's I
Speaker 1: think that's as much as you could expect from them
Speaker 1: in week one. There were things that will and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about during the show. Right, they' figure out the
Speaker 1: offensive line, they'll get some guys back, The new coaching
Speaker 1: staffs was gonna have to iron some things out. So
Speaker 1: it's not apples for apples like that best punch take.
Speaker 1: But I remember thinking that, like this was a team
Speaker 1: that came out first time head coach, first game, they
Speaker 1: wanted to win for him, They wanted to make a statement.
Speaker 1: They did be knocked all off season, like they came
Speaker 1: out and played this like it was their super Bowl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think there's room for them to perform better,
Speaker 1: but it takes a lot to bring that kind of
Speaker 1: intensity every single week, and I'm not knocking them, like,
Speaker 1: good for them for doing it. But I, like you said,
Speaker 1: there are going to be teams that test them more.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing. I don't think you got the
Speaker 1: Bengals best bunch. Oh No, there are going to be
Speaker 1: teams that test the more. So to me, it's a
Speaker 1: really encouraging sign. Yeah, especially for the long term more
Speaker 1: than short term. It's more of an encouraging sign for
Speaker 1: the long term for the drawd Mayo, Elliot wolf Era. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that it's indicative of, Hey, this
Speaker 1: actually might be a playoff team and we all just
Speaker 1: kind of missed on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly how I feel as well. I just
Speaker 2: I worry about three things with this team, and this
Speaker 2: is sort of my categories here that I was talking
Speaker 2: about just a second ago. The first thing is obvious,
Speaker 2: and that's the past protection.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they gave up a forty eight percent pressure eight
Speaker 2: against Cincinnati. That was the highest pressure rate in the NFL.
Speaker 1: So here's what's crazy to me. Kind of goes back
Speaker 1: to what I was just saying, they had the highest
Speaker 1: pressure rate in the league against It was right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Ramandre Stevenson had one hundred and eighteen of his
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty yards after contact. Yeah, And I still
Speaker 1: came away from that game, And I know I'm not
Speaker 1: alone in this. I don't know how you felt, but
Speaker 1: I still kind of came away from that game again,
Speaker 1: worst pressure rate in the league, wanting back, had to
Speaker 1: do almost everything after contact, and I came away saying,
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't go as bad as I thought
Speaker 1: it would, so just kind of crazy to think.
Speaker 2: About, right. So that's sort of my point though, And
Speaker 2: I understand that we've adjusted our expectations, and it's it's
Speaker 2: fair that we adjusted our expectations. It's fair to the
Speaker 2: new coaching staff that we're adjusting. They have made it
Speaker 2: clear that they feel like they're still a year or
Speaker 2: two away. Yeah, like they're in a rebuild. They know that.
Speaker 2: We know that this is about, like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: laying a foundation, you know, establishing tenants like all those
Speaker 2: types of things, and not necessarily a team that is
Speaker 2: expected to go on some playoff run or something like that.
Speaker 2: We all get that. But the bar, especially specifically towards
Speaker 2: the offensive line, was six feet under, like not even
Speaker 2: on the floor, like we dug into the ground and
Speaker 2: we put it even further under there because of what
Speaker 2: we saw in Washington. Penalties galore, poor pass.
Speaker 1: Protection Washington, the whole summer Washington, the joint practice with
Speaker 1: the Eagles, like all of it.
Speaker 2: So the fact that they lined up correctly and didn't
Speaker 2: give up like five sacks in this game was a
Speaker 2: passing grade for the offensive.
Speaker 1: Linet lined up correctly and that cover set didn't get hurt.
Speaker 2: Right With that being said, forty eight percent pressure rate
Speaker 2: I thought that they are run blocking was okay. Run
Speaker 2: block win rate was twenty fourth in the league, for
Speaker 2: what it's worth. Seattle's was twentieth, and they also ran
Speaker 2: the ball well, so I'm not really sure how much
Speaker 2: that stat necessarily matters.
Speaker 1: Kenneth Walker kind of similar back to money seams.
Speaker 2: But let's stick with the pass protection because I think
Speaker 2: that was really where their biggest issues were. Left tackle
Speaker 2: is going to be a sore spot. They're gonna have
Speaker 2: to live with left tackle. They're gonna have to live
Speaker 2: with the fact that they have a rookie in Leyden
Speaker 2: Robinson playing right guard, so he's gonna have some of
Speaker 2: these rookie brain farts like that's just going to happen.
Speaker 2: He's gonna be inconsistent as a rookie, and that's you
Speaker 2: gotta live with. Dad. The element that I didn't like
Speaker 2: about this game, and some of that is in the
Speaker 2: Leyden Robinson category. I would say of rookie in his
Speaker 2: first NFL game. They allowed four free runners, four unblocked pressures.
Speaker 2: They robbed nine pressure dropbacks, and four of them were
Speaker 2: just guys coming Scott free to the quarterback with nobody
Speaker 2: in their way. Those ones, to me, are ones that
Speaker 2: have to go like they have to find a way
Speaker 2: to get those out of their system sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2: Because Jacoby Brussett's pressure to Zach Rate was extremely impressive
Speaker 2: this week, his mobility was extremely impressive last week. That
Speaker 2: to me, I don't know is fully sustainable. That's not
Speaker 2: the Jacoby brres said that we've seen for most of
Speaker 2: his career. He's not necessarily a guy that's Whodini in
Speaker 2: the pocket, that's very good at avoiding sacks. He managed
Speaker 2: pressure very well in this game. He deserves credit for that.
Speaker 2: We'll get to that. But the biggest thing to me
Speaker 2: is is you can't have guys running through the middle
Speaker 2: of the line unblocked like that. That has to get
Speaker 2: cleaned up because you are going to have some one
Speaker 2: on one losses across the line because you're just not
Speaker 2: very talented in certain spots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: Scott Peters talked today about some of those free rushers
Speaker 1: and said some of it was, you know, sometimes guys
Speaker 1: are coming through, you're throwing hot whatever, but they The
Speaker 1: one that that gets me was the Logan Wilson who
Speaker 1: came up the middle. A couple of things just but
Speaker 1: the one really blew up cover set, right, he got
Speaker 1: up a little slow. It's yeah, that that's kind of
Speaker 1: what when I say, oh, it went better than we thought,
Speaker 1: even though it didn't go well, it's like because I
Speaker 1: was kind of I wasn't sure it's cover set was
Speaker 1: going to make it through the game. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: as close as you got. I think if they can
Speaker 1: just keep Jacoby wever Set healthy, it's not even keeping clean,
Speaker 1: just just not allowed those teams to tee off on him. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's kind of that has to be the baseline for
Speaker 1: this group, and they weren't able to do that completely
Speaker 1: on Sunday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the scheme that Cincinnati was using a lot
Speaker 2: to get pressure, and I'm sure that Seattle is going
Speaker 2: to do the same because the Seahawks disguise pressure better
Speaker 2: than anybody. They were dropping their defensive ends off the
Speaker 2: line of scrimmage. Most of the time it was Sam
Speaker 2: Hubbard and let Henderson rush, and so they drop their
Speaker 2: defensive end out of the out of the rush, he
Speaker 2: would drop into coverage and then Logan Wilson or a
Speaker 2: linebacker would come blitzing up the middle of the line.
Speaker 2: And so those are called replacement pressures where one guy's
Speaker 2: replacing another guy in the coverage structure, and it just
Speaker 2: is post nap communication, right, It's having active eyes and
Speaker 2: pass protection. So what ended up happening a lot is
Speaker 2: on when when Robinson were blocking the same guy like
Speaker 2: they would they would have two on one and then
Speaker 2: they didn't have anybody on the back or coming up
Speaker 2: through the middle of the line. Sometimes the bat the
Speaker 2: running back was involved, sometimes it wasn't. That sometimes can
Speaker 2: confuse things as well. You know what I was thinking
Speaker 2: about the other day, same totally off a kind of
Speaker 2: on topic off topic, like what if I got like
Speaker 2: a whiteboard and just like start and like drew things.
Speaker 1: On the white saying that for a long time. That
Speaker 1: you should do.
Speaker 2: Because you know, it's a little hard for us to
Speaker 2: get like you know, wait, hang on, I think we
Speaker 2: have whiteboard back then, not like a big one, like
Speaker 2: just like a little handheld one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll make sure you guys get one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be cool, right, because it's hard for us
Speaker 2: to pull up the actual play like the film.
Speaker 1: We did that once yea towards the cand Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then we can. We'll do a whiteboard. That's a
Speaker 2: good idea. Anyways, So they ran a lot of those
Speaker 2: what are called creeper pressures, which means that you have
Speaker 2: this the crowd. The defensive structure looks like it's a
Speaker 2: normal structure, looks like they're just playing normal defense. It's
Speaker 2: not covers, it's not cover zero, it's not any of that.
Speaker 2: It's just a normal defense. But what ends up happening
Speaker 2: is somebody that you're expecting the pass rush drops in
Speaker 2: someone who you're expecting to drop blitzes. Right, so you
Speaker 2: switch places with those two guys. You did that a lot.
Speaker 2: Cincinnati did that a lot. This, Baltimore, Seattle scheme is
Speaker 2: gonna do that a lot too. With McDonald too, though.
Speaker 2: Those are the ones that got the Patriots. They they
Speaker 2: were confused a little bit on who was taking the
Speaker 2: unblocked guy or the unexpected rusher. That's gonna be big
Speaker 2: for them this week again. They gotta clean those things up.
Speaker 2: I still feel as though they can get there with
Speaker 2: this offensive line. Left tackle again is gonna be a
Speaker 2: big concern, Like that's always week in and week out.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to help, You're gonna have to scheme
Speaker 2: around it, you're gonna have to do different things. But
Speaker 2: if they can get themselves protected when they bring unexpected rushers,
Speaker 2: then then I think they'll be okay. The second thing
Speaker 2: on my list, This one's big to me, and it
Speaker 2: goes back to the Browns, the Niners, the Rams, the
Speaker 2: Miami Dolphins, the Green Bay Packers, the teams that run
Speaker 2: this offensive system.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the big hallmarks of this system is marrying
Speaker 2: the run game with play action. And the run game
Speaker 2: you're gonna run it thirty times a game, but a
Speaker 2: big reason why you're running it so much is to
Speaker 2: actually set up the passing game. You're gonna set up
Speaker 2: play action explosives through the running game. So the Patriots
Speaker 2: were able to run the ball. Yes, they ran for
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy yards as a team, they ran
Speaker 2: for one hundred and thirty eight with their running backs.
Speaker 2: If you want to take the scrambles out from jacobyber set,
Speaker 2: they ran the ball well. On five play action play
Speaker 2: action dropbacks, they only had twenty six yards. That's five
Speaker 2: yards attempt. How about they only had five play action
Speaker 2: drop back They only had five, and they only averaged
Speaker 2: five yards per attempt off of them. Just for comparison,
Speaker 2: when Jacob Brisett was in this offense in Cleveland in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, he averaged over eight yards per pass
Speaker 2: attempt off of play action. So when you have a
Speaker 2: team that wants to be run first, that wants to
Speaker 2: build everything off the run game, it's big with that
Speaker 2: schematically that the play action pass game works. And when
Speaker 2: you also have a team that doesn't necessarily have great
Speaker 2: receivers on the outside, Like if you're a team like
Speaker 2: Cincinnati and you have Chase and you have Higgins and
Speaker 2: all these guys on the outside, you don't need to
Speaker 2: run play action because those guys are just gonna win
Speaker 2: on routes right, Like, they're just gonna get open. The
Speaker 2: Patriots need to scheme separation. They need to scheme guys open.
Speaker 2: And if they can't scheme guys open through play action,
Speaker 2: then they're gonna be porked. Then they're gonna be thrown
Speaker 2: for one hundred and fifty yards a game. So they're
Speaker 2: gonna have to figure out ways. Whether it's pass protection related,
Speaker 2: which I have one thing on that, or if it's
Speaker 2: just Jacob Brissett, if it's the receivers, whatever the issues
Speaker 2: were that made it so that they couldn't get play
Speaker 2: action going. They need to be a better play action
Speaker 2: a much better play action passing team next week and
Speaker 2: moving forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've talked about this since March, Yeah, since January, Like,
Speaker 1: this is what it's gonna be. They're big plays. Their
Speaker 1: ability to push the ball down the field, their ability
Speaker 1: to pick up chunks is going to come off play
Speaker 1: action more than anything else.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So so if they I can't do that, this so
Speaker 1: what I said at the beginning, right, this was their
Speaker 1: best punch I said for week one. You know you're
Speaker 1: gonna build on it. If they can't build on the
Speaker 1: play action game, they're not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed, So the one thing I just add to that,
Speaker 2: then I'll go to my next thing. They used Caden Wallace.
Speaker 2: I want to call it sixteen excluding Niel downs because
Speaker 2: the two of them were kneel downs. Right, So they
Speaker 2: use Caden Wallace as a tackle eligible sixteen times in
Speaker 2: this game. They threw one pass with Caden Wallace on
Speaker 2: the field. If you ask me, when you have a
Speaker 2: bad offensive line and you can't drop back pass because
Speaker 2: you can't pass protect, why wouldn't you try to push
Speaker 2: the ball down the field with six offensive linemen on
Speaker 2: the field, right, Like that goes hand in hand to me. Now,
Speaker 2: do I know how many times Jacoubersett checked out of
Speaker 2: a pass into a run or No? I don't know
Speaker 2: the answer to that, right, that could have happened a
Speaker 2: couple of times. But that, to me, is there that's
Speaker 2: their answer, Like, let's go six to seven man protection.
Speaker 2: Why don't you put Candaen Wallace on the field. Maybe
Speaker 2: you leave the back endto Blitzkin, maybe you leave the
Speaker 2: tight end in Also, now you have seven guys in
Speaker 2: pass protection, you send a couple guys into the raws.
Speaker 1: Too many because if you're leaving the back in with
Speaker 1: Kayden Walls and a tight end. You only two receivers,
Speaker 1: now you would do one or the other. Oh, put
Speaker 1: the back and the tight end.
Speaker 2: Someone's got to do be the checked out, right, So
Speaker 2: if you want the tight end to be the checkdown, fine,
Speaker 2: If you want the back to be the tight the checkdown, fine,
Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily matter which one. The point being, that's
Speaker 2: how I feel like they can actually generate some deep
Speaker 2: pass attempts is by six seven man protections, play action
Speaker 2: off of the run game, load up the protection, send
Speaker 2: two guys down the field and hope somebody gets open.
Speaker 1: And then eventually, you know, if that works enough times
Speaker 1: you leave Kaden Wallace out in the flat and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he runs for a chunk.
Speaker 2: I'm good with that. I'm good with that, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm all for like a little trickery. But the
Speaker 2: big thing is is that drop back passing standard like
Speaker 2: five man protect drop back passing is going to be
Speaker 2: tough for this football team. They're gonna have to do
Speaker 2: it on third down. You hope that it's like third
Speaker 2: and five and they can get six yards and we
Speaker 2: keep playing.
Speaker 1: Well, that's if they did one thing really well in
Speaker 1: Week one that I do think can translate. Yeah, moving forward,
Speaker 1: they did an excellent job of staying ahead of schedule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we've seen the past years, right, second and eight
Speaker 1: are off of penalty first and fifteen.
Speaker 2: Well, the big thing was the lack of penalties. It's
Speaker 2: like that, it's a huge to contribute to that.
Speaker 1: No, but even even on first down, so they they're average.
Speaker 1: I have the number somewhere here. I know the rankings.
Speaker 1: They were eleventh in the NFL in average yards to
Speaker 1: go on second down in week one. This was before
Speaker 1: Monday Night football, but you get the idea. Here we go. Yep,
Speaker 1: first down, their average distance to go is nine point
Speaker 1: seven yards, so that they were actually helped by penalties
Speaker 1: rather than hurt. Second down average distance to go seven
Speaker 1: point three. That was tied for tenth in the league.
Speaker 1: So they were top ten in the league in yards
Speaker 1: gained on first down third down six point one yards
Speaker 1: to go. That was the fourth shortest distance in the NFL.
Speaker 1: They stayed ahead of schedule, and the run game was
Speaker 1: a big part of that. But they stayed ahead of schedule.
Speaker 1: They didn't take negative plays, they didn't take penalties, they
Speaker 1: took what the defense was giving them on early downs
Speaker 1: to set up manageable third downs. That is why they
Speaker 1: had as much success as they did, and that is
Speaker 1: something I actually think can carry over. And if they
Speaker 1: are going to continue to build offensively, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's going to do they need to add more chunk plays, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that that's going to make as
Speaker 1: much of a difference as just consistently staying on schedule.
Speaker 1: And by the way, credits to the defense. The Bengals
Speaker 1: actually had better had shorter distances to go on second
Speaker 1: and third down than the Patriots and converted almost ten
Speaker 1: percent less of the first downs. Yeah, so the defense
Speaker 1: did well too. I just want to mix that in.
Speaker 2: But no, they did.
Speaker 1: They did a great job of staying on schedule, not
Speaker 1: taking penalties, picking up legitimate game on first down, and
Speaker 1: that really helped them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It just if you watch all these offenses that
Speaker 2: do this at a high run, this scheme at a
Speaker 2: high level. You know, I'm you know, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: wax poetic about Kyle Shanahan too much, but Shanahan, Lafleoor, McVeigh, Stefanski,
Speaker 2: so much of what they do well is play action,
Speaker 2: and they just generate these big, big chunks off of
Speaker 2: play action because they dress it up to marry it
Speaker 2: to the run game. It all looks the same to
Speaker 2: the defense, and then it doesn't, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 2: end up playing out the same. So that's gonna be big.
Speaker 2: This goes hand in hand with my third point. I
Speaker 2: thought Jacobbers said played really well in this game. He's
Speaker 2: on my upslist. Okay, I thought he played really well
Speaker 2: in this game. He managed pressure extremely well. Not a
Speaker 2: lot of quarterbacks with a forty eight percent pressure rate
Speaker 2: keep their head on their shoulders. Yeah, like that can
Speaker 2: sometimes cause a lot of chaos like that, turnovers sped up,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. The one thing that I
Speaker 2: nitpicked a little bit about this film, what jacobber said,
Speaker 2: was a lack of aggressiveness pushing the ball down the field.
Speaker 2: I asked Van Pelt about this, and I'll get to
Speaker 2: that in a second. I thought he gave a good
Speaker 2: answer to it. But just statistically, he attempted two passes,
Speaker 2: not over twenty yards, over fifteen yards in the entire game.
Speaker 2: Two passes over fifteen the entire game. He only threw
Speaker 2: past the sticks thirty three percent of the time. Isn't
Speaker 2: that wild?
Speaker 1: Thirty three percent of the time passed the sticks? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think some of that though, doesn't some
Speaker 1: of that have to be just the pressure he was facing?
Speaker 1: How many opportunities did he really hear? Some of it
Speaker 1: was pushed the ball down.
Speaker 2: But there was probably three or four times on the
Speaker 2: film where I felt like he could have and passed
Speaker 2: up those opportunities. That's what Van Pelt I asked him
Speaker 2: about this morning, and he said that it was more
Speaker 2: about game situation. He mentioned a third down play in
Speaker 2: the red zone that I posted to my Twitter circling
Speaker 2: Jalen Polk. He was open on the play if you
Speaker 2: guys want to just look at it, But was that
Speaker 2: the one you sent me? Yeah, there's three open guys
Speaker 2: for touchdowns, and he doesn't throw any of the routs.
Speaker 2: He said, in that situation that you have a field goal, like,
Speaker 2: you have three points, you have the lead, Like, that's
Speaker 2: more just about risk reward at that point. And I
Speaker 2: can kind of live with that answer, like I understand
Speaker 2: where they're coming from with that, But the point being,
Speaker 2: in future weeks, as soon as even maybe Sunday, you
Speaker 2: can't afford to pass up opportunities for more points, right,
Speaker 2: Like you aren't going to be able to win games
Speaker 2: scoring sixteen points every single week. So his lack of
Speaker 2: Jacoby's lack of aggressiveness or like lack of willingness to
Speaker 2: push the ball into some tighter windows down the field.
Speaker 2: He really managed this game. Yeah, and that you can
Speaker 2: say that as a positive, and you can also look
Speaker 2: at some of the negative sides of that as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you saw one why he's starting
Speaker 1: over Drake May and just why they brought him in
Speaker 1: big picture, like how he fits in the mold of
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do. I thought he was calm,
Speaker 1: I thought he was controlled. The big surprise for me
Speaker 1: was what he did with his legs. Not a guy
Speaker 1: that you think of is really being that effective as
Speaker 1: a runner. But scrambled four times three for first downs,
Speaker 1: was able to extend some plays and get throws off
Speaker 1: on the run. Nothing over the top, nothing you know, explosive.
Speaker 1: But he didn't cost him the game, right. He was
Speaker 1: a net neutral quarterback. You know how much I love
Speaker 1: that term. That was textbook net neutral quarterback. They didn't
Speaker 1: win the game because of him. But they didn't lose
Speaker 1: the game because of them, and they were more concerned
Speaker 1: with the second thing there than the first thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see if that holds up, Like, if they're
Speaker 2: able to do that at a high level like that,
Speaker 2: that's tough. Last little nitpick, and then we can do
Speaker 2: our three up, three down, and we'll open up the
Speaker 2: phone lines and everything. Yeah, little nitpick.
Speaker 1: What would it be? Would a Patriots win be without
Speaker 1: Evan nitpicking?
Speaker 2: Yeah? He gotta nippick some things because these are things
Speaker 2: that I just they gotta be better at. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: gotta stack these things. They have a good they laid
Speaker 2: a good foundation. But the foundation of the house isn't
Speaker 2: the the finished.
Speaker 1: You were right last year, Mac Jones through for three
Speaker 1: hundred yards. I came all in here, all excited, and
Speaker 1: you just tore them a new one and you were
Speaker 1: right about that pick away. But the foundation to take
Speaker 1: a victory lap on that all week, the foundation of
Speaker 1: the house is there. Yeah, we see the I see
Speaker 1: the vision. I see the foundation.
Speaker 2: Now we're talking about like the sub zero appliances right
Speaker 2: like in the Viking stoves, Like let's get the fancy
Speaker 2: stuff going now. Yeah, right, Like that's what we're talking.
Speaker 1: About, Drake May. I think you're more just talking about
Speaker 1: the foundations up. Now, let's get like walls and doors
Speaker 1: and windows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably right, that's probably better. Let's get those
Speaker 2: nice windows, little tint.
Speaker 1: On the foundation. You build a house on top of
Speaker 1: the foundation.
Speaker 2: Well I know that, but I was probably two steps in.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying, like there's another step in between there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, So let's meet Drake. Drake May. Is that
Speaker 1: when you're wheeling the seventy five inch TV with surround sound,
Speaker 1: you know, speakers built into the couch, you got the
Speaker 1: fridge built into the couch. This is a good take
Speaker 1: you can get from like the great couches you can
Speaker 1: get from Bobs's count I should have just segued right
Speaker 1: into that read, but tried. I gotta get I gotta
Speaker 1: get my thought out first before I forget it. Books.
Speaker 2: The Run Game. Loved the Run Game. Loved what Remandre
Speaker 2: did there. They were overly simplistic in this game. And
Speaker 2: I'll give it to them that it was week one,
Speaker 2: so maybe this was just let's get this out there.
Speaker 2: We're not ready for Alex van Pelt. You know, graduate
Speaker 2: level course, yet we're still an intro level classes right now.
Speaker 2: But a lot of the situations I felt like where
Speaker 2: Remandre had to truly create yards after contact were because
Speaker 2: of the lack of like bells and whistles and eye
Speaker 2: candy in this offense. They were duo, gap, duo whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it, Like double teams on the
Speaker 2: inside and we're just coming right at you right and
Speaker 2: that that can work, especially when you have a really
Speaker 2: good running back like Remandre who's really good at creating
Speaker 2: guards after contact. But some of the things I would
Speaker 2: like to see moving forward a little bit more motion.
Speaker 2: Like the one thing that you see all game long
Speaker 2: under duo concepts, the corner to the place side was
Speaker 2: just like sitting there unblocked right, you could see it.
Speaker 2: Remandre was really good at breaking that tackle like that
Speaker 2: was a big part of his yards after contact totals
Speaker 2: was breaking poor Dax Hill like couldn't tackle the guy right.
Speaker 2: If you add like a little bit of like jet
Speaker 2: or orbit to that side of the field, Now Dax
Speaker 2: Hill's got a widen at the snap and he kind
Speaker 2: of gets out of that gap a little bit by
Speaker 2: the motion. Like these are the little things that I
Speaker 2: just would like to see when you turn on For example,
Speaker 2: Seattle's run game from last week. They had a good
Speaker 2: running game too with Kenneth Walker. There's a lot more
Speaker 2: complexity to their run game. It's a lot the design
Speaker 2: of it is a lot more sophisticated. This was old
Speaker 2: school football from Alex van Pelt. This was lined up
Speaker 2: duo blocks on the inside were running downhill. Ask you
Speaker 2: and you can't stop us. That's cool like that. I
Speaker 2: like that mentality. I like all of that. That's not
Speaker 2: going to get it against better defensive lines, Like you
Speaker 2: try to do that against the Jets in a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks and you just try to run over Quinn Williams, Like,
Speaker 2: good luck. Like that's not going to happen. It's not
Speaker 2: going to work. They have to disguise things or you know,
Speaker 2: motion things a little bit better, design it a little
Speaker 2: bit more sophisticated. Also, like can we not seven step
Speaker 2: drop from under center anymore? Please? Like what come back
Speaker 2: to us, Alex vanpel This isn't nineteen ninety one, Like
Speaker 2: can we throw that stuff out the door? I just
Speaker 2: felt some of this thing, the stuff that they did
Speaker 2: was a little archaic. It was a little outdated.
Speaker 1: Well it's weak one. Like you said, they're building up
Speaker 1: towards something.
Speaker 2: All right, am? I is that good enough?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: Like did I say enough positive things and negative things?
Speaker 2: Like I didn't want to be too negative? Like they
Speaker 2: did win the game like last year, at least they
Speaker 2: didn't win the game, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right? Yeah, yeah, okay, that's fair?
Speaker 2: All right, good enough? Okay, let's do three up, three down?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: You can start your number one up.
Speaker 1: My number one up was I. I had like ties
Speaker 1: for number one, but I guess I'll go. I'll go
Speaker 1: with my one for defense. I'd won offense one defense.
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna start offense. So I was ke
Speaker 1: On White?
Speaker 2: What gave you that? Away?
Speaker 4: Yea?
Speaker 1: Keon White was so freaking good in this game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was one of the people sitting here saying,
Speaker 1: I don't know how they're gonna generate an early down
Speaker 1: pass rush. I don't know how they're gonna generate a
Speaker 1: pass rusch nowt blitzing. I like Keon White, but I
Speaker 1: don't know that he's that like dynamic pass rusher. Wrong wrong, wrong,
Speaker 1: wrong wrong. At least based on that game, he was
Speaker 1: rushing for different spots the toolbox has gotten much deeper,
Speaker 1: much deeper, I think than it was last year. We
Speaker 1: saw a little more speed, Yeah, more quickness from him.
Speaker 1: I feel like two and a half sacks almost under
Speaker 1: sells the effort he ultimately had, the impact he put
Speaker 1: in on this game. If they're gonna be the top
Speaker 1: ten unit we thought they might be when they had
Speaker 1: Matthew Judon, when they had Christian Barmore, if they're gonna
Speaker 1: get back to that, this is the kind of player
Speaker 1: they need ke On White to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I couldn't agree more. He is now a Tuesday player,
Speaker 2: which is good for the Patriots because they needed somebody
Speaker 2: on the defensive front to develop into a Tuesday player
Speaker 2: without Christian Barmore and after the Judean trade. To me,
Speaker 2: he is now the guy that other teams are gonna
Speaker 2: have to worry about, Like they're gonna have to game
Speaker 2: plan for him. Now they're gonna have to have him
Speaker 2: circled in the game plan meetings.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The one that stood out to everybody, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: it stood out to you as well, was the rush
Speaker 2: on Trent Brown on his first sack. Like that, to me,
Speaker 2: is not something he had in his back.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what toolbox.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the double swipe rushing from a two point
Speaker 2: stance up on his feet, go right around him. I'm
Speaker 2: still hesitation in there inside. Has he double swipe go
Speaker 2: right around the tackle sack like that? That was not
Speaker 2: in his his wheelbox, his wheelbox, his toolbox last year.
Speaker 2: So that that was some of the things I wrote
Speaker 2: about Key on going into the season. I had a
Speaker 2: conversation with him about his summer and some of the
Speaker 2: things that he had talked about were working on that specifically,
Speaker 2: like can I be a better stand up edge rusher
Speaker 2: because he knows that he can rush with his hand
Speaker 2: in the dirt over the guard. He's trying to be
Speaker 2: better in that regard outside the tackle, and he was.
Speaker 2: He was on that play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was really good.
Speaker 2: He was nine.
Speaker 1: Number two, okay, number one was Remondra. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: had him his number one two, Remondre.
Speaker 2: This was like Marshawn Lynch beast mode type stuff, like
Speaker 2: just running over dudes, joking dudes. The rush that he
Speaker 2: had on the last drive of the game where there's
Speaker 2: two guys in the backfield and have him dead to
Speaker 2: rights and he somehow gets out is unreal, like just
Speaker 2: an unbelievable run one hundred and eighteen after contact, ten
Speaker 2: forced miss tackles in this game just phenomenal. I mean
Speaker 2: one of his best game of was a pro.
Speaker 1: Would you say he made a difference, made a difference
Speaker 1: in this one? Certainly you would say the running back
Speaker 1: made a difference. I just want to get it on
Speaker 1: the record. Okay, he did. Yeah, he was really freaking
Speaker 1: good in this game, which I'd say, Look what happens
Speaker 1: when this guy comes in like rested. Yeah, look what
Speaker 1: happens when this guy is ready to go and he's
Speaker 1: gonna take hits over the course of the season. He's
Speaker 1: not gonna be that all year. But look what happens
Speaker 1: when you give this guy a chance to be more
Speaker 1: than just a bowling ball.
Speaker 2: Ye, your point?
Speaker 1: I mean game breaker yesterday he had a veteran rest
Speaker 1: day and practice.
Speaker 2: Love that. Love that, Like he's your belcow running back.
Speaker 2: He's gonna get the ball a ton this year. He
Speaker 2: doesn't need to practice on Wednesdays. Like love it. Let
Speaker 2: him watch practice from the side, Give the reps to
Speaker 2: Kevin Harris or Terrell Jennings on the practice squad, and
Speaker 2: let's roll on Sunday reminder. I mean this was his
Speaker 2: best game as.
Speaker 1: A pro, So I will say this now now, and
Speaker 1: you know I have to bring it back to this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had including his he had three catches in this
Speaker 1: game as well, so you factor those in.
Speaker 2: Oh, here comes the volume issues.
Speaker 1: He had twenty eight touches in this game.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Last year, Christian McCaffrey, where's my I gotta find the
Speaker 1: number here? Sorry, Last year Christian McCaffrey led the NFL
Speaker 1: in touches or at least touches per game. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: was at I thought I had it written here. It
Speaker 1: was like twenty one to twenty two touches per game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was an excessive, excessive workload from ramondre Stevenson. Yep,
Speaker 1: how do you balance it now to make sure you
Speaker 1: keep getting that guy and he doesn't get worn down
Speaker 1: too early without kind of handicapping your offense by not
Speaker 1: having him. Now, Antonio Gibson went into this game banged up.
Speaker 1: So and it's also the kind of game this is
Speaker 1: also part of that take. There are gonna be games
Speaker 1: when you want to give rimanre Stevenson thirty touches because
Speaker 1: it's a close game. He's feeling it, you're gonna ride
Speaker 1: him to the win. You want to have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to do that. If this week that off, the game
Speaker 1: maybe doesn't set up like that. Can you get Antonio
Speaker 1: Gibson some more work, whatever. But honestly, that game, to
Speaker 1: me is exactly why I feel so strongly about this,
Speaker 1: because when he's not coming off a thirty touch game,
Speaker 1: when he's not worn down by Thanksgiving, and he can
Speaker 1: actually play his level of ball, he's a game breaker.
Speaker 1: But that's just the nature of the running back position.
Speaker 1: This is something that the Titans went through with Dereck Henry,
Speaker 1: the Cowboys went through a Zeke. Pretty much any dominant
Speaker 1: running back in the last ten years had this kind
Speaker 1: of experienced. Nick Jeffs another one. How do you make
Speaker 1: sure you're getting the most out of these guys over
Speaker 1: the course of a seventeen game season, not just week
Speaker 1: to week. That's what the Patriots are gonna have to
Speaker 1: figure out now, because as we saw again, this isn't
Speaker 1: to take anything away from his performances to emphasize it. Yea,
Speaker 1: that is how important of a player he is, and
Speaker 1: that is what he can give you when he's on
Speaker 1: and as the rest of the offense picks up and
Speaker 1: you can kind of supplement what he's your compliment what
Speaker 1: he's doing with the pass game, or maybe get Antonio
Speaker 1: Gibson going that will only help. But he's a game breaker.
Speaker 1: You got to take care of him.
Speaker 2: So just two things quickly. Yeah, Number one on that point,
Speaker 2: if they're gonna run as much duo blocking as they did,
Speaker 2: they just straight downhill man demand power running, then I
Speaker 2: do feel like Kevin Harris or Terrell Jennings can just
Speaker 2: do that just fine. Yeah, in a game like for
Speaker 2: five to ten carries a game like maybe that's just
Speaker 2: not Gibson's style of play, Like I don't think he
Speaker 2: looked at home running those types of concepts in this
Speaker 2: game last week. I know he was banged up. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't mind like certain games where you call one of
Speaker 2: those guys up from the practice squad for the week
Speaker 2: and maybe eight of the ca go to Kevin Harris
Speaker 2: that week instead of att to Remandre. Just doing the
Speaker 2: quick math and sample size alert like one game is
Speaker 2: not how we should be doing this. But that's four
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy six touches for the entire Sea.
Speaker 1: So I pulled it up. McCaffrey actually missed a game
Speaker 1: last year, it still led the NFL and touches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what was the number you had for seventy six?
Speaker 1: So McCaffrey last year led the NFL with three thirty nine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where I mean, obviously he's not gonna get twenty eight
Speaker 1: every single right, But so McCaffrey last year twenty one
Speaker 1: touches game. But the point is, don't let it be Okay,
Speaker 1: We're just gonna keep going till he gets hurt, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: try to get that number down while he's still effective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at number two, there's you. You made fun of
Speaker 2: me about running backs mattering, right, Yeah, So there's only
Speaker 2: like a handful of running backs in the league that
Speaker 2: I would say truly, Matt. You've always said there's two McCaffrey, yeap.
Speaker 2: Who was the other one?
Speaker 1: Camara?
Speaker 2: Camara? Yeah, McCaffrey Kamara, And you only.
Speaker 1: Said they mattered because their pass catching with Stevenson did
Speaker 1: not do a lot of in this game.
Speaker 2: I'm a pretty close to adding Saquon Barkley to that
Speaker 2: list too, I think, especially with what he did last
Speaker 2: week Againstuff, you know, with the big breakout, I mean.
Speaker 1: Can you retroactively add Derick Henry yet?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like Derreck Henry like five years ago, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to count Dereck Henry now, I know,
Speaker 2: but you.
Speaker 1: This is how this came up. You said Derek Henry
Speaker 1: didn't really matter, okay because he didn't catch the ball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, probably just ribbing you for that, I know,
Speaker 2: but now, okay, So I'm willing to get three right
Speaker 2: now in the league. Alvin Kamara, Christian McCaffrey. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: almost there with putting Ramondre Stevenson on this list. I'm
Speaker 2: almost there. Like he did a context of what this
Speaker 2: offense is. How can you not Yeah, he was a
Speaker 2: one man show on Sunday. He was the offense. He
Speaker 2: put the offense on his back.
Speaker 1: If if people haven't listened to us for like a
Speaker 1: few years, if you're new to the show, that's a
Speaker 1: huge moment. Evan admitting that I just want to let like,
Speaker 1: I don't know that there is a better way to
Speaker 1: compliment the effort Ramon Stevenson put forth the impact he
Speaker 1: had on that game than Evan saying this guy mattered.
Speaker 2: He mattered there really is. That's a big I don't
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 1: Eble Ever, you might not even compliment Josh Allen that
Speaker 1: much as much as you just complimented your Stevenson in
Speaker 1: your own way.
Speaker 2: You know how excited I am for tonight though, Josh Allen,
Speaker 2: you know it this September number three? Third up? Who
Speaker 2: you got number three?
Speaker 1: All right? So we both had one and two. Key
Speaker 1: On White were probably gonna the same one again, Christian Zalez,
Speaker 1: I almost did, but I I okay. God, So Christian
Speaker 1: Zalez has looking back at Christian Zalz's camp, Yeah, where
Speaker 1: we were like, ah, it's disappointing. We got way too
Speaker 1: care with these cornerbacks. Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Remember we we figured this out with Alex Austin last week,
Speaker 1: like he's a fine player. We just we went into
Speaker 1: camp wanting Christian Zalez to be prime to Rowritas and
Speaker 1: that was just never gonna happen, especially not in training camp.
Speaker 1: For him to come out and do what he did
Speaker 1: against Jamar Chase. Was it three catches fourteen yards?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, in twenty routes twenty routes. Yeah, that's a hell
Speaker 1: of a performance.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And he's now done it against a J. Brown, against
Speaker 1: Jamar Chase, against Garrett Wilson, Tyre Tyreek Hill. Yeah for
Speaker 1: a quarter. Yeah, he comes out and does it against
Speaker 1: DK Metcalf next week. Oh boy, Like here we go.
Speaker 1: What a validating performance from him. And it kind of
Speaker 1: like I said with Keon White, and I said this
Speaker 1: before the season, if they want to get back to
Speaker 1: the kind of defense they were supposed to be with
Speaker 1: Christian Ballmore in the lineup, with Matthew Judon in the lineup,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be about the sophomores taking the year two
Speaker 1: jump and can Christian Zalees or Keon White turn into
Speaker 1: blue chip players? They both looked like blue chip players
Speaker 1: on Sunday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point because to me, with Christian
Speaker 2: Zales and I I would have him as like three
Speaker 2: b you know, you.
Speaker 1: Know I'm gonna do one more. I'm gonna put ke
Speaker 1: White Christiansolz together. Is the defensive sophomores. Ye'll give me
Speaker 1: one more, Okay, So I'm gonna put them together. I
Speaker 1: think the thing that stands out the most about Christian Gonzales.
Speaker 1: We've been covering the team now since eighteen and let's
Speaker 1: take the OG's out.
Speaker 2: Like Brady Gronkowski, Edelman like the Stefan gil More, like
Speaker 2: all the guys we covered in the first couple of
Speaker 2: years of our careers on the beat the Patriots in
Speaker 2: this like post Brady era, Gonzalez is like the first
Speaker 2: guy to me where I look at him and I'm like,
Speaker 2: that's a that's a blue chip player. Like the athleticism,
Speaker 2: the movement skill and coverage, like that's what it should
Speaker 2: look like when you hit on a first round pick,
Speaker 2: Like I don't think they were really there with their
Speaker 2: other first round picks in that time frame, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously cold strange Mac Jones, like those guys didn't feel
Speaker 2: like they truly had a blue chip player on their hands.
Speaker 2: Christian Gonzalez feels like that. The way that he plays
Speaker 2: feels like that. He had some extremely high level coverage
Speaker 2: reps in Manton Man on Jamar Chase in this game,
Speaker 2: you mentioned the gauntlet that he's played so far, and
Speaker 2: he's really gone head toe to toe with all those
Speaker 2: guys and held his own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's absolutely that's what he by the way,
Speaker 1: he used that term with me this week, the Gauntlet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible and I know it's you know, the
Speaker 2: league and one this week that's the way the league is.
Speaker 2: You know, the Garrett Wilson and then I Yuk probably
Speaker 2: with the forty, like it's gonna be everyone.
Speaker 1: But that's why. But that's why it's so important that
Speaker 1: he become this level of player because if you have
Speaker 1: somebody that can shut those guys down, it's it's the
Speaker 1: ultimate like una reverse card in this modern NFL because
Speaker 1: everything runs through that receiver. Everything runs whatever offense it is,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna look different, but everything runs through that
Speaker 1: receiver in the modern NFL. If you can erase that guy,
Speaker 1: and this defense too, everything this defense is at its best.
Speaker 1: We just talk about this all the time. Evan. You
Speaker 1: put step On Gilmour over here on their on one
Speaker 1: of their top receivers, and then you can play the
Speaker 1: rest of the game ten on ten over here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's advantage Patriots every time. And Christian Zales gives
Speaker 1: them a chance to play games ten on ten defensively.
Speaker 2: Some of his coverage snaps that he has and Man,
Speaker 2: I to keep referencing my own Twitter, but I know
Speaker 2: people might want to see it visually.
Speaker 1: You're going off in the locker room today about he
Speaker 1: you don't tweet these anymore.
Speaker 2: Not all the time, but the individual ones on mondays,
Speaker 2: I try to tweet some of my favorites from watching
Speaker 2: the film. He had a rep against Chas and man
Speaker 2: to man coverage where you be hard pressed to find
Speaker 2: a better man to man rep than that one. And
Speaker 2: the hip swivel that he had to change directions at
Speaker 2: the top of the route was utterly disgusting.
Speaker 1: Well, that's like, that was the whole thing in the draft.
Speaker 1: We both got all hot and bothered after the combine
Speaker 1: looking at that and saying, the way this guy moves
Speaker 1: is different. The way he moves around the field, that
Speaker 1: way he changes direction, do he changes speeds? Do he
Speaker 1: flips his hips? The way he goes from the back
Speaker 1: pedal to the sprint, like it's just all so flut.
Speaker 1: He looks like he's ice skating out there. It's awesome
Speaker 1: and it's great to see him back to it after
Speaker 1: missing so much time last year. You went to one thing,
Speaker 1: and I know we've been talking about him for a while,
Speaker 1: so we'll move on here after this. But the one
Speaker 1: thing that really stood out to me, and I know
Speaker 1: he ran well the forty and everything, like he's a
Speaker 1: lot faster in a straight line than I thought he
Speaker 1: was coming out. And I loved him coming out, as
Speaker 1: you know, But like he's even faster than I thought,
Speaker 1: Like it is effortless for him to carry a vertical route,
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't even need to really try.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the time, it's incredible. All right, let's
Speaker 2: move on my third star, my third up, Jacoby Brissette.
Speaker 2: I just thought that we have seen so many quarterbacks
Speaker 2: over the last couple of years, mainly one sorry to
Speaker 2: you know, throw the boy in Jacksonville under the bus,
Speaker 2: But Trevor, when you have a pressure rate like that
Speaker 2: forty eight percent, yeah, how many times have we seen
Speaker 2: the game just completely unravel on mac Jones in that situation.
Speaker 2: Kobe Brissett was the game manager that the Patriots needed
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, right Like he he did
Speaker 2: what they were hoping mac Jones was going to be
Speaker 2: able to do for them. Didn't turn the ball over,
Speaker 2: no real catastrophic plays, like even the sack he took
Speaker 2: was like a half yard behind the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 2: His legs were a big impact in this game. Three
Speaker 2: first downs with scrambles. I would have liked to have
Speaker 2: seen him push the ball down the field a little
Speaker 2: bit more. That was my nitpick. But in Jim Mineral,
Speaker 2: he gave the game what it needed this week and
Speaker 2: he was really, really good. I thought that this was
Speaker 2: the best of Jacoby Brissett in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about it before, but he was exactly
Speaker 1: what they needed him to be. Yeah, he didn't lose
Speaker 1: them the game, and I think that's what you that's
Speaker 1: what really stands out.
Speaker 2: All right, you had one more right, yeah?
Speaker 1: Special teams.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I thought, see this is why I thought
Speaker 2: you were going to take special teams. So I went
Speaker 2: with like, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Special teams. Well, I didn't want to do the thing
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh the defensive sophomores, you know, too
Speaker 1: complicated special teams.
Speaker 2: So it starts.
Speaker 1: It starts with in your head, it starts with del
Speaker 1: Pettis leaving early on the kickoff and you're like, oh boy,
Speaker 1: here we go.
Speaker 2: It's going to be fifteen flags. Yeah.
Speaker 1: After that, masterclass special teams. Master Jeremy Springer excellent in
Speaker 1: every phase, kickoff, kick return, punting, punt returny of the
Speaker 1: long snapper, forcing a fumble. Brendon Schooler was great. Bryce
Speaker 1: bearing are No touchbacks three out of five inside the twenty.
Speaker 1: How nice is it not holding your breath on a
Speaker 1: thirty two yard field goal? Joey Slide Those three for
Speaker 1: three hit some big kicks there late in that game.
Speaker 1: They're if they're gonna win these games, they're gonna need
Speaker 1: to win on the margins. They're going to need better.
Speaker 1: They're gonna need to be better in the parts of
Speaker 1: the game that the teams maybe don't focus on as much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's special teams. They don't win that game without that
Speaker 1: kind of special teams effort, agreed, And if they're gonna
Speaker 1: continue to win games, they need to continue to weigh
Speaker 1: up to play that way on special teams.
Speaker 2: This is a week where I'm gonna allow, without any snark,
Speaker 2: allow you to that sounded like smart to get that
Speaker 2: sound to give your special teams some flowers, Like I'm
Speaker 2: gonna allow you to do it. Brendan schooler twenty two
Speaker 2: miles an hour on the GPS, I mean that's impressive,
Speaker 2: Like that was moving.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: They he's turning into like, you know, baby Matthew Slater right,
Speaker 2: Like he's not Matthew Slater. I No one's Matthew Slater.
Speaker 2: But he's like, you know, in that category of special
Speaker 2: teams aces. Uh, he's he might be an impact player
Speaker 2: in the kicking game for them this year. And then
Speaker 2: you also look at Bill's guy Joe Cardona. How I
Speaker 2: on it right? How funny is that that he forces
Speaker 2: the fumble? Yeah? I mean, look, that's such a big
Speaker 2: part of this win.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: In going back to like the expectations and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, how clean they were in all three phases.
Speaker 2: You know, the penalties were down the big you know
Speaker 2: kind of brain farts, there were a lot of those
Speaker 2: special teams was sound throughout basically besides the Dell Pedica
Speaker 2: jump off sides like that. It was good. It was
Speaker 2: good for that unit. Not gonna lie. All right, let's
Speaker 2: go to the downs. I only have two Patriots downs,
Speaker 2: and then I have a wild card down the I
Speaker 2: have to I almost did scratch.
Speaker 1: I almost did the same thing as you, but I
Speaker 1: figured you were gonna do it for that third, So
Speaker 1: I did. I have two players and then just a
Speaker 1: philosophical thing number one down the left tackles, you can
Speaker 1: just like put them together. I wanted to give Tucks
Speaker 1: a corps for his zone.
Speaker 2: He deserves his own place he played. He played six
Speaker 2: pass plays. He gave up three quarterback pressures in six
Speaker 2: pass plays. Yeah too, the quarter four Vederian Lowe gave
Speaker 2: up three himself. That most of the pressure. Four I
Speaker 2: had him for three. I had him for three quarterback
Speaker 2: hit and two.
Speaker 1: Her next gen had him at four on sixteen.
Speaker 2: Okay, so maybe that's probably we're in the same ballpark.
Speaker 2: Basically half the pressure came from the left tackle position alone.
Speaker 2: In terms of where it was coming from. Trey Hendrickson
Speaker 2: had a huge game. He had his way with those
Speaker 2: two guys. It's going to be a concern moving forward
Speaker 2: to the point where I think we're at the point
Speaker 2: now and I want to say this and just give
Speaker 2: a little bit of leeway to Vidarian low because he
Speaker 2: really hadn't practiced for that.
Speaker 1: The thing I almost didn't want to put lows of
Speaker 1: down because he's hurt. Yeah, he had practice, came in
Speaker 1: and was not a total disaster. Where it's like the fact,
Speaker 1: it goes back to what I said at the beginning,
Speaker 1: highest pressure rate in the league, all but two yards
Speaker 1: on the ground, efrict contact, and you still walked away saying, man,
Speaker 1: that could have been a lot worse right. So that's why,
Speaker 1: like Garian Lowe, it was what it was to me.
Speaker 2: It's just like the number one concern for this entire team.
Speaker 2: And we've been saying this for months, so it's nothing new.
Speaker 2: Is just left tackle like that's it's that spot, whether
Speaker 2: it's low it's a Corps four, it's Wallace, like whoever
Speaker 2: is playing that spot. Every week, it's gonna be the
Speaker 2: other team's top edge rusher against your left tackle is
Speaker 2: going to be a mismatch. And that's the concern level
Speaker 2: that I have there. I was surprised that they didn't
Speaker 2: send a ton of help towards Vederian Lowe. I wonder
Speaker 2: if that chip by the running back in the preseason
Speaker 2: that led to a sack maybe contributed to the fact
Speaker 2: that maybe he doesn't like getting help, you know, like
Speaker 2: maybe that that throws him off his technique a little bit,
Speaker 2: but chipping, putting the tight end over there, putting the
Speaker 2: extra offensive lineman over there, even just like the tight
Speaker 2: end as he goes into the route, just giving a
Speaker 2: little bit of a bump to the pass rusher on
Speaker 2: the way by to try to slow Bowie Maffi down
Speaker 2: or Trey hendrickson down last week could maybe help Adarian
Speaker 2: Low out a little bit. But when you give up
Speaker 2: fifty percent pressure rate, like in terms of the overall
Speaker 2: pressure number for the Patriots, when fifty percent of it
Speaker 2: comes from the left tackle spot, it's got to be
Speaker 2: on the downs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and it's something that there. It's probably gonna
Speaker 1: who didn't. Wasn't there somebody a couple of years ago?
Speaker 1: It would have been last year, because no, two years
Speaker 1: ago we started the show, wasn't there somebody like, Oh
Speaker 1: it was Christian Barmer? Remember we retired him from ups
Speaker 1: because it was just like every every week. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: might end up retiring left tackle from downs at some
Speaker 1: point this season.
Speaker 2: You know, as an offensive line guy, it just I
Speaker 2: can't it just it grinds my gears so.
Speaker 1: Much as somebody and as a guy who believes in
Speaker 1: doing as much as he can to help the quarterback
Speaker 1: above all else, gears too.
Speaker 2: All right, who's your number one for? Okay, Joshua, you're okay,
Speaker 2: I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's not that he get this overall terrible game.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What bugged me is this is a guy that so
Speaker 1: ke on White part of What was so good about
Speaker 1: his game yea was he was able to be impactful
Speaker 1: on first and second down. Maybe could be better against
Speaker 1: the run, but played eighty percent of the snaps and
Speaker 1: didn't look out of place as a three down player.
Speaker 2: If you agree with me on that. Yeah, you got
Speaker 2: to run on a little bit, but it wasn't terrible.
Speaker 1: He didn't look out of place, like did he look
Speaker 1: out of place as a three down guy?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Joshua uch is a player who is here to play
Speaker 1: on third downs? Yeah, he is here to come in
Speaker 1: on third down, pin his ears back and go after
Speaker 1: the quarterback. The very crucial stretch in this game, there's
Speaker 1: back to back third downs where he's one play where
Speaker 1: he blows contained allows Joe Burrow to run out of
Speaker 1: the pocket and convert a third in I think eight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the next third down, so they go. Joe
Speaker 1: Burrow converts it first, second, third and six, josh U
Speaker 1: j jumps off sides and then they get the third one.
Speaker 1: They pick it up on the ground. Can you come
Speaker 1: back for the less if you're josh Uja, come back
Speaker 1: for less money? You're betting on yourself. You know you're
Speaker 1: trying to show off that you can be this high
Speaker 1: level sub rusher, mistakes on third down is the last
Speaker 1: thing you can afford to be doing. So that just
Speaker 1: kind of stood out to me in this game.
Speaker 2: It's fair enough. You know, I had him with three
Speaker 2: hurries in this game, and on one of the sacks
Speaker 2: that was split between Bentley and and uh Keon White,
Speaker 2: it was his pressure that forced the quarterback.
Speaker 1: Up in the box moments too. Was just again for
Speaker 1: a guy that's gonna make his money on third down,
Speaker 1: two negative third downs back to back, that it stood
Speaker 1: out to fair enough. I just think if you take
Speaker 1: him out of the pass rush, it's then it's really
Speaker 1: just Keon White who was getting pressure. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say big like. It's not to say they should
Speaker 1: play him less or anything. I don't mean to say that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that it was an observation I had.
Speaker 2: In the game. Fair enough. I won't go too long
Speaker 2: on this one because my number two down was is
Speaker 2: the downfield passing game that was non existent. I already
Speaker 2: talked about it.
Speaker 1: So you made me feel like I'm reaching for that,
Speaker 1: you're reaching less than I am, or you're reaching more
Speaker 1: than I am. Correct, Okay, all right, so yeah, that's yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I just got to defend who cha little? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: Uh, downfield passing game. When you don't complete a single
Speaker 2: pass over fifteen yards in the air, you're on the
Speaker 2: downs list for me. To me, it was mostly protection,
Speaker 2: but some of it was just Koe Wereset not wanting
Speaker 2: to really test those windows down the field. That's gonna
Speaker 2: have to change. They're gonna have to be willing to
Speaker 2: take some chances moving forward coming out of the half,
Speaker 2: and you just chuck one to Taekwan Thornton without any
Speaker 2: play action or any sort of fake or anything. It's
Speaker 2: just three step, drop, pop up and throw a go ball.
Speaker 2: I just didn't care for that call either, just thought
Speaker 2: that was kind of a waste. They need to find
Speaker 2: some ways to get the downfield passing game going, all right.
Speaker 2: So my third down is kind of along the lines
Speaker 2: with that, and it's the third quarter play calling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They got way too conservative in the third quarter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And some of that I think has to do with
Speaker 1: the offensive line and Cincinnati really started turning the heat
Speaker 1: up on Jacoby Wessett late in the first half, and
Speaker 1: it almost felt like they reacted to that by and look,
Speaker 1: you need to adjust, right, But it almost felt like
Speaker 1: they went too into a shell their first three, so
Speaker 1: that they have this lead at halftime and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, you've got the momentum, like go
Speaker 1: for the kill. Shop.
Speaker 2: Well, that was what I felt like a Taiwan play,
Speaker 2: but it was just a no chance.
Speaker 1: It was a no chance because I think it was
Speaker 1: designed to get the ball out of Ersett's hands so quickly, right.
Speaker 1: I think that was one read because he is Jaalen
Speaker 1: Pulp wide open. On the other side.
Speaker 2: It's probably like a pre snap, like just pick your matchup,
Speaker 2: which which again goes to I think they were nervous
Speaker 2: about the offensive line.
Speaker 1: They got too conservative. They come out of the half
Speaker 1: three and out punt Joe Cardo on a force is
Speaker 1: the fumble, so it's technically a new drive. Right, three
Speaker 1: plays field goal, so it's technically not a three and out,
Speaker 1: but it is, and they get the ball back again
Speaker 1: three play. Their first would went on the books is
Speaker 1: their first three drives of the second half were twenty
Speaker 1: yards on ten plays, and they didn't pick up one
Speaker 1: first down and they had that one quick throat deep
Speaker 1: shot and then they just ran the ball a bunch.
Speaker 1: You have to be more varied than that, especially when
Speaker 1: you have a chance to get some breathing room. That's
Speaker 1: where I would have liked to see them go more
Speaker 1: play action. That sequence bugged me. I was getting ready
Speaker 1: if like the Bengals stormed back to say, like this
Speaker 1: was the turning point. They came out of the locker
Speaker 1: room way too conservative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And I just
Speaker 2: the fumble three, you know, the Cardona forces the fumble,
Speaker 2: like I was hoping we were kind of done with those,
Speaker 2: where like the offense just immediately goes three and out
Speaker 2: after the turnover, Like it would be nice to be
Speaker 2: able to score touchdowns off of those, Like you're in
Speaker 2: plus plus territory, like not just plus territory, you're like
Speaker 2: basically yeah, like you should be able to score a
Speaker 2: touchdown from there. My last down. This is my like
Speaker 2: out of the box one.
Speaker 1: I agree with you on this, and I'm happy you're
Speaker 1: saying this because I thought I was gonna have to
Speaker 1: say it and you were gonna complain.
Speaker 2: It's very rare that I put not just another team's player, yeah,
Speaker 2: but another team's coach on the downs.
Speaker 1: In a coach that comes from the Shanahan McVeigh tree.
Speaker 2: Nonetheless, sort of, I'm not ready to claim him. I'm
Speaker 2: worked for Sean McVeigh for like two years.
Speaker 1: No, I'm sorry. If you're gonna do this, you're gonna do.
Speaker 2: This because he doesn't he doesn't run the system. He
Speaker 2: doesn't run the system.
Speaker 1: He comes from the tree. Evan, this is one of
Speaker 1: your guys.
Speaker 2: Zach Taylor looking at the carr when I say this,
Speaker 2: Zach Taylor, y bum. He was a bum in this game?
Speaker 2: Like what was that from Cincinnati on offense? I thought
Speaker 2: that game plan from Cincinnati offensively was terrible, like absolutely awful.
Speaker 2: And I don't usually like to like talk like this,
Speaker 2: but it just grinds my gears when you have that
Speaker 2: much talent on the offensive side of the ball and
Speaker 2: you do nothing with it. Just first of all, you
Speaker 2: don't have t Higgins. Jamar Chase like supposedly has like
Speaker 2: food poisoning or something like that, and is coming off
Speaker 2: the hold in you ran the ball twelve times, bro, Like.
Speaker 1: What do you do? Bro?
Speaker 2: The team is the Patriots are sitting in cover two,
Speaker 2: They're sitting in too high safety. Shew, They're begging you
Speaker 2: to run the ball. They're begging you. You're just asking
Speaker 2: you to run the ball. Zack Moss had six carries
Speaker 2: into light boxes in this game, which is six defenders
Speaker 2: or less in the box. He had thirty yards. He
Speaker 2: was averaging five yards of carry against the Patriots light boxes.
Speaker 2: You only ran it twelve times, Zach Taylor? What are
Speaker 2: you doing? I say this all the time when I
Speaker 2: watch the Bengals offense. I think their offense is rudimentary,
Speaker 2: and I think their scheme is terrible. Like they don't
Speaker 2: do anything their gun, their three receiver. They run like
Speaker 2: a couple of our you know, RPOs here and there.
Speaker 2: And then it's just Joe Burrow cook and like save me,
Speaker 2: you know, like be be my merchant, Joe Burrow. Zach Taylor,
Speaker 2: I think is the most overrated coach in the league
Speaker 2: on a good team.
Speaker 1: And and by the way, by the way, like the
Speaker 1: game management was bad too. Yeah, that weird challenge that
Speaker 1: he won but should have lost. The time out the
Speaker 1: special teams wasn't good. Why why is Charlie Jones returning
Speaker 1: all these punts? Yeah, tell him to fair catch it.
Speaker 1: Tell them to fair catch it or put somebody else
Speaker 1: in there. But Evan, this is this is what the
Speaker 1: coaches from that tree do their heads against. They are arrogant,
Speaker 1: their heads against the wall until it works, because they
Speaker 1: just think they're so smart that it has to work eventually.
Speaker 1: I think he is the whole thing when he got
Speaker 1: highed and remember was oh yeah, because.
Speaker 2: He doesn't but he doesn't run that system. He runs
Speaker 2: a shotgun three receiver spread system in Cincinnati, basically like
Speaker 2: they think the core philosophies.
Speaker 1: He comes from that tree.
Speaker 2: It's not though, he doesn't run that offense like they
Speaker 2: run the Cincinnati Bengals. It's a Tiger. They are the
Speaker 2: Cincinnati Tigers because they try to run what LSU runs.
Speaker 2: Right for Burrow got he is he in the Sean
Speaker 2: McVay coaching tree, Yes or no? He coached under Sean mcgiy,
Speaker 2: so yes, so yes, so he's in the tree. They
Speaker 2: don't run the system.
Speaker 1: Look, I'll say this, it don't run the same, whether
Speaker 1: it be game planning, whether it be in game. But
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the end game decision making, which he
Speaker 1: definitely didn't learn under Sean McVay because they don't do that.
Speaker 1: I don't mean this to disparage draw in Mayo. I
Speaker 1: really don't, but this is a guy coaching head coaching
Speaker 1: an NFL game for the first time. It's just what
Speaker 1: anybody rookies. We say this all the time with rookies,
Speaker 1: like a rookie playing in his game for the first time,
Speaker 1: like you expect some growing pains. That's the thing that's veteran.
Speaker 1: Being a veteran should be an advantage. Zach Taylor and
Speaker 1: his staff got absolutely pantsed by what was largely a
Speaker 1: first time coaching staff. The head coach is a first
Speaker 1: time head coach. Two of the three coordinators are first
Speaker 1: time coordinators at least at the NFL level. Wow Springer,
Speaker 1: thank you. Jee Springer was a especially cos coordinator the
Speaker 1: college level, but two of the coordinators were first time
Speaker 1: coordinators at the NFL level. And Alex van pel is
Speaker 1: a first time true first time play caller. He'd done
Speaker 1: it before, but like, really, it being his show. You
Speaker 1: should not get out coached in that situation. And that's
Speaker 1: not to say that's not to say I think lesser
Speaker 1: than of the Patriot staff, but it's like any rookies.
Speaker 1: You let somebody doing something for the first time pants you.
Speaker 1: That is a terrible terrible.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. Taylor should be on the hot seat.
Speaker 2: On the hot seat, Zach Taylor. When the defense is
Speaker 2: playing soft zone the entire game, put the damn quarterback
Speaker 2: under center and run the goddamn ball like it's it's
Speaker 2: really not rocket science. Like I just I find it
Speaker 2: so unbelievably crazy that they could see the way that
Speaker 2: the Patriots are playing defense in this game and run
Speaker 2: the ball twelve times?
Speaker 1: Is he the hottest seat in the NFL coming out
Speaker 1: of Week one?
Speaker 2: Maybe? Like I'm sure that the Bengals would probably say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we didn't have t Higgins.
Speaker 1: And excuse objectively, who's the hot Who's the hottest seat
Speaker 1: coming out of week one? I'll give you a couple
Speaker 1: is he Does he have a hotter seat than Robert saw.
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I think Robert Saal has a hotter seat.
Speaker 1: There's people saying like that's the that's the sneaky bet
Speaker 1: for like the first coach fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if it doesn't work now, then Robert sala
Speaker 2: is out.
Speaker 1: Brian Daball.
Speaker 2: Maybe because I think the GM gets fired before Dable does,
Speaker 2: like dabel might be able to survive there through the GM. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, there's another one, who was it? I forget.
Speaker 2: Anyway freaking Zach Taylor twelve. Oh he won, But Mike McDaniel,
Speaker 2: I can see why he's he's there's some skeptics because
Speaker 2: of the lack of playoff.
Speaker 1: It's not his seat's not harder than than than Taylor.
Speaker 1: I guess that's that's the wrong way to bring it up.
Speaker 1: But he does a little bit of hot you know,
Speaker 1: like in a car, there's some of the some of
Speaker 1: the nice cars have like the different levels of seat warmer.
Speaker 1: It's like one, two three, he's on like level one.
Speaker 1: It's on the seat warmers on.
Speaker 2: It's not on the high side the lights on, but
Speaker 2: it's not all the way on. I hear you, all right,
Speaker 2: I'm done with picking on Zach Taylor. I just I
Speaker 2: find it. One of my least favorite things about coaches
Speaker 2: in general are guys that just refuse to see the
Speaker 2: forest for the trees, Like it's just right in front
Speaker 2: of you and you're just so stubborn and you just
Speaker 2: run what you run, and that's it.
Speaker 1: Well, idolizing the Shanahan tree is.
Speaker 2: Wild, because I think you're you're wrong when it comes
Speaker 2: to this element of the Shanahan tree. I think the
Speaker 2: Shanahan tree adjusts.
Speaker 1: All the time we've Evan, We've talked about this, this
Speaker 1: is what they do.
Speaker 2: I can't sit here and tell you that, like what
Speaker 2: their pass run splits and all that kind I'm talking
Speaker 2: about Schematically. If a team came out and played the
Speaker 2: forty nine Ers the way the Patriots played the Bengals,
Speaker 2: Kyle Shanahan would have run the ball forty times. He
Speaker 2: did it in the in the NFC Championship game against
Speaker 2: the Packers with Jimmy g like that, Like he would
Speaker 2: have just ran the ball. If you're going to play
Speaker 2: that type of coverage against us, we're gonna run the ball.
Speaker 1: I mean they Okay, they adjust more than that. I'll
Speaker 1: give you credit for that, but they don't they they
Speaker 1: He's throwing the ball at Brock Party up two scores
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter Super Bowl. That's not adjusting. Is
Speaker 1: banging your head against the wall, blinders on. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do what.
Speaker 2: We don't need to get bogged down by this argument again.
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Speaker 2: the New England Patriots. That was a wordy wordy read
Speaker 2: Morrell like they like they could. I mean, what are
Speaker 2: we doing here? Kenny? You know all those people upstairs? Yeah, Kristen,
Speaker 2: blame her. All right, let's go to the phone lines.
Speaker 2: I know you guys have been waiting on for a
Speaker 2: long time. So if Sean is in Vancouver, if you're
Speaker 2: still there, you're on. What's up Sean?
Speaker 5: Heyvan?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how you.
Speaker 2: Thanks Sean, No.
Speaker 3: Problem now. I was really impressed by the Patriots win
Speaker 3: and I know, yeah that that's crazy how it happened,
Speaker 3: and it's really not something that we can count on
Speaker 3: as there was so much going on in terms of
Speaker 3: how everything went. My right, and you can't have that
Speaker 3: as a formula to consistently win. However, what I really
Speaker 3: did like was the Patriot's Way. And I know some
Speaker 3: people are skeptical about the Patriot's Way in terms of
Speaker 3: what that means, but to me, it means do your job,
Speaker 3: which is focusing on playing your position and being your
Speaker 3: best at your ability and limiting errors. You know, you
Speaker 3: trust your teammates to do the same. It takes discipline,
Speaker 3: trust patients, and that play of that game on Sunday
Speaker 3: is a great example of that. So I'm happy that
Speaker 3: the Patriot's Way is still alive and well in New England.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for the call, Sean. I think it's a
Speaker 2: good point. I You know, this is something that Edelman
Speaker 2: mentioned too, was that it's a lot of the same messaging,
Speaker 2: it's just coming from a different messenger. Yeah, and sometimes
Speaker 2: that's all it needs to be.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Bill Belichick was the greatest head coach of all time,
Speaker 2: Like you don't need to go into it and completely
Speaker 2: change his entire program, and Girodmeo being here kept a
Speaker 2: lot of the things that he liked and then maybe
Speaker 2: changed or slightly tweaked some of the things that he
Speaker 2: felt like he didn't like and so far one weekend,
Speaker 2: it seems like that was sort of a Belichick coach
Speaker 2: to win, you know, fundamentally sound, No, don't hurt yourself,
Speaker 2: run the football, play great defense. Like a lot of
Speaker 2: those things are what Bill has been going for, frankly
Speaker 2: for the last couple of years, and at times in
Speaker 2: twenty one and twenty two they got to it, but
Speaker 2: it obviously wasn't consistent enough. I understand where he's coming
Speaker 2: from that it still did feel a little bit Bill
Speaker 2: like Belichick.
Speaker 1: In Yeah, I think there was definitely an emphasis on
Speaker 1: that that do your job thing, and it never felt
Speaker 1: like there were times where guys were trying to do
Speaker 1: more than they needed to do. Ye, And that's encouraging
Speaker 1: because on a team like this, there's definitely you can
Speaker 1: see how there'd be be a lean towards that, and
Speaker 1: you didn't see that in this game.
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely, all right, Patty is an aguam. What's up? Patty?
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 4: Guys?
Speaker 6: You want to take doing great man? A couple of questions,
Speaker 6: as always, do you think first questions and for the
Speaker 6: both of you guys, both questions, do you think we
Speaker 6: run a similar game plan that we ran last week,
Speaker 6: with the exception of maybe opening up the passing game
Speaker 6: just a little bit more to try and keep them
Speaker 6: a little bit more honest, because I do think honestly
Speaker 6: we can we can scheme up and run against the
Speaker 6: Seattle defense. And which of the three cornerbacks Jonathan Jones,
Speaker 6: Marcus Jones, Christian Gonzales, which one of those three guys
Speaker 6: do you think draws the hard hardest matchup this week?
Speaker 6: And I'll take it off air, and as always.
Speaker 1: You guys are the best.
Speaker 2: Thanks, yeah, thanks Patty? All right? Who who draws you
Speaker 2: in the receiver? In the receivers for Seattle Patriots corners?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's pretty straightforward. I think Gonzales gets
Speaker 1: DK metcalfs dying over here. You get Gonzalez and DK
Speaker 1: metcalf yep, right. You know, athletics is not leticism. John Jones,
Speaker 1: Tyler Lockett, two veterans, quick guys. That makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. And I think you throw Marcus Jones or
Speaker 1: whoever in the slot on Jackson Smith and Jigbo. If
Speaker 1: JSN really starts to beat you up, maybe move John
Speaker 1: Jones in the slot and throw Alex Austin or Marco
Speaker 1: Wilson un locket with help over the top. But I
Speaker 1: think this one's actually pretty straightforward. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: too much to get into here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the only thing that you worry about a little
Speaker 2: bit is is Marcus Jones, like Jackson Smith and Jibus
Speaker 2: a little bit thicker and bigger than Marcus Jones. We
Speaker 2: worry a little bit about that. But Yoshiva's he did
Speaker 2: a pretty good job against Yeshiva's considering the height difference
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, So maybe it's not that big
Speaker 2: of a deal to the first one. I think it
Speaker 2: is a kind of a similar game plan because the
Speaker 2: one thing you don't want to do with this McDaniel's
Speaker 2: scheme or McDonald excuse me, I said McDaniel McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, we bring the fullback back this week, let's
Speaker 1: go right.
Speaker 2: I wish the one thing that you don't want to
Speaker 2: do with this McDonald's scheme is to get is get
Speaker 2: into passing situations and just allow him to unleash this
Speaker 2: pressure package of his. Is the darling of the leagues.
Speaker 2: You don't you got to stay out a third and long.
Speaker 2: You have to stay out of like being behind on
Speaker 2: the scoreboard big that you're an obvious pass, you have
Speaker 2: to be able to stay ahead of the chains like
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. It still qualifies here. So
Speaker 2: I would say Downhill run game probably better off that
Speaker 2: way too, because they are a pretty fast and athletic
Speaker 2: defense in Seattle. I don't necessarily think that they should
Speaker 2: be going sideline to sideline against this team. I don't
Speaker 2: think that's how you beat them. I think you go
Speaker 2: right at them again, So pretty similar Again, like I
Speaker 2: said earlier, I hope the play action passing game is
Speaker 2: a little bit more you know, fruitful this week. And
Speaker 2: the one thing that might be beneficial to them is
Speaker 2: this is a very very zone heavy system. They play
Speaker 2: a ton of zone coverage in this defense. So usually
Speaker 2: with play action you think the zone stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: you're pulling guys, guys like in the middle of the
Speaker 2: field now have run fits and they have zone responsibilities.
Speaker 2: So if you put those guys in conflict, then you
Speaker 2: can play games with them in the play action passing
Speaker 2: game and get that thing going. So that's that's the
Speaker 2: hope here. But I I think from a game plan perspective, offensively,
Speaker 2: it kind of stays the same. I would run right
Speaker 2: at him again, because I you know, as good as
Speaker 2: Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy are, those guys are downhill players,
Speaker 2: like they're aggressive gap shooters there. I don't necessarily look
Speaker 2: at those guys as like Devon Godshaw's right, like who
Speaker 2: You're just gonna have a tough time moving on the interior.
Speaker 2: Do you do you think that they do anything differently offensively?
Speaker 2: Maybe mix in some more play action. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: but nothing.
Speaker 1: You're not going to reinvent the wheel. I mean that
Speaker 1: you're kind of limited in terms of what personnel is.
Speaker 1: So I don't think we're gonna see anything that's that
Speaker 1: much of a departure.
Speaker 2: Agreed, all right, Kendall is in North Carolina. It's up Kendall.
Speaker 5: On guys. Hey, Hey, I just want to know what's
Speaker 5: your overlot, Like, what is your negative about any weak
Speaker 5: I know you already did your film work on them. Well,
Speaker 5: I'm not sure if you've already completed were the early
Speaker 5: weaknesses that you see in Seattle defense?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, thanks for the call, Candle, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: So I will start with the Seahawks defense because that's
Speaker 2: what we were just talking about. I think It's what
Speaker 2: I just mentioned with them in terms of weakness is
Speaker 2: Byron Murphy and Leonard Williams and Hankins, and those guys
Speaker 2: in the middle are really good pass rushing players, especially
Speaker 2: Williams and Murphy. But again, I Murphy's like in that
Speaker 2: Aaron Donald type mold, but he's obviously not Aaron freaking Donald.
Speaker 2: So like, if there's one thing that you could probably
Speaker 2: do is run at him at this stage of his career.
Speaker 2: So I would probably get downhill on this team defensively
Speaker 2: or Patriots offense their defense because of that, I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily look at their lineup in their linebackers either and say,
Speaker 2: those guys are are Juwan Bentley's and Godshaws and like
Speaker 2: players that you're you don't want to run over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you can start running the ball successfully,
Speaker 1: it kind of forces some of those blitzers to hesitate.
Speaker 1: We talked about you talked about earlier, how you know
Speaker 1: these blitzer are gonna be coming from all over and
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know who they're bringing. If the run becomes
Speaker 1: a real threat, you kind of have to hesitate before
Speaker 1: really going all in after the quarterback. So I'm with you.
Speaker 1: I think establishing the run early is important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So offensively for the Seahawks. Defensively for the Patriots,
Speaker 2: their offensive line also has some concerns and some issues. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Charles Cross had a really nice debut last week at
Speaker 2: left tackle. He's a really good run blocker and blocker
Speaker 2: in space, like super athletic guy, but can be had
Speaker 2: in pass rush or pass protection bite with power, Like
Speaker 2: if you want to put Keon White over him and
Speaker 2: just have him bull rush him into the pocket, there's
Speaker 2: a chance that you can dent the pocket that way.
Speaker 2: And at right tackle, George Fan, I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: he's gonna play or not. He was a DNP in
Speaker 2: practice yesterday, so they could be on a backup right tackle.
Speaker 1: Both their guards are hurt too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have some concerns on the offensive line, just
Speaker 2: like the Patriots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I to me how they use key On what
Speaker 1: is interesting? Like you said, do you put him on
Speaker 1: the blind side? Do you put him up against Charles
Speaker 1: Cross and just kind of try to put him in
Speaker 1: bully him. Well, I just be like, do you put
Speaker 1: Keon White in the spot where he's gonna be most effective?
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is obviously your best rusher
Speaker 1: on the blind side quarterback can't see him coming? Or
Speaker 1: do you use Keon White to match a punt and
Speaker 1: oh they have a backup right tackle and oh their
Speaker 1: guards are banged up? Right do you put it? And
Speaker 1: I think they'll do a little bit of everything. I
Speaker 1: think to move around. But how do you approach Keon
Speaker 1: White's usage in this game? Where do you put him?
Speaker 1: I think is the big question there. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's necessarily a wrong answer, it's just is
Speaker 1: it is it good or is it better how you're
Speaker 1: using him?
Speaker 2: Yeah, last thing on their weaknesses, And I also want
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about their strains to their offense.
Speaker 2: Because we talked about the defense the pressure package. We
Speaker 2: can talk about that a little bit too. But I
Speaker 2: think there's like once or I think Geno has come
Speaker 2: a long way. Like Gino's a much better player than
Speaker 2: he used to be. It's it's impressive how far he's
Speaker 2: come as a passer from the pocket compared to what
Speaker 2: he was. And he also had like a thirty yard
Speaker 2: touchdown run in the game last week, just like took
Speaker 2: off up the middle of the field and ran like
Speaker 2: nineteen miles an hour. I think he almost touched on
Speaker 2: the GPS really fast player in the open field there.
Speaker 2: There's once or twice a game. He's still gonna give
Speaker 2: you a chance to take the ball away. He's gonna
Speaker 2: make some aggressive throws down the field where he trusts
Speaker 2: his arm a little bit too much, and he's got
Speaker 2: a little bit of that arm arrogance going on like
Speaker 2: we talk about with Josh Allen, and you can turn
Speaker 2: him over a little bit in that respect. He turned
Speaker 2: the ball over on their first possession of the game
Speaker 2: last week, like threw the ball right to a guy,
Speaker 2: you know, arm punted style, basically right to somebody there's
Speaker 2: some pressure in the pocket. But taking advantage of those
Speaker 2: opportunities is going to be big because if you're the
Speaker 2: team like the Patriots, you gotta steal possessions, right, you
Speaker 2: have to find ways to steal possessions. So where do
Speaker 2: you see, you know, in terms of what stood out
Speaker 2: to you in Week one with Seattle? Offensively?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so offense, So a couple things you mentioned the
Speaker 1: early interception, right, yeah, not a group that's going to
Speaker 1: go down quietly. Just big picture kind of saw us
Speaker 1: last week with Cincinnati, like didn't they feel like discouraged
Speaker 1: by the end of the game, and maybe some of that.
Speaker 1: I think Burrow was the wrist was a thing mentally.
Speaker 2: Say the water bottle thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So here's real quick on Joe Burrow. I see
Speaker 1: a lot of people using this game as like an
Speaker 1: indictment that Burrow is not actually a top five quarterback
Speaker 1: in the league. I'm not willing to all that far.
Speaker 1: But if I'm the Bengals, I'm calling a sports psychologist.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he's healthy.
Speaker 1: I think he is healthy. I don't think he thinks
Speaker 1: he's healthy.
Speaker 2: So I was talking to Trags. Yeah, are our good
Speaker 2: friend Trags before the game on Sunday. Yeah, And we
Speaker 2: were just running through both teams. You know what do
Speaker 2: you see? What you see? And I asked him about
Speaker 2: Burrow and Trags nailed it per usual, said that in
Speaker 2: the middle of the field, Burrow looks like Burrow, like
Speaker 2: he can still throw the ball through the middle of
Speaker 2: the field, anticipate throws, all that kind of stuff like
Speaker 2: he always has. But in camp he was not having
Speaker 2: He was having some issues throwing the ball outside the numbers.
Speaker 2: And I felt like that really reared its head in
Speaker 2: the game, like he had some opportunities, some one on
Speaker 2: one opportunities outside the numbers that old Joe Burrow I
Speaker 2: feel like would have just ripped it and he didn't.
Speaker 1: Well that's why again I think he needs a sports psychologist.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a confidence thing, because the water
Speaker 1: bottle was not that heavy, Like that's a mental thing,
Speaker 1: that's not a physical thing. If your wrist was really
Speaker 1: that much of an issue, he like he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to play, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think he needs sports like anyway, back to the original point, Yes,
Speaker 1: it did feel like the Bengals, maybe following the lead
Speaker 1: of their quarterback late in that game, got sort of
Speaker 1: just all right, well you know this else take him
Speaker 1: to exactly, you're not gonna be able to. You might
Speaker 1: you can try to take the Seahawks the hill. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say you can't. But this is a team
Speaker 1: that's gonna play a sixty minute game. And I think
Speaker 1: some of that was they had a little bit of
Speaker 1: what the Patriots at first time head coach like, they're
Speaker 1: playing for this guy, They're trying to get him going.
Speaker 1: I think Gino has tremendous buy in there, much like
Speaker 1: Jacoby does here agreed, this is not a unit that
Speaker 1: the Patriots punched the Bengals in the mouth, and the
Speaker 1: Bengals stumbled, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You're not.
Speaker 1: You're gonna punt. If they punched Seattle in the mouth,
Speaker 1: Sew's gonna get back up and gonna need to punch
Speaker 1: him again and again and again. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1: The other thing that sitt out to me Kenneth Walker.
Speaker 1: I am so glad gerrowd Mao and von Gotscha and
Speaker 1: all these other guys have talked about how underrated Kenneth
Speaker 1: Walker is this week because they are right. I love
Speaker 1: this guy coming out of Michigan State. I was really
Speaker 1: high on him, and he is such a good modern
Speaker 1: NFL back. And what I mean by there's two kinds
Speaker 1: of modern NFL backs. There's the one that you like,
Speaker 1: which is basically a receiver out of backfield, one of
Speaker 1: the best players in and those guys well McCaffrey Kamara, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could even take it to a level like the
Speaker 1: guys like James White, right, like a modern back, a
Speaker 1: guy that can be a factor in the passing game.
Speaker 1: The other the other thing I think of when I
Speaker 1: think of modern back, are you two twenty five, two
Speaker 1: thirty with wiggle, because if you're a speedster but you're
Speaker 1: not like one of these pass catchers, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to be sustainably good in the NFL because the physical
Speaker 1: toll with these bigger, faster, stronger defenders. It just it's
Speaker 1: a lot harder to be impactful like that if you're
Speaker 1: not also contributing the passing game. There's also guys that
Speaker 1: are like two thirty, but they're just two thirty and
Speaker 1: they fall forward like they don't like, are you a
Speaker 1: guy that Bjeon Robinson, Well, he contributes to the passing game,
Speaker 1: but you get what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, Actually that's
Speaker 1: what it is, is Jamier games. B Jeon Robinson one
Speaker 1: of the two right. Kenneth Walker is the guy that
Speaker 1: I think he's like two twenty six to twenty seven
Speaker 1: something like that. You wouldn't know it by the way
Speaker 1: he plays, kind of like we saw with Remandre. He
Speaker 1: can run around guys just as well as he can
Speaker 1: run through them. Those guys are a freaking headache because
Speaker 1: small guy, you kind of know what the point of attack,
Speaker 1: all right, as long as I don't let him get
Speaker 1: outside my frame, I'm gonna be able to take him down.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna put much of a fight. Big guy,
Speaker 1: you know, is gonna hurt. But if I stand in
Speaker 1: front of him, I'm gonna tackle him. Kenneth Walker can
Speaker 1: do so many different things to you with the point
Speaker 1: of attack. It really makes him a nightmare to go
Speaker 1: up again. So we can talk about DK metcalf a lot.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows how I think about about him future Patriot
Speaker 1: DK metcalf right ideally, Yeah, but the way Kenneth Walker
Speaker 1: can just exerts actual he's listed at two fifteen. Wow,
Speaker 1: I thought he's bigger than that. Still big, but he
Speaker 1: runs much bigger now, which kind of my point. The
Speaker 1: way he can exert force on a defense and put
Speaker 1: a defender in conflict at the point of attack makes
Speaker 1: him a really dangerous player to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's stick with the running game because I
Speaker 2: think it's a good point. First of all, probably one
Speaker 2: of the biggest X factors of this game is Kenneth
Speaker 2: Walker's health.
Speaker 1: Like Kenneth that's a good point. He didn't practice.
Speaker 2: If Kenth Walker doesn't play in this game, it's huge
Speaker 2: for the Patriots. Like I would say, potentially result changed
Speaker 2: almost as big as t Higgins being out, if not
Speaker 2: bigger with the Bengals.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a good comparison.
Speaker 2: I don't think Zach Charbonnet is as good of a player,
Speaker 2: like even close, So I think it would be really
Speaker 2: massive if Kenneth Walker is out on Sunday. One of
Speaker 2: the things that really stood out to me that I
Speaker 2: thought was impressive with the Seahawks film watching their tape
Speaker 2: last week against Denver was how well Walker ran and
Speaker 2: how well Ryan Grubb, their offensive coordinator, is one of
Speaker 2: your guys is from wat University Washington College. Oh see
Speaker 2: how well he designed a run game. On top of
Speaker 2: that we just talked about earlier, I had my rant
Speaker 2: about Zach Taylor not running the ball against the Patriots
Speaker 2: soft zones. The Broncos played the exact same type of
Speaker 2: coverage as the Patriots played similar type of coverage, I
Speaker 2: should say, as the Patriots played against the Seahawks last week.
Speaker 2: The Broncos game plan was, it's not gonna be Metcalf,
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be Jsn, it's not gonna be Tyler Lockett.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be the run game. It's gonna be Gino.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be something else. They really held Dk Metcalf
Speaker 2: under wraps. Now, a lot of that was Patrick Surtan,
Speaker 2: who was a stud. But what you're kind of hoping,
Speaker 2: Christians Alls is that kind of play. So just a
Speaker 2: quick aside. I was talking to Christian Gonzalez about this
Speaker 2: the other day. He said that the number one corner
Speaker 2: that he watches in the league is Certain. He said
Speaker 2: that that's like his his idol, Like he's that's the
Speaker 2: guy he models his game. Makes sense. Anyways, the run
Speaker 2: game for Seattle, I was really impressed with Ryan Grubb
Speaker 2: and his scheme. In the run game. They run a
Speaker 2: lot of bells and whistles, like all the things I
Speaker 2: was talking about the Patriots didn't do last week. Seattle
Speaker 2: was doing all of them, like shift here, shift there,
Speaker 2: motion this guy, Yeah, bring the tight end into motion, right,
Speaker 2: So when you bring the tight end and you start
Speaker 2: the tight end early into his block and then it
Speaker 2: allows him to kick out with more force and things
Speaker 2: like that, and changing the strength of the formations with shifts,
Speaker 2: like they shifted ten times in this game. That was
Speaker 2: the highest amount in the league. Last week, Washington's offense
Speaker 2: was was a big shifting offense. They did that a
Speaker 2: ton with the Huskies as well. It's a big hallmark
Speaker 2: of this system is how much they motion and shift
Speaker 2: pre snap. So they do it with a purpose though,
Speaker 2: like they're gonna shift guys to change up and open
Speaker 2: up holes in the run game, or they're gonna motion
Speaker 2: guys to get guys into their blocks with heads of
Speaker 2: steam and things like that. They do it really nice
Speaker 2: job in the running game. And if you watch that tape,
Speaker 2: Denver is a lot of six man in the box.
Speaker 2: They're a lot too high. They're just worried about the
Speaker 2: passing game and stopping the explosive plays through the air,
Speaker 2: and the Seahawks carved them up on the ground, absolutely
Speaker 2: carved him up. So if you're the Patriots, I look
Speaker 2: at this run game from Seattle, because when I think
Speaker 2: of Seattle, I'm sure you think the same thing. We
Speaker 2: both love DK. You think DK, you think Lockett, you
Speaker 2: think JSN. When I turned on this film against Denver,
Speaker 2: I was thinking Kenneth Walker. I was like, this was
Speaker 2: a Kenneth Walker game. They'll run the ball if the
Speaker 2: Patriots play the same brand of defense they did against Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: So I'm interested to see what DeMarcus Covington does this
Speaker 2: time around, because there's a different game plan. It's a
Speaker 2: different beast that they're going up against, and this is
Speaker 2: a team that will run the ball unlike Zach Taylor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's an offense. Defensively, it's McDonald like, this pressure
Speaker 2: scheme is becoming the invoke thing I know Andrew Kallen
Speaker 2: had in the Herald today. The Patriots are even trying
Speaker 2: to take some things from it. They they are running
Speaker 2: the IT scheme defensively in the league right now. What
Speaker 2: you're gonna see a lot of is you're gonna see
Speaker 2: a lot of multiple pass rush pass rush threats up
Speaker 2: on the line of scrimmage. Once the ball is snapped,
Speaker 2: who's coming and who's going? Right Like, they're gonna bring
Speaker 2: different guys from different places. They're unknown rushers, as girod
Speaker 2: BeO calls them. You don't know who the four guys
Speaker 2: are gonna come and who are the four guys that
Speaker 2: are gonna drop. But they're gonna get to a four
Speaker 2: man rush. They don't bring a lot of extra pressure.
Speaker 2: Often it's usually four or five guys. You just don't
Speaker 2: know where those four or five guys are coming from.
Speaker 2: It's extremely disguised heavy, it's extremely difficult to decipher pre snap.
Speaker 2: It's a very very difficult attack based system to run against.
Speaker 1: And that to me is why you have to establish
Speaker 1: the run. Yea, nothing will up because you have to
Speaker 1: do against this group. They already have the reason not
Speaker 1: everybody runs. That is it's a lot easier said than done.
Speaker 1: It's a big mental task for not just the guys
Speaker 1: that are rushing, but all eleven players on the defense.
Speaker 1: So they're already thinking about a lot. If you can
Speaker 1: start using misdirection, motion, play action, just running the ball
Speaker 1: to offset the timing where they now have to you know,
Speaker 1: the run fit has to be just as much at
Speaker 1: the front of the mind as the passing down responsibility,
Speaker 1: whether it's rushing or covering that extra quarter second they
Speaker 1: have to think, and you give them something extra to
Speaker 1: think about can make all the difference. So I think
Speaker 1: for the Patriots about establishing the run and just even
Speaker 1: things as simple as counters or draws, just anything that
Speaker 1: upsets the timing and doesn't make it a black and
Speaker 1: white picture is gonna help this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So McDonald is from the wink Martindale tree, but
Speaker 2: he doesn't bring as much like Wink Martin dud just blitzes.
Speaker 1: Wink Martindale had a rough week last I know, did
Speaker 1: you watch that. When you watch that in Fi Brewery,
Speaker 1: you your guy Sarks. The Sarkisia put Wink Martindale in
Speaker 1: an absolute blender. So Wink Martindale blitzes like just pure,
Speaker 1: we're bringing more guys than you have to block. McDonald
Speaker 1: has sort of taken that to the next level where
Speaker 1: it's we're gonna simulate that you were bringing more guys
Speaker 1: and you're gonna block, but we're actually gonna just bring
Speaker 1: four guys. It's just that you just can't decipher which
Speaker 1: for it is gonna be. So I look at Layden Robinson,
Speaker 1: I look at Michael Jordan, like two guys. Jordan's a
Speaker 1: little bit more experienced, obviously had some experience in the league.
Speaker 1: They're gonna play some freaking mind games with Leyden Robinson.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that right now. Yeah, you know, his.
Speaker 2: Head's gonna be in an absolute blender. So this is
Speaker 2: a big week for David Andrews, It's a big week
Speaker 2: for Jacoby. Like those guys need to know when they're hot,
Speaker 2: they need to know, you know, where the lines pointed
Speaker 2: needs to be correct, and basically, Jacoby, it's kind of
Speaker 2: on him, like if you point the line in a
Speaker 2: certain way and you know this guy's the mic, and
Speaker 2: you know that the line is responsible for one, two, three, four,
Speaker 2: if five comes, you need to know that you're hot
Speaker 2: and the ball needs to come out.
Speaker 3: You know that.
Speaker 2: That's a big part of his game plan this week.
Speaker 2: The good news because it's daunting to go up against.
Speaker 2: It's a scary defense to go up against. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: good news is a VP again week two of this
Speaker 2: has a lot of experience against this defense. You know,
Speaker 2: he coached against Baltimore for years with the Cleveland Browns,
Speaker 2: coached against McDonald's you know, four or five times with
Speaker 2: the Cleveland Browns. So he has the he knows what's coming,
Speaker 2: Like he understands what's coming in this game. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be an interesting test for the offensive line. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of different moving parts here. I want to do
Speaker 2: key matchups. Let's what do you got? Number one?
Speaker 1: So we already kind of talked about it. Christians also
Speaker 1: and DK metcalf. Yeah, and not even necessarily like what
Speaker 1: obviously means a lot for this game, but also just
Speaker 1: what a sign it would be about Gonzales going forward
Speaker 1: if he comes out and just has another one of
Speaker 1: these performances against DK Metcalf. You know, I I think
Speaker 1: he'll travel with him a good amount just based off
Speaker 1: what we saw last week. Is kind of why I'm
Speaker 1: projecting that. But yeah, that's that, that's my number one
Speaker 1: match we're looking forward. Yeah, so I definitely had that
Speaker 1: one too.
Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing for Gonzo so I wrote
Speaker 2: down two certans numbers here for a second. So he
Speaker 2: went against DK for twenty four routes, eleven of them
Speaker 2: in man coverage, and gave up three for twenty nine.
Speaker 2: So that's pretty darn good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The biggest thing to me with Gonzo at this matchup
Speaker 2: is that DK is such a freaking beast right like,
Speaker 2: so he can stick with him speed for speed. I
Speaker 2: have no doubt about that. This is a tough matchup
Speaker 2: for him in terms of physicality. I remember us talking
Speaker 2: about this with AJ Brown a little bit too, like
Speaker 2: this is a physical specimen. So Gonzalez holding his water
Speaker 2: against DK Metcalf is gonna be tough, and not just
Speaker 2: in the route, but he is going to catch one
Speaker 2: or two like tackling him. Yeah, yep, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: All right, So my other two are on the offensive
Speaker 2: line for the Patriots, you know, for a good reason. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Vederian Lowe versus Boie Mafy, I think it's a huge mismatch.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: Mafi had nine quarterback pressures last week. It was third
Speaker 2: most in the league behind I think it was like
Speaker 2: Miles Garrett and Max Crosby, like two of the most
Speaker 2: guy was awesome, maybe was Micah you know what, really
Speaker 2: good guys, right, that's the point. Also had a TfL
Speaker 2: in the run game too, MafA. He was kind of
Speaker 2: like ther Keon White. Yeah, this year where he was
Speaker 2: a raw player. We've talked about him in the draft.
Speaker 2: I go that for a fact. I think one of
Speaker 2: our mock draft simulators we actually took him for the
Speaker 2: Patriots at the end of the first round. He's definitely
Speaker 2: one of those guys that was a little bit raw
Speaker 2: coming out of college. This is like raw, toolsy, physical guy,
Speaker 2: just like Keon. And it took him a couple of years,
Speaker 2: but last year the light started to go on. This
Speaker 2: is year three for him. Now it started to come
Speaker 2: on a little bit last year and now it seems
Speaker 2: like it's fully on in year three to start year three,
Speaker 2: so he's gonna be up against Vidarien Lowe. He likes
Speaker 2: to run, they like to rush him off the left side,
Speaker 2: and he's extremely explosive, excellent first step, good length to
Speaker 2: him as well. But unlike Keon, like he's not a
Speaker 2: bull rusher necessarily. He is a first step demon off
Speaker 2: the edge, but with some power. So i'd say it
Speaker 2: like almost like a mix between Kean White and Joshua Ucha.
Speaker 2: So that's a pretty scary guy one of mine.
Speaker 1: I guess I should have said this before because it
Speaker 1: was literally what we were talking about. But just Alex
Speaker 1: van Pelt versus Mike McDonald. I'm fascinated by this storyline
Speaker 1: of like, all right, you have two brint coaching staffs
Speaker 1: brand new on their teams, yet this is just an
Speaker 1: old AFC North matchup. Yeah, between Mike McDonald's Ravens and
Speaker 1: Alex Van Pelt's Brown It's crazy how that keeps happening,
Speaker 1: like two weeks in a row. Yeah, So you know,
Speaker 1: I was actually before he came in. I didn't get
Speaker 1: a chance to finish, but like looking up kind of
Speaker 1: how Van Pelt did against McDonald the last few years,
Speaker 1: you know, in Cleveland and Baltimore. But I just so
Speaker 1: they've run these schemes against each other, but they're not
Speaker 1: doing it with new players, new strengths and new weaknesses.
Speaker 1: I'm just interested to see how that plays out. I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of a cool little wrinkle to this one.
Speaker 2: So the game in twenty two, I'm trying to pull
Speaker 2: it up, Yeah, was twenty three to twenty Baltimore at
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. I mean, Jacoby Brissett starting against against
Speaker 2: this Ravens defense. They they they've had, they've held their own, No,
Speaker 2: against the Ravens team that frankly has Lamar Jackson and
Speaker 2: is like better than them, right, Yeah, like they've held
Speaker 2: their own in those matchups. They ran the ball okay
Speaker 2: in that game with Jacoby Brissett, but he was sacked
Speaker 2: five times in that game a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: so that that was obviously the big thing. But it's
Speaker 2: again another week, just like last week, where at least
Speaker 2: AVP has a ton of familiarity with what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: I mean last year that did big fourth quarter comeback
Speaker 1: against them in Baltimore, right, So yeah, and then they
Speaker 1: put up three points in the game in Cleveland. I
Speaker 1: think that was the first game with Josh Dobbs.
Speaker 2: Yeah the yor not with Josh Jobbs, with Don with
Speaker 2: the uh dtr No, no, no, Pat the other guy
Speaker 2: the other the other what the Pat Walker?
Speaker 1: Hang on Walker?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: PJ Walker?
Speaker 1: Oh No, it was weak four. They just got spanked
Speaker 1: at Sean Watson the.
Speaker 2: Other But I'm like shouting PJ. Walker. I knows him,
Speaker 2: PJ Walker. I just like PJ Walker.
Speaker 1: Anyway, He's put up points against him before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah they have. Uh, it's it's a tough matchup though.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be interesting to see.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: Last one here for me, Leonard Williams against Leyden Robinson
Speaker 2: on the interior. Leonard Williams had five quarterback hits last
Speaker 2: week against bow Knicks, like vintage Leonard Williams. He was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's still got it. He he has not lost a
Speaker 2: step or even half a step. Yeah, he's gonna be
Speaker 2: a problem. He likes to do a little you know,
Speaker 2: head slap move like two double swipe where he just
Speaker 2: kind of you know, goes inside out and then double
Speaker 2: swipes the guy out of the way and goes around him.
Speaker 2: It's kind of it seems like that's sort of his
Speaker 2: go to move in the pass rush. He's a good player.
Speaker 2: I like watching him play. And Murphy's not a slouch either.
Speaker 2: Rookie but not a slouch either. Their first round pick
Speaker 2: out of Texas. So Landon Robinson's gonna have his handsfuld.
Speaker 2: Michael Jordan's gonna have his hands full on passing downs.
Speaker 2: Those guys are gonna be stressed in this game. What
Speaker 2: else do you have?
Speaker 1: Again? I are talked about this like ke On White
Speaker 1: against just the Seahawks line. They're gonna line him up
Speaker 1: all over the place. But Seattle's banged up up front.
Speaker 1: It's maybe a place the Patriots can find a mismatch.
Speaker 1: So key On White, whoever they line him up across
Speaker 1: from on any given plake, that's that's a spot Patriots
Speaker 1: gotta win.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's get to some of these emails. We
Speaker 2: can still talk Seattle. There's a couple of Seattle questions here,
Speaker 2: but I think that was a pretty extensive breakdown of
Speaker 2: this matchup. But we can still talk to some Seahawks
Speaker 2: questions here. I want to get to this question now
Speaker 2: because I think it's a good one. David who listens
Speaker 2: from Madrid, Spain every week. He's always emailing in. He
Speaker 2: asked about Drake May, and you know, we talked about
Speaker 2: Drake May week five kind of being that target. Does
Speaker 2: it change at all that Jacob Brisseet won a football
Speaker 2: game and maybe continues to win football games here? So
Speaker 2: he said, basically, if Jacoby's around five hundred or better,
Speaker 2: does that push May's starting point down?
Speaker 1: I mean, some of that's gonna come along with just
Speaker 1: what that looks like. Like he's a five hundred and
Speaker 1: he's playing like he did on Sunday? Is he playing worse?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: As long as they're winning games, he's gonna have to
Speaker 1: buyd in the locker room. And that gives the Patriots
Speaker 1: more time if they want to pull the trigger for.
Speaker 2: Better or worse. It turns even more into the Miami
Speaker 2: Dolphins with Tua and Ryan Fitzpatrick in twenty twenty, where
Speaker 2: there was a divide in the locker room and a
Speaker 2: lot of people in that Miami locker room felt like
Speaker 2: they should stick with Fitzpatrick because he had them in
Speaker 2: contention for the first six weeks of the season, but
Speaker 2: the organization was behind to a big picture and that
Speaker 2: was where they went with it. I have to tease it.
Speaker 2: I talked to Drake May yesterday, did a piece on
Speaker 2: him this morning. It's up on Patriots dot Com, just
Speaker 2: talking about how what he went through last week and
Speaker 2: the practice reps. He did mention that he saw some
Speaker 2: first team starter reps early in the week with the
Speaker 2: Patriots ones. He called him good on good right, our
Speaker 2: first team offense versus the first team defense. And he
Speaker 2: did get some of those reps early in the week,
Speaker 2: he said. And then once it went into a real
Speaker 2: hardcore game plan prep mode, they went to Jacoby and
Speaker 2: he was on working with the scout team, But he
Speaker 2: felt like it was beneficial to just watch Jacoby go
Speaker 2: through it, Like what's the preparation, what's the meetings look like,
Speaker 2: what's the lead up to the game look like. You know,
Speaker 2: this was also a road game, so like what does
Speaker 2: that element of it add to it once we got
Speaker 2: to Cincinnati, Like, how does that change everything from a
Speaker 2: road perspective. The more that I heard him talk about it,
Speaker 2: the more I began to see some of the benefits
Speaker 2: to him sitting that even go beyond just him getting
Speaker 2: better himself before they throw him in there just learning
Speaker 2: how to be a pro, like learning how to do
Speaker 2: the little things, you know, some of the things that
Speaker 2: he said about you know, North Carolina has school right
Speaker 2: right now, it's just football and a lot of the
Speaker 2: preparation that goes to preparing for an NFL defense. He
Speaker 2: said it was significantly more than preparing for a college defense.
Speaker 2: So that's a lot that's a big undertaking. And then
Speaker 2: on the sideline, of course, he had the earpiece in
Speaker 2: and is basically playing the game mentally from the sideline.
Speaker 2: So I think it was it was beneficial to him
Speaker 2: in his long term development in terms of when he starts.
Speaker 2: I'd still say by Halloween. I'd like to see it happen.
Speaker 2: But look, if Brissette's winning, you don't pull a winning
Speaker 2: quarterback out just it's like a goalie and hot, right, like,
Speaker 2: you don't pull the hot goalie. So if they're get
Speaker 2: to mid October, let's call it week six is in,
Speaker 2: they're four and two. I don't know if they've made
Speaker 2: the switch, then they might.
Speaker 1: Let's get to foreign two.
Speaker 2: But no, I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm just
Speaker 2: you know, for the point of the argument.
Speaker 1: No, I've said this like just the him going over
Speaker 1: that film with Jacoby and understanding the decisions he didn't
Speaker 1: didn't make. Yeah, it's gonna save him a lot of
Speaker 1: growing pains on the field. I certainly think that's valuable.
Speaker 1: And if they can, if they can wait a little longer,
Speaker 1: like it can't hurt, right, I do still think he
Speaker 1: should play at some point to see. I'm still not
Speaker 1: on board with sitting in the whole year agreed.
Speaker 2: Like unlet's say all of a sudden are like on
Speaker 2: pace to win ten or eleven games and make the playoffs.
Speaker 2: I still feel like, if you're gonna be even best
Speaker 2: case scenario for this team, to me feels like the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two team where they're like it's six to
Speaker 2: eight wins in that range, I still make the switch
Speaker 2: if that's all you're you're hovering around like because that
Speaker 2: you're not a playoff team at that point, so you're
Speaker 2: not really derailing anything too much. But we talked about
Speaker 2: it earlier, you know, during the summer. Kind of has
Speaker 2: flip flopped after one game a little bit. But do
Speaker 2: you lose the locker room by going one, you know,
Speaker 2: one way over the other. You do have to think
Speaker 2: about that sort of thing. If you're winning with Jacoby,
Speaker 2: some of the veterans in that locker room, some of
Speaker 2: the captains, those guys are gonna be like, what the
Speaker 2: hell are we doing if you take Jacoby out? So
Speaker 2: that's an element of it too. But I maybe have
Speaker 2: pushed it to like Halloween, Like was that week five?
Speaker 2: Halloween's probably like week eight or nine October. Maybe we're
Speaker 2: more closer to that range. He plays for half the season,
Speaker 2: get his feet wet. I don't know. I don't love it.
Speaker 2: I don't love it. Uh, Stephen writes in and he
Speaker 2: says that he had things that a lot of people
Speaker 2: have written that this game against Seattle is a winnable game.
Speaker 2: A lot of people, I feel like, have circled this
Speaker 2: home opener, Gerron Mayo's first game as head coach here
Speaker 2: at Jillette Stadium, the Seahawks coming from Seattle to the
Speaker 2: East Coast. Like a lot of people have circled this
Speaker 2: as a winnable game for the Patriots. Steven says that
Speaker 2: he disagrees because of some of the matchups, and I
Speaker 2: kind of tend to agree with him a little bit.
Speaker 2: I feel like not to no pun intended a little
Speaker 2: sleeping on Seattle in New England, Like maybe we it's
Speaker 2: a West Coast team. They always play it at four
Speaker 2: o'clock windows. Sometimes we get the game. Sometimes we don't
Speaker 2: get the game here on the East Coast. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how much people have watched Seattle over the last
Speaker 2: couple of years. This was a nine to eight football
Speaker 2: team that missed the playoffs on the tiebreaker last year. Like,
Speaker 2: this is not a slouch of a football team.
Speaker 1: So I think the Bengals have a better roster. But
Speaker 1: where the Bengals holes are just match ups so well
Speaker 1: with the Patriots strengths. Yeah, and that's what I think
Speaker 1: you saw happen. That's not the case with Seattle. Like
Speaker 1: Seattle's better against the run, They're better at running the football,
Speaker 1: they can spread the ball out more on offense. There's
Speaker 1: gonna test the Patriots in ways. I think the Bengals
Speaker 1: didn't that it's gonna be tougher test for the Patriots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just feel a lot of people have had that take.
Speaker 2: We did our picks on the fanl I was the
Speaker 2: only one that picked Seattle to win this game, really,
Speaker 2: and I guess sometimes we can be Sunshine dot Com
Speaker 2: sometimes a little bit right. But I was shocked. I
Speaker 2: was pretty surprised I was the only one that picked
Speaker 2: the Seahawks in this game. I get that there's gonna
Speaker 2: be a lot of energy in the building, probably for
Speaker 2: Mayo and for you know, the season being back here
Speaker 2: home opener, But I don't love the matchup for the Patriots.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really good pressure defense that Seattle runs,
Speaker 2: and I think they have a lot of weapons on
Speaker 2: the offensive side of the ball. They have a lot
Speaker 2: more than the Patriots too. If Kenneth Walker doesn't play,
Speaker 2: it evens the playing field a little bit. If he does,
Speaker 2: then I be hard pressed to find more weapons than Seattle. Honestly,
Speaker 2: I kind of think he might play.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wonder if he got I know
Speaker 1: they called it like an oblique. I wonder if he
Speaker 1: was getting a rest day like Ramandre was because he
Speaker 1: had a similar yeah workload. I I'll be interested to
Speaker 1: you what it looks like on the injury report today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed, all right. Carlos Los Pats emails in He's
Speaker 2: got two questions for us here, he said, he asks
Speaker 2: how confident are we in the coaching staff's ability to
Speaker 2: prepare the team week to week, so like game plan
Speaker 2: oriented offense and defense. I think this is a good
Speaker 2: question because last week it worked exactly to a t
Speaker 2: what they planned. We talked about it off the top
Speaker 2: of the show. That plan's not going to work every
Speaker 2: single week. How confident are you, I would say, especially
Speaker 2: offensively defensively, I'm pretty confident that they're gonna be able
Speaker 2: to game plan it up offensively if teams stacked the
Speaker 2: box and they are forcing Jacoby Brissett to beat them
Speaker 2: with his arm. Like, how confident are we that they
Speaker 2: can actually go out there and do that?
Speaker 1: I would say more than that, Like you look at
Speaker 1: that Week one game. I love the game plan, but
Speaker 1: they had what like three months to put that together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now they have one week. So this to me is
Speaker 1: the first real like game game plan week of the season,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I'm really interested to
Speaker 1: see what it looks like this week and how many
Speaker 1: new wrinkles can they add? Excuse me, how much do
Speaker 1: they change going into this game? Because again, you had
Speaker 1: months to tinker and do this and that whatever going
Speaker 1: into the Bengals game. Now it's all right, install on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: get it set on Thursday, situational stuff on Friday, and
Speaker 1: you go. So it's a good question. I actually think
Speaker 1: this week will be more telling than last week was
Speaker 1: in that regard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I feel like we make too much of it.
Speaker 2: But sometimes I feel like we almost don't make enough
Speaker 2: of it. Of like the whole offseason to prepare for
Speaker 2: one team, and the Bengals really didn't change very much
Speaker 2: in the off season either. I owe their offensive coordinator change,
Speaker 2: but their head coach is an offensive guy and all.
Speaker 2: It's still the same cast of characters for the most
Speaker 2: part with Cincinnati, so they kind of knew who Cincinnati
Speaker 2: was like for months leading up into this game. So
Speaker 2: it's a good point about this being a quicker week.
Speaker 2: I'm still skeptical or still not. They got to earn
Speaker 2: it with me about them being able to go game
Speaker 2: plan on offense. I don't know if they can do
Speaker 2: that yet. His second question is about Scott Peters. Early
Speaker 2: on in training camp, I gave Scott Peters some kudos.
Speaker 2: I was a little excited. I was like, Okay, maybe
Speaker 2: this guy just knows what he's doing. I am pretty
Speaker 2: confident in Scott Peters at this point. I trust. He asked,
Speaker 2: how much trust do I have in Scott Peters. I
Speaker 2: trust his ability to coach technique. We see it every
Speaker 2: single day. It's actually pretty dark and cool. Offensive line
Speaker 2: is usually right in front of us, which I know
Speaker 2: that Dante Scarnekia is in his woodshop at home being like, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: I would put my guys right in front of the media,
Speaker 2: but he's out in front of the media now, Scott Peters,
Speaker 2: and we hear it every single day, him coaching these
Speaker 2: guys up. Yesterday he was working on with Vederia Lowe
Speaker 2: on a certain type of pass at a sea set
Speaker 2: to like a forty five degree and he was working
Speaker 2: on it with him like in the weeds, like in
Speaker 2: the trenches, like talking about footwork and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. What I'm more concerned about, And I know
Speaker 2: there's some rumblings that Ben McAdoo might have a hand
Speaker 2: in the design, the overall design. It's one thing to
Speaker 2: be a really good technique based coach. It's another thing
Speaker 2: to be able to design a game plan and a
Speaker 2: run game and a pass blocking and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. We're talking about this out at practice a
Speaker 2: little bit earlier in the week. The way that this
Speaker 2: is often done is the OC and the play caller
Speaker 2: puts together the call sheet and he says, these are
Speaker 2: the forty things we want to run this week, these
Speaker 2: are the thirty five things we want to run this week,
Speaker 2: and then he gives it to the offensive line coach
Speaker 2: or whoever's responsible for getting it blocked, and they get
Speaker 2: it blocked, right. They go through the actual what protection
Speaker 2: are we gonna marry to this route concept? And what
Speaker 2: you schemer? Are we gonna run here and there? And
Speaker 2: I don't know about that element of it yet. Scarnekia
Speaker 2: and Ivan Fears were excellent at getting stuff blocked for
Speaker 2: the run game, like Ivan with the running backs obviously,
Speaker 2: Dante with the offensive line. I don't know where Scott
Speaker 2: Peters is in terms of that. That might be more
Speaker 2: Ben mcadow's perview with this coaching staff right now, but
Speaker 2: that remains to be seen to me right now. It's
Speaker 2: like how they're gonna get everything blocked schematically and kind
Speaker 2: of from the bird's eye view.
Speaker 1: And that's again goes to what I talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: just with looking at this week, you finally saw we
Speaker 1: talked about all summer. You can't really evaluate the offensive
Speaker 1: line to they're in games. You saw it, now, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna change about it?
Speaker 2: Yep? Absolutely all right. Adam asks from California. He has
Speaker 2: two questions. Number One, he saw, we all saw Xavier
Speaker 2: Worthy shot out of a cannon on that jet sweep
Speaker 2: the other day, and the opener thanked the Buffalo Bills
Speaker 2: for that one. Thanked the Buffalo Bills for that one.
Speaker 2: And he asks if we feel like Taekwon Thornton could
Speaker 2: be used on similar types of motions he has in
Speaker 2: the past. He's done it in the past, not in
Speaker 2: a high volume.
Speaker 1: He did it against alex man Pelt in Cleveland.
Speaker 2: Though, Yeah, did it against alex mn Pelt on the
Speaker 2: goal line right in Cleveland for a.
Speaker 1: Touch to the goal line one. No, I think that
Speaker 1: was a little bit longer.
Speaker 2: I thought that was a touchdown.
Speaker 1: It was a touchdown, but I think it was like
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty yards okay, red Zolo, Yeah, Redzep.
Speaker 2: And then he did it. Remember last year against the Chargers.
Speaker 2: If DeVante Parkers stopped blocking down the field, otherwise he
Speaker 2: would he might have been able to house it, he's
Speaker 2: done it in the past. We obviously know about his
Speaker 2: injury concerned turns in terms of doing that at a
Speaker 2: high volume, but I suppose the same could be said
Speaker 2: for Worthy, right, he's also kind of a real thin guy.
Speaker 2: I would like to see it. I like to see
Speaker 2: them at least at least send Taekwon in motion some
Speaker 2: just as eye candy too, like just as window dressing
Speaker 2: would be nice as well.
Speaker 1: By a nineteen yard run, getting two yard pass passing
Speaker 1: touchdowny two touchdowns in that game. I remember the run
Speaker 1: looked like everybody was standing still. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean this is they made a whole point of this,
Speaker 1: like getting the guy in the lineup because his speed
Speaker 1: and his big play ability and all that. Like that
Speaker 1: doesn't need to just be go balls. There's probably gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of it, but it doesn't need to
Speaker 1: just be go routes. You can have him doing other
Speaker 1: things too, So I think he yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: they should kind of expand his role a little bit.
Speaker 2: So second question was about the scheme with avp's installing,
Speaker 2: and we talked a little bit about this, how I
Speaker 2: didn't love some of the rudimentariness of it, but he
Speaker 2: just one thing I'd also mention are the players made
Speaker 2: a big point of this after the game to give
Speaker 2: kudos to Remandre because Rimandre, I guess, went up to
Speaker 2: Alex Van Pelton said like, let's run downhill, let's stop with.
Speaker 1: The I thinks it was even in that that my
Speaker 1: dad put in the mic up. He's like, he gave
Speaker 1: me the ball, like yeah, you finish this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm still very, very skeptical about them
Speaker 2: being a an e fision or a good outside zone
Speaker 2: rushing team. I just don't know if they have the
Speaker 2: personnel for it. I'm less skeptical now than I was
Speaker 2: before about Remandre because I think Remandre might just be
Speaker 2: primed for a big year no matter what blocking the
Speaker 2: scheme is running. But just in terms of their blockers,
Speaker 2: like I just don't love it for their personnel. I
Speaker 2: still don't up front. It just doesn't seem like they
Speaker 2: have the athletes for it. Like frankly, the best outside
Speaker 2: zone run blocker on the team right now is Michael Jordan,
Speaker 2: which which tells you a lot like it. It doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to fit the other guys. So that being said,
Speaker 2: I like the fact that they justed that they went
Speaker 2: to duo and they went to some of their gap
Speaker 2: plays and they got downhill. I wonder if they continue
Speaker 2: to adjust and move even further away from outside zone.
Speaker 2: I know that that's what Van Pelt wants to do,
Speaker 2: like that's like his real bread and butter. I just
Speaker 2: don't I still don't really fully believe they have the
Speaker 2: horses for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Peters talked about this morning and kind
Speaker 1: of said that you have your main thing, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna run what works, and if outside zone is not working,
Speaker 1: they can't keep doing it, whether they want to or not.
Speaker 1: If it's not working, you can't keep running it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I so they said that. They mentioned that Cincinnati
Speaker 2: was run blitzing a lot because they were expecting outside zone.
Speaker 2: And the one thing that kills outside zone is penetration, right,
Speaker 2: you know, That's what really kills that system. That's why
Speaker 2: I remember in the Super Bowl against the Rams, Bills
Speaker 2: yell and get vertical, get vertical, right, because that's right.
Speaker 2: You shoot gaps against outside zone, you get in the backfield.
Speaker 2: That could be really detrimental to the scheme. So the
Speaker 2: Bengals were run blitzing guys to try to put them
Speaker 2: through the line of scrimmage to try to blow it up.
Speaker 2: So what do you do to counter that? You get downhill,
Speaker 2: you get you get bodies, you get hats on them,
Speaker 2: and then you move them off the ball.
Speaker 1: So I like it.
Speaker 2: I like the downhill stuff. They need to dress it
Speaker 2: up a little bit better for my liking, but I
Speaker 2: like what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know me, run the damn ball, put
Speaker 1: it between the tackles, put your head down and go.
Speaker 2: Run the damn ball. I like it all right.
Speaker 1: Oh look Evan Lazar saying run the damn ball.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 1: Can we please like clip that?
Speaker 2: It's true. I can't believe I heard that. I said
Speaker 2: two nice things today. Heard that I said, Remandre Maddern
Speaker 2: and I said run the damn ball.
Speaker 1: That wasn't even like nice, that was like excited. You
Speaker 1: were exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thank you, Sandra.
Speaker 1: I might just to get you one of those who
Speaker 1: has it, Marshall Lynch, you with the hats or yeah,
Speaker 1: run the damn ball. I love it.
Speaker 2: Do you know who? I get confused a lot? Sandra
Speaker 2: Bullock and Julia Roberts. I feel like they're the same person.
Speaker 2: Who's the one who is Like if you switch them
Speaker 2: in movies, they would kind of just act the same, right,
Speaker 2: it's really the same. That's Sandra Bullock though she's run
Speaker 2: the damn ball.
Speaker 4: I know that.
Speaker 1: I put Hillary's Hillary swank in that gay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all kind of in that same category. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 2: I'm all for running the ball. I think this is
Speaker 2: a misconception of me. I am all for running the ball,
Speaker 2: but the run game needs to marry to the pass game.
Speaker 2: Like if you're gonna run the ball and you're gonna
Speaker 2: run it thirty five times, that can work if you're
Speaker 2: hitting ten explosives off of play action tens a little
Speaker 2: bit much five explosives off of play action, Like that's
Speaker 2: that's the element that needs to be there. That even
Speaker 2: like they're not an outside zone West Coast Shanah entry team,
Speaker 2: the Detroit Lions, Like that's what they do, right, They
Speaker 2: run the ball a ton, but it's all married together
Speaker 2: so that golf can play action and then push the
Speaker 2: ball down the field off of it. If they get
Speaker 2: that sequence and going, I'm a happy guy. If all
Speaker 2: it is is just running the ball, then I'm not happy. There.
Speaker 2: You go, All right, how's that good? Is that enough
Speaker 2: compliments for your running game? All right, A couple more
Speaker 2: questions here and we'll get to the Aldred here in
Speaker 2: the second two. To wrap it up, Christopher Susa asks
Speaker 2: about Gonzo and he just said, uh, you know how
Speaker 2: what's his ceiling? You know, do we think that Gonza
Speaker 2: Gonzo could be truly one of the best, you know,
Speaker 2: premier corners in the NFL.
Speaker 1: He hasn't give me any reason to think he can't be.
Speaker 1: I mean it's that simple. Like he's he's we went
Speaker 1: through the five receivers he's faced, and he's held his
Speaker 1: own against every one of them. He's looked as good
Speaker 1: as any corner that's come here since it's come through here,
Speaker 1: since Gilmore. Yeah, he hasn't give me any reason not
Speaker 1: to think so, outside of it just staying healthy.
Speaker 2: It really, I genuinely feel like everybody's waiting for a
Speaker 2: shoot to drop with Gonzo where he just has a
Speaker 2: bad game, because he's yet to really truly have a
Speaker 2: bad game. Yeah, And we were talking about him earlier
Speaker 2: on the on the show, somebody emailed into Patriots Unfiltered
Speaker 2: and asked kind of a similar question about Uh, I
Speaker 2: think it was speed.
Speaker 4: You know s.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said that he's still a little bit skeptical
Speaker 2: about Gonzo's see you know, and how good Gonzo can be,
Speaker 2: and some of the panel agreed with him, and I
Speaker 2: was he has not shown anything yet to suggest that
Speaker 2: he's not gonna be anything but a great.
Speaker 1: You ask what his ceiling is, like, that's his ceiling. Now,
Speaker 1: can he keep this up? It's a very high level
Speaker 1: of play to keep up. The majority of people can't.
Speaker 1: But we're talking ceiling, which is hypothetically, what's the best
Speaker 1: he could possibly be? Can't really be any better than this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, It just that position too often lends itself to
Speaker 2: guys just being awesome right out of the gate and
Speaker 2: really never regressing Ye Sauce Gardner, Patrick Surtan, Denzel Ward, Like,
Speaker 2: these guys just came into the league and were just
Speaker 2: good right like almost right away and have been good
Speaker 2: the whole entire time. So sometimes when that it clicks
Speaker 2: for you at that position and you're just a dude
Speaker 2: at that cornerback spot, you're just a guy, like you're
Speaker 2: just one of those guys that can just do that.
Speaker 2: I wonder if Gonzo's in that category. And some of
Speaker 2: the things that about him when the draft seem to
Speaker 2: be so overblown, you know, the toughness and the alpha
Speaker 2: and like all that kind of stuff that had him
Speaker 2: fall in the draft. I think we're looking at it
Speaker 2: now like that was probably overblog. Yeah, all right, let's
Speaker 2: take Eldrid and then we'll wrap it up. Eldred is
Speaker 2: in North Carolina. What's up, Beldrid?
Speaker 4: There it is today?
Speaker 2: Good? How are you?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 4: I got it's fun. I got a question for you, Evan,
Speaker 4: And Hey, I didn't get to see the game much
Speaker 4: because I had to work Sunday. But I'm wondering about
Speaker 4: the wire receivers. Are they getting open against spaces? And
Speaker 4: he is the y receivers coaching them better or did
Speaker 4: he to do better? And now I take it off
Speaker 4: the air, buddies, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks Eldrid. Thanks for the call. So the receivers,
Speaker 2: and I'm sorry I didn't hear it one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: but I think he was asking about the receivers getting
Speaker 2: opened down the field and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think the biggest thing what I saw with
Speaker 2: them is no, they're not going out there and creating
Speaker 2: like loads of separation from their receiver position. But there
Speaker 2: were some opportunities, mainly for Jalen Polk that Jalen Pulk
Speaker 2: got open about half a dozen times in this game
Speaker 2: and didn't get the ball. So hopefully you go back
Speaker 2: next week or the week you know, you start to
Speaker 2: look for those opportunities moving forward. Are they gonna be
Speaker 2: a great receiving corps? Probably not right, They're not gonna
Speaker 2: They're not gonna come out like Gangbusters and surprise us all. Necessarily,
Speaker 2: it's a fine margin with this group because every NFL
Speaker 2: tape you can probably look at and see half a
Speaker 2: dozen plays that you would want back when you watch
Speaker 2: the film. The great teams that have great receivers, it's
Speaker 2: two dozen plays, right the Patriots it's maybe six to
Speaker 2: eight plays a game, So that that's the difference for
Speaker 2: the Patriots. But yeah, it's on our all of our radars.
Speaker 2: I think about this receiving group and if they're gonna
Speaker 2: actually be better this year, and I.
Speaker 1: Just think once they get the pass blocking figure out,
Speaker 1: that'll help because it'll give them more time to find
Speaker 1: some of these guys that are open. The quarterback on
Speaker 1: field is rush, So yeah, it all starts with that
Speaker 1: pass blocking. It all starts from there. Nothing's changed in
Speaker 1: that regard.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that about does it here. We will
Speaker 2: be back next Thursday for another edition here, No, we
Speaker 2: won't good call. So we're gonna be on Tuesday, I believe, right, Morrell.
Speaker 2: I believe it's Tuesday that we're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 2: do the show. We'll see what time we're scheduled to
Speaker 2: leave on Wednesday maybe, but Tuesday, I think is what
Speaker 2: we're gonna lock in and we're gonna do it Tuesday afternoon,
Speaker 2: so because of the Thursday night game. Obviously probably should
Speaker 2: have put that in there because of the Thursday night game.
Speaker 2: So we'll be back next Tuesday. I'll be sure to
Speaker 2: tweet it out as tweeted out to what time and everything,
Speaker 2: just because it's gonna be different than normal. But before
Speaker 2: we sign off, football season is here. It sure is
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Speaker 2: New England Patriots. We'll see you guys next week and
Speaker 2: we'll recap Seattle quite.
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