The Snow Bowl Game with Scott Pioli | 2001 AFC Divisional Round: Raiders vs. Patriots - Games with Names

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Tommy's first deal, he got a lesson he should
have for his slot. And I'll never forget we were
at this one point in time. I think it was
maybe Tommy's third deal, and we were trying to keep
the team together, right, that was part of our thing.
We didn't expect people to take home team discounts. We
were hopeful that people would want to spread it and
keep the winning etcetera, et cetera. And I'll never forget

(00:21):
Tommy was getting annoyed because he was getting distracted, not
annoyed with anyone. He just want to think about ball.
One morning, he comes up to my office and he knocks,
and he comes in and closes the door and he says,
welcome to games with names.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm Julian Edelman, and there Jack and Kyler, and we're
on a mission.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
To find the greatest game of all time.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
On today's episode, we're covering the duck rule game Patriots
versus the Raiders, the two thousand and one Divisional round
game with legendary NFL GM Scott Pioli. Guy legend, and
we get into talking about the game that started the patriotsy.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
One of the most pivotal, important and genuinely emotional games
that I was ever a part of. I'll probably get
choked up during this. Yeah, when Tom Brady became the guy,
part of it was not only the quarterbacks confidence, but
the team's confidence in the quarterback. Now, Tommy was a kid.
I mean this is his first year as a starter,
and some great Ernie Adams stories. We literally sat next

(01:23):
to each other in the coach for those nine seasons,
every single game. What's watching a game like a whole
game like with Ernie? It's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
This is an instant classic.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Let's Go Games and Names is a production of iHeartRadio.
January nineteen, two thousand and two.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
The old Foxborough Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Driving snow, the Patriots trail the Raiders thirteen to ten.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
Late in the fourth, Brady drops back Woodson takes a
clean shot.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Didn't even see him?

Speaker 5 (02:06):
Is that a fumble? This?

Speaker 1 (02:10):
It is the snowball game? Is that how long we've
been going? Yeah, we're having fun too. This is this
is our Boston set up. This is uh Nut House East,
and then we do most of them in La. So

(02:30):
if you're ever in La, you want to come back on,
let us know and I moved. We moved it out
there because my daughter started kindergarten and she couldn't come
out here no more. So I had to go out
there seven years old. Now we got it on travel soccer. Dude,
let me tell you something. I'm gonna put it right
in crew the uh not of any Testaverdi away more

(02:54):
of a West Welker. Minnie. We all know the Minnie story.
People are talking about his dick. I was with Vinnie
in Cleveland, Baltimore, the Jets and the Patriots. Geez, you
know Vinnie. The legend of the legend of I'll tell

(03:15):
you this about the h the parenting thing. The days
are long, man, but the years are short. Our little media,
she's our one and only. She was born to No.
Three during right before two weeks before training camp. I
want can do slaver.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
All the kids are usually born in the same times. Yeah,
because you gotta time it out right. You don't want
it during the season. I had I know, I had
her in sixteen and we were She came out week
eleven or twelve. We just came back from the West
Coast and on a Monday, I go open to Bill

(03:52):
in his office.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
I like Bill, I gotta go. I'm gonna go to sit.
I gotta go to l A. My kids being born,
and I was like nervous to tell me since sixteen,
But I mean what year was? This was like November thirtieth,
So that's okay, we're late in the seat. That's actually
like week fourteen something like that. But we were on
a good we were at a we were in a
good stage of our our season. And I went out there.

(04:15):
He's like, are you're going to be back on Wednesday? Right?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I'm like, I'm here, coach, I'm here. Do where fucking
flew out to La saw Lily?

Speaker 1 (04:21):
It was cream? That's cream season. Cream season. That's cream
season right there? Boys? Our text. I was thinking about
our text when you thought I was being sarcastic right
out of the gate. It takes a while to to
become a regular citizen. Oh yeah, from a mindset to
a civilian. Yeah, it does.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
And we're talking right now about the transition from being
in the league and having the structure, the routine and
over that, and then you know, it's kind of like
very similar to when a guy exits the military. You
get institutionalized with everything that you've been taught or you've
been going through for you know, for me it was

(05:02):
fifteen plus years. You know, for some guys in the
upper divisions where Scott's hat, it's twenty five, thirty forty
plus years. You get out into the real world, it's
hard to adjust your life because you're so accustomed to
the schedule, the red schedule. Like we're joking around, like
you know where to be, but it's rigorous days, but

(05:22):
it's you know what you got to do, and it
becomes a routine of yours.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
And then there's the triggers, right, there's different things that like,
for instance, now I've been out of it a couple
of years now and living on Nantucket in the summertime,
there's a smell. There's a smell the hedge starts flowering
and there's a smell. And that smell was always like,
oh my gosh, no training camp, training camp. And but

(05:50):
you know you mentioned your your life and that cadence
that happens that started long ago, so it's even before
the NFL. You I mean, as disciplined as you wore,
as much as and as hard as you work there
there's just this lifestyle and these routines that you get
used to and in talking to a lot of people
from the military, it's a real mind screw it is
I mean.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
It's I mean for us, it really started when I
was eight. You know, when you you go to school,
you come home, you eat, you do homework, you go.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
To football practice. Well someone did homework. Well I had,
you know, you had to some state and it didn't
didn't much there. But I'm just saying as a young
kid now that that school was replaced with football school,
because that's what you do when you go to work.
You're sitting in meetings for three and a half hours
before you even get on the field, and it's it's
the same routine. So yeah, it's and then there's the act.

(06:43):
There's the daily cycle, there's the weekly cycle, there's the
in season off season. Oh yeah, there's this cadence of
life and this routine.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
I was just talking to Kyler about that, exactly what
you said.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
When were you.

Speaker 6 (06:54):
Were talking about the smell. That's literally this morning.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
This morning, I go you it was like clockwork when
the fans left training camp and it was just that
fifty three man roster.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
You felt the chill in the air, you felt, you
felt the season change immediately, absolutely, And I felt it
a little bit out there this morning. It was wasn't
quite humid. You still feel that something's that's football smell, right,
There's certain things that bloom in certain areas, and it's
it's all really familiar. That's how I was talking about,

(07:27):
Like the hedge at home. It's like I remember the
guy it's time to leave my family, Yeah, and it triggers.
It's a smell of the grass in the morning when
it's been cut and it's wet. It smells different than
any grass anytime of the year.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's kind of like the smell if you're in a tight,
tight meeting room and Bill goes up in there with
no fucking socks on and just shoes and he takes
his shoes off, and his smells ratchet.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
That's kind of that, you know, football season, ball season.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, and then he takes those fingers and he puts
them in the communal fucking nuts like our I used
just the edible nuts, yes, yeah, edible nuts.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
But he we used to have scoopers and Bill would
be sitting there and just putting his hands in there,
and I'm watching it. You're not gonna say a word
about it, but thinking like, man, I'm not eating there.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
For a while. All right, listen this thing. Welcome to
Games with Names.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Today we are looking at the tuck Rull Game two
thousand and one AFC Divisional Round.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Game, The tuck Rull Game, the tuck Rull Game, the Snowballs, Snowball,
snow See. Here's the thing, this game, and we're talking
with Scott Pioli. Welcome to the show. I'm like, we're
in a second here, here's the deal, games with names, right,

(08:52):
this is a game with two names. Two names. If
you live in New England or are a Patriots fan,
or you know you're remember of the tribe, it's the Snowball.
I know everybody else outside of here, all the haters
called the tuck Road. You know what. This is a
game with two names.

Speaker 6 (09:09):
I love that you brought this up because later on spoiler,
we're gonna we're gonna name the game officially, and then
we're gonna score the game. And we developed that segment
with this game in mind. And then as we've done
upwards of seventy games now, most of them either don't
have a game or it's clearly that one. So like
this idea of scoring. The game is only it's not
really useful and it's outdated, but for this one, it

(09:30):
matters and I'm pumped about it.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Let's go, baby. See you're you remember the tribe. You
can't call it, you know. It's crazy though at this
time in my life in two thousand and one, oh boy,
here I was dating Jerry Rice's daughter. Come on, Jerry
goes to the Raiders. Heck yeah. And he balled out
in this game a little bit.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
He had a couple of big time third downs and
big plays in the elements that they were playing. And
the week before Jets and the Jets it and so like.
And then I got drafted to the Patriots and I
was kind of not in the tribe at the time.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
So like, at this time in my life, I wasn't
in this tribe. I was like, I was kind of
going for the Raiders.

Speaker 6 (10:10):
You're root for the Raiders this game a little bit.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Well you Jerry's a t ice Burier kid, But how
about But I also love Terry Rice and Tim Brown
and Tim Brown and Charles Woodson, arry A. Rich Charlie
Gardner was one of my favorite running backs because he
was a Niner and then he went to the Raiders.
Good hands, great, It was a great He was a

(10:34):
small three down back, but he used to plug away
in between the tackles. For as small as he was,
he had some big ass games. I love Charlie Gardner,
but rich Gannon too. Let me te. Rich Gannon is
one of the most underrated, really really good quarterbacks at
the NFL has seen. And he had a streak and
he had a run of and just he was like

(10:58):
dialed in focus. He could have been one of us.
He could have he could have been one of us.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
I got to meet rich at the Raiders training camp
last year and he was such a good dude. He's
called a lot of our games because he does TV.
And I think his completion percentage this year wasn't it
like seventy percent or something.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
It was ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
He was the first to like do the arm angle
stuff like rich Gannon would always do, drop his arm angle,
hit that little flat route, no looks and stuff. And
it was it was that research in second career because
where was he before he was with he was, well
was Minnesota, Minnesota's he was the Raiders.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
But here here's the thing coming out. He was at
the University of Delaware, Tubby Raymond, you know the fighting
blue Hands, absolutely, and you know Wing tea guy, yeah,
and they ran so when he was coming out, people
weren't sure if he was actually a quarterback because the
offense that they ran. They didn't know if he could throw.

(11:54):
But he was. But you're right that that change in
the angle or the slot or whatever. So I mean,
we talk about it now because of Patrick Mahomes, Matt Stafford,
all these guys that are doing.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Burrow even does it sometimes. I mean the guy that
I remember doing it when I was a kid was
Ridge Cannon. He did it, and and these couple of
years and we'll get into the teams more, but these
few years of these Raiders teams were so fun to watch,
you know, when they were stomping at that door. Because
as much as anyone wants to say anything, the league

(12:28):
is better when the Raiders are good, absolutely, because it's
a pillar organization, especially with the history of Al Davis
and all of that they've done and how he even
got the team. And we used to have the breakdowns
from Bill about the organizations the week when we were
playing them, so I knew I know a lot about
Al Davis because we'd have the fucking you.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Know this guy sued the league, did you know what
I mean?

Speaker 1 (12:51):
So mister Davis was He's one of those people that
just we could tell Al Davis stories all day and
matter of fact, when we get into the Raiders and
when we get into the Raids as well as remember
the just do your job story, Yeah that was that's
that's Al Davis. And I'll tell you how that was.
Just win baby, just win baby.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
All right, let's let's let's not let's tell that story.
You got the story about how.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
I'm gonna give you there, here's the deal, just do
your job. So this is nineteen eighty one. I think
it's parcels first year as the head coach of the
New York Giants. Al Davis had actually coached Parcels one
hundred years ago in some All Star game when Parcels
was at Wichita State and Parcels and mister Davis were

(13:35):
really close and mister Davis was one of his his mentors.
And at the end of the season, yea, the Giants
sucked his first year and Parcels is think he's going
to get fired. He's pissed off at the GM and
the player personnel department, and he's talking to mister Davison.
I know the story firsthand from Parcells. Parcells says that

(13:56):
he's complaining to mister Davis, Oh, we don't have this,
we don't have that. These playing suck. I need, you know,
I got to redo this roster. And he said, mister
Davis interrupted, and hey, hang on a second. He goes
outside your office. You got anything on the wall. Yeah,
he goes what's it saying? He said, what's the name play?
It's got my name on it. He guess what's it say?

(14:18):
Under that? He goes head coach. He said, mister Davis,
lean's for and goes, that's right, the head coach. Shut
the f up and just do your job. Your job
isn't to find players. Your job is put the roster
to get it. Parcells said. He went off on him.
And fast forward a couple of years later, Parcells, you
know worth the Jets. Parcell's mother f to me when

(14:41):
I was asking about you know, I was a pro
personnel director and I wanted to do some college scouting.
He went off on me. He told me to just
do my job. Belichick gets to just do your job.
Thing from parcels. Next thing you know, it's on T shirts.
That's where the whole just the job, do your job
is mister Davis. Wow? Wow?

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Between this game, the Patriots organization. What's the word?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Am I? What is?

Speaker 3 (15:07):
How is serendipity? Ki kist? I'm not a word guy,
not a word guy?

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Football guy. There's so many this this game was unexpected, unexpected.
But we'll get into let's let's we got to start
the show off because all.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Right, so I thought you had I thought we were
rolling rolling. No, it's rolling, but we just got a
couple of things we got to get into. It was
a big structure guy, Yeah, structure. I like structure, like structure.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Shocking. No.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
The first question we always ask our guests is, in
one sentence, why do you pick this game?

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh? I picked this game for a number of reasons
one sentence, one sentence, because it's one of the most pivotal, important,
and genuinely emotional games that I was ever a part of.
Still to this day, I get I'll probably get choked
up during this during the run that started the Patriots,

(16:10):
because within this game, there's so many things that are
truly about what we were and became yeah, is this
the greatest game of all time? I'm not an all
time guy, you see, I don't. I'm not a believer
in that whole thing of all time because there's so

(16:30):
many different variables and dynamics. Whether it's the greatest player
of all time, the greatest quarterback of all time, and
all that stuff's kind of like, there's too many variables.
It's certainly one of the best. I mean, if you're
on our side the boat, it's the best of all time.
Do we just create something?

Speaker 3 (16:50):
Is this the boat boat game of all time?

Speaker 5 (16:52):
Still left Blake Bortles didn't anticipate talking about Bortles on
the pot today.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
No, Yeah, I mean this is such a pivotal game
for the National Football League. I mean this literally rewrote history.
It rewrote expectations for organizations. We're seeing that right now
with the Chiefs. The Chiefs are doing what they're doing
right now, and they're chasing something and they think it's possible.

(17:20):
Because of this specific game.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
It started something really cool. I mean it they had
to redefine rules, redefine rules. Yeah, there were so many
things that happened, and it was again it goes back
to for it was big for the league. It was
big for this team, this franchise, this region. But it yeah,
and it really it capitalized all the stuff that was

(17:44):
part of the program where it was situational football. It
was you know, fighting to the finish, teammates, taking care.
I mean, you know, part of this.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Is adjusting the adjustments, adversity, overcoming something, doing your job,
like everything.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Was in Joy Brown fumbles two punt returns and who
picks it and who recovers them both is a is
ah fu right, a guy who we had signed as
a free agent that year, one of the twenty three
guys we signed his free agents. Yeah, I mean he
was a pivotal part of that of that those teams.
He was a special teams captains.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Matthew Slater to this day talks about how good Larry
Iso is. And that's Matthew Slater, who's You're gonna be
considered one of the best teamers of all time.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yes, and he's glad you didn't go goat there because
one of the best of all Yeah, he's I mean,
we don't like goats, No, we don't. There's only one
to go. There's two goats. Actually there's two goats.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
What's life looking like right now.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Life looks very different. We live nine months out of
the year on Nantucket. After I left the Falcons in
twenty nineteen, start doing TV. Yeah good, you're doing good
on there too, Thank you, thank you. But you know,
here's what I love about it is because being on
the other side for so many years and see how

(19:01):
what is said in the media and how narratives can
impact not only the individuals, but the individuals families and
careers and yeah, and so when I signed up, it
was really cool because I want to bring light to things. Man,
you know what I mean. There's enough people that are
a lot smarter than me that can criticize people and
and and talk about what they would do even though

(19:22):
they've never done it. I just I'm thankful I have
this platform to elevate people that I care about, people
that I respect, and then I work with. So it's
it's really cool and it keeps me near your ball,
like going to training camps this year. You talk about
that whole thing, Joel's You know, you become a part
of this life and this world and you get separated
from it, and it's darkness can creep in, man, Yeah,

(19:45):
it can.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
I mean, when you when you take someone out of there,
they're funk shwe. You know your your funk shweve for
so long it's been football, things are crazy, you know.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
So I get to do that and mentor a bunch
of the you know, some of the young guys that
that that I hired as like entry level folks like
Ryan Poles and Adam Peters and Monte Austin for who
are in roles now where I can serve them. Guys
like Shane Waldron you know who's now Yeah, you know,
just all with us and yeah Shane was a van driver,

(20:17):
Yeah I remember, but they picked me up. Yeah he
may have. And you know, so there's that. And then
I'm also doing some work, some consulting work for for
the NFL, for the league office. They have me working in,
you know, with the HBCUs. They have me working in
the International Player Pathway program. And I do work for
colleges and universities. It's it's it's a good life now
because I'm actually back to you know, you get through

(20:40):
this certain time in life where you're chasing the rings
really and then sometimes you get off path where that's
not necessarily what I got into it I wanted to
give back to it what I got out of it,
which was helping grow up some serving.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Now I get that, you know, like when you're in
the grind of football, a lot of things you don't
really get to pay attention to, you know what I mean, and.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
You're literally like a mercy. I felt like a mercenary.
I mean football season.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
My family, my friends, everyone understood what I was, what
mindset I was in, so like they didn't.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
They were awesome because they.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Allowed me to not be able to talk to them,
and you know, I wasn't in aff I was in
a different part of my life and it would be
a lot harder if I had my kid. And I
had my kid later in my career, but at the
early part of my I could have never had a
kid or a family because you're so mentally locked in
to the grind of a season, making a team, earning

(21:40):
a role, you know, trying to make your role better.
There's always a stress on a on a person that's
involved in pro sport, no matter where you are in
your career. If you're a guy trying to make the team,
you're trying to make the team. If your guy trying
to make a role. You're trying to make a role.
If you're Tom Brady, you're trying. You're chasing goats, and
there's everyone's got these stresses that you have have where

(22:01):
you look back and it's been six seven years, like
oh shit, it's crazy. Time flies when you're in that
grind because once you get to the top. I always
tell this to everyone you win a super Bowl. I
was most sad after a super Bowl because you knew
how hard it was gonna be to reinvent yourself in
the off season to get back to that that high

(22:21):
that you're feeling for that one night, two night, three nights,
you know, and then you go on when another one
and it's like, oh, it's gonna be even fucking harder
like it was. Just every year is turn the page,
Bob Seeger, we got to go. It doesn't matter what happened,
it's only getting harder. Everyone's designing their team to beat you.
You have another year of film on you, so it's

(22:42):
just a grind.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
And yeah, so I want to hit you back with
something on that though, like you mentioned the beginning of that,
your family, your friends, the people loved you the most
and you love the most. They all understood, right, because
they knew your maniacal self and you were not alone. Yeah. No,
And part of what I what I've talked about here
is this and again, I mean, you know, I've talked

(23:05):
about this life and this lifestyle and particularly the way
that we did it. Again including Parcels said one time
that this is like a narcotic and and this is
like a drug, man, And we end up having people
around us because we do stuff that's really dysfunctional. The
number of weddings that I missed, the number of births
that I missed, the number of holidays, and everyone just said, oh,

(23:29):
that's part of the lifestyle. That's part of it. And
people that love you actually start becoming enablers. And I
come from a family of addicts, so I've understood, I understand,
got a couple of the different it's it's same same
And you know, unfortunately I lost my sister to addiction
last year. But I say that because there's this life

(23:51):
in this lifestyle that is really in certain ways it's
so healthy. But I'm like looking at your eyes as
you're sitting there telling that story, man, there's like this
it gets us, man, and then the people around us like, oh,
it's okay that you missed that wedding. Oh it's okay.
You know. One of the things I swear as I was,
you know, when we had our daughter. My wife and

(24:12):
I were both thirty eight at the time, so we
were you know, late to start get to get married.
And because I was married to the.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Game first, and you know, he kind of married the
game too. Parcel's daughter, that's a long story.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
She actually I met her at work and she actually
was working with my sister for years before. But but anyway,
like I'll never forget thinking, Okay, I'm going to normalize myself.
There's things, there's certain things I'm not going to miss.
I'm going to make sure that you know me as
first day of school, I'm gonna take her to school, kindergarten.

(24:50):
We're going to take it, you know, over rent them.
And and I had all these ideas, and this game
grabs you at the moment you don't have. The night
before her first day of school, where I was going
to be a good dad, it was the three of
us were going to go to school. Spy gate, spy gate.
Guess who didn't take little media first day of school
kindergarten Yeah, this game it sucks you in, man, you

(25:13):
know what I mean. And we and we find reasons
to justify the behaviors anyway. I don't mean to head down,
but no, but it's crazy. And then and you long
for it when it's gone. You want it. Yeah, you
always want what you can't have. Yeah, and the super
Bowl thing, man, Yeah, it's never enough. It's never It's
like a drug, it.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Is, and it's almost you know you hear. I don't
know if I like winning as much as I hate losing.
I just you can relate to that, right, No, I
you said that, I've heard it. Yeah, I feel I
live that like I live. That's like winning as much
as I just hate losing like you love winning. Yeah,

(25:52):
winning is fun, but it's only a short fun.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
But the loss. I still think twenty sixteen, I still
think about the third down out of halftime drop, not
the fucking catch.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Everyone asked about the catch. I think I think about
being the raw rock guy.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
In the in the locker room, it's gonna be a
hell of a story, and dropping the fucking third down
when I could have I could have kept it going,
you know where I was working there in that game
where were you working on that game? Boy? Really, we're
going here.

Speaker 6 (26:21):
You brought it up, he brought it up.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
You know where you're working where I was working for
the Falcons. I know exactly where you're working. I know
you're up in my mouth, jewels. That was That was
a tough one. Good for you though not everyone could
be winners. No, but tell us about another team that
you're associated with with this new women's uh Soccer league

(26:44):
that's coming here to Boston right there, n w s
L Boston. Man. We have not given the team yet
name yet, some people know it. It's going to be announced,
coming very soon. That'll be awesome. Yeah, yeah, it's you know,
there's this Jennifer Epstein who's the managing partner that it's

(27:05):
owned by by three women and it's just NWSL's you know,
is Boom. I've always been a huge women's soccer fan,
you know, even before the ninety nine ers at one
won the World Cup.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
So is Brandy Chess stain to talk about that game
on here?

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Did you have to watch? That's awesome? She's unbelievable. Santa
Monica Surf, that's my little daughter's team. We got to
get you guys going Let's go big, big game. They
had a big game, big turney last week. Let's keep
it going. Effort and attitude. Effort and attitude. See this
is parenting from from far away. I love it, and

(27:42):
I can't be at home. But hey, effort and attitude.
You can't teach that. The skills will come. Absolutely absolutely
so this uh so, it was an opportunity. You know,
it's mostly the entire ownership group is women. And then
I was connected with Jessica Berman, who was the commission

(28:02):
League is a dear friend from years ago. Connected me
with Jessica Gellman. I don't know if you remember Jessica
who was with the with us at the Patriots beginning
in two thousand and two. Very involved in soccer anyway,
So I've always been My two sisters, two older sisters,
both played soccer, loved women's soccer and studs. I mean
I watched. I was just at these little like I

(28:23):
go to I'm talking about my daughter, but I go
and watch these little girls, and I put her on
this one team and just to see the developmental of
these little girls, reminding me of my like Pop Warner teams,
and these little girls are studs. I mean, they're better
than me. I can't control the ball like some of
these little girls.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
And and the way they coach them, the way it's
teaching these little girls communication, it's teaching them, you know, accountability,
all the things I took from football.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
I'm seeing, you know, what they're learning in.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Soccer, you know, they which is so pivotal for these
younger kids of this generation to play a team sport,
so you can learn amen, that you need to rely
on other people and if you don't do your job, yeah,
you're gonna be embarrassed by your teammates who are doing
their job. So like there's all these little things that
you get to experience in team sport. I love soccer

(29:18):
for girls, any sports.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Soccer, lacrosse. I'm all about the team sports. And again,
this is the thing, you know, growing up my sisters,
you know, they're mid late seventies, early eighties, Title nine
was a thing, but it wasn't really a thing. I mean,
it's still not what it's supposed to be. And why
shouldn't young girls have the same opportunities to play in
team sports, to be athletes, to do And this is

(29:41):
you know, it's part I'm on the women's Sports Foundation.
These are all things that I believe in. I've in
the couple of years ago with the Women's World Cup
that was in France. My wife, daughter and I were
over there. We were we lost, oh but we won.
We beat France in Paris, and my wife and daughter
and I are with that game. Dude. It was I

(30:05):
thought I loved soccer, and well women's soccer, and after
that it was it was next level, Matt. It was this.
It was the best non football experience, live sport experience
I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
I tier right now when I watch women's sports, it's
almost like they're more fundamentally sound and they stay within
the system and the scheme better than what men do.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
I completely agree with it, you know what I mean.
Like there, it's it's if you want to install an
offense or something, you should just have women do it
because it's going to be exactly how it's supposed to
be ran and the fundamentals are always going to be
crazy strong. It's it's it's in basketball too. So we
were fortunate when we were in KC. Our daughter played

(30:53):
basketball at that point in time, and every year they
used to have the Big twelve championship, not in the
Sprint Center. They had it in the smaller the old
auditorium in Kansas City that they still have. It's all
art Decko. It's had more final fours than any any
facility in the history. And those were the Britney Grinder years. Yeah,
so we got Bailor up there and our daughter was

(31:15):
Duncan uh it was. But talk about fundamentals and Kim
Maulkey was the head coach of Baylor basketball all the time.
They're fundamentals. They're passing this. There's just space something different. Yeah,
they're not five steps that the girls. Listen, I'll get

(31:36):
this one.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
You know, they try to bring in their athleticism. But
let's let's transition this to you were talking about training camps.
I saw you went to the Patriots training camp. Now,
what are your thoughts on draw Mayo. When you draft
you were part of drafting drive. That was my last
drift him, Gerd and Matthews to some of the best

(31:57):
football guys. I know that like locker room guys, leader guys. Now,
when you drafted a guy like Giraw, could you tell
that he had head coaching qualities or he had qualities?

Speaker 1 (32:09):
But you're not thinking at that point in time. But
the qualities that he had in terms of his intelligence,
his vision, his work ethic, he had to learn some
new work habits, but his his communication, his ability to communicate.
He had a lot of the tools, the skills and
the qualities of someone that would you know, could become

(32:31):
a head coach that I think that. I don't think
anyone us we're thinking, you know, you know how it
is in that moment, you're thinking about, Hey, as long
as he can get the other ten guys lined up
on defense and communicate the coverage.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
And that's what the middle linebacker does. And you know
a lot of our system those that's quarterback of of
the defense. So the communicating is probably key. And that's
what we've been hearing out of camp said. He's a
great communicator with you know, the players. He's got players perspective,
but he also has you know, a lot of the
influence of what he was in. So I think it's

(33:02):
gonna be awesome. What do you think about this Drake
may situation? So you know, my my take on it is,
if you don't have the right guys around him to
let him flourish, you know, unless he's significantly better than Jacobi,
which I don't know because I'm not in practice. I
can't see how he's calling Mike points. I can't see

(33:24):
how he's in the huddle. I can't see how he's
you know, digesting defenses that are harder than what they're
seeing in the preseason.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
I can't see that. But once you put him in,
you can't pull him right exactly. So when he's you
better measure a hundred times and cut once when you
go to that point where he's going to go, because
then if you're pulling him and then it becomes a
mind screw, I know.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
But then right now they get the media behind behind
him right now because the preseason he was thirteen or
ten for thirteen and you know, it's so maybe they
feel that rush.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
It depends on how confident.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
But Jules, again, what are the important things about One
of the most important things about the preseason is it's
a chance to evaluate players. When you evaluate players, you
always have to look at things that you're not seeing
as a fan views it. And that's I don't say
that to be offensive in any way. Did they get
the right play call, did they get the check or

(34:22):
miss the check at the line of scrimmage. Did they
know where the mic was as you were saying they
can they do it? Did they know that when there
was something different happening that they needed to check out
of the play that was called and go to another play.
There's all those little details that matter. Do they know
how to call the protection or to help change protection
in order to give themselves more time? And there's all

(34:44):
these little details that you know, can you call the
goddamn play exactly? I mean in a huddle, there's so
many quarterbacks coming in now and I'm not sounded like
this old guy, get off of my lawn, but there's
a lot of quarterbacks. They just hold up signs on
the sideline and everyone sees the play and everyone goes.
You do have to come in to a huddle and

(35:04):
talk to ten other dudes that are grown men, and
there's a lot going on out there, and it's under pressure.
It's not just how smart you know. The other thing
is when you're evaluating, you have to consider the competition.
So when he was in games, how good was the
competition that he was playing against? Because that has something
to do with your ability to make decisions.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
And as you know vanilla vanilla looks and you're playing
against twos and threes. So there's he did what you
want him to do in the pre season. You need
to see execution ten for thirteen is that's what you
want to see from your young quarterback. But he's not
seeing a Will week safety, exotic blitz and exotic front.

(35:48):
He's seeing literally four guys down, you know, your regular
base fronts or your nickel fronts, which is it's completely
different than when a team is gonna sit there and
study everything that that kid hasn't seen, and they're gonna
throw the whole kitchen sink at them until they see

(36:09):
it's blocked, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
And they know you're kryptonite. No one's game planning in
preseason game no one's game, and you're gonna get game
planned against. And that's one of the big things. And
that's when that's when you look for people's kryptonite, then
you go after it.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
I'm excited to see what this Polk and uh who Robinson?
Who's the other receiver or for the Pats Baker.

Speaker 5 (36:30):
And John Baker from Central Florida and who Jalen Polk
at Washington.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
I'm excited. They've been making some decent plays. I've heard
some good stuff going on on them. You just got
to find some people to throw them, throw the ball to.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
And throw and him to throw the ball. This is
and you get this more than anybody when you're developing
a quarterback. And this game that we're gonna talk about
is all about these kind of things. Part of the
quarterbacks development is you know, you can't give him everything
and expecting me throwing down the field the whole time.
You know, Tommy had that one. You know, he had
a year plus three games to set the bench and

(37:04):
when we brought him in. You know, the whole thing
about Brady those first couple of years. Abody can't throw
the deep ball. Can't throw the deep We didn't ask
him to. Charlie Weiss's play calling becomes a critical part
of player development. Tommy was doing everything short and sideways.
The number of screens we ran, Charlie Weiss was one
of the best screen coaches I've ever been around. Sidewalk

(37:26):
thank you, Yes, unbelievable. And Tommy the number of short
sideways underneath his use of the slot, his use of
the tight end, his use of the back we're gonna
see it here later. Yeah, he.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Takes what he gives you. I mean, if you got
an open guy, give you a look past. He just
wants to keep the offense moving forward, especially at this
point of his career. You know, we'll be right back
after this quick break. Let's jump back into time. Let's
go back to January nineteenth, two thousand and two. That's

(38:06):
when this game took place. Two thousand and one season.
But two thousand and two. That always messes me up.

Speaker 6 (38:11):
Ohays time and then college football doesn't do it like
college football, like the bowl games or the year that's
played in.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Even though it's not that I know it's a mess,
it's the stuff that keeps us up in Number one
movie was a beautiful mind, great movie, great John Nashby. Yeah,
that was a great movie.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
You got a bad bye, Ussher was the number one
song Orange County, the OC Jack Black or the movie
movie with Hanks' son, Not the Chet one, not Chet Not.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
How high m are you eminem fan? Yes? Oh yeah,
but here here's the thing of the movies and TV shows.
Forget it. I went through like a thirty year peer,
twenty year Piero movies, my family clowns me about it. Oh,
you know, I got done, and you know, people say,
what was your you know your favorite I'm like, ash

(39:01):
was a good show. I remember happy days. Yeah. It's
because like once I started this business, like I when
I got done, I've watched like Seinfeld and all these
That was a funny show. I didn't see anything like
twenty twenty. I mean there was a funny show A
football guy. Yeah. Music I was always on top of

(39:23):
because the players always had what was current, right that
that's one thing you're always up on the music.

Speaker 6 (39:28):
Music there saying he used to run the playlist for practice.
Is that true?

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, there's oh yeah, but again, remember when I was there,
we were that that was pre playing music in practice. Yeah.
That came later on. Yeah yeah, I'm old man.

Speaker 5 (39:44):
That must have been a while day. The first day
music got introduced at practice.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
I was there. It was always there. It'd be loud
as fuck, you couldn't hear anything. Maybe right, that started
happened right when I was because my last year was
the eight season, and you came in O nine and
nine and that was my first year Kansas City. Yeah,
but I remember, I'm gonna say this so I was
there for the December draft meetings. Yeah, because I was

(40:07):
running the December draft meetings and there's no coaches involved
in and the scouts are all coming in and were
put and there was a scout that talked about this
quarterback from Kent State. And again, I know there's I've
heard some stories, but I know when the name was
brought up in Patriots draft meetings. Jim Naggy, who is

(40:28):
the executive director of the Senior Bowl, brought your name up.
I don't know what this guy is, but he's something, yeah,
talking about you, man, he's something, all right. No, No,
I remember that. You know that was Jim's aria. He

(40:49):
was our Midwest area scout.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Yeah, I don't remember him, but uh yeah, I just
remember hiring my agent, Doan Ye the best.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
He's the best. And I'm gonna tell you, I love
Don Ye. I love and respect Don Ye and Steve
Dubin as much as any agents in the industry.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
They're straight shooters and they just let you do what
you're gonna do, and then they're not going to force anything.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
They're gonna and and and they want They know their
players and they know what their players want. They know
what's important to their players. And it's funny because Don
and I had some interesting and some complicated conversations sometimes
because Brady, we'll talk about Brady's deal because I didn't
get to do your deals. So Brady's first deal was,
you know, the rookie contract. And I'll say this, Unfortunately,

(41:38):
we were doing business at that point in time, not
thinking long term and relationships. It was a very bottom
line way of doing things, and it was something Bill
and I weren't comfortable with. And and we so Tommy's
first deal he got lesson he should have for his slot.
There wasn't slotting back then, but everyone knew what the

(41:58):
slot wasn't called the lot, and we broke his shoes
a little bit. Unfortunately, the people that were doing the
contracts at that time. And then when it came time
for Tommy's next deal, I was doing the next deal
and then the next deal. And I'll never forget we
were at this one point in time. I think it
was maybe Tommy's third deal, it might have been, and

(42:20):
Don and I weren't making progress, and we were trying
to keep the team together, right, that was part of
our thing. We didn't expect people to take home team discounts.
We were hopeful that people would want to spread it
and keep the winning because we felt, you know, high
tides raised all boats, and the more that we won,
there was all these other opportunities, marketing, et cetera, et cetera.

(42:43):
And I'll never forget Don and I couldn't get anywhere,
and Tommy was getting annoyed because he was getting distracted,
not annoyed with anyone. He just wanted to think about ball.
And I'll never forget. One morning he comes up to
my office and he knocks, and he comes in and
he closes the door and he says, hey, can we
talk about this contract. I'm like, Tommy, we can't have
a negotiation. That's against the rules. We're not allowed. Hey listen.

(43:04):
We got to talk. But he and I had a
really good and close relationship. And he said, where are
you guys at? So I told him where we were at,
told him where you guys are at? And he says,
what's the drop dead number? Tommy, we can't have this conversation.
I got to talk to Don about this, and I'll
never forget. It was the deal when he signed, It
was the I want to say, it was the six year,

(43:25):
ten million a year deal. Think about that, six years,
sixty mill. It was like, and I'll never forget. I said,
that's probably our our choke point. But we're playing this game, Don,
and I that it's not a game. I shouldn't call
it that we're having this negotiation where one team's low,
one side's low, one team's high, and you're trying to
find the middle spot. And I'll never forget. Tommy looks

(43:47):
at me, shakes his head, looks away. He goes, if
I can't live the rest of my life over sixty
million dollars and my family, he says, I've got problems, like,
get Don on the phone, like, Tom, we can't, we can't,
we can't do this. He is, get him on the phone.
We got on the phone and put it on speaker

(44:09):
and Tommy goes, hey, Don, it's tom. He goes, hey,
how you doing today? He goes and you know, Don's
all up beat and he goes, I got you on speakerphone.
I'm in Scott's office. Dead silence, dead silence because and
Don's like, what are you doing there? He's like, Don, listen, man,
this is ridiculous. He says, I'm talking to Scott and

(44:30):
I'm like sweating because it wasn't a negotiation, he was
just asking. And anyway, tom He's like, listen, you guys,
just get this done. And I go, I'm bringing this
story up because I go back to Don. Don and
Steve could have made so much more money. Yeah, if
they didn't do what their client wanted. And tom you know,

(44:52):
Don and Steve have left money on the table year
after year after year after year by doing what their
clients wanted and maybe not trying to talk their clients
into something that would pay them greater three percent. Anyway,
I don't mean to make that a long story, but
it's just I think the world of Don Ye.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, Donye's we call them the dragon, bro. He just calm,
cool and collect the dragon. You can't call him that.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
That's what Tommy. That's what Tommy told me to call
and I wasn't gonna go there. There's only only a
select few that can call them dragon. It's like in Step.

Speaker 5 (45:27):
Brothers when they meet each other the first time.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Remember that day. He's like, go me dragon, great movie?
He great movie?

Speaker 6 (45:35):
You watch that time? Did you watch that last week?

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Let's get back in this sports world two thousand and one,
two thousand and two Super Bowl champs.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Patriots go on do it after this? That was a
good one. Kurt Warner, NFL MVP. Man from grocery bagger
to MVP.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
How about that? That was crazy? National champions were the
Miami Hurricanes? Was that? Ken Dorsey at those I used
to love those teams?

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Heisman Trophy winner Eric kout Crouch out of Nebraska. How
about that Winter Olympics were in Salt Lake City?

Speaker 1 (46:12):
My Olympics that year? Yeah? What I mean? Yeah? Yeah,
that's all the Olympics this year. But the Olympics have
gotten I think the ratings of the Olympics have gotten
a lot better.

Speaker 6 (46:24):
Social media helps it a lot.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Way more because you can only watch it on one network.
Michael Vick was drafted over one overall. Patriots drafted Richard
Seymour Hall of Famer Richard.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Do you know who he drafted right after Richard? Matt Light?
Another than round a steal?

Speaker 6 (46:43):
What's he's stealing from you?

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Do you know what he's stolen from you? Does het
anything from you?

Speaker 6 (46:48):
We're still trying to find you.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Got any Matt Lights stories? Oh my gosh, oh my god.
She called me one time with his voice throw thing
from the Pro Bowl wait voice thing so where he
could like change his boy and left me a message
Belichick just like he's such a tool sometime. But I'll

(47:12):
tell you so, No, I'll tell you what. So I
saw both Seymour, saw him play live at the University
of Kentucky the day before. I want to say, we
were playing in Indianapolis that weekend. So that was one
of my things when we had road games. I would
always try to go out and do a live game
the day before, get into the hotel team meeting at
the night. Saw Seymour and Stroud was the other guy.

(47:36):
They were coming out the same year. They were both
first round picks. Richard Seymour. When I saw him in
person down on the field in pregame, he would do
this thing after they did the one on ones and
all their stuff, he would go by himself against the uprights,
the the goalpost and the padded part and do the
swat swim thing on it and swat rip. You know.

(47:58):
I learned from Steve Belichick, Bill's dad, the original Steve Beliche,
about one of the things in scouty you have to
use your eyes and your ears and it was teaching
me how to listen to hear hunters and quarterbacks. You
could hear the ball, leave their fingertips, stand behind and
be silent, close your eyes. Puntered, you could hear punters

(48:20):
and kickers hit the ball. One of the other things
and in doing that I learned was sometimes you can
hear explosion. And yeah, they had all these devices that
measure when when Richard Seymour hit that padded upright, it
was a sound like a good golf hit or a
good baseball hit. It was like the sound. I was like,
oh my gosh. And then I saw I was out

(48:42):
at Purdue. They're Matt Light for a practice. Drew Brees
was a quarterback and went to the Rose Bowl.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Matt Light was I mean energy man energy, but Matt
Light for his position was like really undersized and to
have the career he had, like he's a big man,
don't get me wrong, but he was short for a tackle.
To have that, you had to be like a technician
with your fundamentals. And that's what Matt Lighte was and.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
People didn't people had him be that said that he
was going to be a guard in the Yeah, he
could play tackle because here's the thing. He was so
smart smart. It's like anything, right, if you have some
physical limitations, you find other ways you figure it out,
whether it's you know, and he height wise, he was
shorter than the norm. Length wise, shorter than the norm.

(49:34):
People are like, oh, they're gonna get the edge on him.
But he was so smart, he was so good. Were
there times he was on the edge. But he was
a heck of a football. He was one of the best.
But here's the other thing about the whole Patriot thing
that people don't understand. When you have players with limitations,
that's where great coaching comes in. And and and yes,
Bill's i will say, the greatest coach of all time,

(49:57):
head coach of all time, but Charlie weis ante scarnecks
those and you know, in terms of protection and knowing
who and when to protect based on matchups and situations
and circumstances, and then having a quarterback that knows how
to figure that stuff out and and when and who slide,
when to chip, when you keep the tight end, and
having those things helped matt Light become a better player.

(50:20):
That being said, without matt Light, we can't do what
we did. Terrific player. Anyway, we got him that year too.

Speaker 6 (50:29):
So Matt lighte told us a story about when he
was drafted. I'd love to hear your your side of that.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
It was how we screwed the Jets epic. I mean here,
it never gets all beaten the Jets, right, never never,
So here's what happens. So I just got a deal
taking off the table to go to a Jets game
because the Jets didn't want me there. No way, it's
better that way. A little nightmare. It was some company.
I was gonna do something, go to the New York

(50:57):
hates me. I went.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
I tried to go to I tried to go to
a game once and I got some floor seats.

Speaker 5 (51:02):
What's his name, Dolan Dolan Nolan or Dolan James Dolan.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
James Dolan heard and took him away. What because the
Celtics are coming in town.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
There's some ship we'll get back to Matt Light draft day.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Draft that's that's dirty, you know, I just marked that here. Yeah,
he's dead to me.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
It's a tribe man, right, family, it's a fuck do
that to the evil empire the So.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Matt Light so we are, we're loving Matt Light and
We're thinking, now we can get him in the second round,
and we need a left tackle at this point in time, right,
So we've kind of got him targeted, and we are
again this is where I trying to remember the numbers,
exactly fifty one, two three in and around there and

(51:50):
for fifty and we're the Jets are picking right before us,
the pick right before us, and about three or four
picks before. You know, we had this thing where part
of the strategy, you know, you always talk about the
evaluation process. Then there's a strategy, then there's the execution.
So one of the things that we would do if

(52:10):
there was a player that we wanted and we were targeting,
we would call that player a couple of picks early
if he was still on the board. And you know,
so I picked up the phone, called Matt. I say, hey, Matt,
it's Poli. How you doing. I had known Matt because we,
you know, done a lot of preparations. You see his
phone voice changes change right there, and you got to

(52:31):
get you got to stay quiet as you want him
to be quiet because he's got people around, like, hey, Matt,
this is Poli. I said, You're hear him from anybody,
right now because you know, we're thinking, we love that
you're in range. And he goes, oh yeah. As a
matter of fact, it's back in the call waiting right
because he says, I just had to click over, so
you know it was you guys. I had to click over.
I was on with the Jets. They're picking me when

(52:53):
they come up, When are you guys picking? I said, Matt,
here we go, hang up, but don't tell the Jets
who just called them. Just say someone else just called in,
wrong number, whatever. Don't tell the Jets that I just called.
He said, okay, so just trust me on this one.
He hangs up. I hang up. I look at Bill.
I said. The Jets pick right before us. They have

(53:13):
them on the phone. They're holding because that's who they're taking.
So we got to move from I want to say,
from fifty one to forty nine. So we're but I
think it's at like forty six or forty seven on
the pick. So we start calling everybody before that before
the Jets pick, not not getting any action, not getting
any action. Call my boy Matt Millen at the Lions,
who's one pick ahead of the Jets, and said say, hey, Matt,

(53:38):
we want to move up. He says, yeah, our guy
just went, you know, give us a ham sandwich. We'll swat.
It was. We were moving two spots. Sure enough. We
make the trade right before, right as the Lions went
on the clock, call Matt light. I said, Matt, they
still got you on hold. He's like yeah, I said,
well screw them. We just traded up your New England page.

(54:02):
It was awesome number forty eight. Forty eight there, yeah,
it was in that yeah, forty eight, Thank you geez.

Speaker 5 (54:08):
And the Jets took Lamont Jordan's Yeah, running back Maryland.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
I love the front office. That's front I had to
take tenth grade math twice, right, but you give me
a player, I'll give their hometown. That's love. And tenth
grade math wasn't really math, man, that was geometry.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
I like the geometry until we got to you know,
and until we got to proofs and stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
That's when I was fucking struggling.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Until when the numbers.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Yeah, that's like pre Coch proof series. I was probably
supposed to be taking that the second time I took geometry. Yeah,
but I can manage a salary cap and I want
to hear about that.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
We'll have to get into that XFL was founded in
two thousand and one. Now, did you guys when you
got when the XFL came, You're you're part of a player,
You're you're the head of the player department, player personal department.
Does do you do you guys assign a scout to
look at these guys? Because I know we have regional
scouts that take like this area, this area, that area

(55:08):
for college when one of these new leagues comes in,
like even right now with the USFL, are these teams
having a department just or a guy dedicated to looking
at these teams.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Probably a couple of people. So again most of my
I had some college scouting background, but my scouting background
as I came up, starting off as a slappy with
the Browns and then working my way up was primarily
pro personnel.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
So in pro personnel, two different departments for the listener.
Also there's pros. You have your pro scouts that are
scouting everyone in the league. So like free agency, this
guy gets cut, this guy, and then you have your
college scouts.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
They do all the college guys right, and then within
college you've got an area scout, you've got a regional scout,
national scout. It's usually separated geographically, but in the pro
personnel department again where I kind of cut my teeth.
For the most part, we scouted the NFL and you
had to do not only free agents, but you had
to do the advanced scouting. So like during my time

(56:08):
at the Jets, I was a one man pro personnel department.
I did every advanced scout for three years. Always on
what's an advanced scout? So you go and scout. Every
team is allowed to go see the team that they're
getting ready to play. So if we're playing the Bills
next week, I can go see the Buffalo Bills, sit
in the press box and watch the game and view

(56:29):
the game one or two weeks before, but you can
only go one time. So advanced scouting was when you
would go see your future opponent. So you're doing the
advanced scouting. So that was that was one of the
ways that mine and Bill's relationship really grew at the
New York Jets. So I was the pro director for
three years. He was the defensive coordinator. Anyway, so we

(56:52):
watch the CFL XFL. The other thing is, you know,
you get the advanced scouting, so as a pro personnel guy.
Which goes back to the time that that Parcel's mother
after me and told me to just do my job.
Was when he asked me a couple of questions about
he wanted to know who the gunner was, the right
gunner on the Detroit Lions, a team that we hadn't

(57:12):
played that year, and I didn't know who it was,
and he mother after me. He said, if you you know,
why don't you just do your job, because if you
were an expert in your job, you know who the
right gunner. It's a bill. We didn't play the Detroit Lions,
so that sounds like an excuse to me a whole anyway,
So you need to know the league inside and out.
So Lee's abuse was allowed. Yeah, so yeah, you're doing

(57:43):
the leagues. You're doing every league and uh so that's
a big part of it. Yeah, I mean it's who
there's a quarterback. I'm sorry. So when you ask that questions,
usually the pro personnel departments are understaffed. So the entry
level scout. All right, I mentioned some of these guys.
Brian Flores was one of those. Brian Farrens was Monte

(58:05):
Austin for you know, Adam Peters all these young guys
when they came in, Mike Disner, when they came in,
part of their job was to do the college stuff
that need to be done in house. But I would
give them some of the other leagues to do that
to kind of train them and help them and get
them familiar with writing reports and what to look for

(58:26):
and what to look for. So it was all hands
on deck for these leagues.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
Now, yeah, it's it's crazy. You know, Uh, who's that quarterback.
There's a quarterback that's a three right now. It just
saw that came. He was the USFLA Martin Martinez. He's
I mean, he's a backup on one of the teams
right now.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
He's playing in the preseason. I want to say Martinez.

Speaker 6 (58:49):
But from the first round of XFL, we had Rod Smart, he.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Robs Smart, he hate me Maddox with Tom Pinsburgh Sailors. Yeah,
Tommy went. He was working backwards. Yeah yeah, yeah, he
was going. He was flip flopping. Yeah, no, no, he.

Speaker 6 (59:04):
Was because he had an NFL and then then Slash
got him.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah, but that was NFL Europe too, I mean that
was you know what I almost wish NFL Europe was
around when I was a player. Hey man, that's how
we've That's that was where we got to evaluate Joe
and Drusy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
If I would have had like my first two years
in NFL Europe, I would have got I never been
outside of the country at that point in my life.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
I was like, man, it would have been so cool
to be in Frankfurt or somewhere played football. Let me
ask you this, though, would the young Julian Edelman without
the structure of the Patriots have been able to handle Yeah,
because I wasn't there yet.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
I was a hungry guy and I was still hungry
to make the prioritize.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Yeah, I could prioritize that I was prioritizing. I mean
I remember, you know.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Right when I hired Don and Steve, I went into
such a crazy, rigorous routine that was like my first
time because I was a quarterback. I never really lifted weights.
I did all the running and everything. But like I
did everything where I cooked all my meals. I got
up at five and I would go work out before

(01:00:13):
class in Euclid, Ohio, so I could you know, get
my get my fucking workout in. Then I'd drive back,
drive back to Akron with Charlie Fry and I would
throw with him because I had that dream, you know
what I mean. And that was one of the biggest
things for me when I was coming out is working
with Charlie Fry, who was He was a pro quarterback.

(01:00:33):
So if you had a pro quarterback talking to you
on what he wants to see a receiver do. I
didn't know how to run routes, but if you have,
you know, Charlie Fry coming over say well, you gotta
roll out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
And you can't. You can't. You can't have an out
like that. You can't there's too much time at the
top of the route or you know. That helped me tremendously.
So I think I would have had at that time
in my life been able to go to Frankfurt because
I still had that dream of playing in the league,
you know. So you just you keep saying things like that,
all these other thoughts that the whole idea of Like

(01:01:07):
Charlie frye, I am such a believer in player development,
and when you got to the league, you had a
quarterback who loved player development, whether it was you, David Gibbons,
Dion Branch, all these guys who were certain types of
people that worked and could pay attention. We're willing they
that have really strong work ethic. He was going to

(01:01:29):
teach maybe some of the work habits, the idea of
having a guy like Charlie Frye. I got a quarterback
who was a true professional and how important the quarterback's
role is along with the coaching's dad in the play.
How important was that for you in terms of your
development as a player being with Tommy?

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Oh, I mean that was huge.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
I would say the time away from the facility was
the biggest part for me and tom because he was
at a different part of his career in my career
than when when you saw him, he was already Tom
motherfucking Brady.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
You know, by that time, he wasn't Tommy anymore. It
wasn't Tom anymore, you know, and it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Was this is tom This is two years removed from seven,
so like they had this electrifying air attack by then.
And you know, for me, it was so hard to
gain his trust because he at that point of his career,
he's ten years in, He's seen a lot of receivers,

(01:02:28):
so it took him time and he's no, he's seen
the situation where you know, he throws to a young
receiver and the guy doesn't come flat to downhill and
the dB undercuts it and so he gets scarred and
he remembers that. So for a younger player, if you
ever get an opportunity to get a ball to you,
you have to do a good thing. You can't fuck

(01:02:51):
up the fundamental coaching point or whatever tom said in
the team meeting or whatever he said to Wes. Even
if he said it to Wes or Randy, he's expecting
you to listen. So you know, it wasn't until I
started training with him in the offseason where he was
learning my body behavior on how I got in and
out of breaks. I was learning things that he would

(01:03:14):
be mad at. That's when we really, you know, started connecting.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
But that's part of the pressure rights and this is
exactly what I'm talking about. So it was the scars
that you were starting to get from Tommy because he
was letting you know what was acceptable and what wasn't
act unacceptable, and if you weren't. It's interesting because I
felt like our entire team at different positions. Part of
the Patriots magic was that players would run other players off.

(01:03:42):
And if you weren't buying in. But the fact that
you bought in because you got scar scarred by Tommy
saying no, this is the way we're doing it. Do
its scars from previous receivers that have you know, So
then to draft choices that we had that you know,
guys who two receivers I know that we drafted this
in the second round different years who had weight, speed tools,

(01:04:07):
but they weren't buying into the program. And then you
get another second round like Dion Branch who was all
in on the program, and David Gibbons, and people forget
guys like David Gibbons, and then so many of the
players that came to us that there was a way
that we were doing business and the way that tom
was going to do a business. And if you did
it again, you became part of the tribe. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
And I always tell people that everyone talks about this
Patriot way thing in man of that I'm not either,
But when you have to define it, I define it
like this bill and the coaches were basically Congress. They
made the fucking rules, they made the laws. It was
up to the players to go out and police them.

(01:04:51):
So they were like the sheriffs and stuff, you know
what I mean, because they were put they put the
rules in place. But you didn't have to tell Tom
Teddy Kevin Falk. You didn't have to tell them what
to do. They were police, they didn't They got on
the motherfuckers, the vrabels. They got on guys if you
weren't doing or holding up to your standard. And that's
what everyone talks about the page. It's it's just accountability,

(01:05:14):
accountability on a level where you're embarrassed if you if
you don't do your job, you're gonna get ridiculed and
guys are gonna give it to you if you didn't
give your one hundred percent. If you gave a hundred
percent and you didn't get the job done, guys will
feel for you. But if you're not doing everything it
takes to get the job done and and you fuck up,

(01:05:34):
that's when a guy is gonna fucking go in and
destroy you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
And that multiple guys you're nailing at Julian And that
was part of it. And in the early years, you know,
we moved into the new stadium and the you know,
the lockers were done numerically, that one set of lockers
where you came in that one main door, not the one.
William McGinnis on one side, Teddy Bruski on the other.
Then you had Is and then you had Rabel. You

(01:06:01):
had and you had to walk the gauntlet and if
you were late, if you screwed something up. I mean
there was a time, you know, Iszoe used to have
his own There was brad Seely would have the special
teams meetings, but before brad Seely's meetings, there was the
meeting before the meeting, and certain players, veteran players, would
have their own meetings and there would be like a

(01:06:23):
fine rule, the player find thing. I know, we're not
allowed to talk about this. It's something that used to
exist everywhere where Bill. You know how Bill always asked
those questions, you know, in the meetings and if you
didn't know the answer to question in the discounty report,
you better know the kangaroo Court of players would would
find you and they would collect and the players, you know,
there were a couple that I won't name all of
the players that were involved, they know who they are.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
Down but the league's actually gotten a little cooler.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
This is this is where it got sticky. So there
was this whole fine system, and Larry is a would
have special teams meetings. Before the special teams meetings, rookies,
practice squad players. They had to show up for these
player meetings that were going on, and if you didn't
show up, you screwed something up. There was these fines.
So there were these players that collected the fines, and

(01:07:15):
I was aware of the fine system. And what happened
was there was a game again certain players the name
unnamed remained unnamed, had a big play and after the
game and the interview says, yeah, I just got myself
a Ben Franklin, meaning that he was getting one hundred
dollars for from the kangaroo court, that is the locker

(01:07:35):
room kangaroo court. But the league start to investigation the
real leaders of this group, the Bruskis, the Vrabels, and
they were the collectors, and then there were the redistributors.
But here's what happened. The league started an investigation because
they had found out they heard this and the redistribution

(01:07:56):
of money, even though it was for all good reasons,
all good purposes. All if you're redistributing money, they said,
that falls under the bounty rule. Yeah, but our players
and you know this locker room. Here's the thing. Our
players were never about hurting seven. It was never that
kind of yeah, a big block, right, it was that

(01:08:17):
kind of stuff. But the league so I ended up
getting fined because I was aware it was. It was unbelievable.
Another gate. I don't know if we can put this gate.
But again, but the point in that is what I remember,
you know, talking to the folks to the league saying,
here's what you don't understand. This kind of accountability is
is what this team needs. This is peer accountability. This

(01:08:40):
is people holding one another to a certain standard. And
you're gonna break up this kangaroo court. That really is
a core part of our the fiber of our locker room.
It's camaraderie. Yeah, you know, but.

Speaker 5 (01:08:53):
We cut that guy for running his mouth to the media.
But the Benjamin Franklin.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
We didn't. Oh we didn't. I remember. It was just
kangaroo court. You gotta have it, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Then by the time I got there, we we just
made like sweatshirts.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
And ship with slogans on it. Yeah, like special team unit.
I have like a fighter pilot.

Speaker 5 (01:09:18):
Wasn't Joe Judge, a sick fashion designer Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
Is always designing some ship.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
Bro Im like, Joe, we don't need another fucking hoodie.
But let's jump into these Raiders. Break them down. Raiders.

Speaker 5 (01:09:31):
What do you mean, don't you mean the All right,
let's get into these Raiders. These are John Gruden's Raiders,
the second seed in the AFC this year eleven and five.
Speaking of European football, John Gruden, right now, advisor to
the Milanos.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Seamen Milano. That's right, it's Italy. Yes, yeah, it's well,
so look at you, well done, and it's the c
s e A. Yes see men men two separate words. Yeah, man,
you're a lair to him. You will that's waterman. Back

(01:10:10):
to the sorry see.

Speaker 5 (01:10:13):
Then and uh, this was Bill Callahan was running the
offense the OC this year.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Callahan is his son's a head coach.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Right, yeah, look at it's so.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
I always love going in. I love going down these
old like games. And then you start to see the
lineage of who comes from where?

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Bill Callahan one of the best offensive line coaches all time,
one of the best. I've heard that all the time.

Speaker 5 (01:10:37):
Speaking of great coaches, Fred Blittnikoff was running the wide receivers.
You know, It's not bad having a coach with an
award named after him. Come on now, uh, David Shaw,
you remember him at Stanford head coach for all those years.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Quarterback coach Chuck Bresnahan. Don't skip that name, because Chuck
Bresnahan worked at the Naval Academy with Bill Bill's dad
and then was actually a quality control guy with us
at the Browns.

Speaker 5 (01:10:59):
Under Bills running the defense DC this year crazy and
they brought in uh talking about pro personnel Jerry Rice
in the r Ice a thirty nine year old Jerry Rice.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
He had a thousand yards at inty eight unbelievable, insane.

Speaker 6 (01:11:14):
Nine touchdowns.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
This was two thous couple of gold jackets. Unbelievable. Joey
Porter was no slouch either. No, no, wa.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
Charlie Gardner, like we already talked.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
I love charge.

Speaker 5 (01:11:23):
This was a great veteran Rosscannon.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:11:26):
This team started out hot ten and three.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
Who was there defensive guys that you had to worry about.
You always look at this Raiders team and you think
of the Gruden Raiders as an offensive juggernaut.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Rod Coleman was a really good player, I'll tell you.
And Chris Cooper was was an interesting player. He wasn't
a top name, but he was a situational guy that
was a bit of a handful. Grady Jackson outstanding, Reagan Upshaw,
Elijah Alexander, those guys. Beaker was a heck of a player.
But again, the corners, are you kidding me? Eric Allen,

(01:11:59):
Eric Allen right and Charles Woodson Woods Young, Charles Woodson. Yeah, yeah,
so they were, they were, They were a good teammate.
We do Fox Kickoff together. Yeah, he beat beat He
beat me in a tug of war. Fucking guys still
got it. Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
We did this finals thing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
We went on like a Fox recruit trip or a
Fox retreat trip.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
And we got down to the final two guys is
me and Chuck and and uh, you had to be
on a stump with a fucking tug war pool whatever.
And he's got he's got good length. He did like
a little fake thing and then he lanked me. Oh
then it got me off the stump. So he got
he got in your head.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Yeah, I don't know, because he started pulling. I was
letting it go because you know, you pull it, you
let him go and then maybe he'll go back.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
There was some he kind of he he got me. Wow.
It was kind of like the old Terry tape mine
full mind game off linebacker. Yeah, all the mine game
shout out rebox Terry Tate off. We had a Terry
Tate jersey that was during the big rebox in the

(01:13:10):
draft room. What I would do for that jersey? Oh
my god, Terry, I might still have it. As you
guys see, there's a lot of stuff that I brought
in here. It's a I mean, did you have a
did you have one of these books dedicated to these
Raiders or is this just straight general full book not
a full book? You know there's the weekly game plan
and stuff and.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
The now what we'll jump into it. What do you
how do you prepare?

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
What do you do during game week as general manager
when you're jumping into a playoff game?

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Like, what's your day to day role?

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Is?

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Is Bill giving you certain things to look at? Or
are you giving Bill to certain things to look at?

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
When when it comes to in the role that I
was at that point in time, we had pro scouts
that were responsible for the advanced scouting, which would have
all the information on the team and that would include
signals and I know that's going to trigger some people,
but here's a signals that we all had to do
the personnel groupings right because back in the day, there
wasn't the helmet to player communications. So as you know

(01:14:08):
one one one, you know he's talking on defense. So
you would have to get the offense of identify who
the coach was on the sideline as the advanced scout person,
identify who was the coach giving the personnel grouping signals
because that was just time right is so actually during
games in my decade with the Patriots, I sat in

(01:14:31):
the booth right next to Ernie Adams and would identify
the personnel groupings or you talking, whether it was twelve,
whether it's twenty two, and so we could match, you know,
the defense.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
And it's gotten different I think by this time where
the defense has time to match, right, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
But I don't know if it was like that back then. No.
So if I would see one one one, that was
usually you know, regular. So if I would see that
in the game, I'm regular. We so we would know
what defensive personnel have on the field if they were
going thirteen, you know, or three receivers. It's funny because
I still have Their team for us was always three

(01:15:09):
tight end sorry eleven was three receivers, and it's sometimes
we have colors in Cleveland, yeah, red blue and all that. Yeah. Yeah,
So that that was part of what I would do.
So but really what I would do during the season
is again just do your job. My job was looking
at players for the draft, looking at players. What I

(01:15:30):
would do every week when we were getting ready to
play the Raiders, for instance, I would be looking at
all their players during the week that We're going to
be free agents that off season. So I was doing
the early work to prepare for free agency. So I
would have my evaluation done. But you know, during the season,
and during this season is a perfect example. You have injuries,
you have things going on, there's teams that are cutting players.

(01:15:51):
You're you know, you're having to pay attention to the roster.
I mean this year alone, you know, we I want
to say it was in November of this season, in
two thousand and one season where we moved on from
Lee Johnson, our punter, and brought in Kenny Walter. You know,
Kenny Walter. People don't realize how important he was for
that football team and this team that beat the Raiders

(01:16:11):
and won the Super Bowl. Not only as a punter,
but as a holder. He was our holder. So you know,
where do you go to school? Where do you go
to Kent State? Guy? Yeah, So here's the funny story.
He was a clique. You know, fact checked me there.

(01:16:32):
But but he's from Ohio. Well here's the deal. But
here's the thing. Kenny. Kenny was a ball boy for
us at the Cleveland Browns. This was one of the
things that we used to do. We would bring in
guys that were either high school or college punters and
backup quarterbacks to be an extra arm practice and also

(01:16:54):
to be an extra leg for punt So Kenny, so
that was part of what I would have to do
is you know, we're paying attention to the roster. That
was my job. I'm not a coach. You know, coaches
did their job that they did. I always had to
make sure that we had eyes on the players that
could improve the roster during the season.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Let's let's jump into that Cleveland Browns like, how was
how was that operation?

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
Because that's where you got your your your start.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
As a slappy that's actually known as the Slappies. You see,
I'm not the only one who says it. You know,
I call as you know, it has a different name.
But we were just slap dick yeah podcast podcast yeah yeah.
But you know, like, how is is that where you
guys basically developed your formula and that book that you

(01:17:45):
have right to the right of you, and how to
scout and and and what.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
A team supposed to look like literally at every position
where you guys starting that in Cleveland and then the
band broke up, and then you reunited in New England
and then that's kind of where you did you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Just so so again. In Cleveland, I was an entry
level guy. I had coached for four years. I knew
Bill Beck when I had met him when I was
in college. I was a sophomore in college. I think
he was a deepens coordinator the Giants. We cultivated this relationship,
we stayed in touch. So when he got to Cleveland,
he hired me, and I wasn't sure if I was

(01:18:22):
going to be a quality control guy or scouting. I
ended up being in scouting. And the manual that we
put together for the Patriots was very It was different
and it was different from the rest of the league
because scouting at that point in time, there was a
base formula of what scouting was about, and it was this,

(01:18:42):
and it had grading systems that were all very similar.
But what a lot of teams did. They scouted really
based on the league right. And one of the things
that I remember happened during the time working with Bill,
having known Bill again for as long as I did
personally and before I went to work with him, you know,

(01:19:03):
one of the interesting things was when I when I
got to Cleveland, there were very there weren't that many
people on the staff and within the entire football operation
that had actually worked with Bill. Al grow was our
linebacker coach for a short time. You know, Nick and
Bill knew Saban knew one another. But Nick had actually

(01:19:23):
worked with I want to say, with Bill's dad at
one point in time. So there were Ernie, Ernie had
worked with Bill, so and Ernie one of my all
time favorite people. I'll tell you a cool Ernie story
a little later on. It's uh, you know, So, there
weren't that many people that that knew Bill and and
part of what what happened with the scouting was we

(01:19:45):
were big on tools like a lot of teams height, weight,
speed and anyway as important as that stuff is. You know,
I think Bill's operations different in the sense that some
people think it's really difficult. I don't think it is
really his big rules. And when we were in Cleveland,
we'll be on time, pay attention, work hard. If you

(01:20:07):
do those three things. It really kind of manifested itself
in every way for the program thirty years later. So
there were some things that we started, I think, to
realize that we were more important and weren't really a
big part of our player acquisition and our player evaluation
in Cleveland that we didn't focus on enough. That we

(01:20:30):
focused on quite a bit more. And go into that
manual that I brought, you know, that was Ernie and I.
Can you pick that up and show how big big
these these arego sports fans when you look at a
lot of scouting manuals are like that thick and it's
like I think, sometimes people try to make this more
complicated than it is. And when we got done, this

(01:20:54):
is this is our entire scouting manual and who developed
this manual? Ernie and I. But there's the two thousand
and one. I've got the original, I've got the original
two thousands. This is the two thousand and one. But really,
you know, like here at the bottom, I could even
say this without even looking at the bottom of every page,
every single page this book. We're building a big, strong, fast, smart,

(01:21:16):
tough and disciplined football team that consistently competes for championships.

Speaker 5 (01:21:21):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
We weren't going to we weren't throwing this word salad
out there that we're gonna be champions every year. We
were going to consistently put ourselves in a position to compete.
And people say, what kind of players are you going
to look at? Well? Big, strong, fast, smart, tough and
disciplined football players, right, And that's why I said to
you as we were getting going here, you got Jules,
you were that guy. I wasn't big, strong, fast, You

(01:21:42):
were strong. I was very fast, tough and discipline. But
here's the thing. If they're are maybe you weren't tall,
but you didn't play small.

Speaker 4 (01:21:50):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
And that's the thing. Just because someone's height isn't a
certain level doesn't mean they can't play big. Yeah, I
get yeah. So anyway, I always argue that to everyone is, oh,
you're so small like that. I'm two hundred pounds not small, solid.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
Right, as you think about it in my in my matchup,
I'm going against guys that are anywhere from one hundred
and seventy five on a low side like a small
corner to two ten.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
No one's ever really bigger than that, but for longer.
And people love the big receivers, right, height, weight, speed receivers.
But let me tell you something. Could you get open? Always? Yeah,
branch got open? You guys probably near the same height. Yeah, yeah, No,
it's true, right, I mean, that's what I'm thinking about.
We drafted Chad Jackson second round, and I'm not throwing

(01:22:39):
shade at Chad. Shade at Chad. It's just the other
things that were important weren't necessarily he wasn't able to
develop maybe like you did, because he was willing to do.
Bethel Johnson, we took him in the second round, big, tall, fast,
So in building that and building the football team, we
did a little bit more nuanced than we had the

(01:23:00):
previous in Cleveland. Here was another thing that we had
so when Ernie and I, Ernie and I literally sat
in meetings together, when I tell you, days upon days
upon days, and we didn't have a we joke about it.
Now still Ernie and I we didn't have a vacation
that summer because we literally finished the scouting manual and

(01:23:20):
typed that with a little help from Nancy Meyer. But
I wanted it on my computer. I was a little
bit cooky about that, just meaning, you know, I want
to put in details where I want to put in details.
And but the other person really helped us was a
guy who Ernie learned how to scout from, and that
was Bucko Kilroy, God rest his soul. Ernie loves Buckle.

(01:23:41):
I love Buckle. When we got there, we made sure
I made sure up in the scouting department that Bucco
had an office. I learned so much from Bucco. Ernie
learned from Bucco. The other person that Parcels tells me
the person that taught him scouting was Bucko Kilroy when
he was when Parcels was the linebackers coach under Coach
Air Banks one hundred years ago. And so Bucco had

(01:24:05):
this this big picture sense. He was part of building
the blessed O grading scale and the national grading scale,
and there was so we used part of that, but
we tailored it to be organizationally specific for what we wanted.
Every position, the right guard had a description, the left

(01:24:25):
guard had a description, the center did every position had specifics,
and a lot of that came from Bill and the
coaches we were working with. But then the other thing
that we paid a lot of attention to is when
we were building the team was making sure that we
had players that were going to be able to respond
to the head coach. Every program is different, right, There's

(01:24:45):
our way was our way. Bill's way was hit his way.
That didn't mean that a player that couldn't be successful
with us couldn't go somewhere else and be successful under
a different Hey, Pete Carroll want to Bill and Pete
Carroll are in anyways different, but they both respect the game,
loved the game, and respect football people. They did things differently.

(01:25:06):
They both won championships, but stylistically they could they wanted
different types of people. I don't know if I'm making
any sense.

Speaker 6 (01:25:15):
I've got a question for you with regards to you
guys having a different like grading system or a different
thing you're looking at than the rest of the league.
When it comes to like drafting, you're drafting against other teams,
so your board might look very different from one. How
are you trying to find value but still get your
guys in that draft room.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
That is an awesome question because we ran a two
gap defense when we were first there still so the
way that we valued, but when they started playing a
little bit more one yeah, yeah, but what we valued
in terms of defensive linemen and or outside linebackers, Mike
Rabel was more valuable to us than some other teams,

(01:25:54):
you know, the big noses that could truly two gap guys.
That was a different value of that, which for our
Here's here's the crazy thing. When we first started that
actually played to our advantage because there was a lot
of players that other teams weren't interested because they didn't
fit their philosophy, their circumstance, their situation, how they wanted

(01:26:16):
to do things, but they fit for us. And part
of what I hope we get into here is talking
about that that two thousand and one free agent crew
where we signed twenty three free agents for a total
of two point five million dollars in signing bonus. Wow,
here's and it's not like you know that players that

(01:26:36):
were throwaways for other organizations.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
My generation would be the Rob Nikovich is the you
know guys that he was a long snapper. Who else
was someone we always got other treasures or other guys trash.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):
One man's trash is another welker. Yeah, he was balling.
He was balling and he was just starting to Yeah,
the up trade. I think it was the second round
pick for him. But Roman Pfeiffer, Bobby Hamilton, there's a
great Bobby Hamilton and Anthony Pleasant, two guys that were
linear type, built high hip. They really should have been

(01:27:15):
one gap type of guys, which Ap was when he
came out of Tennessee State. Bobby Hamilton, both of those
guys were such good technicians and they were rule followers
and they did exactly what they were supposed to do.
Rule followers, rule followers. When I say rule followers, I'm
talking about rule followers when it comes to your job
on the field and playing discipline football.

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
But there is always there's always one special guy like
Lawrence Taylor. He wouldn't necessarily follow the rule, but he
was never wrong when he broke the rule. You know,
Jamie Collins did that for a few years where he
would break a rule, but he would make an interception
or sack, sack, fumble the quarterback and pick it up
and run for it. Like there's there's those exceptions, but

(01:27:56):
rule followers are usually.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
Yeah, and again when we say rule follow or you
talk about scheme in their job, in their scheme. So like,
if you're a defensive end and we're playing against you know,
Russell Wilson, you can't get past the quarterback. You got
to keep him in the pocket, so he delivers the
ball in his weakest area across the middle of the field.

(01:28:18):
If we give him a gaping hole and get behind
him and we're trying to run the hump as a
defensive end and we're not getting pressure from the middle
of the pocket, you're just giving this guy a running
lane or a throwing lane. So like there's those are
the things that we're talking about when it's a rule follower,
you know. Like that's why a lot of times dns
would come to our team when I was there. We'd
have guys sign that had a big SAT guys and

(01:28:41):
they would hate coming to our system because we didn't
necessarily do that. We set the edge, we would.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
Make the quarterback make the throw and try to get
that pressure in the middle of the pocket and play
to our corners and our safeties. And there was so
much more for the flow of the defense, for the
to execute. Then just just try to take the quarterback
out with the defensive end, which you can, but that
guy can also run like That's why you have these
third and twenties where quarterback takes off and runs because

(01:29:09):
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
And the room followers weren't robots either, no, because you
know Brian Cox was not. He followed the base rules,
but he played nuanced defense. He knew when to take chances,
how to take chances. Same thing with Raves again, Roman Pfeiffer.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
It's like high tower for us and the Jamie Collins
and the Rob Nikovich is which they're all.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
They're kind of same guys. If you look at there,
Willie McGinnis, Willie mack Willy, Willy did what he was
supposed to do that when he was Oh he ate
that dude. Long arm and those hands he had similar
to Carl Banks that I've never found the one which
we're getting into the New England Patriots right now, but
go ahead, we just keep going. Willy had a strength

(01:29:55):
hands from his fingertips to his elbow that I I
and I remember the first time I noticed it and
saw it and watched up close, it was Carl Banks.
Carl Banks had this ability. You know, Carl's a thin, linear,
lean guy and had this length with his hand strength
and grip strength kind of like you got, which is
why you could catch the ball. He had this what

(01:30:19):
I called snatchability where he could grab someone and get separation,
but without having to do this and get his shoulders
out of whack. He could snatch a guy like this
and that was such an important part for guys who
had to set the edge. Willie McGinnis had that same thing,
really had rare strength.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
And why that's so good is because when you when
you shed a blocker and you're out here, your feet
are in a different area, so you can only go
one way. If you can hold the guy and have
that grip strength right in front of you and you
can slash him, or you can slide them with just
your wrist or whatever, you have two ways to go
with your feet, so then you can make a play exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
And if you're set in the edge and I'm the
right side and I got it shot a guy on
the inside, but if I have to do this that
a little bit, they get the edge on it. So
it's a it's a fine line. And that's and that's
that's like a big rule on our team. You know,
I position I heard set the edge.

Speaker 3 (01:31:17):
There's no edge. I mean because we did do all the.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
Film in front of everyone, so and you know, there
was one time it was it was an interesting team
chemistry thing too. And and again this is not throwing
shade a player where we went outside of our system
and signed to Dahlius Thomas who was a big free
agent at time, a really good player, tremendous player in
the Baltimore Ravens system and the raven system. I think

(01:31:41):
Rex Ryan was the coordinator at that point in time
for the Ravens and just things were different where he
had to come in and do our things. That wasn't
That was a mistake by us because we brought in
this tremendous talent who wasn't the right fit scheme wise,
he wasn't the right fit locker room, you know, the

(01:32:01):
chemistry with him and Rabel and and some of it
just wasn't right. So sometimes, yeah, you know, just find
the right tools and the right makeup is a critical
part of the team chemistry.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
Team chemistry is everything. It can't just be the the
extrinsic tools. It has to be the intrinsic tools for
that heartbeat to go. Yeah, Jackie, can you break down
these Patriots?

Speaker 1 (01:32:25):
And yeah, that was Rex Ryan. By the way, we're
gonna blind squirrel man. Rex. Hey, don't don't ask me
the Pythagorean theorem though, Man square. Yeah, that's the only
one I know about that.

Speaker 5 (01:32:38):
I care about coordinators and where they were in the
early two thousands. Baby, let's get into these Patriots.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
Huh. All right?

Speaker 5 (01:32:45):
Eleven and five the second seed. This was an this
coaching staff rocks. Bill Belichick is the head coach, Baby,
Charlie Weiss, O c DC.

Speaker 1 (01:32:56):
Romeo, Crennell all time. Guys.

Speaker 5 (01:32:58):
We talked about some of those notable rookies earlier, Richard Seymour,
Matt Light. This was Brady's second year in the league.
And just to flashback a little bit prior to this season,
Bledsoe gets the ten year, one hundred and three million
dollar contract.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Man. That was a big one, Man, that's a big one. Yeah,
what's say I look for? No, that was a huge contract.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
And it was the first one hundred million dollar contract
in the history of the and that was.

Speaker 1 (01:33:25):
Actually agreed to before we came in two thousand, Okay,
and and and and again this is it was agreed to,
and it was something we were married to, and from
a cap perspective, it became really complicated to try to
work around, yeah, at that time because it was such
a huge portion of the cap at the time.

Speaker 5 (01:33:46):
And Brady would take over in week two after the
mo Lewis hit that we all remember against the Jets
on Week two that year. Brady to go eleven and
three as a starter in the regular season and h
this was, as Scott talked about earlier, the all time
maybe the most impactful group of free agents to come
in that season. Just to name a few, we talked

(01:34:08):
Brian Cox, Mike Compton, Mark Edwards, Damon Huet, Larry Izzo,
David Patton, Patton Pleasant, unbelievable. Would you say, is it
fair to say this is probably the most impactful group
of sam They're worth saying, Antoine Smith and Mike Rabel.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
Yeah, that that that that list goes on and on.
It was a It was a big part and it
was not only who they were and what they were,
it was the price. Again, it was all these players
that other teams didn't want or didn't value like we've
I mean, Larry Izzo. I'm gonna say this, I think
one of the most important free agents of that entire

(01:34:49):
class Mike Compton and Mike Compton is not talked. I
get emotional talking about Mike because I loved Mike. So
I was a GA at Syracuse when Mike played. They
had at West Virginia and and I saw Mike Compton
Adrian Morell, the two starting true freshmen. Mike Compton was
a hell of a football player, brilliant. If any of
you guys have met Mike, you know, Mike sounds real country, yeah,

(01:35:10):
and he's you know, I think he's People don't realize
how smart he is. So I, as a pro personnel guy,
had watched Compton his whole career at the Lions. Compton
had started legitimately at left tackle, left guard, center, right guard,
right tackle. He had started I want to say, double
digit games or close to double digit games at all

(01:35:31):
five positions. He was primarily a center, All American at
a West Virginia. Tremendous player. And when he became available,
I want to say, we gave Compton like two hundred
grand to sign. But here's the thing and if you
want and this is it's so funny when I listened
to people talk about these early teams and how much

(01:35:52):
they don't understand some of the truth and the accuracy. Mikempton.
Our starting center was Damien Woody. Wood Do you know
that every time that we went into shotgun that season,
including this game, Woody had to move to left guard
and Compton had to move to center and couldn't do

(01:36:14):
the snap because wood He couldn't shotgun snap. He had
the knob blocks. Remember, you guys are so so wood
he couldn't shotgun snap. So every time Mike Compton's value
to that football team and his, you know, our two
starting centers. The more you can do this exit, the

(01:36:35):
more you can do. That's what Bill said to me
when he hired me. The more you can do that.
He just looked at me and I thanked this. Don't
thank me, just remember the more you can do, the
more you can do. And I was like, Okay, I
didn't know what the heck you meant value eat where
you can do, the more value you bring to a team. Amen.
So those guys, like a guy like Mike Compton for
two hundred grand, his the fact that he was so

(01:36:57):
smart and and could shotgun snap. He's the reason we
could go to shotgun that year. Now, But can I
had one other thing there on the on not a
fun fact, but another fact that was, you know, you
have the Terry Glenn suspension, there was another awful, awful
the chaos that surrounded this football team during training camp,

(01:37:18):
not only because of Terry Glenn's suspension, but our quarterback
coach Dick Raybin god Rest, the wonderful coach pastor August
eighth of that year, August the third or eighth it was,
and had a heart attack. He was run on treadmill,
was a day off, gets hospitalized, you know, they think

(01:37:38):
he's going to be okay, and passed the next day.
And that was Brady's position coach, right, That was bl
He was the quarterback coach, good friend. He was a
big reason why we Also he was with the Giants
prior to that in two thousand and one. He knew
David Patton inside and out because David had been to
the Giants previously. So this is where it was important

(01:38:01):
that we not only knew the players, but we knew
the makeup of the players. Where we use this village
of people to gather and collect information. So the number
yes and Terry lenn suspensions plural. It happened. I mean
there was so much chaos and what had to be
overcome that entire season was it was and then Drew
getting hurt. I mean it was a lot. Man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
I mean we'll get into that, that whole decision and everything,
but I really want you to when we come back
to Boston, just because this episode is amazing, I really
want to have you come back up another time and
do the Patriots Browns five playoff round.

Speaker 6 (01:38:39):
Yeah, oh yeah, one of the last times the Browns
won a playoff game. We have seen that football life.

Speaker 1 (01:38:44):
Real quickly saving things. So at that time, the Slappies
that the Browns were Phil Savage, Jim Schwartz, myself and
Schwartzy and George Coquens and Nick and a sober for
We think it's going to be a barbecue. Saint Nick, right,

(01:39:06):
he needs to bring us over. We get there and
Miss Terry, his wife, who's like the best. They got
all these trees lined up, we had the want us
to dig holes and plant trees.

Speaker 5 (01:39:19):
You can't even make it up, man, Oh my gosh,
so we were like gunshy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:23):
So we got invited over for Easter Sunday dinner. Georgie
and I are like, are we sure we want to
do this? And the ground might still be frozen? Oh,
I hope you didn't have your fucking saving.

Speaker 5 (01:39:39):
Was he still eating his Little Debbies back then?

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
Oh? He a little Debbie guy. He loves Little Debbie.
I was a hostess kid, I was, I wasn't anything.
I mean, well whatever it was on sale. All right, Jackie,
let's get into the game. Lead up. Let's get into
the lead up. This game wrapped up.

Speaker 5 (01:39:57):
The pats uh Patriots were coming off a by They
had the second seed, so they gotta buy Oakland had
to get in the wild card round crush the Jets
after losing to him in the final week of the season.
During the day, pretty clear weather, gold but clear. Then
as nightfall comes, that thick, thick, thick stuff starts falling,

(01:40:17):
big old thick flakes. And this was, believe it or not,
I believe the NFL's first ever primetime playoff game. Wow,
which sounds nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
They were always in the day.

Speaker 5 (01:40:28):
Yeah, up until that point. We gotta quadruple check that.
But after three checks it's it's what they're saying, which
is nuts to me. And in a building that would
be the last game at Foxborough Stadium.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
This guy was it as gross as people said it was.
I don't want to say gross, but as bad. It
was pretty bad. Pepper Johnson, our defensive line coach, Pepe
so pep was down in his meeting room because there
wasn't enough meeting rooms was the visitor's locker, and there
were a couple of some we couldn't determine if there

(01:41:01):
were rats or mice, but it was kind of like
Michael Jackson where he had names for the rats, had
a couple of the rats name, but a couple of
things on these facts. So you talk about the bye week,
what's crazy was we had a bye week before our
final regular season game played, I want to say the
Panthers last.

Speaker 3 (01:41:21):
Week of the September eleventh season.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
Julesy. That's the other thing. Yeah, thank you for bringing
that up because I meant to bring that up here
in New York or how did that hit you? That was?

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
That's I mean for anyone that's a customer or anyone
close to that city, you know, especially and then being
a Patriot and then the run you guys are going
on like this had to have some this is for America.

Speaker 1 (01:41:44):
It was so the whole We'll talk about this a little.
So my hometown. I grew up in Washingtonville, New York.
My hometown is one of the one of those nineteen
sixties white flight communities where in the mid sixties a
lot of white people were moving out of New York City.
My dad's from Bronx, moms from Queens, they were living
in the Bronx. They moved out in sixty four. This

(01:42:06):
community of Washingtonville and blooming Grove was filled with civil
servants because city cops, city fireman union workers really couldn't
afford to live in the city and they wanted to
move out. And m yeah, yeah, it's tough. Seven people

(01:42:28):
from my hometown. Yeah, city cops, city fireman it was.
And then just so many people. Here's here's the here's
the crazy part. I want to loop back to someone
we were talking about before. I remember we were talking about
the dysfunction part, about this game being like a drug.
I remember exactly what happened that morning, exactly where we were.
There was something going on, and I think it was

(01:42:49):
I think the conversation Bill and I were having. Bill's
office was downstairs in the old Foxboro Stadium. We were
upstairs and there was something going on, and I think
it was Terry Glenn related, and it was early in
the morning and it was intense. I was locked in
and I came upstairs and the moon felt weird. But

(01:43:10):
I was like so on track that I wasn't picking up.
And this is where one of my shortcomings. I didn't
there were times where I would get so focused so
that I would miss cues. For the most part, I'm
good at it, but this was one of those mornings
I was missing CU's. I came upstairs, walked past Nancy,
and there's something going on. I went back downstairs. We're

(01:43:32):
getting amped up. Bill and I. We have no idea
this had happened already. And I'm coming up the stairs
and I walked by, and I see everyone's looking at
their TVs. And it was always a pet peeve of
mine when people at work would watch their TVs. Everyone's
looking at TVs. And I walked by, nancey, I go, hey,
is anyone working today? I said, why, what's on TV? Here?

(01:43:54):
And I didn't see because all the TVs were turned
so you couldn't see unless you were and it was
other people in their office is too and Miss Nancy,
who you know, is the sweetest lady. She's the longest
tenor patriot in the organization. She was. She was there
when Parcels was there as an assistant, then as a
head coach. Miss Nancy just looks at me. She goes, Scott,

(01:44:16):
do you know what's going on right now? And this
is a apparently like an hour after this had happened,
and she's I was like, what are you talking about?
You know, I'm not very patient. She goes, I think
you better look at this, and it was it was
September eleventh, and I was like, it was. It was
one of those moments. It kind of snapped me into
like I need to get a grip here because there's

(01:44:37):
more to do. Anyway, it was, it was. It was
a really weird kind of you know that was.

Speaker 2 (01:44:44):
I mean, we all know where we were. I remember it,
you know, being on the West coast, and it was
it was. It was something that will never forget in
our generation. It's this is our generation's Kennedy assassination. You know,
Then the next generation they'll be thinking of cod and
you know, like that that was one of the things
that we were three thousand miles away and it was like, oh,

(01:45:07):
this is crazy, Like it was just a scary time.

Speaker 1 (01:45:09):
You didn't know what was going on.

Speaker 2 (01:45:12):
The outlets of media were so much different in that
day and age, where you were just glued to a
TV instead of nowadays. We all would have saw that
and had a buzzer alert on our phone, right, you
know what I mean, And you would have known instantly.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
But yeah, my mind's going to a million miles because
I'm thinking, like all my buddies I graduated, so many
guys were they were city cops and city firemen, their
parents were, and that's what they were doing now, and
it was yeah, it was it was so then it.

Speaker 6 (01:45:41):
What was that moment? Like then the first came back
against the Jets, the Joe and Drewsy.

Speaker 1 (01:45:45):
It were like the whole couple of weeks of surreal,
you know, because Joey's Joe's brothers were city firemen and
it was surreal, you know, and there was this whole thing.
You're trying to focus on your job, yet your country
had been attacked and you're trying to you're part of
our program is you compartmentalize everything in order to get

(01:46:08):
your job done. It's the blessing and the curse that
we are right. And so it was tough. And when
when they came out and you know, Joe, Joe had
the flags of flags and it was just it was
emotional on a lot of levels.

Speaker 2 (01:46:24):
Right, So did you guys feel going into this playoff?
Did you guys have a like a feeling like it
was bigger than the sport that the Patriots should win or.

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
I know, the outside the because like you, well, let's
get inside the building.

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
You're you're not really thinking about all that stuff. You're
literally thinking about your game plan and stuff. But you know,
there's got to be there's guys talking in the locker room.

Speaker 1 (01:46:49):
So let's you and I give an honest answer here.
Let's get know the reality is right, you focus, you
lock down in the deep dark recesses. There's that thing
playing around my course, course we're thinking about it. Of
course it's being talked about, but you better not say
it out loud, say it out loud, you know, because
again then you're not and it's not even a fear

(01:47:09):
of for the players, it's not even a fear of
bill thing. It's your teammates too.

Speaker 2 (01:47:13):
You don't want to you don't want to fluster a guy.
You don't know how someone else is going to react.
You don't know if someone will tense up too much,
it'll put more pressure on a guy.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
So everyone kind of does tries to do their own thing. Yeah,
and you know, it's funny you mentioned too, the last
game played at Foxboros Stadum. Here's a cool fact about that.
The stadium, Foxborough Stadium was supposed to be demolished on
December twenty third, the day after that last home game,
and they could they couldn't do it because we didn't know,

(01:47:43):
you know, there's a chance we're gonna have a home
playoff game. So that Foxborough Stadium was amazing. That game,
Like we talk about this game setting the stage for
the Patriots, the beginning of the beginning of the dynasty.
It was also like such an incredibly emotional game. Was
nine to eleven. It was we weren't supposed to be there,

(01:48:04):
it was the last home game, it was the holiday.
You know, there's just like this whole thing, and then
there's this one part I'll never forget. You know, when
we were up in the press box and we're sitting
next to Ernie, and Ernie had to had towels with him.
This is Ernie was always prepared. I don't know if
Ernie was ever a boy scout he was, but but

(01:48:25):
I bet he is the most prepared the towels for
because inside the press the coaches booth, the windows would
fog up and steam up. So if there was ever
rain or snow, because of the heat inside, the windows
would fog up. He's up there doing the windows. Why
he's watching the game curse and Ernie, Ernie is a

(01:48:45):
great cursor.

Speaker 5 (01:48:46):
Because really Ernie on games with names but he no.

Speaker 7 (01:48:51):
But the thing is he's not. He's not a wasteful
curse a right, yeah he when he emphasis, oh yeah,
and he makes account but he he was.

Speaker 1 (01:49:03):
There was some cursing going on when he's trying to
clean windows and do his job and look at things
and be on the headset with Bill. Just but during
that game, especially because the snow, you literally like the
game tying field goal, I don't know if any of
us really fully saw the ball the whole time across
the crossbar. It was because it was a far away

(01:49:24):
end zone and it was snowing.

Speaker 6 (01:49:26):
Yeah, now Ernie have like, hey, go on the field early, like, oh,
we need to have the seven Steads or we need
to have the like.

Speaker 1 (01:49:33):
Ernie, I'm telling you what. Ernie is one of my
favorite people on the planet. Yeah he uh so, I'll
tell you a quick story, Ernie Cleveland story. It was
my second so I got to know. It was my
my first year in Cleveland ninety two and there was
like a group of us sharing this office, the Slappies.

(01:49:56):
It was the Slappy Dead and it was one office,
small office for normal people. They had three of us
in it. I'll never forget. It was real. Early in
the morning, Ernie shows up and it's March thirty first
of nineteen ninety two, started leading New Year league. It's
my birthday.

Speaker 6 (01:50:12):
Oh, March thirty first, it's my dad's birthday.

Speaker 1 (01:50:16):
I saw it. I realized, But you know who else's birthday?
It is Ernie's. Ernie's we have the same birthday. Ernie
walks in and again, Now mind you, I I was
just getting to know Ernie. And Ernie is this guy
that no one knew, even those of us who worked
with him early on. He was this man of mystery,
not international, just a domestic man of mystery. And he

(01:50:37):
walks in. I'll never forget. And then Ernie he goes so,
I say, it's your birthday and he puts a cupcake
on my desk. He says happy birthday and walks out,
and you're laughing. But I'm gonna tell you this, from
that moment on, Ernie was my guy. That's because that's

(01:51:00):
part of Ernie. And you worked with Ernie around. Ernie
doesn't always show emotion. He doesn't always show Ernie. He
is a dude. Man. Yeah, I'm getting emotional talking about it.
I love Ernie. I love his wife Christine. I was
at their wedding. You know, it's like that that moment
was one of those things. It was like, Okay, here's
this guy that and and here's what used to piss

(01:51:21):
me off. And Ernie knows that some folks used to
clown him and and and I never appreciated that. They
never right, because I think people were afraid of him.
They were intimidating. And what do people do when they're
especially dudes football dudes, right, they kind of it's Yeah,
So that that that that's like one of my favorite
Ernie stories from that moment on I knew who Ernie was.

(01:51:44):
He didn't know me, but he gave me a cupcake.
He said, had this little place that he used to
stop and he gave me cupcake on my birthday. I
mean that is just again I probably sounds weird, but.

Speaker 2 (01:51:56):
Ernie and your Ernie impression, that's perfect. Spot how how
how was watching this game? Like what's watching a game?
Like a whole game?

Speaker 3 (01:52:04):
Like with Ernie, it's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):
Killed. So we literally sat next to each other in
the coach for those nine seasons, every single game. And
you know he's on the phones and he had a
special switcher. So here here's the thing. Ernie had his
his headphones, but he has a special switcher where he
could be on offense, defense or special teams like the

(01:52:28):
head coach. He had a head coaching headset. Okay, but
he also had the batphone. There's always you know how
they have the sideline to phone, the red phone. Ernie had.
The batphone was right in front of him and Ernie.
So much of our situational football. And again, I don't
know if this has ever been talked about. Maybe it has,
but so much of our situational football and Bills attention

(01:52:53):
on field, in game, attention to situational football and potential
situations very and Ernie would say, hey, Bill, don't forget
X y Z, you know when it came to the wind, Ernie.
Because Bill's got so much going. It's not that Bill
didn't know these things. He's doing so many things. That's

(01:53:14):
why that in game partnership along with the coordinators and
again not just you know, offense and defense. Like so,
I watched this snowball game for the first time on
TV ever before we're doing this, and there were just
little things that you saw, Like right before the overtime
coin toss, they cut to the sideline, they show Bill

(01:53:36):
and who's talking with Bill, but brad Seely, who's a
special teams coach. You know where we're gonna kick, you
know if and I know in that moment, in my
mind's eye, I know that that conversation going on. It's
not just Bill and brad Seely, it's Ernie Adams, you know,
on the headphones with Bill. So it's it's a he's
Ernie Batman. He's Alfred clearly said this before that is

(01:54:02):
standings on.

Speaker 2 (01:54:03):
You know, when Bill has to go out and do it.
But Alfred's back in there. Hey you got a guy
over here.

Speaker 1 (01:54:08):
Wow, look at you. It's kind of kind of what
it is. But on you said you're not wordman, but
you just pulled Alfred out that movie word movie word.

Speaker 5 (01:54:17):
See.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
I never saw the Batman movies.

Speaker 5 (01:54:20):
Books.

Speaker 1 (01:54:20):
You gotta you gotta listen. I saw the old the
old series back in you know when you know with
the po and the.

Speaker 2 (01:54:28):
Uh, you gotta watch the Christopher Nolan wants. We'll get
into that around here.

Speaker 6 (01:54:32):
Jewels is more of a Robin to our Denny a Mandola,
which is a Batman.

Speaker 1 (01:54:38):
There's a lot I see. I wasn't around for that time.
There's a lot outside looking at who would you say?
Is Batman? Kind of like not knowing Seinfeld? Right, I don't.
There's certain things relationships of I was there for the
first decade, right, and then there's this whole second day
it is second decade that that I don't. There's there's
a lot of stuff I can learn. There's but there's

(01:54:59):
it's a a lot of it's the same. It's different,
but it's the fucking characters are the same. The names
are just different.

Speaker 2 (01:55:06):
Yeah, It's kind of like when Scar would go and
we'd be Scarnekio would sit there and we'd be studying
another team.

Speaker 1 (01:55:12):
All right, assholes, it's the same cars, just different license plates.
I mean, the scheme is the exact same, just the
number is different. Is the best man, So let's get back.

Speaker 6 (01:55:24):
Before we move on, Ernie, just one last thing. I'd
be a bad proser if I just didn't ask, because
ernieone ever tell us, do you know what pink stripe is?

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
Pink stripes?

Speaker 6 (01:55:32):
Anything about that? It might be a later on thing.

Speaker 1 (01:55:34):
It was certain family businesses, family business. It's family business,
family business.

Speaker 6 (01:55:39):
Except real answer. I just had to do my job that.

Speaker 1 (01:55:42):
I can't tell. He told me, but I can't tell. Yeah,
he told me too. Oh fuck, all right, Jackie, let's go,
come on, we gotta get in this, all right?

Speaker 5 (01:55:54):
Should we pop into the game here a little bit?
I think we first got a talk. It's got we
love on this pod. We love ref talk because there
would be a little officiating nuance late in this one, foreshadowing.

Speaker 1 (01:56:06):
We got Walt Coleman for ye oh, Walt Coleman.

Speaker 5 (01:56:10):
Baby starting off, love you, Walt uh starting off on
this one scoreless first quarter Patriots him up first down
in the first quarter, then early to start the second quarter,
a critical kick catch interference leads to a some better
field position for Oakland. They get on the board first
with a James Jet touchdown seven nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:56:32):
It would stay that way till a half.

Speaker 3 (01:56:34):
Now, what are you thinking about right now?

Speaker 1 (01:56:36):
When you're when you when he's going over these here's
the thing that hits you in the head A couple things.
So we prided ourselves. We one of our sayings, and
you remember is more games are lost than they are
one when you we made that had that penalty on
the the interference, the kicker interference inference. Yeah, uh, it

(01:56:58):
led to a touchdown because gave them the shorter field.
That's how they scored their touchdown and their only touchdown
in the game. And that was anti Patriot right. And
the crazy thing is that game there were only five penalties.
That was the only penalty that we had that game
and it led to points and almost bit us in
the butt. So when I'm thinking, I get it, it's crazy.

(01:57:20):
Like when I was watching the TV, I literally got
angry watching and Jord Cherry, who did it, was a
terrific player. That was one of our other twenty three signings,
terrific special teams player, important part. He made a mistake,
but that that that's what I'm thinking about. And then
I also think about how the other four penalties in
the game were all pre snap penalties by the Raiders,

(01:57:42):
and we know about free that's free money right there,
and that's I was just thinking about the penalties. So
you mentioned that first drive that I was so pissed
off again watching it again. Come on.

Speaker 2 (01:57:52):
One of the first things you'll hear at one of
the first team meetings of a new season is Bill
addressed the team, and it'll say, you can't win until
you keep from losing, meaning penalties, you know, bad football,
negative plays, things that you can prevent happening.

Speaker 1 (01:58:12):
May not you do not.

Speaker 2 (01:58:14):
You don't have to do something superior or anything crazy.
But if you just play the game the way it's
supposed to be played, no emmys, no penalties, pre snap penalties,
no freebies, you'll put yourself in such like dramatically, such
a higher position to win. Yeah, you know, and that's
something that was a premium. You look at the bottom

(01:58:34):
of his page, of Scott's page, what do they say?
We want tough, big song, fast, tough, smart football players.
Smart football players meaning you know, being able to decipher
these types of things, know your assignments, don't do stupid
things that will hurt the team because like like like
Bill says, most games are lost, not one. Yeah, it's

(01:58:56):
a team that makes the least amount of mistakes that wins.
If you can watch all these games, you know, and
that's really what it is. It's not the team that
makes the biggest plays, it's the team that doesn't make
them the least amount of mistakes that wins.

Speaker 1 (01:59:07):
And we were a team that we prided ourselves by
praying upon p R e Y, praying upon other team's mistakes.
And you know, you ask, what's the other thing that
hit that hit me? And this is I think if
I hopefully folks will go back and watch this game,
because I want to say that the first three passes

(01:59:30):
that Brady through that game were screen passes and Charlie
And there's this whole history again, this is part of
the development of Tom Brady. And this is why I
talk about this game encapsulating so the special teams plays
we made, the defensive plit plays we made, and Tommy
being coached and the play calling within Tommy's wheelhouse at

(01:59:54):
the time. You know, Charlie Weiss learned a lot from
Ron Earhart, who was again the Giants quarterback coach Phil Simms.
And when when Phil Simms became a really good player
in the league, Ron Earhart had become the offensive coordinator.
Nicknames Fargo. He had been with Parcels one hundred years
and then North Dakota or something. Uh North Dakota State

(02:00:16):
maybe yeah, yeah, and uh so he so Ron Erhard.
But Charlie Weiss when we go to the Jets, Charlie
is the offensive coordinator. Fargo is our quarterbacks coach before
Dan Henning gets there. And part of what the it

(02:00:39):
helped Phil Simms short sideways, underneath swing passes, shortened sideways.
The extended running game is what we called it, using
the running backs, using the whole field, using the whole field.
And it doesn't it doesn't have to be all the
long ball doesn't win all the time. You be loved
the long ball.

Speaker 2 (02:00:56):
But the more you make a defense have to defend
the whole field field, the better chances you have when
you're separating that defense and they got to think about
that screen that then you get a twenty yard run
or you get a deep ball because they're so focused.
It's all like boxing. You got jabs, you got jobs.
You're not just gonna be throwing your haymaker every time, right,

(02:01:17):
you know. But the best way to get your haymaker
to actually land is to set it up with the jab.

Speaker 1 (02:01:23):
Here's the other thing that the short passing game does.
It gets the defense running, It gets them tired. The
other thing it does, and this is the most important part,
and I remember listening to Ronnie Hart talk about it
confidence when we got exactly when we got to the Jets.
Vinnie Testaverdi had had this career and Vinnie had played
pretty well with us at the Browns. We were doing
shortened sideways with him using Vinnie comes to us at

(02:01:45):
the Jets, and a lot of things were shortened sideways.
Part of it was not only the quarterbacks confidence, but
the team's confidence in the quarterback. Tommy was a kid.
I mean, this is his first year as a starter,
and Charlie Weiss was so smart in his play calling.
He was one of the again, one of the best
screen coaches I've ever been around. And the details and

(02:02:07):
making things look good. So the beginning of this game
in that first half. To me, there was so much
importance in how he set up the game and building
Tommy's conference and getting confidence throws. I mean, you always
want to start the game with with because this is
he's his second year quarterback at this point in his career.
Tom right.

Speaker 2 (02:02:28):
Uh, you know, this is the biggest game in the
organization's history at that point, you know, not including you know,
eighty five and all that, but to this point it's
been twenty years or whatever it is, thirty years. So
to get him confident, you gotta get the young buck going.
The screens and all the swings and the look passes,
those are all designed to get him going.

Speaker 1 (02:02:48):
And give the receivers confidence.

Speaker 3 (02:02:50):
Yeah, I like catching the ball early na seas he won.

Speaker 6 (02:02:53):
There's fifty two pass attempts in this game.

Speaker 1 (02:02:55):
That's crazy.

Speaker 6 (02:02:56):
You know, you look at this game, you would ever
expect you.

Speaker 1 (02:02:58):
Look at the I want to say ten passes Wiggans had. Wiggans, dude,
he was Wiggins was making some plays. How about the
catch off of the ball, the bounce side of the
Fasten's hands and he caught on the sidelines and kept
his feeding. He had an unbelieve he had a crazy
third down too late in the game, but we'll chicken

(02:03:19):
into it. Yeah, you were right.

Speaker 5 (02:03:20):
It'scot the the first three passes, Mark Edwards j R. Redmond,
Kevin Folk all out of the backfield catching balls, which
is awesome. Uh. Then in the third quarter, just to
pivot after halftime, a little bit of a field goal fest,
Janikowski knocked into, Adam knocked in.

Speaker 1 (02:03:35):
We talked about Vinit Terry being clutched. That old, that old.

Speaker 3 (02:03:39):
What is Sebastian Genakowski? Where is he from?

Speaker 5 (02:03:42):
He's old, by way of by way of.

Speaker 3 (02:03:45):
That guy loves sivodka.

Speaker 1 (02:03:46):
That dad was kicking him in there, bro.

Speaker 5 (02:03:47):
I heard he was an amazing high school soccer player,
Like amazing dude. The guy played until he was like
he was down there and.

Speaker 1 (02:03:53):
They got him be training a lick and he was
kicking bombs that ball when you hurt you talking about
you heard him.

Speaker 2 (02:04:00):
It was kind of like when you were talking about that.
It reminded me when we were playing San Diego and
Leckler was punting. Remember, yeah, I remember, because when I
was you know, when you return, I would always go
watch the punter. And when you hear a punter that
can It sounds like a cannon.

Speaker 1 (02:04:18):
Absolutely, And that's how you evaluate kickers can do they
hit the meat of the ball. It's like a baseball,
you know, hitting the meat of the bat. You can
it's evalulating kickers. Like how crazy of a game was
this for Vin Terry? Like the clutch clutch ness, it
was unbelievable. But again from where he came from. He
was from the Dakota is he in his mind? I

(02:04:38):
remember him talking about it. This was this was another
day at the office for him, even though he had
been out of it. He Adam was one of the
most cool on the surface. Yeah, cool customers he was. Yeah,
this game put him on. I mean what he did
that season because again later on in the Super Bowl
he kicks a game winner. Man, that's uh.

Speaker 6 (02:04:59):
Shane Player was a punter of this game too, and
the Raiders, yesh.

Speaker 1 (02:05:03):
Yeah crazy.

Speaker 5 (02:05:04):
Uh So, then after the third thirteen to three, Oakland's up,
and then what really turns the tides is this ten play,
sixty seven yard drive eats up almost four and a
half minutes that leads to a Brady Rushing touchdown cuts
it to thirteen.

Speaker 2 (02:05:20):
Ten thirteen to ten. So at this point of the game.
Are you nervous or are you confident? And going into
the game, was the game plan to keep this high
flying offense. You wanted to keep this this specific game

(02:05:41):
close to the very end to give yourself or was
it one of the what was that?

Speaker 1 (02:05:46):
I think it was Their offense was good, Gannon was good. So,
as you know, sometimes the belief was that our best
defense was going to be our offense. We also knew
that we had Antoine Smith. We were we were in
twenty two, you know, we we were big running back. Yeah, boy,
So keeping the ball away from that, I mean, you

(02:06:09):
look at the end of the game, the time of possession,
I want to say, was we had forty minutes, they
were twenty eight. We dominated time of possession. And again,
when you're playing a really good offense and a fast
striking offense, part of it is keeping you know, your
defense off the field and their offense. So so running
the ball was really important. And I'll say, you know,

(02:06:29):
I wouldn't I don't know if nervous was I was
certainly anxious. I mean I don't know a game that
where I didn't feel anxious, you know what I mean,
Even when we were up sometimes by twenty one points.
You just oh wow, I had to go there. We

(02:06:52):
had to do it just fun. I don't know, my
bad bad that's wrong. I mean, real, real quick thing
on that. People say, man, that had to be the
worst loss of your life when I was with the
Falcons and everything, oh seven had to be And I
was just gonna say, no, I was eighteen. I was
eighteen and one. So that's ded as much as that.
That evening sucked. Anyway, thanks for bringing me down. What

(02:07:17):
a buzz killed. It's like, yeah, it's kind of like Bill.
It's kind of like Bill. I gotta say, I gotta,
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta bring them back. I
gotta bring them back. So a lot of anxiety because
again the clock was ticking and we were not moving
the ball quickly, but the defense was playing great, lights out.

(02:07:39):
But again this is part of the again, and this
is so important. I think the revisionist history of the
development of Tommy. Our defense was so good, man, and
it was so opportunistic, and this is what a good
what a young quarterback needs, and you need special teams.
So defense was lights out special teams. You know, again,

(02:08:03):
Troy has those two muffed punts. Is os on it. Yeah,
Adam's kicking out of it, you know, out of his mind.
So there was there were a lot of things and
people helping carry this game. Now. You know, Antoine Smith
rushed for eleven hundred or twelve hundred yards I think
that year. He didn't have a lot of yards at game,
but his yards were important yards, particularly you know when

(02:08:25):
we get to I don't want to steal your thunberl
but Jack, but there you know, there's some stuff coming up.
So yeah, that was very anxious.

Speaker 2 (02:08:34):
Yeah, I mean, you look at a game like this,
low scoring weather factor, those long, methodical drives are so
valuable because what Scott said, the time possession, that's that's when.

Speaker 1 (02:08:50):
You can really control a game. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:08:52):
You know, even if you go down and you take
five minutes off the clock, six minutes off the clock
and you only get a field goal. You know, demoralizing
that is for a team because then they're sitting there
thinking like, you got the offense, haven't been on the
field in twenty minutes. They're sitting there like, oh fuck,
another third down conversion? Oh shit, are we gonna stop
them on first? Can we get a goddamn negative play.

(02:09:13):
That's what the offense is thinking. Well, the defense is
out there on these long, methodical drives even though we
should be thinking about But you know, when it's this
type of game, Yeah, that takes a lot out of
your offense because then it makes it more pressureful when
you're out there, because you know that they just went
this long and if you don't, then you're third down
in law You're like, oh fuck.

Speaker 1 (02:09:33):
Well, here's you bring up great points. Because in the
first half we do not have one third down conversion
in the first half. That that's bad. But as soon
as if you watch our first offensive drive in that game,
in the second half, our offense is punking them. I
mean Mark Edwards are full back. I mean the pushing
and shoving that's going on, it's Mark Edwards, it's Compton,

(02:09:57):
it's it's guys.

Speaker 3 (02:09:59):
What's going on a lot, what's going on in halftime?

Speaker 1 (02:10:01):
Then for these adjustments, I'm not down there, you know,
you know, you know, Ernie and I stay up at
the that that's coach. Coaches are coaching. You gave your
notes and then they probably translated to the team or
and you know what's going and when the coaches run
down with it. They got five minutes decompressed. Then we
break up O and D and then team at the end.
So but if you that second half the tide and

(02:10:22):
Julian great point, that long drive, the tide started turning
in that first offensive drive, We're punching them in the mouth,
We're pushing, We're playing with a different mentality, different attitude.
In that second half. It was like, hey, there may
be thirty minutes left in the season. It's go time. Yeah,
And we built that team. You know, we were we

(02:10:43):
were a we were not a fast football team, but
we were big, strong, smart and tough, and we were
built for that venue. We were built for grass in
December and January?

Speaker 2 (02:10:55):
Did you design the teams like that? Did you think
about that when you were going into a draft? Is
that in the notebook.

Speaker 1 (02:11:02):
We always wanted to be faster, but speed is difficult
to get. Sometimes we wanted to play fast, but it
was part of you know, Belichick was a part of
those big, tough, strong defenses at the Giants, and that
was and and again, when you know part of what
you're playing for is you do want to design your
team around your venue. You know, the Colts looked completely

(02:11:22):
different than we did because they played in that back
when it was the RCAA Dome and it was the
old fast turf. And but we were we were mutters.
I mean we we whether it was intentional or we
knew what we were because we also knew if we
were playing home games in December and January like another season.
But that big playoff game against the Colts years later,

(02:11:44):
the AFC Championship game, we were built to win that game.
In that circumstance, I fought.

Speaker 8 (02:11:51):
The law in the law one game, right, I saw
the great electric electric everything's great except to have And
I'm interviewing him at ten thirty in the morning and
he's making his drink shots.

Speaker 1 (02:12:05):
That was the only thing I saw that like, So
when we got here one of the first things I checked,
I'm like, gosh, I hope this's not no, no, no,
this is only That's why I was confused. Did he
he brought that?

Speaker 6 (02:12:18):
Oh yeah, that was his company is his company, and
they have a thing with the Hall of Fames. You
actually do some really good work and they do some great.

Speaker 1 (02:12:23):
Thing for the Hall of Fame. Player. That was quite
the episode. I was nervous I'm like, ohe we're only
going with the Duncans this morning. I'm drinking dunk. I'm good,
I'm good.

Speaker 5 (02:12:33):
We spoke about all three phases of the game, and
the offense, the defense of special teams, the moments that
preceded the moment we all remember the tuck roll moment.
Were two great displays.

Speaker 1 (02:12:44):
Of that stop calling the time, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, Snowbowl moment, so you're right. The snow Bowl moment,
pardon me, Snowbowl moment that had the rule of tucking
the whole Coleman moment.

Speaker 5 (02:12:56):
The correct call moment was a third and one one
with just over two minutes left. If Oakland converts this,
that might be game over against Brian Cox and Richard
Seymour get in there and blow it up Force as
Shane Leckler punt try Brown an amazing return thirty seven
yard return fumbles Larry Izzo with the alert recovery ship

(02:13:19):
on that sideline. Do you hear that story? We gotta
can we hear this real quick?

Speaker 1 (02:13:26):
Well? I don't think we say.

Speaker 3 (02:13:27):
Is just contacted me. He said he wants to come on.

Speaker 2 (02:13:30):
I'm gonna have is fucking tell us when he's shipped
on this, maybe he.

Speaker 1 (02:13:34):
Can do that game. The ship on the sideline game
is you know.

Speaker 5 (02:13:38):
Is O.

Speaker 1 (02:13:38):
So the first ring party super bowling party is O.
Rabel hammered nice and they're dipping Copenhagen, both of them, right,
And they come up and we're talking and Rabel's contracts
up or he has another year. So Rabel wants to
talk contract while he's got some liquor in him. IS. Oh,

(02:13:59):
they're but they're happy as all get out. And I
have like a a beige suit on and a pink
shirt and is It was kind of like a close talker.
When he's got booze in and we get done talking,
I go back to my table and my wife looks
at me, what is all over your shirt? The two
of them have been talking and dip like you know,

(02:14:20):
the little I got flexa Copenhagen. I had to toss
his shirt because they were that stuff stained. My wife's
are like, what were you just doing? Like calling through
the weeds or something. Freak it is Larry, He's awesome.

Speaker 5 (02:14:34):
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. So that brings us
to a first down play that the NFL Rule three
Section twenty two. Article two Note two comes into play
and helps extend the drive, leads to the Adam Vinentarry
field goal that ties it up sends it into ot.

Speaker 2 (02:14:53):
It was triple slant D slant trips right, triple triple
slant D.

Speaker 1 (02:14:58):
Slap shoo, man, can you walk us? Tell me?

Speaker 2 (02:15:00):
Can we can we not see the your teammate, your roommate.

Speaker 1 (02:15:06):
He turns his face in that way. He's coming right here.
Maybe I had a snowflake in his eye, but that's
the young Tom Brady, Young Tom Brady. He learned from
that situation.

Speaker 6 (02:15:17):
Can you he you walk us through that moment?

Speaker 1 (02:15:19):
Yeah? So are you?

Speaker 3 (02:15:22):
And Ernie in the press box like fucked it came's over.

Speaker 1 (02:15:25):
I was just like when deflated isn't a strong enough word.
I mean, I was like, it was just I didn't
know what to think. Ernie, We're just like we didn't
know the rule right away. He was. He wasn't on
the rule right away, but he was. He noticed the
officials right and we're like, wait a second here, this

(02:15:47):
might be a review. There's so many things that happened,
like and watching the TV copy triggered some things here.
There's something about the music at Patriots games. That is
very unique. It's the same songs. You know, you're gonna
hear Hell's bells, you know, and AD you're Phil calling
Phil in the air tonight, so Bingo. During that time

(02:16:11):
when they're doing a review, they played in the air
tonight and I noticed it on the TV copy and
you can hear it on the TV. You remember that,
just like there's more during moments like that. Yeah, because
there was a bunch of moments like that, and I
was like, oh my god, I look at me. I'm
gonna getting goosebumpy right now. And and there was also
another time when Hell's Bells came on on the third
down play. I mean, on the third down stop, you're

(02:16:34):
hearing the dong of Hell's Bells from ac DC. It's
but during that moment, oh my gosh, it was like
it was you didn't want to believe it was over.
And I remember what I remember at that moment was
like looking up at the stadium and the snow and
it's coming down, and I was just like, no, no, God, no.

Speaker 5 (02:16:56):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:16:57):
And and here they start reviewing and it's overturned and
or it's called the right way, called the right way,
the book. It's in the rule book. That was textbook
rule book, and yeah, we we were. It went from
like this I want to throw up in your mouth
moment to hopefulness. I had a situation. It wasn't tough rule.

Speaker 2 (02:17:21):
But remember when we were playing the Chiefs in eighteen
and we threw the pick on the off sides. I
didn't see the flag. So I'm down the field and
it was one of their one one of their I
don't know who. I forgot who it was, but he's
running buy me on the Chiefs and he goes, oh,
it's going to be a hell of a lot off
season for you guys, because that was game. I'm sitting

(02:17:42):
there and I was literally walking back then it's fucking
off season, gonna suck.

Speaker 1 (02:17:47):
Fuck these motherfuckers. And then I saw that flag. I
looked at him like, we.

Speaker 5 (02:17:51):
Got a flag, We got a f Sir d Ford.

Speaker 1 (02:17:56):
He here's the other thing though, and again talking to
the emotions of oh my god, this is exactly where
I'm headed next, the emotion of sports and in that moment.
But here's you know how I talked about, this game
has everything that is Patriots in it, situated for everything
think about this Brady's a kid. You go from that
moment of that happening, our entire team, the entire offense,

(02:18:18):
goes to that moment, and then all of a sudden
there's a ruling. We still got to go back out
there and try to tie this game and win this game.
You go from complete utter, absolutely being deflated to euphoria
to compartmentalize. We got a job to do. And to me,
that was one of the cool things too, is that

(02:18:40):
how that football team refocused so quickly with their emotions.

Speaker 2 (02:18:47):
I mean, that's been evident numerous times for the Patriots.
I believe, having the ability to compartmentalize when things are
not looking good and refocusing on just doing your job.

Speaker 3 (02:19:06):
You know, that's literally like we did that.

Speaker 2 (02:19:09):
I'm not trying to bring it up to you know,
the Atlanta game, but that game absolutely and in Seattle
with my tea with in eight fourteen, we're down ten
points in the fourth quarter. It's just like it says
on that little page years tough, smart football teams that
can perform under pressure.

Speaker 1 (02:19:28):
And discipline, right, And that's part of it. And you
know it's funny and you talk about that, I don't
know if you saw the Dynasty. Yeah, part part. Part
of what I talked about, you know, in the couple
of things I did was that moment when I was
with the Falcons, and I talked about it from the
Falcons standpoint. I was up in the press box and

(02:19:50):
it's halftime and we're up. A couple of things happen.
Rodney Harrison texts me, he said, Hey, Scott, Eric and
I are leaving Kent. Stand this anymore? So happy for you,
so proud of you. Congratulations. I remember reading text on
oh my god, no Ron reverse reverse Reverse, and I

(02:20:12):
still have that text us. But then there was this
moment in there too where the the I was. We
were in this suite and it was a bunch of
people in personnel, the football operations folks, because I had
a different role at that point in time as the
assistant GM. And someone slapped me on it because I
never get up out of my seat and everyone is
like enjoying eating snacks and chicken fingers and and I'm

(02:20:36):
and someone slaps me on the back like, hey, would
you would you enjoy this for once? And I lost
my crap and I said to myself, I said, you guys,
don't understand what we're up against. I said that guy
number twelve is e F and Freddy Krueger. He's coming back.
I just hope he doesn't come back and get us all.
And I was dead serious, and I know there were

(02:20:58):
some people that were working with it, though I thought
I was a douche in that moment, But to the point,
it was part of the mentality Jewels that nothing seemed
out of reach if you stayed disciplined, because teams will
lose games, and it's and.

Speaker 2 (02:21:15):
Especially at that point of Tom's career where he's seen
he's already had twenty eight point comebacks and it may
not have been in the Super Bowl, but if you
have that under your belt, even if it's a regular
season against the goddamn New Orleans Saints that had nothing
to do in Week three.

Speaker 1 (02:21:34):
You felt it before. Hey, I was when we were
that the nationally televised night game against the Broncos where
we intentionally snapped the ball out of the end zone. Yeah,
took the safety defense. Hey, you got to get us
three and out, and then Tommy brought us back in
that one, which is where this game is kind of similar.

(02:21:55):
You know, we get the ball, you know we have
to give it over. I think it's like two forty
left in the game, and we got three timeouts in
the fourth quarter. We got to get the ball back
and we got to score. So what happens is, you
know the defense, Jack, you mentioned the third down, third

(02:22:16):
and one, because the first the first run of that
first play, that drive, they pick up seven, then they
pick up two. It's third and one, and again I
know Cox makes it because we bring in the goal
line defense. Seymour takes out the full back John Ritchie,
and then Zach Crockett runs into the back him. We
stop him, and then Cox hits them up high three

(02:22:37):
and out. We burn the timeouts, and then on that
third down play, we don't burn the time out. Well,
at the end of that play, if you look at
the at the TV copy, there's like six guys run
into the officials time out after every single snap. But
the officials stopped the clock, so we still got one
in the pocket. But then soon the measurement, right, they

(02:22:58):
do the measurement. Then as soon as that's a boom,
time out gives you so much more time to think
on what the situation's next. It was two nineteen left
because at that moment we were still going to get
the two minute for that fourth timeout three. So again,
once again, that was the team was it was the
defense helping the offense three and out and in those moments,

(02:23:22):
you just never felt like you were out of it.

Speaker 2 (02:23:24):
Never feel like you're out of it. And this game
started that. That whole feeling for this organization, like all
the games that I was a part of, was because
of this game. That's how important this game was, because
this was an example of everything that the coaching staff

(02:23:46):
was preaching to the team that a lot of the
times sometimes got to like this never fucking happened. You're
sitting up there in the auditory in.

Speaker 1 (02:23:55):
Games aren't lost, Special teams don't matter, Penalties don't fuck that.
We just did.

Speaker 2 (02:24:02):
This game exemplified everything that you needed to do.

Speaker 1 (02:24:06):
But it wasn't just coaching. No players got no, it
was players. It was coaching, but it was an organizational, institutional,
cultural thing that existed there because that moment, being prepared
for anything, everything and being ready to execute that happened
eight months earlier in the NFL Draft. We were ready

(02:24:27):
to make that Matt Light trade. It was everything about
this organization That's what we were about. Everyone was dialed in.
It was a way of life, you know. So, yeah,
it was the coaches. Yeah, it was the head coach. Yeah,
it was the personnel department, it was it was it
was yeah everyone, It was Richard Miller being ready to
help with the contracts. It was. There was this institutional buying.

(02:24:51):
But to your point, I love what you're saying here.
This validated all of the crazy. This validated all of
the detail, all of the maniacal, borderline crazy stuff about
every little thing mattering, because again it goes back to
the matt Light trade and being ready for that, being

(02:25:12):
ready to you know, sign Ken Walter in November, being
ready to.

Speaker 2 (02:25:18):
Move on from your hundred million dollar quarterback for this
Pip squeak guy in the sixth round.

Speaker 1 (02:25:23):
That how was that conversation? Yes, we gave come on,
we're on a roll here, don't care, come on, quit
bringing me over man, So Vinitarry goes out.

Speaker 5 (02:25:37):
It's two of the greatest kicks in NFL history. In
twenty three yarder, in a forty five yarder twenty three.

Speaker 2 (02:25:43):
Sorry, Now what's it feel like when he hits that
second one? And we've seen the we've seen the the footage,
how crazy the footing was just another day at the
office for all. For Vinitarry like, it's nothing like when
that goes in. Is that when you were you guys
like we could win a fucking super Bowl here because

(02:26:05):
they were a huge Yeah, they were the favorite for
the AFC.

Speaker 1 (02:26:09):
Yeah, I wasn't even thinking about the super Bowl. Here's
what But here's like some of some of the wild
stuff that leads even up to that. First of all,
the game tying field goal was one of the most emotional, singular,
emotional moments in my life. Lost the game snowball rule
and I'll never forget Ernie. We're looking there's the fog

(02:26:33):
in the window. You're looking to the far right because
the press box in those days it wasn't at the
fifty yard line it was, you know, because that's where
those were the money making sweets. So we're at this
point of vantage, point of disadvantage. And the angle that
we were watching is the fox was saying it was low,
and the ball looks like it was on a straight line,

(02:26:54):
and I swear it looked like it went by the
crossbar and dropped straight down. It looks like it's it
and so that was crazy. But then for the second
field goal, the game winner. Here's the other part that
I remember distinctly was the whole icing the kicker thing.
And I don't even know if the TV game captures this,

(02:27:18):
but Bird's called time out. Gruden calls time out, and
again this is like I get I'm like, try not
to get emotional talking about this, but it was one
of those organic moments of our team. The time out
gets called, the linemen turn around, go back to where

(02:27:39):
Kenny Walter is and start clearing the snow. No one
told me to do that. They knew Adam needed a place.
It was like, here's a time you talk about situation.
They just all went do they help the guy clear
the spot so he could kick the game winner. And
again I get emotional, because I mean, this is what
this game is about, right, this is what football is about.

(02:27:59):
It's about the community, the brotherhood, the sisterhood, the whole
all of us together doing something so we can all
and and be rewarded and and have this lifetime thing together.
And that's I mean, that was one of those moments.
It was so even before the kick going in, it
was just like I don't know, man, it's just it.

(02:28:22):
That's that's football, that's ball, that's football. That's why we
signed up. That's why we depend on one another. That's
what That's why you're you're trying to get this collection
of people and you're trying to build this thing that
is your family, that is your community, that is your
you know, people you'll know for life. That's why you
watched all them tapes. That's why we lifted all them weights. Yeah.

(02:28:43):
That was my daughter's quote, or our daughter's quote in
her senior yearbook. You know, they had to have to
have a quote. Of course, that's her father's line. She
just wrote, that's why we lift all that money. If
that's not somebody that knows, Baul, I don't know what
is married again? Right? An all time? There? I got
a little misty there. Oh, oh my god.

Speaker 6 (02:29:06):
How do you not get like the moneyball code? How
do you not get emotional?

Speaker 1 (02:29:09):
Amen?

Speaker 5 (02:29:10):
And the Patriots win sixteen to thirteen. A dynasty is.

Speaker 1 (02:29:14):
Born, not yet on its way, on its way, on
its way.

Speaker 5 (02:29:19):
And go on to beat Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game.
Drew Bledsoe saves the day, and then how is the.

Speaker 2 (02:29:27):
Super Bowl aftermath, Drew bledsoe plays two great quarters. What's
the conversation, Like, he.

Speaker 1 (02:29:33):
Saves the season, he saves the season. How do you
go back to the team, because because you know in
practice it was and you know, Tommy is the guy.
You know, and you know and and and and at
that point he was a guy. But again this goes back,
when did he become the collective? When did you know
that he was the guy going forward? Was like, so

(02:29:56):
here's the thing again, let's go retro to two thousand,
his rookie year. Again, people don't remember the details, like
some of us remember the details of our fifty three
man roster. And I think at that point in time
there was only four practice squad players and bumped up
to five. But that year there was a point in

(02:30:16):
time where we had only fifty one players on our
fifty three man roster.

Speaker 5 (02:30:21):
It was a.

Speaker 1 (02:30:21):
Combination of salary cap issues and because we were close
to the cap, we were mugged up against it. But
the other thing was there were certain players we were
all in a certain way, and we said we're not
going to keep someone on the roster just to have
a player on the roster if they're not all in
so we actually had fifty two players, fifty one players

(02:30:42):
at one point in time, but we kept four quarterbacks
on the fifty three man roster. Right we had we
had Bledsoe. We had John Freeze, Michael Bishop and Tommy
and we knew Tommy was We felt Tommy was developable.
Is that a word? Depable? It is now? It is.
I don't know whether that would get you to scrabble

(02:31:02):
how many points? Yeah? Me? Neither monopoly like monopoly. But
he developed and I remember thinking by so by two
thousand and one, he's our backup quarterback Damon Hue. We
have Damon Cube now we'd signed him in the off
season as a as a free agent. Then there was
there were internal conversations that we felt, you know, if

(02:31:25):
and when the point comes, this guy might be our guy.
Because the the other thing about Drew was you have
to remember we knew what his kryptonite was because we
had been in the Jets the three previous seasons, and
what was his kryptonite pressure that he could see in
his face between the guards and additional pocket. But that

(02:31:48):
but here's the thing is, and I have so much
respect for Drew. I like I think the world, drew
it in respect for him and what had happened at
that point in Drew's career. He had been hit literally
in the mouth so many times from things that came
up the middle, from the pressure of the middle.

Speaker 3 (02:32:05):
And and that means you don't look at when that happens.

Speaker 1 (02:32:08):
To a quarterback.

Speaker 2 (02:32:10):
You don't you're not processing processing the play anymore. You're
feeling the rush and that half a millisecond, quarter millisecond,
whatever it is, that's when the guy's open. So if
you miss that, it doesn't matter how strong your arm is.
That that's that's.

Speaker 1 (02:32:27):
What you get. A case of that, that's I don't
know if that Yeah, And I used to get pissed
off of people that would criticize Drew for that, because
that's a human being being human. Yeah, he got he
got hit and and and at some point in time.
The key to being a quarterback is not just people
oh he's smart, he's smart. It doesn't matter how smart

(02:32:47):
they are. You can you know, you go up on
the grease board and x'es and O is all day long,
and you've got time. But when you add in the
element of the intensity of a game, the speed of
the game and getting punched in the mouth and can
still make good decisions. It's about good decision making, not
just being smart. And and and I'll tell you, man,
Drew hung in that season and I had to be

(02:33:08):
told I can't imagine, I can't imagine. And then to
be ready and to to win the a f C
Championship game. Man, and just you talk about a soldier
about a war. My respect for Drew Bledsoe is tremendous.

Speaker 2 (02:33:25):
I think Tom phrased up the best. You know that
that was the Patriot way.

Speaker 1 (02:33:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:33:30):
It's the mental toughness, doing what's best for the team
when it may not be best for you, you know.
And Tom said that, I think Brady Day about Drew,
you know.

Speaker 1 (02:33:39):
And and it's a.

Speaker 2 (02:33:40):
Business, it's crazy sport. There's always there's only one quarterback.
But you know that that's that's how it goes sometimes.
Drew had a hell of a career. He was a
great quarter Andrew three top three quarterback.

Speaker 1 (02:33:56):
Behind him. He can still the g shake.

Speaker 6 (02:34:00):
Oh my god, he got big hands.

Speaker 1 (02:34:02):
Doesn't he have? He's got huge But I'll tell you what,
Number twelve's got enormous hands. You know what you say, Hey,
I don't know. You know what they say about big hands,
big gloves exactly, big gloves. The thing is when when
when Tommy's holding the ball, though, and you look at
still shots of him holding the ball. I'm convinced that's
a big part of the reason for his accuracy in

(02:34:22):
the weather and the elements that he played in so
many times. Yeah, in his career never phased him. We
drafted Cliff Kingsbury and I remember Parcel said this to me,
because do you how small his hands are? Cliff Kingsbury
had small hands, and it was Yeah, I don't know
if it played into his ability to control the ball

(02:34:42):
in the anyway. Can you pick it this small hands
turned into a good coach, good.

Speaker 6 (02:34:47):
Coach, they say, small hands, good offense.

Speaker 5 (02:34:51):
Can you pick it? Super Bowl winning coach in the
next twenty years?

Speaker 1 (02:34:54):
Can we go on to the aftermath of this Jackie.

Speaker 5 (02:34:56):
All right, the Patriots going to win Super Bowl thirty six,
beating the greatest show on turf?

Speaker 3 (02:35:02):
And like to say his favorite line of that.

Speaker 5 (02:35:06):
Dynasty, Yeah, to quote the great Ernie Adams.

Speaker 3 (02:35:10):
No, but he was quoting Adam Or was it Archieletta
or is it Ricky prol.

Speaker 5 (02:35:16):
Yeah, and Ernie gave him the royal in your face.

Speaker 2 (02:35:19):
Ricky Gruden went to Tampa on that. I also had
one more thing. Did in this game planning we didn't
get into it for Gruden. Did Bill bring out a
lot of the Giants forty nine.

Speaker 1 (02:35:33):
Ers tape because they probably had a lot of the
similar schemes because.

Speaker 2 (02:35:38):
Gruden was under Home Green Home grin, you know, with
with Walsh, Walsh, and I think he was even with
Niners with Sea for ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:35:47):
You know, you know, I don't know specifically for that,
but here's it's so funny an interesting question just from
the standpoint where you know part of Bill's leadership that
I always thought it was so important he was. Bill's
a terrific listener. Yeah, I say that, And he knows
how to and who to ask questions. And you know

(02:36:09):
Ernie as you know, sometimes to be hey, Ernie, what's
the and Ernie with d you know, he and it
would just come out. But the other person I'll never
forget is coming out of it. It was a staff meeting,
and it was a personnel meeting, staff personnel with the
coaching staff, and we're coming out of the meeting and
and Bill and I are just standing in the hallway
and he's waiting for Pepper. And Pepper comes out and

(02:36:33):
he goes, hey, Pepper, remember the San Francisco game nineteen
eighty and he and in the third quarter and Bill
was trying to remember something and Pepper Johnson. This is
one of the things I remember this too where I
understood the value of Pepper Johnson. He was a chemistry guy,
he was, but he was this recall guy. Also. Pepper

(02:36:55):
just goes, oh yeah, and he spits out, oh yeah,
it was a third quarter or third and seven. You know,
he just makes up this it's third and whatever. We're
on the right hash defensively, and he had the whole
thing and they were in three by one or two
by one, and he just repeated the like and but
he looked away from Bill and it was almost like

(02:37:15):
Rain managed Pepa Johnson. And he was just like and
I was like, but that was part of the you know,
you bring up something like that, did Bill. Bill not
only had the tape and had his own recall, he
had people around him that recalled, that had recall, and
Pepper was never I'll never forget that moment with Pepper
out in the Hallway, think wow, and and Pepper remember

(02:37:37):
what the call was, what the adjustment was? I think
I know that call because was it was it? The
was it the oh he's making this?

Speaker 2 (02:37:46):
Was it a was it a trap play? A double
trap play where he wanted to show Banks or lt
blowing up what you had to do to the trap guy?

Speaker 1 (02:37:57):
Because if it was an adjustment call, will want to
know what the adjustment was that we made when they
motioned something, and it was. Bill used a lot of
those old I mean a lot of these plays. Yeah,
the game has evolved, but a lot of some of
these route run plays and stuff they've been running since

(02:38:18):
the eighties. It's the same shit. And here's a funny
thing too, because I remember early on Bill used to
show the linebackers, talk about the linebackers, and then show
like giants film, and I remember Rabel came out one
time to practice dressed in giants gear. He's like, are
you effing happy now? Because Rabel could do stuff, and

(02:38:40):
Rabel did. Rabel more than anybody pushed across the line
where it got uncomfortable sometimes like oh, Rabes might have
gone too far that time, right. He Rabel's one of
a kind. That way. He did it with Tommy like
all the time. Oh, but he did it with Bill sometimes. Ook.
You may not have wanted to go there.

Speaker 3 (02:39:00):
He's a he's a vicious Matt Like.

Speaker 1 (02:39:04):
Oh, that's because Matt Light will get you uncomfortable in
a jokingly fun way. Rabel will just go through your throat.
When he comes straight for your throat, He'll talk about anything,
any means necessary, wife, kids, fucking mom, dad, He doesn't care,
and then no remorse afterwards. Zero what football's fucking football?

(02:39:27):
Gross sack. Oh my gosh. But that's part, you know,
And that's the thing is he would do things and
say things. And here's the thing I remember talking when
Rabel was coming out and getting to know a little bit.
You know, who is college college drum was Luke Fickle,
and Luke was like this epic wrestler, but Rabel was

(02:39:49):
so there were these stories when you talk to the
people at Ohio State, there were these epic stories of
wrestling matches and fights that Rabel, like two brothers would
have you know, where they're like destroying dorm rooms and
just and to the death. Oh my god, but that's Rabel.
Fucking raids.

Speaker 2 (02:40:09):
We gotta get them on here, got to Oh my god,
we'll be right back after this quick break.

Speaker 3 (02:40:19):
Let's name the game. Oh, we know this one.

Speaker 1 (02:40:22):
We know this one. It's not the tuck roll game.
It's the snowball game. It is the snowball game.

Speaker 2 (02:40:28):
Is this the greatest game of all time? Let's score
it stinks zero to ten? Ten b eight highest ten
because if not, the season's over, season's over.

Speaker 1 (02:40:40):
I'm gonna go nine. It's divisional round. I feel that.
I feel okay.

Speaker 6 (02:40:45):
Jack has an eight point nine. I have an eight
point seven.

Speaker 1 (02:40:47):
I just broke a rule. Actually, you know, Juel, what's
the rule? Thank you? What you know? In our grading scale,
there's no hyperbole, right, there's no hyperbole. And I went
ten right out of the game. That was emotion right there.
You can't make an emotional no, and I just did
this shows you how long I've been out of the game. Hey,
you don't use it, you lose it. Remember that, listener,

(02:41:10):
I suck?

Speaker 6 (02:41:11):
Hey, hold on, do you want another take at it?
Because everyone comes tens. I usually say ten and then
we just move on.

Speaker 1 (02:41:17):
But no, I just think I needed to say that
out loud as kind of therapy. But now if I
go where Jewels is going here? Then I look like
that scout who's well, well, Julian said, I'm going with
the nine. No, so I'm sticking with my stick.

Speaker 5 (02:41:30):
I like it.

Speaker 6 (02:41:30):
By Jack got a eight point nine out of eight
point seven.

Speaker 1 (02:41:33):
Star power zero to ten decimals. Okay, well we're talking
which teams all everywhere? Everywhere? I mean I think they've
got the greatest Hall of famers on their roster in
that game.

Speaker 9 (02:41:45):
I want to say, rich is Eric Allen, I don't
believe no, Right, so he'll he'll be dam Al Davis
is still He's still at the helm.

Speaker 1 (02:41:58):
So we're talking. There's a bunch of Hall of famers.
Was a great coach, great coach, great coach, John Gruden.
Then look at the Patriots, right thy Law, Richard Seymour,
Tom Brady, Arry is gonna be there. You think Brady
will get in? I think maybe you get places cards,
right Bill? I mean Bill might be in next year

(02:42:19):
based on this. So star power go nine nine solid,
very solid. I couldn't go up.

Speaker 2 (02:42:28):
You know that's a I'm gonna go eight point nine respectable.

Speaker 1 (02:42:33):
It's a nine point one.

Speaker 6 (02:42:35):
So this is second year Brady too.

Speaker 1 (02:42:36):
So so here, by the way, So I'm gonna talk
a little scouting grade grade. We had a scout on
the on the staff, Jake Hallum. At the time, it
was old school o G. And Jake was a great scout,
you know, just had experience. But he would give a
guy a grade and try to put in a decimal
point and it's whole numbers, none of this nine point

(02:42:57):
two stuff. And I go, Jake, do you like a
guy or not? And you go, I like him, but
he's a real country I like him, but I don't
like like him. So really he's only so he would
talk a like like like like or a little less like.
He would say, so, can we go whole numbers here? Guys?
I mean, I'm gonna make never mind. You can go

(02:43:19):
home for the next I'm going.

Speaker 2 (02:43:21):
Whole numbers because a ninety two percent is different than
a ninety percent and scaling of a grade. So if
that's a a minus, that's that's a straight A.

Speaker 1 (02:43:32):
I was never in that stratus. Neither was I. I
always looked at him.

Speaker 6 (02:43:37):
I had eight point four. My friends did nine point
one from Jack.

Speaker 5 (02:43:41):
I gotta say I like, I like like like Scott's
approach to this scoring. We're getting some good insight in
the scout.

Speaker 1 (02:43:48):
He likes right there, I like like like him. Let's
go and the scouts through the area. Of the scouts
that were there, hear that they're gonna laugh their butts
off because they know Jay. Gods, he was the best.
Let's go Jay. Gameplay zero to ten. Gameplay, give me
a definition back how the game went back and forth

(02:44:09):
for the viewer last second? Field value entertainment? Enjoyable? Was
it to watch? I think, you know, when you win,
you think it's great. But even so, I'm again I'm
I'm an emotional guy. I'm a sucker. I love that
it was snow. I love that it was grass. I
love that it was I love that it was a
low scoring game. I know you're an offensive guy, but

(02:44:32):
I love I.

Speaker 6 (02:44:33):
Love defense mattered.

Speaker 1 (02:44:35):
I'm going nine again. Man. All the guys that I
worked with ore scouts are are like, they want to
choke me out right now because I'm giving such high grades.

Speaker 2 (02:44:42):
I'm an offensive guy, so I gotta go with the
There's a bunch of fumbles, and there's some bad you know.

Speaker 1 (02:44:47):
There are a couple of blues, a couple.

Speaker 5 (02:44:49):
Of muffs, and teamer.

Speaker 6 (02:44:51):
Controversial call, you know, like the refs getting in the mix.

Speaker 1 (02:44:54):
I'm gonna go with the seven point eight. So you're
going on the quality of play when you're saying because
of the fumbles, See, I wasn't looking at that scory.

Speaker 2 (02:45:04):
I mean, it's a great gameplay. This is I mean,
it's we're still talking to it. We're talking about it
twenty two years and not even a Super Bowl gave
it an eight point four. I might have to make
this and give this the Ernie Adams. I might need
to go through this and redefine some of this scouting
report here.

Speaker 1 (02:45:20):
We should be.

Speaker 6 (02:45:21):
It doesn't need a revamp. We need to event scoring.

Speaker 3 (02:45:25):
And if you're gonna do a binder, please keep it
MLA format.

Speaker 1 (02:45:28):
Thank you. The name of the game, the Snowball. I
wish we were together by it. I wish we were
there the same time.

Speaker 2 (02:45:37):
I was the guy that like me and Ernie became
close because I would see Ernie every day by himself
eating a goddamn tomato, and I was just curious and
I went up to him like, Hey, that was that tobato.
And then it just became a thing where I would
just joke with him and then he he give me nuggets.
He'd be like, you know, look this punter, you gotta

(02:45:58):
want to he give me some nuggets. Information is always good.

Speaker 6 (02:46:01):
Would he bring you a tomato on your birthday?

Speaker 1 (02:46:03):
No, he never brought me tomato. We weren't there, not yet.
You may get something to mail this year.

Speaker 6 (02:46:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:46:11):
He is a sweet human being.

Speaker 2 (02:46:13):
Ernie brought me a beautiful when he came and did
our show. He brought me unbelievable book bag full of
three books for my daughter Matilda.

Speaker 1 (02:46:23):
What was the other one?

Speaker 2 (02:46:24):
Rights Secret Garden, like these beautiful books from the Cambridge
bookstore Brookline Brookline?

Speaker 1 (02:46:30):
Was it Brookline Brookline Bookstore? Yeah? It was. It was spectacular.
That's Ernie and that's the stuff. See those of us.

Speaker 2 (02:46:38):
We that know, No, Ernie's definitely, I mean, you know,
he's a sweet guy. He out kicked his coverage with
his wife. Oh Christine, absolutely, I mean I love Ernie,
but Ernie, you don't deserve that.

Speaker 6 (02:46:50):
Christine is the name of this game. Also is the
cultural impact of this So we're talking about it, you know,
twenty four to three years long.

Speaker 1 (02:46:58):
I'm going ten I don't even have but as long
as the right name the snow Snowball. I'm going with
a eight point nine. I knew you would. He's a
D nine eight point nine, eight point nine, nine point five.
You got to think about it though, man Like, it's
kind of like when you go get a burger.

Speaker 2 (02:47:17):
Getting burgers, you know, when you create a burger. There's
no such thing as a perfect burger. There's no such thing.
There's never been a ten burger. There could be a
nine point eight, there could be a nine, but there's
It's kind of like surfing a wave. You may have
got the biggest wave of all time, but it's not
the next wave.

Speaker 1 (02:47:36):
It's kind of like Tommy says, which, Hey Tommy, what's
your favorite ring? The next, the next one? What's your
favorite burger? The next? Exactly?

Speaker 3 (02:47:45):
God, I could go for those.

Speaker 6 (02:47:48):
The final score is nine point three.

Speaker 1 (02:47:51):
Oh boy, number four. I feel like I number four
all time all game.

Speaker 6 (02:47:57):
So it's right ahead of the two thousand for ALCS
Game four Yankees Red Sox and the nineteen ninety nine
Women's World Cup China versus the United States, and just
below the Malcolm Butler game the Dynasty two. I call
it the super Bowl.

Speaker 1 (02:48:10):
What is that?

Speaker 6 (02:48:11):
Forty nine Seattle versus Patriots.

Speaker 1 (02:48:13):
I right in love that the nineteen ninety nine Women's
World Cup Finals. There, I remember watch that game. Did yeah,
oh if I was grading with my See here here's
the part of the problem, and this is this is
why working with good people sometimes I over graded thing.
That's why we did the average of all of our
which is which is good. You guys kind of bring

(02:48:34):
forty time. When you go to the combine, you know
you got five scouts on it. The electronics we used
to be really bad.

Speaker 6 (02:48:40):
We used to be real bad. Everything had tens, like
wrestling matches for first overall we read changed the scoring
so we add so we can help.

Speaker 1 (02:48:46):
But you guys talk wrestling on the show.

Speaker 6 (02:48:48):
Yeah, We've had Becky Lynch on for Michael Sean Michael.

Speaker 1 (02:48:52):
Yeah see I'm a different I'm rowdy roddy pipe. Yeah,
love hole, but a rowdy roddy Pipe had one of
the greatest lines Piper's Pit. You guys ever watched the
old versions of Piper's Pit. There's one he has one
of the greatest lines of all time that I still
you say, just when you think you know the answer,

(02:49:12):
I changed the question. That's that's how my dad used
to do that.

Speaker 6 (02:49:20):
Why he was always right top five games, top five,
so much heat that top four games are all Patriots games.

Speaker 1 (02:49:27):
Well, here's the thing is I was going to say
about this. One of my concerns is this recency bias. Yes,
there's and and there's bias. But that's why I wanted
to bring some of that other stuff in there, Like
you know this game that that that like the beginning
of the Patriots and what the truth of the beginning
of the Patriots thing was.

Speaker 2 (02:49:47):
But the first game is kind of the end of
the Patriots, so it was kind of like the bow
on the end of the get through. So we got
they're both top five. We just need we need to
have someone come in and try to change. Is that
so so all you guessed out there that you know
are anti Pats, you know, have someone else from another
team that has some importance that have getting gotten in

(02:50:11):
the same.

Speaker 1 (02:50:11):
Level of of what this is. Essentially, we could.

Speaker 5 (02:50:14):
See that here with the Chiefs get some good games.

Speaker 6 (02:50:16):
We could see that fishing for Travis Kelcey.

Speaker 1 (02:50:19):
I want Travis Kelcey. He'd be a great guests. I
mean he's got I've gone on.

Speaker 6 (02:50:24):
Day on our channel.

Speaker 1 (02:50:26):
Huh was dming with him when our I know he's
always played He's cool, cool, he smooth, smooth. What celebrities
have you guys had on go back?

Speaker 6 (02:50:34):
Let's see like we had O'Neill, which was heard a
couple off.

Speaker 1 (02:50:40):
Eric Stones outstanding, Mark Gardner. That's another show, by the
way that I've seen now since I retired the Simpsons.

Speaker 6 (02:50:52):
The Simpsons is great too.

Speaker 1 (02:50:53):
You might have made he was a huge Simpsons guy.
He was a huge are allowed to use his name?

Speaker 6 (02:50:58):
We even talk about there all human, you're gonna do
another episode?

Speaker 1 (02:51:04):
I mean, you're Italian, though I thought we would know
something you would is a family business. It stays in
the family business. I'm very and I'm very Italian. And anyway,
when you hear your family, you know.

Speaker 5 (02:51:19):
Casey Casey restaurant.

Speaker 6 (02:51:23):
He was sorry, used to sell sausages outside of Fenway
as a kid.

Speaker 1 (02:51:29):
You know who made those sausages Beyonco and sons from Revere.
Let's go Joey Bianco. We have sausage pests at our
house every summer on Nantucky. Sounds like Jake's, sounds like
Jackson on a Friday night and the boys a sausage
Beest t shirt. But Beyonco and sons so Joey Bianco

(02:51:49):
is cousins of my college teammate roommate Ralphie marsha On
from Everett the Everett Boys, and uh, we should ask
Casey if if he sold Bionco sausages some Let's hope
he did. N we gotta hit him back. Can do
the case? That dunkin Donuts commercial from the best outside

(02:52:14):
the Do you think You're better than me?

Speaker 3 (02:52:21):
Se Instigators?

Speaker 1 (02:52:22):
Case is very incredible, fun movie fun. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:52:27):
I mean he's a cool dude too.

Speaker 1 (02:52:29):
You know, he's when you when you mess with these actors,
they're all you know, actors are different, they.

Speaker 2 (02:52:35):
Got to play other people. But he's like a regular dude,
that's an actor. How about Matt Damon you Yeah, we
haven't had him on yet. I wish we're gonna get
him here soon. That's Martian. Have you seen the great movie?
Great movie? Underrated?

Speaker 1 (02:52:51):
But to me, Martian and that last part that he
talks about is the Patriots just do the math, you
figure it out, and you just try to get to
the next play the next day. He doesn't say that,
but that's what the whole marsh thing is you're just
trying to get do enough to get to the next I.

Speaker 6 (02:53:09):
Could watch a whole movie, just the whole movie of
him growing potatoes. It's I call it the type of
movies I love.

Speaker 1 (02:53:18):
Watching this.

Speaker 2 (02:53:19):
You're pretty much the root of the Patriots, So why
don't you come on and discuss the Martian? Basically, Running
is still probably my all time.

Speaker 1 (02:53:30):
Love, all timer.

Speaker 6 (02:53:32):
It's Casey affleck Scott.

Speaker 2 (02:53:36):
We miss anything. We gotta have you come on because
this is this was so fun. You got to come
on and do another game. And Browns, I feel I
feel like we've missed so much. This is going to
turn out to be an unbelievable episode. People are gonna
love this episode.

Speaker 1 (02:53:51):
Instant instant Brown's game.

Speaker 6 (02:53:54):
We need it so bad, the Browns.

Speaker 1 (02:53:56):
Game once again. Everyone. Get ready the nws L Boston team. Yeah.
NWSL bors got a name coming soon. We got a
name coming soon, and and and truly thank you to
get out of here. Man.

Speaker 3 (02:54:10):
It's crazy that, like you know, we'll finish it with this.

Speaker 1 (02:54:14):
You're coming to a game. We're going to a game.
I'm there. I'll bring my dog. I'll give you a
shirt that has the team name on it too. With
once we get that.

Speaker 2 (02:54:20):
Perfect perfect but you know this this goes to the
point and to toot your horn one more time before
you leave. You know, I never got to play with you,
but your work that you did through your career in
New England, Like I knew about it, and I felt
that even ten years whatever how many years passed, I was,

(02:54:43):
I was in it. So the impact that you had
on the organization and to the pivotal game that we
went over over in this divisional round against the Raiders,
the snowball game, you know, it's been felt throughout the
whole organization, through that whole twenty two years that we were,
you know, at the top.

Speaker 1 (02:55:01):
So I appreciate it. I mean, we really you know
I mean that too.

Speaker 2 (02:55:06):
And and you know, it was so awesome to have
you come on here and explain the stories and give
us the nitty gritty insides and outs of what the
Patriots think about.

Speaker 3 (02:55:19):
You know, when it goes into drafting, when it goes into.

Speaker 2 (02:55:21):
The scenes, behind the scenes, you know that that's something
that our listeners they really enjoy And this is going
to be a very fun episode.

Speaker 1 (02:55:29):
Thanks for coming, Thanks for having me appreciate it. I
appreciate the words that it means a lot here with
me too, man awesome. No, I'm serious because one of
the things I used to tell tell my wife was
and again I'm not trying to be corny here is
there was players after I left. I would say he
could have been one of us. How you say about

(02:55:49):
that you were, but you were that next that second half.
I was like, you could have been a part of
that first decade without a doubt. I appreciate that. I mean,
for sure, that means a lot because I remember being
the kid wanted to be that guy when I first
got in there. And you're seeing Teddy Bruski, Kevin Fogg,
Troy Brown, Tom Brady Rabel. Next time we come, Willie Mack,

(02:56:11):
we'll talk about because this is part see and you
mentioned that is and this is for the next show.
But it's about that team. That locker room was built
on having a larger number of selfless leaders than other teams.
It was Anthony Pleasant who was in his twelfth, thirteen,
fourteenth year when we drafted Jarvis Green, Richard Seymour, Armuth Green,

(02:56:35):
hy Warren and him teaching those guys how to take
his job. That crap's rare. Yeah right, it's Troy Brown
sticking around for an extra year and teaching people how
to take his job. No, but there were selfless leaders
in there. It was Teddy Bruski teaching Gerrod Mao how

(02:56:56):
to become the Mike linebacker. Yeah yeah, I mean, is
you ultimately want to win and that's legacy stuff. Man,
that's a legacy and that's real legacy stuff. I'm just
glad you weren't around and to think because I you know,
I was a crazy asshole in that building this. But
there were different personalities. I mean, ty Law had a

(02:57:18):
different personality, there were Rabel I mean, yeah what I
what I understood. You were kind of like, this is
dating me again. You're a little Eddie haskell Ish. But
but again that's needed when you're building it. But you

(02:57:40):
need different But here's the thing is that they want
the successful teams weren't robots. Right. We talked about people
being in but you can have different personalities. Look at
how different Mind and Bill's personalities are, you know what
I mean? And Ernie I mean, and Charlie Weiss and Romeo.
There's a guy we didn't talk about enough. Romeo critics.

Speaker 6 (02:58:00):
My gosh, for the Browns episode.

Speaker 10 (02:58:03):
For the Browns episode, man, I feel like we we
we talked about so much and we forgot so much,
almost because he's a wealth of just stories, information and
he could compute it to verbal.

Speaker 6 (02:58:18):
Incredible interview. He might be my new favorite person. We're
already talking about doing another episode.

Speaker 5 (02:58:23):
Yeah you think you think I'm a glazer Bro, you
were glazing?

Speaker 1 (02:58:26):
Was?

Speaker 6 (02:58:26):
I was full.

Speaker 3 (02:58:30):
Because it would also be really good.

Speaker 2 (02:58:31):
I want to hit him when he was with the
Browns and then also the Chiefs, you know.

Speaker 6 (02:58:37):
Talk about the Chiefs at all at all? Yeah, and
he was GM there for four years.

Speaker 1 (02:58:41):
Yeah, so we talked about the Falcons, talk about the Falcon.

Speaker 6 (02:58:47):
All right, let's keep this thing. This is such a
long episode, about a.

Speaker 5 (02:58:49):
Thousand questions we got asked Hi when he comes on
next time?

Speaker 1 (02:58:51):
Was awesome?

Speaker 6 (02:58:54):
So fun, great episode.

Speaker 1 (02:58:55):
Great, great episode. Well what again, Aime? What a guest?
Thanks again to Scott Poli and everyone. Go check out
the new Boston Professional soccer team n WS al Baby
n WS.

Speaker 5 (02:59:12):
I wanted to ask him how hard is it to
name Bro sports franchise?

Speaker 1 (02:59:16):
I mean, I bet you.

Speaker 2 (02:59:17):
Nowadays they do so many different like Uh, they probably
do polls. Do they have like people that come in, yeah, agency.

Speaker 5 (02:59:26):
Specially Yeah, something that does Yeah, the metrics.

Speaker 2 (02:59:29):
What's a good name for a Boston girls soccer team,
a women's soccer team?

Speaker 1 (02:59:36):
Something?

Speaker 2 (02:59:38):
Oh, the Boston tea parties they like No, maybe misogynistic.
I canceled obviously, like.

Speaker 6 (02:59:47):
What the w n b A used to do where
they're like women's teams were like similar to the men's teams.
There are like a little like the revolution Commons.

Speaker 1 (02:59:55):
So the Lady.

Speaker 6 (02:59:58):
Nor Reesters would be a great name.

Speaker 1 (02:59:59):
The Nor'east Northeasters.

Speaker 5 (03:00:02):
I want to I bet a storm, yeah, right, like
it could be a hurricane no easter.

Speaker 1 (03:00:08):
No, it can't be a hurricane.

Speaker 5 (03:00:09):
Yeah, I might whet if they go the alliteration route
to I feel like a lot of you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (03:00:14):
The New England perfect storm and just have like Wahlberg
and Clooney, it doesn't work.

Speaker 5 (03:00:20):
I guess they are leaning into Boston instead of New England.

Speaker 1 (03:00:22):
Will it be?

Speaker 5 (03:00:23):
I guess it will be Boston.

Speaker 6 (03:00:24):
So we're gonna find out just part of this episode.

Speaker 1 (03:00:27):
Just don't go don't go.

Speaker 5 (03:00:29):
Full we want to be English and try to.

Speaker 6 (03:00:32):
Revolutionary or.

Speaker 1 (03:00:36):
I like the FC stuff.

Speaker 6 (03:00:37):
Now it's novelty in America, but we don't even say
football the Washington area.

Speaker 1 (03:00:41):
Stupid.

Speaker 5 (03:00:42):
Yeah, classic naming convention.

Speaker 2 (03:00:43):
The Washington football team was the best name, the nickname
or the best team the name they had since our words.

Speaker 3 (03:00:51):
Washington Football Team was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (03:00:53):
I still like it, all right?

Speaker 6 (03:00:55):
What an episode? What an episode?

Speaker 1 (03:00:57):
Episode? That's been another episode of Games with Names. Jackie's
not happy about the Oh, I'm so happy baby.

Speaker 2 (03:01:06):
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1 (03:01:11):
Comment a game you want us to do, and remember,
rate and.

Speaker 6 (03:01:14):
Reviews, really good reviews. The reviews are good for us.

Speaker 1 (03:01:16):
Reviews have been awesome.

Speaker 2 (03:01:18):
Remember to follow games with Names on YouTube, Instagram, x TikTok,
and snapchat. Leave a message on the hotline. Those have
been awesome. Four two four two nine one two two
nine zero.

Speaker 1 (03:01:31):
We will see you.

Speaker 2 (03:01:31):
Guys next week. Games with Names of production of iHeartRadio.
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The Snow Bowl Game with Scott Pioli | 2001 AFC Divisional Round: Raiders vs. Patriots

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Julian Edelman

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Snow Bowl Game with Scott Pioli | 2001 AFC Divisional Round: Raiders vs. Patriots