Patriots Catch-22 10/1: 3 Up/Down vs. Panthers, Bills Preview

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Lazar and Alex Barth.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Blazarre and Lazarre. Everybody nailed it Joined has always by
power Bar Gablita Risk Here is Evan Lazar and Alex Bars.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Teams that commit ten and more penalties in the last
ten years only win forty four percent of the time.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, but you could do that with anything. The teams
that teams that only throw for one hundred and fifty yards,
there's my point. But nobody but because one hundred and
fifty yards is an ab normally low numbers, okay, right,
Ten penalties is an a normally high numbers.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Right, So that's my point. There's no correlation between penalties
and winning. What was the exact I don't want to
miss quote what was the exact thing?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
They don't impact with.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
The three things win loss as much as three things
that that he highlighted that impact win loss at the
most turnover margin yeh epau per, drop back and rush differentials.
Those are the three things.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Okay, penalties aren't the most impactful thing, not a top
three thing, but.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
It can be if you.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Let them become a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
That's a really good opening for this week, Alex, because
we're gonna do the good, the bad, and the stuff
that gets you beat. And I texted Alex when I
was doing some show prep, and I said, do we
have anything that the Patriots did in this game that
got them beat or could get them beat? I should say,
since they didn't get beat, could get them beat. And

(01:31):
we had a philosophical discussion last week of can you
win a game and do stuff that gets you beat?
And this week I had a really difficult time, Alex,
thinking of anything that they did in this football game
that belongs in the stuff that gets you beat. It
was really that good of a performance by the Patriots.

(01:53):
We philosophically disagree a little bit on penalties, which is
the one thing that you pointed out. And I wanted
to start the show with nothing but flowers, and of
course I'm going right to the stuff that gets you beat.
But it was such a short list that that's the
flowers that this performance on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers
was that good that I really did not have many

(02:15):
quibbles with this game. So we'll get to the good,
the bad, and the stuff that gets you beat. We'll
get to three up three down here today, and I
also sincerely want to do a Bill's preview this week.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
You just want to talk about Josh Allen.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
No, I want to do a Bill's preview. And the
reason why I'm excited about doing one is because this
is the first time in a long time that I
can remember where it actually matters, like the matchups and
the schemes game and the chess match it all. Actually
we can go maybe and I don't want to get
too ahead of myself, are too excited, but we can

(02:52):
maybe actually go back to analyzing the games, you know,
and actually like talking a show on the draft, like
the matchups and and uh, you know, big games and
Sunday night football and stakes and all that good stuff.
So that's a that's the show Rundown for today. We'll
take your calls and emails in the second hour of
the show, uh, and then we'll get us rolling here.

(03:14):
But that's my opening take about this game against the
Panthers was that this was probably the cleanest football game
that the New England Patriots have played in I would
say three years, eight months and twenty six days, which
was the Jacksonville fifty berg.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, in twenty one since this, since that from that game,
going back to the end of the twenty one season,
it would I don't remember if we talked. I think
we did talk about this. The last time they won
at home in September. Their starting quarterback.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Was last time they won at home in September.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Before this game, Tom Brady, Uh, well, you actually overshot it.
Most people had said Mac Jones is Cam Newton's Cam.
I was close against the Week three That was actually
a fun game. Yeah, the first time they're at five
hundred or better at the end of September since twenty nineteen,
first time they've had and I don't know how deep
you want to dig into this one, Evan. So the

(04:10):
Miami game, they had five different players score a touchdown.
That was the first time, not five. There had been
other times they scored five touchdowns, but there was a
guy scoring two or three.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Right.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
It was the first time they had five different players
in a game score a touchdown since that Jacksonville game
that you mentioned and then.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Mac Holland scored.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
They had six different players score a touchdown for the
first time since Week two twenty nineteen. You know game
that is Oh no, So here's your touchdown scores. Now
when Tom Brady, Yeah, James White, Brandon Bolden, Yeah, I'm
trying to do this off the top of my head.

(04:51):
There's a linebacker in there. I think it's Jamie Collins.
I'll double check that, Stefan Gilmour and Antonio Brown.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
I was gonna say, Miami, Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
That's that's obviously not something.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Trust my gut more on those.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
That's not something that's going to be a regular occurrence.
Obviously having six different players. It was Jamie Collins sixty
nine yard interception return touchdown.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
They had two pick sixes in the fourth quarter that game.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
It's not something that's going to happen a ton, But
I think it speaks to how they've built this thing
back up.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Having Josh McDaniels back in the picture.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Did they have I mean they must have, but like,
how many different players scored a touchdown off last season?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
More than six, but more than six. But like, I
think the point that you're getting at though, and this
kind of segues into the first part of the goods
as well that I wanted to bring up, which was,
of course, you know, Josh McDaniels and Drake May and
this whole marriage.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
So this whole system, by the way, they had eras,
it's not including defense. I don't think they had any
defensive touchdowns last year, right, No, they didn't.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
So.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
They had won. So they had thirteen total players score
a touchdown last year. They had six in this game.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, So I think this comes back to, you know,
I wanted to start with McDaniels in May obviously, and
you look at this offense, that's a Josh McDaniel stown.

Speaker 5 (06:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Week one, Kayshaun Boody, right, leading receiver for the team,
one hundred yard game. Week two, it's Remandra Stevenson. Big
Remandra game has the fifty five yard catch, runs the
ball pretty well over one hundred plus yards from scrimmage.
Week three it's Hunter Henry eight catches ninety yards, two touchdowns.
This week it's Stefan Diggs. They do not have necessarily

(06:38):
the quote unquote number one receiver. Maybe Diggs is that
maybe he's starting to come on again post ACL and
we're starting to see the ACL Stefan Diggs come to light.
But on paper, they don't necessarily have a true Jamar
Chase Justin Jefferson Puka Nakua number one receiver, but they've
got great bounce, no balance. We often talk about run

(07:02):
pass balance, but this is also just balance of distributing
the football. Drake May has distributed the ball in the
last three weeks all over the place, like running backs,
tight ends, receivers, everybody is getting looks from Drake May.
And when I think about the Josh McDaniels offense, and
when I think about it at its peak with Brady

(07:23):
of course, but just in general, that to me is
the Josh McDaniels offense when it's at its peak, the
open guy is getting the football. It's not he doesn't
necessarily need to be force fed to one player. The
open guy is getting the football. And you're starting to
see that, and I think that in itself is also
a really good indication of the quarterback play that they

(07:45):
are getting because you don't see Drake May having to
force balls into tight windows or force feeding one particular player,
or having tunnel vision for his first read or digs
or what Hunter Henry or whatever the case may be.
And that tells you that that's a quarterback that is

(08:07):
going through his progressions, that's playing on time, that's playing
with confidence in the system that I can pass up
the first read because the second read is going to
be open, and I'm going to trust the guy that
is the second read in the progression to actually get
open on his route. And I understand that, based off
the coverage and based off the look that we're getting,
that that's the right decision here, and I'm willing to

(08:29):
make it. And that's when you start to get a
quarterback that is playing at a different level. And I
think you see that with all these different guys across
the league, and I think that that's a big part,
you know, as we start to talk about the Bills
here too, of Josh Allen's development is his willingness to

(08:49):
take profits and his willingness to not always hunt the
big play or the haymaker, and understanding the importance of
playing in structure. And I think we're just had a
really nice kind of heater right now for Drake May
and Josh McDaniels. In that respect, I want to break
out the McDaniels offense and what we're seeing him run

(09:13):
with Drake May into kind of buckets here in the subcategories,
if you will, because the other element of this Alex.
That I've just been really geeked up about with Josh
McDaniels is how much he has changed his offense to
cater it to Drake may.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
I wonder who was talking about that when he got
hired and everybody freaked out.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
It's it's really cool to see the different scheme elements
that he's brought to the table. This is not the
Josh McDaniels offense circa twenty sixteen. That doesn't mean that
there aren't things in it that are similar Certainly in
the drop back passing game there are similarities, but they
have done some things that I just frankly did not

(09:54):
know Josh McDaniels had in his bag, not because he's
not capable, but because he's never really shown it because
of the personnel that he's had, right, And the biggest one,
of course, is all like the moving pockets and stuff
like that. You just weren't going to do that with
Tom Brady, Like Tom Brady was not going to be
a bootleg quarterback. That just wasn't going to be something
that you were going to scheme with with Brady, and

(10:15):
he was the greatest of all time at a bunch
of other different things, but that was not one area
of his game that they were going to necessarily amplify.
So what the Patriots have done, and as we start
to go into these subcategories, I want to start with
like what they're doing from under center, And they're underneath
center quite a bit as an offense, you know, top
ten in the league there in under center rate old

(10:38):
McDaniels would go under center, they'd run gap right, they
run power, they run lead, they run counter, they run trap,
they run wham, and all these different gap schemes to
get downhill on the defense. But those gap schemes, for
the most part, some of them, and we saw some
of them in this game against Carolina, those gas schemes,

(11:00):
for the most part, do not set up bootlegs like
those gap schemes set up traditional play action pass. So
the Patriots from under center, they have evolved a lot
more to an outside zone duo team so that they
can script some of these bootlegs off of the stretch action.
And then they've also used a little bit of counter
or a trap which also kind of has like a

(11:21):
stretch action element that you can boot off of as well,
with the guard pulling and you boot the other direction.
So they've done a lot of that different stuff under
center that isn't necessarily what you know. We're gonna lead
the full back through the hole, and then sometimes it's
gonna be play action pass and he's gonna draw in
the linebackers and we're going to hit a crossing route

(11:42):
or a seam right by the ear hole of the linebacker.
This is a lot more of we're gonna get Drake
May on the edge, we're gonna get him on the move,
and we're gonna try to either push the ball down
the field off the bootlegs, or he's just gonna run
if the flat is open. So a very different philosophy there,
I would say, from what they used to be doing

(12:03):
to what they're doing now. And this is the last
point I'll make on this is just the amount of
motion and the increase in motion which comes with this
style of base offense. Like if you're going to be
an under center, outside zone keeper bootleg team, then you
have to have window dressing to that. You can't just
do it without motion. So over the last three weeks

(12:24):
they've been motioning at sixty two percent of the time
and they're right into the middle above average part of
the pack here in motion rate, that week one motion
rate is still keeping them down for the whole season,
but if we take that out, then they're at about
sixty two to sixty three percent. So they've really adapted

(12:44):
that under center offense to fit the quarterback and to
do it a little bit differently than what they did
with let's say Brady or mac Jones. And I think
that that's just a testament to mcdaniels's willingness to evolve
and to be different.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, this is what I talked about when he got
hired and everybody was freaking out about is he going
to be able to run the Brady offense and this and.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
That they're too much on his plate or they're too
much on his plate.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, and it's what I'm excited for now is and
I say this a lot, so I apologize from coming
off to you know, a broken record here, but the
Josh Josh McDaniels offenses, because it's it's always even with Brady,
it's a little different from year to year, and he's
making he doesn't just tweak it for the quarterback, he

(13:32):
tweaks it for the personnel as a whole. So and
obviously a lot of that's around the quarterback. But you
have a running back that can do this, you have
a wide receiver that can do that. Now, YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Right, So.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
It's never the same in December as it is in September,
and it always evolves and it changes it. Now that
we're a month in and you know, he started, I
think we've talked a lot about the personnel getting comfortable
with the system. I think there's also an element of
Josh mcday niels is now kind of comfortable with the personnel.
And look, you spend you know, the spring practices training camp.

(14:05):
You have an idea of what you have in these guys, certainly,
but I think there is an element of you have
to see it in a game to really understand. And
I think now he's like, Okay, this guy can do this,
and I want to try this with that guy and
blah blah blah. So that clip going around from the
miked up of McDaniels saying to May we're just getting started, right,
I'm excited to see. Okay, this is an awesome start. Now,

(14:26):
what like, what's the next evolution to this? And again
we'll talk about the bills in a little bit. But boy,
what a time to start introducing some new elements. Divisional
game prime time. You're gonna need, you know, some help
on the road against the superior team.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
I just this is.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Josh McDaniels when he's at his best. It's catered to
the players in the system. It's a little bit different
than what everybody else is doing. He's mixing and matching
different pieces. You do a good job breaking down there
what they're doing with some of the play action stuff,
and I believe he's going to build on it from here.
This is not the final form of this offense. I

(15:01):
don't even think it's close. I think we're probably scratching
the surface just based on how he's done this in
the past, so I know we're not doing ups and
downs yet. But like Josh McDaniel's big up from this
game and probably from the first month of the season.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, a lot of good points, and I just.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
I'll say this too, sorry, cut in with that talk
about him mixing and matching the different pieces, and he's
talked a little bit about this, and Mike Rabel's talked
a little.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Bit about this.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thomas Brown, right, and we all ultimately don't know who's
inputting what.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
But as the past game coordinator.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Your station, sir loves loves this topic. What topic.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
There's other coaches now, Row h Thomas Brown, Doug Marone,
you know who brings some of that experiences. Some other
guys well, but I'm just thinking off top of my
the guys who've been at the coordinator level and above
Todd Downing, right, who have.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Been in other systems.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
While you're shaking your head, no, okay, I'm listening, like
you have to imagine there's some input there as Josh
puts this together, so he's ultimately driving this, he's putting
it together. But yeah, uh we talked to when they
hired him. We talked about this being a little bit
of an all star staff. On the offensive side, you
have two former three former head coaches. I guess if

(16:10):
you want to include Doug Moroon, Thomas Brown, well interim
Thomas Brown, Thomas Brown, Doug Moron, and Josh McDaniels yep, right,
plus Todd Downing, who is a coordinator. Yeah, I feel
like I'm missing somebody. I apologize if I am, but
I feel.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Like now in terms of former like high level coaches,
you know, OC's or or head coaches. I believe that the.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
The the schematic edge you would expect to have. And look,
there'still a lot of things to clean up, the turnovers,
right and all of that, but like schematically the stuff
that you love where you're like, well, I don't always Kurra.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Wins the game. I just want fun tape.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, like that side of it, is it safe to
say they've checked that box as you would expect from
a coaching staff with this much brain power hundred percent?

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Why do you think I'm so giddy about all this?
Like this is this is uh, this offense and their
tape is legitimately fun to break down. Like there's so
many different things that they're doing and so many different
plays that they're running where I just look at it
them like holy hell, is at a great scheme right, Like,
even if it doesn't work because the execution isn't perfect,

(17:11):
I just know that they're going to come back to
certain things here that they're running where you know, like
for example, as we kind of segue into like their
early down gun package, I wanted to talk about a
little bit they ran on Sunday, and I know I
talked about this yesterday on PU and everybody made fun
of me. They ran counter bash in this game, which
is a designed quarterback option, right, it's a our option run.

(17:34):
Quarterback reads the end, he gives it or he keeps
it himself on the counteraction. It's actually technically inverted counter
bash because the quarterback is the one that was counter
counter's GT right guard tackle poll and then the quarterback
is actually the one that would follow the pollers. So
in this case here it's actually would be called inverted

(17:55):
counter bash because typically the running back would follow the
pollers in the quarterback would take it around the edge.
If the end crashes. I digress. They ran counter bash.
It only gained five yards. He handed the ball off
to Travon Henderson. He probably should have kept it, but
I think when in doubt, most quarterbacks are coached that
if you're not one hundred percent sure that you were

(18:16):
going to hit a big play as the runner, that
just give the ball to the running back and let
the running back take the beating and not the quarterback.
But they only gained five yards on the play, But
the fact that it's in in the different sort of
just wrinkles they had off of this one play thinking
about all the different things that they can do with

(18:37):
it moving forward, because now they've put it on tape.
Like they snuck Hunter Henry out on a route on
the play and he was wide open because the Panther
safety has jumped the counteraction and he was just wide
open behind the defense for a home run. Like now
they can go back to that play and they have
that in their bag now because they've put it on film.

(18:59):
And that's what makes their offense right now so exciting
to watch. And you know the gun stuff that you know,
obviously there's a lot of quarterback read option style plays.
They're doing a lot of that kind of stuff, Drake
May holding the backside or reading the backside and deciding
whether to give it or to keep it himself. They're

(19:20):
doing a lot of design rollout plays as well, which
we saw on the Hunter Henry touchdown in this last game,
and you just see the impact of Drake May's legs
on that play because two guys go to Drake Bay
and no guys go to Hunter Henry because they're worried
about him running with the football. And then they also
have this motion package that they've installed from the gun

(19:42):
where they're running a lot of orbit you know, when
the player just kind of goes right behind the quarterback
and orbits around the quarterback like he's the son. That's
why they call it orbit motion. So they're doing that.
They have their spinner series where he's you know, faking
it to the orbit motions and the different motions. So
this that element to their playbook. You know, the under
center stuff is classic pro style, right, but the gun

(20:06):
elements to the playbook in terms of the early down
offense is college style offense. This is you know, RPO
heaven like is what they're running right now with Drake May.
And so they have all these different elements and you
can just you can see obviously the window dressing is
huge with me, you know, I love that, but also

(20:26):
just leveraging Drake May's legs against the defense. His mobility
is now becoming a factor on every single play by design.
It's not just that he could scramble, it's that he's
holding the backside, it's that they're rolling him out of
the pocket. It's these different things that they're doing to
amplify his mobility. And you know, not to keep going

(20:50):
back to it, but it's just Bills week, and it's
on my mind a lot of this is what Brian
Dable did with Josh Allen, Like a lot of this
is similar to what the Bills have done with Josh Allen,
and I just look at it and I just think
it's just hitting more notes with Drake May. And then
the last bucket that I had here was just their
traditional dropback passing game, which is a lot more of

(21:11):
what the old McDaniel's stuff is. Like, this is when
you see a lot more of you know, the double
digs and the middle reads and the daggers and the
underformations and the bunches and like all these different stuff.
So they're doing, you know, what I want to give
flowers to in terms of the dropback stuff, Alex, is
something that you were hitting on with Todd Downing. Their
levels and spacing to their route concepts right now are

(21:34):
really really good. And I think some of us had
some concerns coming into the year that Todd Downing had
never coached wide receivers before, and we weren't one hundred
percent certain if that was a great higher. But I
think what's been great about the hire so far with
Downing is that he conceptually. Because of his coordinator background,
he understands how the routes fit into the bigger picture.

(21:56):
So he can explain to Pop Douglas and Kyle Williams, Hey,
we're going to have you run these two posts. We're
gonna have you run this Dino concept on the left
hand side here, because we're actually clearing out space for
Stefan Diggs to run a crossing route underneath the two
deep routes. And even though you might not get the
football like, your route is really important in terms of

(22:19):
the spacing, in terms of the way the defense plays it,
So you need to run that route like you are
going to get the football. So the two of them
take off on the left side of the formation, and
the post safety in the deep middle of the field.
He's got to stay over the top of the two
deep post routes because he has no other choice otherwise
it's going to be a sixty yard bomb over his head.

(22:40):
And so Stefan Diggs is just wide open underneath the
coverage running away from man to man. So these the
elements of their dropback game that I think are the
most impressive to me is how well space they are
and how well just well, frankly coordinated they have been
in that aspect, and we have not seen that really

(23:00):
going back all the way to twenty twenty one, Like
twenty twenty two, all the spacing and that type of
stuff started to creep up in the Patricia offense and
they never really got it out of their system. They
were never able to get that back to where it
needed to be. In short order, this coaching staff has
gotten this passing game back to where it needs to be.

(23:21):
And I want to talk about Drake May here in
a second. I don't know if you had any other
thoughts about that, but some of these numbers that Drake
May is putting up in the first month of the season,
you have to like remind yourself that it's only been
four games. But do you have any other thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Just on the schematic stuff.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
And you kind of touched on the motion there from
going way back, and I apologize if you mentioned it though.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
It was good. It was a lot. It was good.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
The two play sequence in the second quarter. Yeah, where
so first off, and we can get into how they
used Remandra in all of that and him starting and
him playing the most snaps of any running back they've
been using a lot of two back, and this is
where I get to the elevation of the Josh McDaniels offense.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Right, they've been using a.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Lot of two back, but it's been traditional pony. It's
it's Drake May and the shotgun with a running back
on either side, or in a handful of times like
they used Antonio Gibson as a fullback, right they So
you don't know that when you're in the defense, they're
in the huddle, you're just like two backs. So they're
probably assuming, all right, they're gonna go pony he or
whatever this or that they come out. I don't know
how many times they've done it before this game, Evan,
you might have this off the top of your head

(24:22):
where they came out two back with the running back
out wider in the slot.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Like they definitely hadn't done it a lot before this game.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
In training camp. Yeah, and so I knew that that
was in their bag, but they hadn't done it necessarily
a ton in game yet.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
So they come out, they put Antonio Gibson in the slot,
Vermandra Stevenson behind Drake Manders center. They put Gibson on
the jet motion yep, hand it off to him, end around,
good blocks from Hunter Henry and Stefan Diggs. Gibson breaks
a tackle, goes to twenty one. Like great play, right,
good play. You'd show them a little bit of a
different wrinkle. They're running back in the slot. You do

(24:58):
the motion, but if you watch May after the handoff,
he still kind of leans and it's a fake handoff
after the real handoff, which sometimes because you see that
sometimes on like draws or whatever, and you know the
quarter or on whatever, Like it's a fake handoff after
the real handoff. But they kind of go stretch left

(25:18):
with Ramandre after the end around the jet sweep to
the right. So they come back the very next play.
It's not the exact same formation, but again you've it's
Travon Henderson now and stead out. Yeah, so I know
why that happened, But keep keep going Hender, Why what happened?

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Why it was Henderson instead of Gibson.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
But so I think it's Henderson because Okay, you hit
them with this, you know jet motion play. Now let's
put the guy in who's really the game breaker, who's
kind of the ideal person do that.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's not why, But keep Okay, finish your post.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Be part of the reason they put him it wasn't
They put him in the in the same motion, yes,
and the entire defense comes crashing, not the entire defense,
but like the linebackers, like all come crashing down to
that motion the jet right because may even fakes the handoff.
He comes back left, stretch, run ramand right he rips
it off for twenty two. That's and talking to David

(26:09):
Andrews on Monday, you know, I got to get the
plug in for the Andrews podcast.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
I was gonna say, what did David Andrews I think
about this game?

Speaker 1 (26:15):
I was waiting, Well, so for that play is really
interesting because he kind of talked about how he can
hear like a lot of the calls in his head
when he sees him. He didn't know what that was.
That's not something they've run before. That was new, so
new wrinkle using the setup to build a shot playoff
of it.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
I loved that everything about that sequence that was awesome.
But why was it?

Speaker 2 (26:35):
I'll tell you in a second, But I think that
just like because I you know, I could talk about
motion all day. Yuck, Like this is my wheelhouse. This
is why and I know I sound like a broken
record when I constantly bring up motion rates and things
like that, But this is why I love it so much,
because the impact that it has on the defense, to me,

(26:55):
makes it's so much more like important, vital than and
maybe some of the drawbacks that it might have for
the offense, Like the drawback that it has for the
offense that I hear a lot of the time from
talking to like offensive coordinators and stuff, is that it
changes the defense's picture, right, because it's going to change
how the defense is distributing after the snap, and you

(27:16):
have to have a quarterback that is quick on his feet,
and I kind of can process that. Sometimes quarterbacks don't
like it, like Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers notoriously did
not like motion. They wanted stagnant formation so that they
could see the shell that the defense was in and
then make decisions because if you motion, now the shell
changes and so you have to change with it. But

(27:38):
that's the drawback that people say with motion. But the
benefit is exactly what you're talking about, which is that
you can really get I can't need to make defenders
bite on certain things and then you can hit them
in different places. And this is what the whole Shanahan
Tree has based their entire offense off of. Is you're

(28:00):
gonna be looking over here because we're going to put
all this eye candy, your window dressing over here, but
we're actually trying to throw the ball or run the
ball over there, and it's really difficult to stay home,
Like it's really difficult. And then you can also have
all these different elements off the motion that you can script.
So now they showed the jet motion with Gibson, then

(28:23):
they handed off to Remandre. Well, now you can play
action fake off the motion, off the off the handoff,
and now all of a sudden you just create this
like chain reaction in the defense and that's where you
really get those scripted plays going. No, the the reason
why the personnel changed was that Gibson landed on the
football on the jet notion, he got went knocked out

(28:44):
of him and he got he had to come out
for a couple of plays.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
So do you think they run that play again with Gibson,
I like, if they were that was supposed to be
Gibson back to back.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yes, yeah, so they's supposed to be Gibson and Remandre again.
I do think it's an ad element with Henderson his
speed there.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
It ended up working out and all well in all
that elements of that too, so that that's the offense breakdown.
Hopefully I didn't overload you too much with the jargon,
but it just this toughest. I have to like remind
myself to be, you know, to remain calm about this.
And I would say the same thing about Drake May

(29:22):
and some of the advanced analytics in the numbers that
he is putting up right now in terms of the
efficiency we all. I feel like in some respects, I
personally am just set up for failure, Like that's just
like the way I think. So I'm just waiting for
the shoot to drop, like I'm waiting for him to
regress back to the mean or something like that. But

(29:44):
there is a chance, Alex that he's just good and
this is just what they're going to be. There's a chance.
The fact that I can sit here and say that
through four weeks of the season, the Patriots are third
in the league in EPA per dropback. Third in the
league in EPA per dropback on passing downs is the

(30:05):
Buffalo Bills, with the MVP of the league, the Green
Bay Packers and the Patriots. Like, that's incredible. I don't
care what four games stretch of the season. We were
talking about.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
A lot of other teams playing bad teams too, and
they're not out there. Look, there probably is some regression
back to the mean here for this offense. This is
why I think this weekend's game is so fascinating because
they just played one of the worst teams in the
NFL and the Carolina Panthers, and blew their doors off,
which you want to see because the last couple years
they've been the team getting their doors blown up.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
But we got to see what they look like.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Against the Panthers, bottom the league, and now right away
we get to see what they look like against the Bills,
which is one of the teams at the top of
the league. And so we get to come in next
week and this is going to kind of be the
big thing for me coming away from this game.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Who are they closer to?

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Right, even if they don't beat the Bills, do they
look closer to Buffalo than they did to Carolina?

Speaker 3 (31:00):
That sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Yeah, He's Drake's just been really outstanding, I would say
for three straight games. Sam's two plays against Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
I think you can honestly say seven of the eight
halves of football he's played have been high level. Yeah,
the second half against the Raiders was still bad, but
outside of the first Avaganst Furs he was good, played
well against Miami. There's two turnovers against Pittsburgh, Like I
would say, he played well in that game. I think
that is a winning level of quarterbacking. And then obviously

(31:29):
played played well this week. So it's just that one
half against the Raiders.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, and I I look at it and I just
think that again, it's just a perfect marriage between the
plays they're asking him to run and his skill set
and it's allowing him to play on time, decisive, accurate
with the football. And then there also are still elements
in the offense that they're running that allow him to

(31:52):
make plays and get out of the pocket and do
those different types of things. But they've done a really
nice job, and Drake May's done a nice job of
kind of limiting those hero ball yolo moments where like
he just tries to do a little bit too much
and that can get him into trouble. He had one
or maybe two of those instances in this game, he

(32:13):
threw one over the middle of the field. It was
the one incompletion that he threw to Stefan Diggs. Where
Diggs was they were running dagger, so like middle reed
go route in the middle of the field and then
a dig from the outside receiver. They call that dagger
and Diggs just like Hunter Henry was on the fourth
down play against Pittsburgh, Diggs is wide open up the shoot.

(32:35):
He's they bust the coverage and he's wide open. But
Drake May has pressure in his lap and he tried
to jump throw it off two feet like his two
feet were both off the ground and he ended up
dirting it. Not the worst outcome that could possibly happen,
but those are when I see him throw from those
like wonky basses and platforms. I'm like, I don't know

(32:56):
if we need him to do that anymore, Like maybe
you need to do that last year when you just
start trying to do anything that you can to move
the football. I'm not sure they need him to do
that now, Like he can do it conventionally, but the
amount of conventional offense that he is doing everything is
in terms of their passing game right now, you know.

(33:16):
I know a lot of people talk about, well, when
you boot like you're cutting the field in half and
that makes it easier for the quarterback, and YadA, YadA, YadA.
Well a lot of that too, is the defense is
reacting because he's an athlete like that. It doesn't work
if you don't have a mobile quarterback like Drake May
being the one that's booting. Like, if you have a

(33:37):
quarterback like Mac Jones on a bootleg, then it's not
necessarily going to have the same impact on the defense
that a guy like Drake May can have on the defense.
So so much of what they're doing is leveraging off
of Drake May's physical talent and raw ability. I didn't
necessarily know this game was tough because he only had
twenty one dropbacks, So it wasn't like he had this

(33:59):
game where a I had him with like fifteen plus
plays because he had fifty dropbacks and there was a
whole bunch of plays to come out of it. But
in some ways, I kind of like that there's not
a lot of volatility right now where I'm just looking
at it, I'm like, yeah, like, that's an NFL quarterback
should make that throw. And he's making it. But that's
telling you that the scheme is working and the plays

(34:19):
that they're running or working.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
It's consistency. And so what I've been hammering since the
beginning with him just has to be more consistent.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
He's doing it all right.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Now that I've waxed poetic about the offense, because which
was fun, don't get me wrong, I want to move
on to a couple of things on the good side
for the defense and just kind of talk about one
thing philosophically with the defense before we do that, because
that could be a bigger discussion. We wasn't an uproar
down in this game. I didn't feel like, but Christian
Zalez returning is just a good, good element. He played

(34:49):
all three quarters that the starters played in this game,
so he didn't have to come off the field at
all in those snaps. So even though I think he
probably played like seventy percent of the snaps, this deceiving
because they pulled the starters in the fourth quarter, so
he was not limited. He was not on a snap
count or a pitch count or anything like that. Was
a little bit rusty. McMillan's a good player like Ted's

(35:10):
gonna be a good receiver in this league. But he
was maybe a little bit rusty. But in general, I
just think it's a good thing overall that Gonzo's healthy.
His conditioning seems good enough to play one hundred, you know,
close to one hundred percent of the snaps. And this
was a good game to get his feet wet because
no offense to the Carolina Panthers not exactly the greatest

(35:31):
show on turf. So now that we build up to
the Bills this week, it's good that he had this
one game under his belt before you throw him in
there against Buffalo. So what did you What did you
think about Gonzalez's return?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I so, yeah, I think the big thing, like you said,
he played essentially the whole game. He played as long
as the starters are out there, so this isn't going
to be a ramp up in terms of conditioning or
anything like that. I actually thought the Panthers were one
of the few things out credit Panthers for in this game.
They were smart to test him with a comeback early
on right, make him put his foot in the ground
and push off and go off that hamstring. And that's

(36:05):
the one play where he really gets beat, he allowed
another catch, but it's like underneath wrap and tackle you.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Live with that.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
So need a more this week for sure, like you said,
but I it is solid, solid return. You know, nothing
mind blowing, But I think you kind of saw everything
you needed to see with him to not be nervous
about him long term and you go from there.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, And I'm just really excited about seeing how moving
forward they're going to game plan with Christian Zalez and
Carlton Davis, because I don't feel like this game was
that fully unleashed just yet in terms of, no, we're
going up against a team where we really like our
advantage of the corners over the receivers. They probably did

(36:47):
in this game too, but it just is gonna be
fun to see now that when they go up against
the guy like Josh Allen, like how the vision of
how they envisioned in the off season of using this
cornerback tandem and then actually implementing that in a real game.
And then the other thing I had down here for
the defense was, you know, they played pretty good defense

(37:08):
after the opening script. I have some quibbles with the
defense in this game that I thought the score kind
of washed away some of the of the stuff that
didn't go so well for the defense. But the defense
after the opening script, you know, was what it was. Obviously,
they basically went three quarters without giving up points in
this game. They give up the opening drive touchdown, they

(37:30):
give up the garbage time touchdown to Andy Dollon, they
went the entire time in between without giving up any points.
I thought, what was really good about the defense other
than the individual players, which we'll get to, but they
won all of the important downs in the middle of
the field. Like once the Panthers crossed over into Patriots territory,
the Patriots were able to hold them out of scoring

(37:52):
territory and really lockdown defensively to keep them out of
getting points in those situations, which was really good to see.
My facilitation question for you, is this feels like in
this at times? The Patriots defense under Bill Belichick was
just this exactly the same way. This feels like a

(38:13):
defense that's a we're gonna let the game declaire kind
of defense. So the Raiders, the Steelers, and now the
Panthers all scored on their opening drive all three games
at home, by the way, all scored on their opening
drive touchdowns right down the field and then, for whatever

(38:33):
reason they talked a lot about in the postgame locker room,
the first fifteen the scripted plays, the Panthers ran like
four or five plays, got on the other side of
the fifty yard line, stalled out, and that was all
she wrote for the rest of the game. For Bryce
Young in Carolina, do you have a problem with them
being an in game adjustments kind of defense, because I

(38:56):
don't really have a problem with that now. The only difference, though,
I would say, is that the Patriots in the Dynasty
era were able to do that because the offense was
gonna score, right. So if you get down fourteen to
nothing like they did against Pittsburgh, the Patriots knew Tom
Brady was gonna come back.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
So yeah, there's layers to this, and I wonder if
that's why I've Rabel took the ball last week against
the Steelers. I don't mind them being an adjusting defense,
but that's not that's not carte blanche to just be
bad in the beginning, right, allow opening drive scores like yeah,
because when you start facing some of these better teams,

(39:34):
like yeah, you let the Panthers get up seven, I
guess six, nothing you can come back from that when
you get to the Bills, When you get to the
Bucks in a few weeks, the Ravens later in the year,
when you're getting in the playoff games in a year
or two, like, you can't be doing that on a
regular basis. So yeah, I think they should adjust as
the game goes on, but they do got to come
out with a little bit more. You can't keep allowing

(39:56):
first drive touchdowns every single game. That's not sustainable.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, so you know, to go to the bads. Just
to segue into it, the opening drive for the Panthers
in this game, they averaged ten yards of play on
the opening drive. Carolina did just went right down the
field on the Patriots, and I thought there were a
couple of different things that they did that gave the
Patriots problems schematically that I am sure teams will try

(40:20):
to replicate and hit on moving forward. The one thing
that really popped up in this game to me, and
again you know, not to keep bringing up Buffalo, but
with James Cook in that Bill's running game, they had
a tough time setting the edge in this game. Defensively,
they gave up over seven yards of carry on runs
outside the tackles in this game to Carolina. And this
is not a Carolina rushing attack that is great shakes

(40:45):
like the Bill's rushing attack. Number one team in the
league in pretty much every rushing category. So you're about
to go up a notch in competition. I don't know,
and I asked they're outside linebackers coach this question. I
think it was last week. Of course I'm blaying on
his name. I'll look it up in a second. He
said that this is all by design and none of

(41:06):
it is like Smith, Yes, Mike Smith. None of this
is you know, freelanced or anything like that. But the ends,
you know, Chason and Landry are slipping inside the tackles
a lot. They are like kind of stunting or slanting inside,
trying to hunt those tackles for loss. And that's all
well and good if you replace the edge, right, if

(41:27):
a linebacker or nickel corner or something like that is
gonna set the edge of the defense so that Landry
and Chaison can slip into the backfield and go inside
the B gap, that's all well and good. But they
aren't resetting the edge, and so they're kind of losing
the edge a lot. Now, Belichick. This would drive Bill crazy,

(41:47):
Like Bill would be like, we're not why you going
inside the tackle, Like we're gonna set the edge. We're
gonna take a bucket step, We're gonna get up, you know,
a yard up the field, and we're gonna sit on
the edge. Right, that's what we're gonna do. They aren't
really schematically, they're not doing it that way right now,
so they either need to go back to doing it
that way or they need to find a better way

(42:08):
to get the force right to get that edge set
to the defense. So that was one of them. The
other thing that I've seen a little bit on film
with them, they're matching a lot of their zones backside,
so the backside corner is carrying the receiver backside like
it's man to man coverage, and then the passing strength
is playing zone coverage and that is leaving the flat

(42:32):
like wide open on the backside of the formation. So
not to pick on him, but a lot of those
passes are completed on Christian Ellis right now, and Ellis's
eyes seem to like be in the backfield in the
middle of the field, and they're not getting numbers out
to that flat. So the Panthers multiple times hit the

(42:52):
flats on the back side of the formation. So these
are just things that consistently happen against Carolina that the
Panthers are not good enough to sustain offense and make
you really hurt for these things. But as the competition
ramps up here a little bit, UH, teams are going
to be better at hitting on these weakness is last
one really quickly. They move Tech McMillan in the slot

(43:15):
a little bit in this game, and there was more
than one occasion where Jalen Hawkins was on Tech McMillan
in the slot. So they're not traveling as often with
their corners and not moving the corners as often inside.
If that's what you're gonna do again, Like teams are
going to realize, oh, if we put our number one
receiver in the slot and you know, the number three

(43:36):
spot in a three by one formation in the slot,
he's going to get covered by a safety and we're
going to love that matchup.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Well, that's where I'm wondering what they're gonna do with Dalton Kinkaid.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
This week, right, you know, whether it's you know, a
player like that that's a pass catching tight end, whether
it's a player like McMillan that has flexibility to go inside,
you know, not that I think that he's you know,
you know how I feel about Keon Coleman. But Keon
Cohen has the ability to run routes as like a
big slot or a power slot too. So these are
just things that you know. Vrabel said after the game,

(44:07):
they did a good job. Carolina did a moving guys
around early on in the game. I think that's what
he was talking about with Ted. The other thing that
he said is that they're going to have to do
a better job at disguising defensively, and I think right
now it's pretty easy to decipher what exactly the Patriots
are doing defensively, so they're going to have to ramp
up some of that to improve on defense. What did

(44:28):
you think of the defense in this game? Was I
thought that this score was a little bit misleading for
how they played defense.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, you hit on a lot of it, you know,
the slow starts obviously concerning I think they buckled down
in the middle. The big thing to me with this
defense right now when they rush for and I thought
they're going to be more blitz heavy than they've been
maybe that was just a Terro Williams thing, and Zach
Krr kind of has a different philosophy when he's calling
these plays. But when they rush for it's been very streaky.

(44:57):
And when they get going in when Milton Williams and
Christian and Harold Lander and Caleb On Chase On, like
when they get in a rhythm, it's every play they're
getting back there, impacting the quarterback every play, But there's
stretches they'll go a driver too, especially early in games
where you really don't see much. That's to me where
this game changed for the defense. They weren't getting any
pressure on Bryce Young until that really that third drive

(45:20):
right and once they got it, it didn't really stop.
But they weren't doing much early in the game. So
I just want to see I want to be careful
about how I say this, Like the numbers are already
pretty immense. I don't know, it's hard to ask that
group to do more because I think that group's done

(45:41):
a ton, but it's been very like a ton here
and then none and then a ton here, and it's
just like, can you just level it out a little
bit more? Obviously, if they're playing at that if it's
just a ton all the time. That would be awesome, right,
but it just feels like there's some moments and blitzing
has jump.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
Started that at times.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
So maybe some more timely blitzes to get at that
group up front going, maybe some disguise helps with that
team start preparing for the blitz that isn't there. That's
what happened on the big Milt Williams didn't.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Get the sack.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Calevon chase On got the sack, but Milt Williams came
right up the middle of Bright Young basically just fell over,
sacked himself.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Chase On touched him down.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
I think that's kind of what happened there because if
you watch the center, he goes to block nobody and
even the guard kind of lets Milton Williams through and
looks the block. He doesn't follow Milt Williams around after
he gets beat. He stays in his pass set even
though there's nobody else coming. I wonder if he was
expecting a linebacker. So that's a big thing for me
with the defense right now. Like I think some of
the coverage just uses. Gonzalez gets back and they figure

(46:41):
some things out. You're right, they gotta do a better
job when guys going the slot of traveling. I think
it's probably Gonzales when another team's going to put a
number another wide receiver and a Number one wide receiver
in the slot.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
I mean they did you know Gonzales covered ten a
few times? He did it, Yeah, in the slot. Ted
caught that back shoulder from the slot.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
Doing that a little more moving Carlton Davison's side on
big slot receivers or even tight ends occasionally things like that.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
But maybe that's uh, that might be like post Halloween.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Yeah, maybe that's something that comes.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
This is sort of the base of what they're trying
to do, and they're trying to get you know, that
established and trying to get everybody on the same page,
and that sort of.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
The big thing for me though, And again, I like,
I want to stress this enough. The front has been
really good. The pass rush has been really good. When
it's really good.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, they're, like I just twelfth right now in pressure
rate as a team, which is good, I mean much
better than was Loud, Yeah, significantly.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
I don't know, I'm curious how you feel about this. Like,
I just think a little more consistency from that group. Again,
you're not going to get pressure on every play. I
just think the dry spells are going maybe a little
longer than they should for what this group is.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
So I see what, you know, a little bit of
a small sea concern that we had about this defensive line,
which I think has been an outstanding on the whole,
but just the little small sea concern that we had
was do they have like a true one on one
pass rush guy on the outside right? You know, they know,
we know about Milton Williams and Christian Barmore, who are

(48:11):
on my ups and we're fantastic in this game for
the most part. But what we're seeing a lot of
now is, you know, teams are starting to pay a
lot of extra attention to those two guys. Yeah, you know,
they're kind of switching off on who's getting double teamed
and who's getting the slide side and who's getting the
man side, and like all that different type of nuance
on the interior of the offensive line that is now
being game planned for. Like Millon Williams, and this is

(48:34):
a good thing. Like Milon Williams and Christian Barmore are
Tuesday players, Like they are guys that teams are going
into the game saying we cannot allow these two guys
to wreck the game. But that really kind of puts
Harold Landry and calebon Chase on in the spotlight where
you're going to get a lot of one on ones
on the tackles, and do the Patriots have a true

(48:55):
one on one winner in the pass rush? I had
on the edge that probably frankly in need in the
offseason that we're gonna gonais. Yeah, like that that's right
up there with number one wide receiver. If you really
want this defense to take that next step is can
you draft or sign or whatever a guy that can

(49:17):
truly go out there and when he gets a one
on one, he's winning, And that that maybe is what
you we're missing right now from the pass rush and
the four man rushes and the standard four man rushes is. Yeah,
like Barmore and and Williams are going to create havoc,
but they're not sacked guys like they're not. They're not
gonna be double digit sack players. They're gonna be disruptive,

(49:40):
creating havoc type of players. So they need those edges
to to maybe be a little bit more one on
one winning in the four man rush just to move
back over to the offense and then uh, we're gonna
We're gonna move on from the good the bad, at
the stuff that gets you beat, because there's not much
to talk about in the bad category. I do want
to talk a little bit about the run game on offense.

(50:01):
The numbers are not good Alex right now for the
rush offense, they are thirty second in the league and
EPA upper rush there last in the league in rush
EPA they only had a twenty six percent success rate
in this game against the Panthers. And if you want
the traditional SATs, you know taking out Drake May runs, Yeah,
traditional runs, jet motions, traditional runs. Three point one yards

(50:25):
of carry in this game just on traditional runs and
that includes r Mandre having a twenty two yard run.
So it just hasn't been very good with traditional runs.
And I just wonder, you know, where you see because
this is always a chicken or the egg thing with
the running game. Is it the backs or is it
the blocking. It's always a little bit of both. And

(50:47):
I went back and watched all there between the twenties
stuffs and to really examine whether or not you know
what's going on I don't think that there's necessarily a
ton of room. There's probably a little bit more room
once they sort of get used to cutting off the
blocks and things like that on these outside zone plays.
There probably were a few cutback lanes that the backs

(51:08):
missed in this game. But I don't necessarily think that
there was like one hundred and fifty yards of rushing
offense that they left on the table. Just what has
been your take there, Because when you look at all
the charts, the passing offense is like all the way
over here, you know, bottom top right is good. Yeah,
in the pass offense. In the rush offense is putting
them in the bottom right because the pass offense is

(51:30):
really good, but the rush offense is really really bad.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
I still feel like maybe the backs are missing a
little bit of feel like they're just kind of running
into contact. Like you said, I think there's been some room.
It could be better, but I think there's been more
room that's been there. It's like you said, I don't
think it's any one thing. There's been times there's been
holes to hit that haven't been hit. There's been times

(51:54):
that there.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
Just hasn't been holes.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
It just the whole thing just feels a little disconnected
right now, and that's something I want. Or as they
go on and the backs get more chemistry with the
line and Josh McDaniels gets a better feel for the
line and how they're blocking it, if that comes along,
But they do have to get that run game going.
And I mean we can do the whole thing about
Drake may design runs again. Yeah, I mean they really
haven't called a lot of those.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
You just can't be one dimensional like this forever. Like
it's not they're balanced enough that they're not getting stuffed
a lot.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Can I just pause every second?

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Yeah, we're talking about Yeah, the Patriots pass game is good,
but dang, they need to run the ball better.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Yeah they do.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Who would have thought they do need to run this?
It's been a minute since we've talked about them.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Yeah, so they're they're not getting stuffed a lot, like,
they're not getting a lot of you know.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
They don't negative runs.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
They just kind of it's these two to three yard
gains and that's it.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
Right, And so that allows you to keep running the
ball right when you're not getting stuffed a ton and
you're not getting those negative runs. But they haven't really broken,
you know, big ones or ones that really inflate those
statistics that I brought up. So whenever you're thirty second
in the and anything that's not good. Yeah, and they're
dead last in the NFL right now in rush EPA,

(53:05):
so that has to improve. Last last one here. I
you know, I had this in the bad category, You're
gonna have it in the stuff that gets you beat.
Seven more penalties in this game. Fifty four yards, two
penalties by first down by penalties, So not terrible in
that category, but the penalties are still creeping up. There's
still top ten in the league in terms of penalties

(53:27):
called against them. It's a it's a it's a problem.
Like I'm not trying to say it's not a problem.
They need to get that cleaned up.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
So I have an interesting take on the penalties here.
So they've they've been called for a lot of penalties,
but the officials that they've had this year.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
You making excuses for them. It's penalty.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
It's not excuses, it's just well, all right, let me
get the whole taken. So they've had Tolbert Ron Tolbert,
Alex Moore, Clete Blakeman, Bill Vinovich, yep, those refs rank
and this isn't in the exact order, but first, second, fourth,
and tenth in flags thrown this year. So they're getting

(54:07):
crews that have thrown a lot of flags.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
Now it's early in the year.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
So there's the Patriots game makes up a quarter of
that sample size.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Chicken or the egg.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Are the Patriots getting refs that are flag happy or
do these refs look flag happy because the Patriots are
committing a lot of penalties.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
This is so these games are getting way too So
here's the gauge.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
Here's the gauge. How many.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Penalties are called on the other team in these games.
And so this game is pretty lopsided towards Patriots, Steelers game,
Dolphins game. In the Raiders game it was relatively even.
So we'll have to see moving on.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Now.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Look, here's where I'm gonna say it's it's not an excuse.
These guys know every week, like the coaching staff briefs them.
And it's not just these guys call a lot of penalties.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
He guys don't.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Hey, this crew is a little tighter when it comes
to pass interference. Hey, this cruise little tighter when it
comes to holding or this cruise, a little looser on this,
this cruise a little looser on that, and then once
the game happens, even if it is maybe something a
little different, you still need to know. Okay, like early on,
I got called for a borderline pass interference.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
That's how they're calling it.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
And maybe you see the other team got called for
it too, that's how they're calling it. Like, you have
to adjust and do that within the game. So the
penalty numbers do absolutely need to come down. But I
also wonder if there's an element of it being so
high that simply they're getting a lot of these refs
that are flag happy. So I was trying to find

(55:44):
this number year.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
I have it.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
So they've been called for thirty five penalties this year.
Their opponents have been called for thirty two. Yeah, so
I do think some of this is the referees. But
again you got to know, Okay, these refs are flag
hap Like the borderline stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
I can't go there. I don't have that edge in
this game.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
So the one thing I'll say about the penalties and
then we're going to break and we'll do and.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
By the way, sorry, by the way, just to put
the ball on that They have Sean hockey Ley this week,
who is the sixth most flag happy ref in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
He he loves to hear his own. That guy loves
himself a little bit too much for me, and I
will say that I shouldn't say things like that, but
the officials like are really starting to get under my skin.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
Well there's another side.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
It's just really too much guys, like we need to
these games. Let the players decide the games. And I'm
not saying that there's these like blatant penalties that are
like literally costing games that I'm seeing every single week. Necessarily,
it's just the whole thing. So I'll say this, it's
on the whole.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
There's another side of the referee thing that I complain
about that because you know my rule on complaining about
the refs in terms of deciding the outcome of the game,
you get one a year all sports.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
And this isn't about the paper, it's not the product.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
So this is this is my thing. Like Ron Tour
did Week one, there were a lot of flags in
that game, but credit toront Torbert and his crew.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
They throw the flag, play ends whistled. He'd quickly get
the signal from whoever threw it, call it you move on.
It didn't drag the game down. A couple of weeks
ago into Pittsburgh cleat Blakeman's crew, it was like a
forty second conference every time, and and and they had
to discuss and debate it, like no, keep you gotta
keep it moving. You got if you're gonna throw all
you know what you're calling and keep going all.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Of these like ticki tac. You know, you know, I'm
a big Ted Carris guy. Ted carri is like bobbing
his head a little bit too, like much.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
So there's side of it.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
No, and then like all these like alignment penalties and
things like that. You know, the one thing that I
don't want to make excuses for for the Patriots, Yeah,
can we line up on side?

Speaker 3 (57:46):
They keep on off side? That's on them.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
That and it's they're lining up off side, like you
can see it from the overhead angle. You can see
it from the dots on next gen like Harold Landry
was off side. Like this is what it is.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
This is a separate rant. It's like there's two things
you want from an official number one consistency. I'd rather
they call it looser than tighter. But if you're gonna
call it tight, call tight, call it the same way
the whole game. If they're gonna be nitpicky, it's annoying.
But if they're going to be nitpicky the entire way through,
as long as you kind of know what is and
isn't a penalty, fine number two speed, Like, if you're

(58:21):
gonna be nitpicking and throw a million flags, know what
the flag is, call it, move on, don't spend two
minutes discussing it each time. That's what I look for
from the officials. I'll give you one more referee not
before we move on. Here I mentioned Sean hockeyy the
six most flags in the league this year. He against
the home team, so he's throwing fifteen on average, fifteen
quarter flags per game on against the home team, it's

(58:44):
six and a quarter per game. Against the road team,
it's nine per game. So that's a that's a kind
of a noticeable split there that favors.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
The home team for Sean Hockey. Something to keep in mind.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
I do wonder if all the defensive off sides are there, since.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
That's not the rest there is lining up.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
I know Derek coaching is so get off the ball,
fire off off the ball, up the field, violence, like
all these different things that they're coaching them on. It's
like Anthony Jennings just like jumped one like he was offside.
Harold Andry was lined up in the neutral zone, which
Calebon Jason's had some penalties like that too. So I
had those ones, the neutral zone ones like, that's on you.

(59:21):
Like that. The line of scrimms is the third you
don't put your hand on the like, so it's on you.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
We've talked about this and Trent Brown was big on this,
and we've seen it from other teams that like timing
the snap count as an offensive lineman and getting right
back into that pass set and you know, you get
called for one or two fall starts a game, but
you get that extra step. The rest of the snaps
is the defensive counter to that. Now, Hey, I'm gonna
line up right on the ball. Yeah, and if I

(59:49):
get called for one off side to game, but I
get this extra half step to counter his extra half step,
it's worth the five yards.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
I don't know that's what it is. It's just me guessing.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Out loud, but I just know that Bets have been
doing that for a while. You got to figure there's
a defensive counter coming eventually, right, And I just know
that they're coaching them so hard to get off the ball.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yeah, I just think that some of that is eagerness
to try to get off the ball as quickly as
they can. All right, we're going to take a quick break,
pay the bills, and we'll come back with three up,
three down.

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Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
You know, if I read the ad before we get
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Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
Why were you doing this shtick when we weren't on
the air. What do you mean you were saying that, Well,
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do want to read a quick comment in the YouTube chat,

(01:03:46):
which we do try to monitor. That's hard sometimes to
monitor it and host the show at the same time,
but we do try it. So this is from DC Patriot,
who I believe is in here quite frequently. Evan is
going full Nerd on this pretty sure he's the only
one who knows what he is saying. That is catch
twenty two in a nutshell, right, there is an hour
of full nerd. And sometimes I probably go a little

(01:04:09):
too heavy on the football jargon, so I apologize, but.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
I mean I think I followed mostly no you, he said,
good luck to you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Like, yeah, but Evan, I got a note in my
in here, said Evan, going so nerd. It doesn't even
sound like words to me. Okay, So I am not
that we have all the time in the world to
do this, but if you, I am more than happy
to explain some of my nerd them like this doesn't
have to be I'm not a gatekeeper like I. We
welcome everybody. So the emails are on, the calls are on,

(01:04:39):
if you legitimately, I'm not being like, you.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
Know, a snarky what's the formula for DVOA.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
I can't tell you that it's proprietary sole gate keeping
to me. So the Patriots are thirteenth in offense dv
A good, they're twenty why they're twenty eighth in defense DVA,
which I think tells you a little bit more about
where their defense.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Is at and maybe like points, I didn't want to
open this oul door. Oh yeah, not great, chirp the
secret formulas?

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Should we do three up? Three down? All right? Who's
your number one up in this game? I think we
probably have the same one.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
My number one up in this game was Christian Barmore.
Oh wow, we don't have the same I don't do
him in order, like I just do him in order.
That why why don't you do them in order?

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
It's who's yours?

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Digs?

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
No, keep going, just give you great, give your take,
give your take.

Speaker 7 (01:05:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Barmore and mil Williams, two of them were just really
good in this game. Once they got going, that's when
the game changed. And I kind of just talked about
it before. Once they started getting the interior pressure, the
Panthers were never the same. Is nicey Barmore kind of
get to run ring it up a little bit because
teams a bit. You talked about how teams are going
back and forth on who they're focusing on. I feel
like it's been a lot of focus on Barmore deal

(01:05:47):
with what Milton Williams does, and Milton Williams did a lot,
and so I think in this game maybe it switched
a little bit and teams decided, what if we double
Milton Williams. What can Christian Barmore do? He can do
a lot too, So I was glad to see he
didn't get any sacks. But you know, for people who
follow up pressures and things like that, or just watch
the tape like he looked like somebody is like the
resistance bands coming off right shooting with the ankle weight
till you take those off and deal with double teams

(01:06:09):
NonStop for three games.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Suddenly he gets some one on ones light work.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
So I had him with five pressures in this game,
Christian Barber who's on my list too, and he just
had constant interior push, Like he had one really good
rush where he landed to hit on Bryce Young and
just dusted the right guard cleanly off the ball, and
that was nice to see. But to me, most of
his pressure was just denting the pocket. And he was

(01:06:34):
just in Bryce Young's lap consistently in this game and
took away multiple completion opportunities with his pressure. There was
one in particular, you know, right before Marcus Jones's punt
return touchdown where he walks the center back and then
the left guard comes over and tries to like help
out the center and he actually knocks Christian Barmore over.

(01:06:55):
But it led to Bryce Young all this trash being
at Bryce Young his feet, and so Bryce Young I
had to move off his spot and I ended up
missing those.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
We didn't talk that sequence probably isn't talked enough about
that change the game because so there's that second hand
where they get the pressure third and ten from I
think the forty one forty three yard line going in.
So what I think they were doing is trying to
catch the Patriots off guard.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
All right, if we can get six on a draw
right now, we're going to go for it on fourth down.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
And when you're a pass rusher in that spot third
and ten, you're not thinking about my run fits and
I got to get keep this light like you're pinning
your ears back and going. Milton Williams is still able
to get the stop at the line of scrimmage. I
don't know that the Panthers are punting there without like
even if they get three yards on that run, they
might go for it at least try long field goal.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
That's that's a huge run stuff for Milton Williams in
that spot that ultimately forces the punt that Marcus Jones
takes back to the house.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
Yeah. So I had them as my number three up here,
and combined, Milton Williams and Christian Barmer had seven total
pressures in this game. Yeah, that big stuff that you're
talking about there by Milton Williams. They they are a
consistent week to week problem for opposing the offensive lines
to the point where we might need to retire Milton

(01:08:12):
Williams and Christian Barmore from the ups.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
I don't even retire anybody week monthly.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Okay, well, they're gonna be on it every single week
because those guys reckon the game. And my number one
up and you like talked about all these other guys.
I can't believe it. Marcus Jones obviously, and Marcus Jones
eighty seven yard punt return touchdown sixty one return special person,
he was a player of the game. I mean, the
game totally flipped. Now. I agree with you that the

(01:08:38):
defense making that stop sort of started to change the
tide of the game, But the game flipped on the
eighty seven yard punt return touchdown. And I often go
back and watch those to try to find out, like
who made the block that sprung him on this return,
because that, to me is really when special teams can
can be interesting. There was no block sprung him because

(01:09:00):
he literally did it himself. He made three guys miss
and then ran by everybody else. I haven't seen a
whole lot of returns where the returner truly did it
by himself. He truly returned that punt return by himself.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Look, footballs and the Patriots been big on talking about
this this year. I think this is something like Rabel's
truly preaching it's all eleven guys, nobody, you know, no
one play is done by any one player and all that.
That's as much of one player doing the job for
all eleven as you're ever gonna see. And what's fascinating
about that play to extend the point we were just making,

(01:09:35):
so they get that third down run stop it's four
to ten. I still think the Patriots or maybe Mike
Rabel said something after the game about wanting to get
a better push up front against the punt. I wonder
if they were expecting a fake because they had a
lot of their starting defense out there.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
When's the last time you think Milton Williams helped on
punt return?

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
And Kiris Tonga and so these are not How many
times do you think those guys have? Well else play
special teams a lot, But that's true, but that was yeah, sorry,
how many times do you think Milton Williams's practiced how
to set block and set up a return in his career,
not many, if any, right, So credit to those guys
for not getting in the way and not committing penalties,

(01:10:15):
although Milt Williams kind of gotten the way Charles Woods
it was the biggest hit of the game.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
Although I guess Charles Woods told Williams after the game
it wasn't him. Didn't want him to feel beat or something.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
I don't know what though, did you hear Mill Williams
got asked about it after the giving goes who was it?
Then somebody in the scrum goles like, oh it Charles Woods,
he goes, He told me it wasn't him, So I
don't know what happened there, But like, credit to those
guys staying out of the way, not getting penalized. Kiris
Tonga there was one spot I think it was tong
around like don't block in the back, don't block in
the bag, and he didn't as much of a one

(01:10:45):
one guy doing all.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
And then the second one too was a really good
return and the second one had.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
A little bit more help. Not to take anything away
from Marcus Jones, but just to credit those guys, you know,
mapou Jack.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Gibbons's special teams. They built the wall right to allow
him to reverse field the other.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
Thing on the first one.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
To your point of building the wall, I think schooler
who is a special teamer, he thinks it's going to
be a fair catch. Yeah, everybody thinks it's going to
be a fair catch. So I mean that play, let's
not forget. He also had Look, I know it was
only nineteen yards. Yeah, in a close game, which this
obviously wasn't. A nineteen yard punt return can be massive. Yeah,
and we're just throwing that away as as a footnote

(01:11:24):
in this game.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
So yeah, he was excellent.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
So Marcus Jones, we both had a bar more and
plus Williams in my case, who was did you have
Marcus Jones too?

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
Or I did?

Speaker 4 (01:11:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Okay, who is your next one?

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
So I cause I kind of went like defense off
in special teams. This one's a combo. I'll just it's
two guys, but I'll do it together because they're related
Will Campbell and Ben Brown.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Yep, so Will Campbell dog dog. And obviously the play
is going around a ton. You guys posted it first
snap of the game. Backside of the run.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
It's not a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
That blocks he just kind of needs to get in
the way there. He doesn't need an impact block on
that play. Nick Scorton, though, tries to swim move him
for whatever reason, that didn't sit well with Will Campbell,
and he drives him about fifteen yards and puts him
on his ass tone setter dog awesome and he look
it's not an amazing front.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
But he was on his p's and q's.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
Right, they literally cut the guy that was rushing on him.

Speaker 9 (01:12:18):
That was did they?

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
Yeah? D J Johnson. Now that's not to take anything J. Johnson.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
That's not to take away anything from Will Morgan. Right,
it was also tightened. Maybe maybe he should go back
to playing tight end, you know. But the point is
is that Will Campbell was DJ Johnson.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
It's a shoutout in pass protection, was good in the
run game, in this game, and when you face this
level of competition, that's.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
What he wanted to dominant him.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Yeah, and it was. It was borderline dominant. So borderline
I don't know, Yeah, I mean, I.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
That's not just because of the level of competition. So
but and then I want to throw into that too.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
So because this against Joey Bosa this week, we can
we can.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
Let's give Will Campbell's flowers.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
I also want to recognize Ben Brown, who I think
a lot of people have written off in camp comes
back in, beats out Cole Strange, wins that starting back
up in here guard. He played what six snaps eight
snaps of guard in the NFL in the regular season
prior to this game, he was great too, and him
and Campbell were working some combo blocks and he looked
good in past pro. And you know, we'll see ultimately

(01:13:17):
where this goes long term. Chared Wilson's going to be
part of their long term plans. If Bradbury starts to struggle,
does this maybe open the door more to moving Wilson
inside to center? And now you feel where Ben Brown's
at his starting guard. When he came from Cincinnati last year,
texted our old friend Trags said he and I think
he means like personality wise, which by the way, is

(01:13:39):
a major compliment, reminds him a little bit of Ted Carris. Yeah,
there's a little Ted Harris in his game too. And
you know, if you go back to it, and I
don't know how they would have done it because they
had Joe Tuney, Shack, Mason, David Andrews, but like Ted
Carris was a starting caliber player and maybe there was
a way for the Patriots to keep him involved and
keep him around like he kept him.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Definitely should have kept them in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
Well, but where was gonna play?

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
What do you mean they traded Jack Mason? They had
right garb.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
One Okay, so that was that wasn't twenty one, that
was twenty two.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
Yes, they should have kept Yeah, so I'm with you,
but like, does he become their Ted Carris where he's
like a super sub, you know, super sub starting caliber
and tier offensive linean that can move around and maybe
the long term plan is.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
And it's just one game, let's not get too far
ahead of ourselves.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
But like, yeah, k, I think that's exactly what you
picture something where it's you know, Will Kit long term here,
Will Campbell, Brett Ben Brown, Jared Wilson, Mike on WINNU
second round pick in this year's draft, because Morgan Moses
has been very good to start his hair and take
anything away from Morgan Moses, but he is thirty four.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
He's not a long term option.

Speaker 4 (01:14:47):
We know that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
Everybody knows that, So like really encouraging to see Ben
Brown have that game. They're a question about when he
make the team, would he fit in the new scheme,
whereas the coaching staff was gould be with them.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
You saw it last year.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
He got signed on Thursday, started the first game of
a rookie quarterbacks career at center and was he fell
off a little bit late in the year, but like
really gave them, you know, solid center play for most
of that season. Well everything was falling apart around him.
This guy stays ready, shows up, plays on Sundays. You
need guys like that on their football team. A big
shout out to Ben Brown for the way he played

(01:15:19):
ensive line talk. He also he had the toughest match
of anybody. Derek What did Derek Brown do in this game?

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
Yeah? He had a little bit of Derek Brown in
this game. So I think the biggest thing with the
line And I'm gonna nerd out here for a second
as well. So they're there and you should ask Andrews
about this. So they're maybe I did. They're sliding the line, yeah,
to three man slides to one side of the field,
to one side of the formation, and then their man

(01:15:45):
to man on the backside. It's just like traditional pass
protection like it's nothing, there's five on four. Yeah, they
got exotic about it. But by what they're doing when
they to the non slide side to the man side,
is it They're they're chipping with the tight end. So
if Campbell is on the non side side or Moses
on the non side side, they're getting chip help from
the tight ends, and then they're sliding on the other

(01:16:07):
side of the line, which is giving the tackle inside
help from the guard. Right, So what big picture of
what they're doing is that this is how you help
tackles that might not be world beaters in pass protection.
Is you slide one way, you chip, you do different things,

(01:16:28):
you move the pocket. Of course, on these play action
passes they only had in this game. I only they
only dropped back to past twenty one times total, so
it's obviously a low number to begin with. But they
only had like nine or ten true pass sets in
this entire game. So all that is doing is just
limiting the exposure that Campbell and Moses have, right, the

(01:16:50):
true drop back pass. Now, you can't live in that
world forever, Like they're gonna be games where you're gonna
have to ramp that up and they're gonna have to
hold up, but they're doing a really good job skimally
of helping the offensive line, which I think is a
big part of why the line and pass protection has
been so good. I also think it's a part of
why if you look at win rate, they're down still

(01:17:11):
in the bottom ten of the league. I think they're
like twenty third now in the league and win rate,
but they're up near the top of the league in
terms of like time to pressure and blown block rate
and things like that because they're doing these things to
help the line. So it hasn't been perfect with the
run blocking, but the pass protection for this group has

(01:17:33):
really come a long long way. It's a big reason
why the pass game has been so good. My last
up with Diggs obviously great game six for one oh one.
I think the most encouraging thing for this game with Diggs,
and I keep picking on this guy and I apologize,
but I'm going to do it anyways. Yeah, Mike Jackson,
the corner for the Carolina Panthers, not a very good
player in my opinion, not on Stefan Diggs's level, and

(01:17:55):
it did not look like he was on Stefan Diggs's
level on Sunday. The fact that the pay Mariots have
a version of digs that he can still feast on
guys that are not on his level is really really
important just for the whole hierarchy of the passing game,
because now you go into games and like the Bills
are going to prepare for the Patriots offense this week,

(01:18:15):
you can't just allow digs to go against your second
or third corner like Christian Benford on third down is
going to have to cover Stefan Dins And now the
domino effect that that causes for Kaishaan Budi, for Matt Collins,
for Kyle Williams, for Tomorrow Douglas, it just puts those
guys in the right pecking order. And so if Diggs
can do that every single week where he's that coverage

(01:18:37):
dictating game planned receiver, that's all you're looking for. Like
the production will hopefully come with that too, but even
if it doesn't, just the fact that he's drawing number
one receiver coverage is kind of enough. And the Panthers
didn't shadow him with J. C. Horn in this game,
and they hurt for it like they paid for it,
And hopefully he can continue to do that. It was

(01:18:58):
also great to see I talked about the numbers yesterday,
thirteen air yards per target in this game, six point
eight six point nine in the first three games, targeting
him much farther down the field like that. To see
him get to the second and third level of the
defense effectively is really good progress and the really positive

(01:19:19):
for the Patriots as well. So it'sdefon Diggs last one.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
Yeah, I had Digs on there as well. That's my
holest Okay downs, who you got penalties?

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Number one? We already talked about that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Yeah, I had Carlton Davis number one, who had two
of the seven penalties. Yeah. I don't think Carlon Davis
has been bad, but he's going to get a lot
of targets this season because nobody's going to want to
throw at Christian Gonzales. So the ball is going to
come at him a lot. And if he's holding and
if he's you know, tugging on jerseys and things like that,

(01:19:53):
that he's going to get a lot of flags thrown
his way because the ball is going to be come
in that direction, which puts a spotlight on that matchup.
And so I thought in this game he struggled a
little bit with Ted McMillan, certainly on those inbreaking routes,
and he's gonna have to gear up every single week
for seeing a ton of targets, like he's going to
get the ball throw in his direction a lot and

(01:20:14):
he's gonna have to be ready for it. So I
don't I don't think he's been. It's not been a
bust of a signing or anything like that, right, but
this game wasn't his best game. Who's number two?

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Number two for me was Christian Ellis. Yeah, bench second
week in a row. It's obviously not great. Defense has
been getting better and he's neither jacket. We probably should
put Jack Gimmons on the ups. He was really good
in this game. They have some holes that week' sideline
back we could have put in the ups, But you know,
two benchings in a row, both times the defense gets
better after he comes out of the game. You wonder
if his starting jobs in jeopardy, especially Jilnie devis eligible

(01:20:47):
to come back off ir this week. I don't think
that stylistically that's a fit, but they're just going to
have another linebacker. Yeah, another another rough game for him,
So I only had.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
One other one, and I do want to talk about
one other guy, but I feel like I keep picking
on a rookie and I feel bad about that. We
talked about it. With the defense stuff, just setting the
edge against the run in general, I just didn't think
was very good in this game. I didn't want to
single out either Chason White or Landry because I think
all three of them at times were culprits of blowing

(01:21:16):
the edge. So whether it's schematic, whether it's you know,
just playing blocks a little bit differently, like, whatever they
need to do to be a little bit more consistent
on the edge of the defense, They're going to have
to figure it out because this is a copycat league.
And when the teams start to see on film that
they can't set the edge, all they're gonna do is
run off tackle and they're just going to keep hitting

(01:21:38):
that button and keep hitting that button until you stop it.
So that was my second one. You had one more.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
You said, yeah, Pop Douglas.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
Now, look he sets the great block on the Hunter
Henry touchdown, but he's fallen behind Kyt Williams. Now in
terms of usage. At least he did in this game.
The offense looked really good with him not out there.
I just he he might find himself on the outside
looking in of a you know, significant role in this
offense as things stand right now.

Speaker 2 (01:22:04):
So the one that I the rookie Trayvon Henderson another
hold in pass protection, the nine yard checkdown that he caught,
I thought there was a lot more yards available, Like
there's it's one on one with the linebacker and there's
nobody else on that side of the field. So if
he makes the linebacker miss there, he's going to be
running for a while. That's the type of play less
so than the pass protection stuff, which I think will

(01:22:26):
come in time. Like I would like to see him
make a defender missing some space there on that pass,
Like that's why he's here. Like that, those types of plays,
getting him into space with the ball in his hands
as a receiver is why he was drafted at the
top of the second round. I just I've just been
a little disappointed. Like it's not like I'm ready to

(01:22:46):
write the kid off or call him a bust or
anything like, but it's been a slow start for Travon Henderson.
All Right, that is three out, three down, We're gonna
get to your calls here, We're gonna ask you to
be a little bit quick. We're going to try to
be quicker with the calls because we do want I
had to fit previews in and we haven't been doing
a good job of budgeting all right time in that respect.
So we're gonna take a calls.

Speaker 4 (01:23:06):
Though.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Patty is an agu on what's up? Patty?

Speaker 4 (01:23:10):
What's up? Guys?

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
Will make it quick, So thanks Patty.

Speaker 10 (01:23:13):
The one no problem. The one thing that I don't
want to happen after this game is win or lose.
You know, I don't want to see like, if we
win this game, fans go nuts and have the hype
train go off the rails and say we're going to
the super Bowl. We're winning the super Bowl, and lose
like see, like Paul likes to say, the blid police
come out and say, see, that's who we really are.

(01:23:33):
I just want to get you guys' thoughts on that,
and I'll take it off there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying, Patty. You know I
wouldn't worry too much about the external.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
Do you remember in twenty twenty one when they got
rolling a little bit and we started seeing the mac
Jones Tom Brady Super Bowl Collision chorus graphics and all that.
I'd like to see him win the game and then
whatever happens with that happens with that. But yeah, I mean,
people are gonna get a little ridiculous if they do
win this game. I'd say, you know, take a deep breath.
But also it's part of being a fan. It's part

(01:24:03):
of being a fan. You win a game like that,
you know they'll be over five hundred for the first
outside of being one and oh last year, for the
first time since when like probably twenty twenty one, right
back to back wins for the first time in a
long time.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Like, you're getting ahead of ourself. Yeah, they're gonna win
this game, but I'm not gonna fall fans for being
excited if they win the game on Sunday night. Now, internally,
I'm sure Mike Rabel will do everything in his power
to keep them grounded. But that's internal, Like I don't
we don't have to do like we're not playing, we're
not coaching.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
I'll just say this.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
I've been known to take a victory lap for two
on takes. The biggest victory lap I probably ever took
was after the Mac Jones three pass wind game in Buffalo,
and what has it been like between the Patriots and
Bills since? So just you know, keep that in mind
if you're gonna make any big picture claims.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
All right, Christian is in La. What's up? Christian?

Speaker 7 (01:24:58):
Hey you guys?

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Hey, how are we doing?

Speaker 11 (01:25:00):
Happy Wednesday?

Speaker 12 (01:25:01):
Today?

Speaker 11 (01:25:02):
Good today? So really quickly to me, I really feel
like the key to this game, at least with having
a chance in the game, really is our sideline, the
sideline defense. I feel really confident about our run defense
up the middle. Yeah, we've given us some stuff, but
I'm pretty secure with not losing the game by by
a team beating us in the like in the trenches.

(01:25:22):
But sideline sideline sort of worries me. And I think
if we can get sidelined, the sideline defense cover these guys.
I really think we can neutralize a lot of what
James Cook does to make his big yards and then
you know, against Blaine or someone's gonna have to cover
him out the backfield. So to me, when the game
really key on how we play and treat James James Cook.

Speaker 2 (01:25:41):
Yeah, Christian, thanks for the call. It's it's a really
good point. I think preparing, you know, setting up for
the Bills this week. And we're going to get into
this deeper in a second. But they are under center
a lot more now. They run the ball traditionally a
lot more now than what you probably, uh, you know,
if you think of Josh Allen, you think of him

(01:26:01):
running a lot. But they turned the ball, they you know,
snapped the ball, turn it around and handed to James
Cook a lot more now than they did maybe two
or three years ago. And he is you could argue that,
you know, he's kind of outside of Allen, like the
engine of their offense right now. Him, Shakir and Allan
are kind of like their holy trinity, like their threesome
right there, of guys that are really driving this offense

(01:26:24):
to number one in the league in pretty much every category.
I think they're second in points technically because the Lions
scored like sixty one one week. So yeah, so the Bears. Yeah,
so that's but they are they're thirty fit points a week,
of thirty points a game every week, like they are hitting.
They're not You're probably not going to hold the Buffalo

(01:26:45):
Bills under thirty points, let me put it to you
that way. And James Cook is a huge part of it.
The passing game stuff is obviously there for them if
they want it, Like the Bills can do whatever they want.
They have that kind of offense and that kind of talent.
But I would say the run game with what James
Cook has really been a difference maker because it's made
their offense more consistent, Like it's less volatile because it's

(01:27:07):
not all predicated on Josh Allen just like throwing haymakers
all the time now because they have like scripted offense
that they can go to where they're just running plays
in structure traditionally conventionally offensively, and that's just leveled out
their offense so much so that it's not just like
sixty yard bomb pick, sixty yard bomb pick right like,

(01:27:28):
and now there's a consistency to it. Let's take Randy
in Providence. What's up Randy?

Speaker 13 (01:27:34):
He of guys, how's it going with that?

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
Good?

Speaker 13 (01:27:38):
So real quick? Two questions. One, in the pre draft
process part of the whole Will Campbell scouting, you saw
the Land and Jackson matchup, which was kind of his kryptonite.
And I'm wondering how you guys think that he's grown
since that matchup to not necessarily specifically avoid Jackson, who
I don't believe has been active yet, but to what

(01:28:00):
any chips to Jackson might give his teammates on like
how he was able to consistently get Campbell that week
last year. And then secondarily just quick five names. There
are five names that made eighty or better grade for
PFF this week for the Patriots. On Wayne You, Giggs,
bar More, Pettis s the lay you guys hadn't mentioned

(01:28:24):
Pettis at all. I wonder what you think about that.
On Wayne You was the highest graded right guard in
the week in the year in the league this week too,
So thanks thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
For the caller, Randy. Yeah, del Pettis played in garbage
time in the fourth quarter. Yeah, it was a little
bit of a small sample size there in terms of
his play, But on when it has been interesting because
I had him for a hurry in this game, and look,
he's a run blocking right guard in their last in
the league in rush EPA. So I have I understand
that it's a team game and it's not just one

(01:28:55):
guy ever, But at the same time, you know, if
you're I think there's an another gear there for big
Mike as a run blocker to really be an impact
run blocker and have that right side be an impact
right side for them that I just don't know if
they've not fully hit yet. And and so I don't
think on one who I know, he gets a lot

(01:29:16):
of flak. He is a big dude, and some people
think he's out of shape and all that stuff. I
don't think he's been bad, but when you're paying a
guard eighteen million dollars like you're expecting him to be
a little more an impact player. Yeah, all right, Jeff
is in Maine. What's up, Jeff?

Speaker 5 (01:29:32):
Hey, guys, good, I'll make it quick. I got a
comment in a question. The comment is Island off to
a rough start for one and three? Uh oh no,
Joe Burrow was like quarterback, so things have gone downhill.
We had a bounce back week this week, though, so

(01:29:52):
we're you know, we'll we'll get back there.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Love it and my question.

Speaker 5 (01:29:57):
I feel pretty good about our matchup with the Bills receivers.
I think that you know, Davis bigger physical corner, matches
up really well with Kean Coleman, really shifty, smooth guy
against all his matches up well with Khalil Shakir and
then their tight ends are a little bit worrying with

(01:30:19):
how Tommy Tremble did against this last week. I was
just wondering what you guys think about how we match
up against the Bills passing game. And I'll take it
off there.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
Thanks guys, Yeah, Jeff, thanks for the call. I it's
a it's a good question. And I was on with
the Bills guys on coover one Greg and Aaron last night.
And when you hear the opponent's perspective on your team's
kind of interesting because they're always looking at it like
where are the holes, Like where are the weaknesses that

(01:30:46):
the Bills can attack? And you know, rightfully, they pointed
out the Patriots linebackers and safeties against the Bills tight
ends and running backs like that was where we went
and where the conversation went. And I think that's a
it's a fair concern and I want to kind of
tackle here in a second more in depth, but that,
to me is part of what probably is going to

(01:31:08):
decide this game is whether or not the Patriots can
cover Kincaid and Knox. And I'm I was gonna say
Dalvin James Cook out of the backfield like that, that's
gonna be a big part of this game. But I
also when I watch the Bills offense, I know how
you feel about this, Alex. When I watch their passing game,
I think Khalil Shakira is the guy that starts to

(01:31:29):
drink in that passing game. Like to me, he's the
one that is almost like Edelman like where like he's
the chain mover. He's fantastic with the ball in his hands,
breaks tackles at an insane rate for receivers, led the
league in broken tackles last year, is near the top
of the league, and broken tackles this year. Given the

(01:31:49):
Patriots issues that they've had tackling through the first month
of the season two, I just look at Shakir and say,
that's the guy that you absolutely like. If they beat
you throwing the ball. Dawstin Knox and Kean Coleman and
like these other guys in their passing game, you kind
of have to just tip the cap to those types
of things. I'm not saying that don't go in with

(01:32:10):
the plan, but I think Khalios Shakira is the guy
that really is Josh Allen's binky, Like that's the enngine
of this offense.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
And he's killed Patriots, has been very good and that wow,
I am I blaying on his name Isaiah not Isaiah Rodgers,
Isaiah Zi McKenzie roll a little bit. That's probably who
I'm putting Gonzales on in this game.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
And if you want to talk about that, it's tough
because Shakir is a catch and run guy and he's
not a guy that Gonzalez is gonna end up covering
a lot down the field with downfield routes. They throw
a ton of passes to him short behind the line
of scrimmage, passes like screens and you know, motions and

(01:32:54):
like all that different kind of thing. Uh, you know,
all those like schemed plays that they run offensively in
the passing game or pretty much all featuring Khalil shit here.
So it's a tough matchup for a guy like Gonzalez,
who is fantastic. But Gonzalez really takes out guys that
are running routes down the field like that's his specialty.
I don't also wouldn't necessarily say that tackling is Christian

(01:33:17):
Gonzalez his best trade either, So I don't know what
exactly because like in theory, I agree, and I'm probably
gonna write that it should be Gonzalez because Shakir to
me is top billing like he is. He is like
the Marquee matchup in this game and the Bills passing game.
But I do wonder how they handle him because he

(01:33:39):
is a little bit different last year. Not that last
year's coaching staff is the best barometer of how to
game plan an offense, but they had Jonathan Jones on Shaquir,
which makes sense, like speed guy, great open field tackler.
I don't know if Marcus Jones is necessarily that kind
of player, but maybe a little bit more like that
kind of player. So it's an interesting It's not like

(01:34:01):
it's not a Ted McMillan where you can just line
up Christian Gonzales over him and have them go to
to tem They.

Speaker 3 (01:34:07):
Just don't have a ton of good receivers though, and
somebody's got to cover somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
Yeah, Ryan is in Tennessee. What's up, Brian?

Speaker 5 (01:34:13):
Hey, what's up?

Speaker 4 (01:34:14):
Guys? Huge fans of the show, and your guys's takes
an analysis and what you do, so thank you keeping
past fans close to all the action and a couple
of things. Yeah, absolutely, And I know you want to
be quick, so I'll be as quick as I can here.
But just like big picture, I can't remember the last
time I was just excited about the Patriots really, and

(01:34:35):
when the schedule came out, I kind of was just
hoping for two and two entering the Buffalo game no
matter how it came, and it was very interesting, but
super excited for the matchup this week and nice to
not just be incredibly nervous before we play Buffalo and
really just feeling like we have a chance in every
game that we have on the schedule that we have

(01:34:57):
a chance to be in it with this staff, our offense, defense,
and everything we've got going.

Speaker 8 (01:35:03):
For us this year.

Speaker 4 (01:35:04):
So that's all. And wanted to stay hi and get
thank you guys for what you do. And I also
agree Marcus Jones on Khalil Shakir. I think he's our
best matchup match at speed and a pretty good tackler,
underrated tackler. So that's all I got, guys, Thank you again, appreciated,
no problem.

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
Thanks for the caller, I appreciate it. Uh yeah, it
is nice And like I think I might have said
this off the air, so I'll say it on the air.
The fact that we can like really get you know,
nerd out and talk about like the x's and o's,
and but also just like get really in depth on
the games because people actually care about how these games unfold.

(01:35:39):
Again is, uh, is what this show is all about.
So it's really cool that we have that opportunity. I
just feel like the last couple of years everything is
just so doom and gloom, and you know, it's just, uh,
what went wrong or you know, big picture draft, you know,
like all these other different things, Like that's not what
this show was built for. This show is built do

(01:36:00):
what we're doing here today. So it's cool to be
back in that category, at least for now. We'll see
if it lasts, but at least for this week, we're
back in that in that world. Jordan is in Georgia.
What's up, Jordan?

Speaker 12 (01:36:13):
Hey guys, this is my first time calling Glad. I
finally got to I watch you all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:36:19):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 12 (01:36:21):
Yeah. My question more of a statement REALA. I love
the Patriots. I got a lot of friends, and I
still a lot of people in the media hyping this
stuff after these last couple wins. I don't want to
be a Debbie downer, but like I've been watching football
for ten years and I don't know if I've seen
a more miserable fifty three man roster than the Panthers.
Like receivers I've never heard of. Bryceon Tremaine was starting

(01:36:46):
for them. Hunter Renfro who they actually cut I heard,
and then brought back after a Cocher injury. Besides, Ted
didn't really have anyone. I think they said they had
two pressures on Drake May the whole day. And I'm
really I love the direction we're going in. I feel
like we're building momentum, but I just I want to
see it against some better teams. I just want to
know if I'm being too pessimistic.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
But that's it, No, no, not at all. I think
that you're spot on. But just the one thing I
would say, just on the positive is that the Panthers
are not a good team and the Patriots made them
look like.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
Beat by thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
Right, it would be one thing that that was like
a ten point game and it was close, and you
can't not play them. You don't get to be like, well,
we're so above them, like we don't you know, So
I get what he wanted to look like against the
bad team.

Speaker 2 (01:37:33):
If we're if we're talking playoffs or trying to take
this team's truly seriously, he's right, He's one hundred percent right.
With that being said, when you play bad teams, you
make them look bad. You win by twenty nine, win
by thirty, that's what it's supposed to look like, right,
And so they were able to do that. I you
can't say the same for that. This team for the
past like two and a half years, they have not

(01:37:55):
been able to beat bad teams the way they beat
down Carolina on Sunday. So that's a that's positive. What
was Mike Rabel's first checkpoint? Can you take advantage of
bad football? They're starting to take advantage of bad football,
Like the win against Miami was kind of taking advantage
of bad football. And then this was also with taking
it football. And you know, just quickly just look at

(01:38:15):
the schedule, like this schedule bad. There's a lot of
bad football at Buffalo this week. But one thing, but yeah,
I mean you have that was it New Orleans, Tennessee.
Cleveland Trio there right after Buffalo to wrap up the month,
of October. That's a lot of bad football, and that's
a lot of opportunities there to win some of these
games and and just try to get ahead of it

(01:38:36):
and maybe even be dare I say, like in the hunt,
you know, come December and January, if you clean up
and let's face it, like I don't know what's gonna
happen in Atlanta, Like Atlanta is is sort of teetering.
They played better this past week, But this Panthers team
beat Atlanta thirty to nothing two weeks ago, right like that,
that Panthers team that everybody's saying is terrible blew out

(01:38:57):
the Falcons the week before. So if Falcons are on
your schedule, the Joe Burrow of Cincinnati Bengals that look
lifeless on Monday night are on your schedule. Both those
teams Miami and the Jets that also looked like they
were a bunch of bad football going on in that game.
You have three more games against those guys. So I

(01:39:19):
just rattle off six to seven games, right that are
all very winnable for the Patriots, and they you know,
you start talking about eight, nine, ten wins, now you
start talking about wild card and being a six or
seven seed and all that good stuff. We have twenty
minutes to talk about the bill, so we did a
little bit better today with the timing here. This game,
to me is a really fascinating game in terms of

(01:39:42):
matchups and all that kind of stuff. Let's start with
Josh Allen because I just I know that this is
one of our favorite topics to discuss on and off
the air With Josh Allen. I have two takes on
Josh Allen. The first take is watching their film and
watching their offense over the last two years evolve. They
have basically allowed Josh Allen to be Clark Kent like

(01:40:06):
ninety five percent of the time, and then every once
in a while, like last week he had that big
thirty yard run where he pulls out the Superman cap.
But he doesn't have to do that as much anymore,
and he's gotten so much better in structure, running conventional
offense that it's just made them a juggernaut offensively. And
I give him credit for that. I gave obviously the

(01:40:26):
Buffalo coaches, and Joe Brady is really good at what
he does too, But to me, that's been the biggest
difference with Josh Allen, that the Patriots faced early on
in his career. In the Josh Allen now is Josh
Allen now can play quarterback like he can sit in
the pocket and just tear you up just playing conventional quarterback.
I mentioned the run game stuff earlier on with James Cook.

(01:40:46):
When you can buy those two things that they are
number one in the league right now in pass and
rush EPA. They're number one in both categories. They are
the best offense in football. And I think a lot
of it stems from the fact that Josh Allen doesn't
play as much chiro ball anymore as what he did
early on in his career. So where are you at
with Josh Allen? Because I know that this is all
we always go back and forth on Josh Allen. I

(01:41:09):
wanted you're on the record now here.

Speaker 1 (01:41:11):
Well, I mean, I said for years that there were
elements of the quarterback position that he couldn't handle, and
you yelled at me for being a hater, and you
just admitted that he struggled at playing quarterback until recently.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
I didn't say that now that you just did. I
think that it's I give him a lot of credit
for developing patients.

Speaker 3 (01:41:30):
You literally just said, he's really playing quarterback. I think
something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:34):
Developing patients is something that I think is a really
underrated thing about quarterback play. When you're Josh Allen and
everybody is trying to keep you in the pocket, and
everybody's trying to keep the top on the defense, and
they're playing a lot of soft zone and covered two
and two high shell, Like the easiest thing to do
is to go play hero and start running around and

(01:41:55):
chucking the ball all over the place. And to his credit,
what his growth has been, along with the mechanic stuff
and the accuracy, is that he is now willing to
take the profits, like he's willing to just sit there
and throw the ball underneath the defense and move the
ball that way. He is middle of the road, like
nineteenth in air yards per per pass attempt, but they're

(01:42:17):
number one inefficiency. So the fact that he's not throwing
the ball down in the field it done hasn't hurt
them at all. And that's a testament to I think
him developing some patients, which I think is tough for
young quarterbacks.

Speaker 1 (01:42:27):
Yeah, no, I look, it is impressive. He's cut out
the turnovers and that's what was killing him. And I
know that the math will tell you that the turnovers
aren't important, because I didn't say that. The nerds saw
their favorite guy turning the ball over and said, let's
cook up a formula where we downplay that. But no,
the fact he's not turning the ball over now and
he can play more instructure. I mean, that was the
book on him, was just keep him in structure, make
him be patient. He could do it against Patriots because

(01:42:49):
he had a hair across his ass for Bill Belichick
in this organization, and he would only do it against
Patriots and nobody else.

Speaker 2 (01:42:55):
We saw that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:55):
Now he's doing it against everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:42:57):
So it hurts you to say say nice things about him.

Speaker 3 (01:43:01):
Heard you never said that he's bad. I just said
he was overrated, and I still think it's true.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
Like I got asked this morning on the radio, I
was on a Toucher and Hardy and touch of do
you think James Cook's one of the most underrated players
in the league. I think he is, or one of
the more underrated running backs in league. I think he
is because we have to give anything that happens with
the Bill's credit. Anything that happens with the Bills. We
have to credit to Josh Allen, nobody else cook and
you you were very confimentari secure today, but we have
to give and look, ironically, now there's not as much

(01:43:30):
talent around him as there used to be. I thought
Diggs was underrated for years, and I still think he
was at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:43:35):
But like you are still you're still like on this island,
like you're still you're not.

Speaker 1 (01:43:40):
What Josh Allen is doing now is very impressive. You
guys have been talking about him like he was doing
this since twenty twenty, and he hasn't been this hass been.

Speaker 2 (01:43:48):
He's been a top five quarterback in the league since
twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
The way he's playing right now. You just said he's
changed a lot in the last year and change.

Speaker 2 (01:43:57):
I said that he's playing more conventional quarter but that
doesn't mean that he wasn't damn good doing the other stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:44:03):
But what he was doing before, right, And I never
said he was bad before, but these were just and
this is my point. I never said he was bad.
I just pointed out there were flaws in his games.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
Overrated, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
Because I pointed out there were flaws in his game
and got you, Josh Allen, you're just a hater brob
the book.

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
No, I'm sorry, he's perfect, all hail Saint Allen or whatever.
But like you know, and now he's cleaned up a lot.
And here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
So you're now sure changing him because I want to Yes,
you are, because I want to say, he's cleaned up
a lot of things in his game that I thought
were going to be tough to clean up. But according
to you and all the other fan boys, he was
perfect forever. So we can't give him credit for he does.
How can he get better?

Speaker 2 (01:44:42):
So no, that's not what I say.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
I just look, I you got to be on your
p's and q's defending him. He doesn't give you a
ton of room for error defensively. The hardest thing with him,
the thing that always kills me and the play that
the play that I think really scares me with him
more than anything else, when he starts rolling out of
the pocket and he just has an unbelievable knack for

(01:45:05):
you get the two on one and he's got a
receiver in the flat and there's one defender and the
defender has to either come down and crashing on Allen
or take the receiver in the flat. He's really good
at waiting until the last second to make that decision
and always making the right decision. It's uncanny the way
he always makes the right decision in that situation. That's
the play that makes me pull my hair out, is
you think you haven't pinted the sideline and either the

(01:45:27):
defender pulls up the last second because they don't want
to flag, or they think he's gonna throw and then boom,
he scoots up the sideline for fifteen yards, or that
defender crashes down, he flips the ball to whoever, and
now that guy's got a ton of room to run.
That's the play to me that makes him the most dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:45:42):
Yeah, it's funny because I think everybody goes there with
him because that is the play that is a backbreaker.
Like it's third and eight and you have them and
you have the initial kind of routes covered initially, and
you have the play stopped initially, and then he just
goes off script and pulls something out of his butt.

(01:46:02):
But you know, like I was saying, he doesn't have
to do that as much anymore because their conventional offense
is just working, like they just they just have enough
open guys that he can just make throws on time
from the pocket. It's cool to see that development. I
think it gives you an awful lot of hope if
you're a Patriots fan about Drake May, because you already
see Drake May doing that. I would say even earlier

(01:46:25):
on in his career compared to Josh Allen, like Drake
May and your two is already where Josh Allen started
to get maybe in like nineteen twenty twenty type range,
which is two three years into Allen's career. The other
thing I wanted to say about Josh Allen just from
like a game plan perspective on how to you know,
stop this freaking guy. Teams have not really brought the

(01:46:50):
fight to Buffalo very often, and a big part of
what I'm seeing on film with the Bills is that
they get all this soft zone coverage because everybody's terrified
of the big play and him getting out of the pocket.
So it's mush rush. Four guys drop off into coverage,
keep everything in front of you. They right now are

(01:47:10):
lead in the league and yards after the catch per reception,
they're averaging seven yards per catch after the reception. They
have twelve explosive plays on passes that traveled less than
ten yards in the air. So they're just killing teams
on catch and run stuff, screens Khalil Shakira brick and
six tackles last week and going up the sideline and

(01:47:31):
all of this is because everybody backs off, like everybody,
you know, they're giving them eight yards of cushion. And
so all Alan does is he just flips the screen
out to Khalil Shakir with a couple of blockers, and
the corners are way off the line of scrimmage and
Shaki's just running, you know, with daylight all the time.
And I understand that this strategy a lot kind of

(01:47:53):
you know, on steroids. But like week one, Yeah, for
the Patriots defense, you might lose some rounds like this,
I end up with you on the mat a couple
of times. But with the corners that the Patriots have,
with the pass rushers that the Patriots have up front,
has anybody actually tried to like get in the face
of these receivers and try to press these guys because

(01:48:14):
they're not a great group of wide receivers. And the
one thing that gives you pause on that is they
do motion. So much that if you try to play
man to man and now you're chasing Shakir left to
right because he's constantly going in motion. That's what Joe
Brady's gonna do if they play man is He's just
going to motion Shakir all over the place. But I

(01:48:35):
just wonder if you if you try to bring the
fight to them a little bit and you go man
to the mass, say this for a long time. You
play press, you rush four or five guys to keep
Allen in the pocket, and let's see, like, let's see
if these receivers for Buffalo can separate.

Speaker 1 (01:48:50):
I've said this for a while. There's more games than
people want to admit. That the Bill's success is just
the other team playing scared. And I always go back
to and I've told her story on here before, but
like when when Brady came back here in twenty one
and we were talking to Matthew Judne about it.

Speaker 3 (01:49:06):
Matthew Judon had been on.

Speaker 1 (01:49:07):
Some of those Ravens teams right that gave the Patriots trouble,
and he talked to some guys that were on the
teams that really gave him trouble back in the day,
and he wouldn't say Brady's name or something during the
press conference. I mean, there was something weird about it,
and we just kind of kept asking him and he's like, guys, look,
he's a good football player. And I'm paraphrasing if he's like,
he's a good football player. But we're in the NFL
two and at a certain point, you got to do

(01:49:30):
what you do. And we saw how many teams did
we see come in here, whether it was the Steelers,
whether it was the Colts, whether it was the Chargers
and just completely try to reinvent themselves because they were
so in their heads about what this Patriots offense was.
And now you come out of your comfort zone and
you're hurting yourself more than you think. And I think
some teams do that against the Bills now, and frankly,

(01:49:52):
the Bills are not good enough to deserve that respect,
not dis iteration of their offense.

Speaker 2 (01:49:55):
You just said they have no receivers. Don't laugh, I say,
this is your point of receivers. I said that they're
I don't know if this group because like.

Speaker 1 (01:50:02):
Who's who's better receiver in Patriots and Bills close exactly
like Shakira, I think might be a little bit better.
And after last week, I don't know, but if dig
starts like getting healthy and.

Speaker 2 (01:50:18):
I hear your point, and this is my point, so finish.

Speaker 1 (01:50:22):
So like I said, there's all these teams that would
come in and just mess their pants because oh it's
the Patriots. We got to do all this stuff that
we don't know how to do because we got to
do something different, and the Patriots just roll over. The
Ravens were the one team. And this is why the
Ravens gave the Patriots trouble for all these years. I
think is part of it because Ray Lewis and Terrell
Suggs and those guys had this mentality that who cares.

Speaker 3 (01:50:45):
Right where in the league. They're in the league, let's
play ball. And I do think against the Bills and
the Chiefs, like against any great team, I see that this.

Speaker 1 (01:50:55):
The Eagles are another team that this happens against you.
I see teams twist themselves into a pretzel trying to
get against the Eagles, and it's like, just play them, man, Yeah,
just play them. If you're a decent team and maybe
they win, maybe they are better than you. You at
a certain point, you gotta do what you do and
you got to play to your strength. So to your point,
they got a good pass rush, they got these big
physical corners, get up on them present. But Josh Allen

(01:51:18):
might do that, all right, So then sit ten yards
off and let him pick you apart, right right, That's
what I'm saying, That's what I saw. Don't let this
couple weeks force you to reinvent yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:51:26):
Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I've seen the last
couple of weeks out of these defenses is that they're
terrified of the deep ball. They're terrified of Josh Allen
off script. And if you play man to man coverage,
then you're you're opening yourself up for him running around
and playing off.

Speaker 3 (01:51:40):
Having a spy in this game would be helped, sure,
But and if you.

Speaker 2 (01:51:43):
Spy him and you for you know, with the spy
and forced him into a decision, right, I don't let
him just extend the play. And I think the biggest
thing to me about it all you know, we were
talking about it just now, with Josh Allen and his growth,
like at this point, I would rather turn this into
a messy playground football game. And I know that sounds

(01:52:04):
crazy with Josh Allen because that's been his superpower. But
I think that you're gonna win more rounds than doing
it that way then backing off and playing scared, because
when you back off and play scared, they are just
driving the ball down the field on teams, they're taking
the profits underneath zone defenses. They're running the football at

(01:52:25):
an extremely high rate. So I just wonder if the Patriots,
now with these two corners, are just built. So let's
just man them up and let's see, like, let's make
Keon Coleman get open. Let's make you know, Dalton Kinkaid
beat us. Let's make this happen for the Bills instead
of just we're gonna give am eight yard checkdowns every

(01:52:46):
all game long, because as you always talk about with
the run game, if you have a j eight yards
per pass attempt, they're gonna be in the end zone
a lot. And it just I get why teams are afraid,
but the Patriots might be one of the few teams
that have the personnel to not be afraid.

Speaker 1 (01:53:00):
And it's also I mean, do you think there's a
chance the Bills overlooked the Patriots a little bit? But
they went up there last year and got up to
a fourteen nothing lead, like ultimately didn't hold it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):
Yeah, but that was one of the best games. Although
like they they kind of they were in more of
a dogfight against New Orleans and they wanted to be
in And so I do think that the Bills kind
of had some humble pie last week where the Saints
were not really in the game, but it was thirty
one to nineteen.

Speaker 1 (01:53:27):
There are also an element of Dolphins played them close.
And I get that's a divisional game on a short week,
but the Dolphins played him close at home.

Speaker 3 (01:53:34):
How do the Bills have three home games in a row.
Of course they do.

Speaker 1 (01:53:37):
Dolphins played them close at home. Saints played them close
at home. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe there's something
to the Bills letting these teams hang around and stay
in games, and maybe they're not the juggernaut. Everybody thinks
last thing, a last thing there. I mean, sorry, who's
better the Saints of the Panthers. Yeah, I hear you,

(01:53:58):
there's a juggernaut. Let that that Saints team.

Speaker 2 (01:54:01):
I love the little digs.

Speaker 3 (01:54:02):
I'm just I'm just here to keep everybody honest.

Speaker 1 (01:54:04):
If we're just gonna hand the Bills to the Lombardi
Trophy in September, like people try to do.

Speaker 3 (01:54:11):
Can we talk about the remember when tweeted that they.

Speaker 1 (01:54:14):
Got their revenge and like we wanted the season? Ah,
full circle moment.

Speaker 3 (01:54:19):
It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:54:19):
We have one minute to talk about the offense. I
want to really quickly talk about You just want to
talk about Josh Allen True the Bill's defense. Yeah, talking
to to some of the Bills fans this week, they're
way more concerned about their defense than I thought they
should be. Like, I guess this is fandom and and
that's the whole thing. Uh. They they've been playing down

(01:54:42):
a couple of starters. No At Oliver, No Matt Milano,
Max Harriston, their first round pick hasn't been playing. So
that that's a big part of it. And we'll see
on the practice reports this week if Milano and Oliver
are going to play in this game on Sunday. But
they're getting run on. They're they're twenty eighth in the
league and against the run they're running core have given them.
Even Rattler had some scrambles last week. So running quarterbacks

(01:55:05):
have given them problem. Conventional run has given them problems.
They're still really good pass defense, and they have always been,
and that's always been a tough one, but the Patriots
have found ways, especially in that twenty twenty one, really
both matchups in twenty twenty one with Mac Jones, to
run the football on this Bill's defense. The Bills play
a four to three over front. They play the same
front and the same base defense that I've seen them

(01:55:26):
play since Sean McDermott took the job eight years ago.
They play the same style. The Patriots love to run
it at the weak side of the defense because the
overfront is tilted to the strong side. The numbers are
at the strong side of the defense. So if you
can isolate the weak side linebacker, it's one on one
back side if you can get blockers, whether that's with
the full back or pollers or whatever the case may be.

(01:55:48):
So the Patriot's got to be able to run the
ball on this game. I'm going to come on your
side of the street. You know this is a run
the ball, Shorten the game, limit possessions for Josh Allen, like,
that's the formula for the Patriots this week and game.

Speaker 1 (01:56:00):
They're built to do it well and that usually puts
coaching more on the spotlight. Say it's a good point
on the run. I just want to bring up one
more point. I'll ask you this, who's the coaching advantage
in this game? Shouldn't need to think about that? Yeah,
I think probably the Patriots probably think it's probably. I
don't think it's probably. I think the Patriots have the
coaching advantage in this game. So that's something that you know,
if you can shorten a game that looms large.

Speaker 2 (01:56:19):
All right, we got to wrap it up. Patriots Unfiltered
is going to be on here in four minutes at noon,
so we're still going to talk way more about the
Buffalo Bills in this matchup on Sunday. Alex and I
will be back next week recap the Bills. It's the
Saints right after the Bills game.

Speaker 3 (01:56:33):
I know it's Saints Titans Browns.

Speaker 2 (01:56:35):
Yeah, we'll get into that matchup as well. We'll see
you guys then. Thanks for watching, right, Hey, this is Deuce.
Thanks for tuning into the show.

Speaker 9 (01:56:44):
If you really want to help us, make sure you
like us wherever you get your podcasts, like Apple Podcasts
or Spotify. Also make sure you follow us on the
New England Patriots YouTube channel. To see this show and
everything else that we do here at the Patriots.

Speaker 2 (01:56:55):
Thanks a lot

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