Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We talk a little Patriots and Panthers, Panthers and Patriots,
a rematch of the two thousand and three Super Bowl,
and we do it with our buddy Nick Cattles of
the Locked On Patriots podcast, longtime sports radio host as well.
He's talking Patriots every day on the Locked On network,
and he's back with us for a Wednesday conversation. What's up,
Nick Cattle's?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
How you been, good Man? How you been? Kyle? Good Good?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
We're in a better mood around here after the Panthers
figured out a way to win the game on Sunday
and in shocking fashion at that, blowing out the Falcons
thirty to nothing, and we're looking ahead to Sunday and
trying to figure out what's going on with the Patriots.
Your quarterback, of course, is a Charlotte native. He's from
just down the road here, so a lot of folks
are interested in what Drake's been up to. I'll just
get the thirty thousand foot view catch us up on
(00:42):
three weeks of Patriots football.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I would say surprisingly sloppy. You know, when Mike Rabel
was hired, I said that this would be a serious
football program. And what I meant by that is that
they would be disciplined, they would be detailed, they wouldn't
be sloppy, and that's what we haven't seen so far.
I mean, this is one of the worst penalized teams,
most pedalized teams in football so far through three weeks.
(01:06):
Last week they turned the football over five times against
Pittsburgh and just give them the game. So it's been
a little bit of an underwhelming start for the coaching
staff and for Mike Rabel, but there have been some
high points.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Kyle so Drake specifically, I was just talking about his
numbers against the Steelers a couple of days ago. I'm
a big Drake guy, big Drake fan. I felt pretty
strongly like he might be the best quarterback in that
draft class. Although Caleb Williams had a good Sunday, his
numbers weren't bad. From this weekend. I'm sure you can
provide more context, but I'm also struck by the fact
that he's this team's leading rusher right now.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, and that's not what they want right obviously speaking,
they want to run the football, they want to establish
the run. They did a good job of that in
the first half against Miami in Week two, and it
helped balance their offense. And you know, not shockingly, that's
the only game they've won so far this year. They
did not run the ball well in the first week,
they did not run the ball well last week against Pittsburgh.
(02:03):
Some of it's offensive line, some of its running backs
not getting the yardage they should get, including Trevon Henderson
who's had a very slow start, shaky start to his
NFL career. As far as Drake Kyle, I gotta tell you,
he's been really good. He's been really good. I would say,
I don't know five out of the six halfs that
they've played a football so far this year, he has.
He has put together a lot of impressive analytics. You know,
(02:25):
when you look at his efficiency EPA e PA per
dropback and you look at the late down, third and
fourth down productivity and EPA, I see improvement from him.
But there is this always if only dot dot dot
with Drake, and that's what he's got to correct. That's
what he's got to fix. That's what it's going to
improve on. And that's just the turnovers. And you know,
(02:45):
again last week, it's it's pretty tough when you play
for a football team that has such a slim margin
for error, and you're Drake and you make one or
two mistakes, and those one or two mistakes just end
up being humongous. Like the interception he throws. He should
throwing that with a little bit more air underneath it,
towards the corner of the end zone. It's an easy
touchdown for Kayshan Boudi. And he throws the pick because
(03:07):
the pass gets tipped because he doesn't put enough air
underneath it. And then you know, in the second half,
he's running around like a chicken with his head cut
off right after gaining some yardage scrambling, and he's done
a really good job for the most part of gaining
those rushing yards, as you mentioned. But last week again
he's just trying to do too much. He's trying to
do too much. He does not take care of the football.
He's careless with the ball, holds it like a loaf
(03:28):
of bread, and he fumbles it away to Pittsburgh. So
I would tell you that almost everything occasional, inaccuracies, they happen.
Almost everything from Drake has improved. He looks better, he
looks like he's making the progress that everybody was hoping
that he would make It's just he's got to stop
the turnover plays and he's going to be a little
bit more protective of the football if he does that.
(03:50):
I mean, honestly, if he limits his turnovers, he's a
top ten quarterback the first three weeks of the season.
He's just going to make sure he takes care of
the football more often.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
That's been a big part of Bryce Young's first couple
of weeks too, not against the Falcons, but the first
two weeks it was largely about the turnovers. So we
understand that. I'm also interested in the pass catching situation
up there. We were just talking about this. Carolina, as
you probably know, put the worst defense single season defense
ever on the field last year in terms of points allowed,
rushing yards allowed, all that. After a shaky start to
(04:22):
the year, their last three halves of football have been,
you know, really good defensively. The secondary in particular has
been strong. And I'm looking at the wide receivers at
New England. To me, Nick and I'll give you the
floor on this, Stefan Diggs looks like a shell of himself.
Mac Collins, to me, we like mack down here, but
he doesn't strike fear in your hearts. I know Hunter
Henry's a factor at tight end, but you know Austin
(04:43):
Hooper Kaishawn Bout like, what do they have and do
you think they have enough? How are those guys playing
right now?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I think there's a few things that work here. Number One,
I would say over the past two weeks, they've gone
with two tight ends sets a decent amount, and that's
because they want to run the football. They again want
to establish that run game, So they've been playing a
lot with two tight ends, and Josh McDaniels tends to
enjoy using those tight ends in the passing game, including
(05:12):
Hunter Henry, who I do think is their best offensive
player and most consistent guy from a skill position standpoint.
So that's one thing. It's game plan, it's personnel packages
that they're using. They don't put out three receivers, four
receivers an awful lot. They hardly ever play with an
empty set. So that's part of the story. The other
part of the story is what you're hitting on. Look,
I'm not surprised about Stefan Diggs. He's not a vertical
(05:34):
guy anymore. He's not Minnesota Stefan Diggs. I do think.
I said before the season kicked off, I'm gonna give
him six or seven weeks to try to knock that
rust off and see what he looks like, you know,
by week seven, week eight. Because he's in his thirties,
he's coming off in ACL so I'm gonna give him
a little bit more grace. He has come up with
some big catches. He doesn't have huge stats, but he
(05:54):
has come up with some big third down conversions. He
had a fourth down conversion as well this season, so
he has made some big catches in big spots. He's
just not going to give you seventy five eighty yards
every week, not even close to it. So I'm going
to give him a little bit more grace. But MATC Collins,
you know him, Kyle, He's more of a fourth receiver
in the NFL. I do think kay Shawn Boody has
(06:16):
shown improvement. He had a really good Week one, and
some of it is Hey, they just they haven't been
able to hit him again. Drake spent inaccurate from time
to time. Some of the plays that they've tried to
create for Kay Shawan Boody and their rookie Kyle Williams
are long developing plays and during those specific moments, the
past protection hasn't held up completely. So it's a mixed bag.
(06:39):
Pop Douglas and Drake may seem like they're not on
the same page. Ever, Pop Douglas has not been good
on the details. He's run a couple of wrong routes,
including the wrong route during that interception in the end
zone by Drake. So yeah, I mean, I think their
wide receiver room leaves a lot to be desired. I'm
not surprised by that. I do think they're better than
(07:00):
the stats would tell you. But don't get it twisted.
I mean, this is not a room, as you said,
that strikes fear into any secondary in the NFL. I
wouldn't think so.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Nick Cattle's locked on Patriots Podcast, hanging out with us
here on WFNZ. A couple quick things we'll let you
out of here. Of course, we go back to the
beginning of free agency. When it opened, the Patriots outbid
the Panthers for the services of Milton Williams. Has he
been worth the money so far?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
First two weeks, Really impactful, really good, you know, against
the run in the past, more against the past than
the run. His snaps are higher this year. You know,
he was hovering between sixty five and seventy percent of
the snaps last week. He did not have a very
impactful game either, did Christian Barmore a little bit of
you know, a step back last week. But I would
(07:47):
say through the first two weeks he was everything as
advertised and maybe even more so. He got off to
a fantastic start. I will give some credit to Pittsburgh.
I'll also give some credit to Aaron Rodgers because they
just get the football so quickly. It's tough to get
pressure on him to begin with. But yeah, I would
say on balance, Milton Williams has been really, really good.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
What's the situation with Christian Gonzalez. I was keeping an
eye on that going into the Pittsburgh game, and I
know it's been you know, injury related, but I'm hearing
some whispering out of New England that it might be
more than just the injury at this point.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
What do you know, Yeah, I think that's delusional whispering.
I have not bought that for one second. There's this,
you know, there's this weird narrative that kind of got
thrown out there by a few people that you know,
this was part of a contract negotiation because this is
Gonzales's third year and he was just taking care of
himself making business decisions by not going out there. I've
(08:39):
kind of looked at this matter of factly. It's a
hamstring injury. He is a very athletic cornerback. You had
some matchups and especially in Week two with Tyreek Hill
and some you know, explosive receiver there, and I just thought, hey,
look he pulled his hamstring. I would imagine he had
a setback, set him back a few weeks, practiced in
(09:00):
some last week, but I did not think you were
going to ramp him up and get him out there
last weekend just because he missed about seven or eight
weeks of football. He's going to get conditioned. He's going
to get out there on the field and ramp up.
Mike Rabel just spoke to the media a few hours ago.
Sounds like Gonzalez is going to be out there. Gonzalez
spoke to the media. The first question that he was
asked was, you know, I suppose that you'll be out
(09:23):
there on Sunday, and he responded, I'm excited, and according
to Mike Rabel, Gonzalez wanted to be out there last week.
You know, I wouldn't say demanded to play, but he
really wanted to play, and Gonzalez said that so himself.
But Rabel made the decision last week, and he said
that was to protect the player. So Gonzalez with the
media said he was frustrated that he couldn't get out
(09:44):
there last weekend. He understands the team's looking out for
his best interests. But if anybody's thinking that this is
a situation where the guy is sitting out games for
a better leverage, which makes no sense to me because
the one thing he has questions about is whether or
not he could be durable. I don't think any of
the adds up. I think it was a hamstring pull.
I think he had a setback, and it sounds like
(10:04):
he'll be back this weekend.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
All right, last thing, real quick, I know you're locked
in no pun intended on the New England, Boston media
and all the ghosts on up there, done a lot
of shows ninety eight five of sports on things like that.
How closely are they following Bill Belichick in North Carolina
and what do they think of this kind of rough
start that he's off to.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I think a lot of it has been about the
Jordan Hudson stuff, the relationship stuff. You know. I'll be honest, Skyle.
I you know, as a fan was rooting for Bill Belichick.
I wanted him to be successful at North Carolina. I
want him to go out on a high note. And
I was happy to see somebody you know of of his,
(10:45):
you know, ilk, somebody with his resume, get a chance
to coach on his terms and leave the way he
wants to leave, even though it wasn't going to be
in the NFL. But I changed my mind after that
scouting story came out, and to me, that was kind
of the straw that broke the camel's back. And it's
not because oh the Patriots and Bell. When you're impacting
(11:08):
young men's lives and their futures because of a petty
grudge that you have with your former organization, that's a
bridge too far for me. And I think he's allowed
his pettiness to get the best of him. And look,
Robert Kraft also owns a big chunk of this with
the Dynasty documentary where they pretty much just blistered Bill throughout.
I'm not saying that Robert Craft is free of any
(11:30):
finger pointing here. But to extend that, you know, these
young guys at UNC, you got thirty two teams, You
got thirty two possibilities to make the NFL. If one
team falls in love with you, if a Patriots scout
falls in love with you, and you're going to be
a sixth round pick or a seventh round pick, and
(11:51):
the team says, well, you know what, we did more
homework on this other guy from another school who we
have graded similarly, We're just going to go with that
guy because we know more about him. Yeah, that might
be the last chance for that UNC player to get
into the NFL. And I just felt that what Belichick
is doing is so incredibly selfish, uh and and again
(12:11):
impacting those young men's lives. That was kind of a
that was too much for me, and I think it
was too much for a lot of people. And I
think it was split until then. You know, people wanted
to see him lose, people wanted to see him win.
There's still a contingent of Patriots fans that, you know,
love Bill and Bill can do no wrong. But I
think that is slowly eroding by by the behavior and
(12:33):
what we've seen over the past year or so.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Nick Cattle's locked on Patriots Podcast, hanging out with us
here on a Wednesday. Nick, always enjoy it. Appreciate your time, brother,
Thank you. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Hi, Kyle, appreciate you man, Talk to you soon.