Patriots Catch-22 10/8: 3 Up/Down vs. Bills, Maye-Diggs Connection, Running Back Room

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Lazar and Alex Bars.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Bizarre and Lazar O.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Everybody nailed it.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Joined has always here is Evan Lazar and Alex Bars.
Teams have not really brought the 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

(00:36):
him getting out of the pocket. So it's mush rush.
Four guys drop off into coverage, keep everything in front
of you. 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 all of this
is because everybody backs off like everybody, you know, they're
giving them eight yards of cushion. And so all Alan

(00:58):
does is he just flips the screen out to Talio
Shakir with a couple of blockers and the corners are
way off the line of scrimmage and Shaquire's just running,
you know, with daylight all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Two.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm usually patting myself on the back, but I kind
of nailed that, did I not? Kind of nailed it.
I mean, forty one percent man coverage. Stack the box,
don't let James cook beach. You don't be afraid of
your boy Josh Allen coming out there and hitting the
big plays down the field. I kind of nailed that one.

(01:34):
I'm going to pat myself on the back a little
bit about that. All right, Hello, everybody, Sorry we're late. Sorry, sorry,
we're a few minutes late. My goodness. Gracious, it's like
a monsoon outside, and you would think that when it
rains a little bit, Alex, it's like the apocalypse to
people on the road. They do not know how to drive. Like, look,
there's one thing you have to worry about when it rains,
and that's hydro planting, okay, But other than that, like

(01:58):
there's it's not snow. It's not right, Like it's not
that debilitating to your car or your ability to drive.
It was a long morning. I'm good.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I'm just proud of myself that it was not my fault.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
It wasn't your fault. It was all me. And I
was so excited to come in here today and talk
about this win and we're still gonna get there, and
then just to ruin my morning like that was horrible,
but nothing can really take the win out of my
sales completely after that win, Alex, just a great atmosphere,

(02:31):
great game, great postgame celebration. I know there was some
things on Patriots dot com where you got to see
a little bit of that for the fans, you know,
the locker room celebration. Vrabel greeting all the players after
the game. I think he the best part of the
greeting after the game was with Stefan Diggs when they

(02:53):
both ran into the locker room and he said, let's
get the hell out of here, because I was like, please,
can we can we get this over with, Let's get
this party home. It was a good night in Buffalo
for the Patriots. I want to talk Drake May of
course off the top of the show. We'll do the good,
the bad, and the crap it gets you beat. There
are still a few things that were not so good
and could have gotten them beaten this game. But just

(03:15):
your overall impressions, Alex, of the Patriots taking this next
step and that was the team goal this week. That
was the message from Mike Rabel was it's one thing
to beat up on the Carolina Panthers and a wounded
Dolphins team a couple of weeks ago in Week two.
But can you take that next step as a football

(03:36):
team and win in a place where Buffalo had won
fourteen straight home games and you come in and you
spoil their Sunday night party. What were your just overall
takeaways from this moment?

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, I guess big picture and look, somebody who's been
known to take a victory lap or two. So let
me be clear by this is not a victory lap
on the entire season. That's not what I'm doing by
making this point. I think it might come across that way,
but it's really not. There's still a lot of football
has to be played. But when you look at not
just the fact the Patriots won that game, but how

(04:08):
they won it, that was not It was not gimmicky.
It was not Mac Jones three passes in the wind.
It was not, despite what Bill's fans will tell you
on Twitter, because of the referees. The referees were terrible
for both sides. It was a painfully refereed game, but
it did not impact the outcome. I don't think it
impacted the outcome. They went out and they played their
game and they won. And when we got asked in

(04:33):
the summer, why are you so high on this team?
Why do you think they can make the playoffs? And
we were asked about specific players. Don't you think to
some extent that game is the vision of what they're
building like on an individual player basis right when we
talked about we took calls on this over the summer.
How are you Why are you confident Drake May is
the guy? Why do you feel like Drake May is

(04:55):
the guy? When you know his rookie year, he only
won one started, he had all these turnovers, blah blah blah,
And that's what I pictured. That's why because I saw
flashes of that, and that's what I pictured Stefon Diggs.
Remember we were doing Cooper Cup or Jakobe Myers over
Stefon Diggs. And I was somebody who was on Digs

(05:15):
from the beginning. That's why, because I believed he had
the potential to do what he's done in the last two weeks,
not just last night or that night, but Milton Williams,
who I was not as big as Milton Williams person,
but the way it was described by the people who
were into that and you know, more importantly people in
the building, but they're not coming out and explaining this
to us, but the experts who were like, this is
why he signed a guy like Milton Williams. That's what

(05:35):
he did. Will Campbell. You look at what he did
against Joey Bosa, his toughest matchup this far. Like, they
didn't have to reinvent themselves or get overly creative. And
that's not a knock on the coaching staff. They were
able to go out they won that game playing the
way they wanted to play. They did not let the
Bills dictate terms to what you said in the open

(05:57):
and I had made that point last week on the
show as well well. They did not try to reinvent themselves.
They did not get to in their own heads. They
did not try to go outside the box. They lined up,
played the game they want to play for sixty minutes
and they beat a good football team. That's more encouraging
than anything else. It'd be one thing if they had
won this game because the Bills were super banged up,

(06:19):
or they did a bunch of stuff that probably wasn't replicatable.
Do you doubt them being able to replicate any of
what they did, Evan, Now, can they do it? Do
they have twelve games left? Thirteen games left?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Right?

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Can they do it thirteen more times? Twelve more times? Exactly?
I probably not. You know, it's still a young team.
There's gonna be some consistency issues. I'm sure they'll have
their stinkers again. Is there gonna be a three turnover
game between now and the end of the year. I'd
bet yes. But they haven't shown that kind of level
for a few years now, and they've now shown it

(06:52):
two weeks in a row. Like, let's not just throw
the Panthers game away because this is more impressive. Look
at those together.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, they.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Played the game that they want to play and they
won against a good team. That's a very encouraging sign
for the long term. As fun as that night was
and that game was in itself and as it was,
the potential long term implications of that game should really
have you kind of hot and bothered.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah. So there's two things that I want to payback
off of there that you said, what one is that?
And look, when you start winning games, all of a sudden,
guys on the roster start to look better. Right, the
players on the talent on the team starts to look better.
But for the last couple of years, we've heard repeatedly

(07:41):
about how bad this roster is and how this is
a bottom five, maybe bottom one roster in the NFL.
And I thought that most of that was fair and true.
But maybe the one thing that I tried to push
back on at times about the roster talent and the
conversations about that, was that doesn't mean that all of

(08:02):
the holdovers were bad players. Like just because the overall
talent of the roster was not good enough didn't mean
that they could not have Christian Goanzalez be a part
of the future of this team, or Christian Barmore be
part of the future of this team, or you know,
name any one of the players that's contributing now that

(08:23):
was here over the last couple of years. You know Hunter, Henry,
mike on Wenu, you know Kysham Boudi, Pop Douglas like
those guys. No, they're not all elite, blue chip talents,
but I thought that they could be part of winning
football if you supplemented them. But now the Patriots have

(08:43):
the guys you mentioned, Diggs, Milton Williams, Robert Spolaine, who
I thought was really good in this game. Yeah, you know,
Morgan Moses at right tackle, Will Campbell at left tackle.
The talent on the roster suddenly looks a lot better now,
Is it all the way there? No? And we're gonna
talk here in a little bit after we do the

(09:06):
goods about the running back situation and losing Antonio Gibson
and the depth of this roster.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Let memetles question, let me just be clear to my
point too, Like it's not that they can't build on it.
They have a ways to go, but you see the beginning,
I should say, it's the beginning of that vision.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah. And as we segue into talking about Drake may
I think the most encouraging part is exactly what you
hit on against Carolina. And you know, at times I
think against Miami, Drake did this and kind of put
on the Superman cape too. But I would say in
there're two wins prior to this this season against Carolina

(09:43):
and Miami. I came into the show with a ton
of Josh McDaniels praise, Like Josh McDaniels is just scheming
things up. He's popping receivers open down the field, like
Drake May is throwing open guys and the numbers back
that up. He had one of the highest open window
rate throw rates in the NFL for the first four
weeks of the season. There was a lot and this

(10:04):
is not to knock Drake, this is to give praise
to McDaniels in the coordination of the offense. There was
a lot of scheme created layups within the offense and
some of that was the level of competition as well,
and they were able to do that in this game.
Buffalo is the type of defense that, no, they're not
playing great football on that side of the ball right

(10:24):
now in Buffalo, but it is a do what you do, systemic,
don't beat yourself kind of defense. They are not going
to bust coverages, they are not going to leave guys
wide open. They are not going to beat themselves by
mental brain errors, right, mental you know, brain farts. So
I'm trying to say, so you had to go out there,

(10:47):
and especially in the second half, they said We're going
to drop back pass eighteen times in the second half
and we're just going to be better than you, like
we're gonna out e secute you. Mostly Drake May and
Stefan Diggs, but the whole group, We're just gonna go
out there and we're gonna drop back pass and our

(11:08):
guys against your guys, and we are just going to
beat you. And I can't remember the last time that
the Patriots against a playoff caliber team. I'm not talking
about the Carolinas of the world. I'm talking about a
playoff caliber team, had the horses to just go out
there and beat another team, like at the level that
Buffalo is at by just playing football like this wasn't

(11:32):
right this all. Look at this, This was dressed up
so nicely by McDaniels, and look at this route pops
open and this guy's wide open in the zone or
whatever the case may be. This was Drake May at
his absolute best. And as we segue into Drake, I
just this isn't This is not a humble brag. I've

(11:52):
watched every single start Drake May has made in college
and in the NFL. Yeah, every single one. This is
the by far his Mona Lisa, like, this is the
best he has ever played at any level of football. Sure,
maybe he played like this in high school. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
I know so far as and hopefully that he tops.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, right, I don't have I don't have the high
school all twenty two. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I mean it more like I would hope that you know,
I know what you're you know. The third overall pick.
His Mona Lisa didn't come in week five of the
regular season in his second year.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
This is this is his very good this was his
Mona Lisa so far. Yeah, let's put you that way.
And I know the first half statistically wasn't as good,
but when you go back and you watch the film,
they just kind of like missed on some miscommunications in
the first half that they were able to clean up
in the second half that Drake May himself was seeing

(12:46):
it and throwing it. Well, they just weren't necessarily on
the same page. Like he throws the one to Diggs
that's purposely a little bit behind him to keep away
from the defender. Digs didn't really adjust to it quick enough.
He drops it. He threw another one over the middle
of the field to Hunter Henry where he saw the
split field safety, so the too high safety shell. He
thought Hunter Henry was just going to run it right

(13:08):
up the shoot and Hunter Henry cut across the field
and Drake threw it like he was gonna run straight
and Henry broke left and it was just a miscommunication.
But when you watch it on the tape, you can
see the picture that Drake may was looking at and
why he threw the ball there. Then you get into
the second half and they started to kind of clean
some of those things up. They actually ran the same

(13:28):
concept on into completion to Digs where Diggs did sit,
you know, in the coverage, and then they ran the
same play for a twenty two yard or twenty three
yarder up the seams to Hunter Henry. That was the
same exact play they ran in the first half, and
they hit it in the second half. You know, they
had a couple of instances, I thought in the first
half where he did look a little bit sped up

(13:49):
in the pocket and he was vacating the pocket a
little bit prematurely or making quick decisions and check downs.
Then he held the ball a little bit longer and
let those routes develop down the field. So he started
to really come into his own in the second half.
But I didn't think that the game was bad per se,
even in the first half, or the film was bad
per se, even in the first half. In the second half,

(14:12):
it's just big throw after big throw after big throw.
I mean, everybody's talking about the one where you know
he's throwing with every with the defenders hanging all over
him and on the game winning drive, and that was
an incredible pass. But just there was like four or five,
I would say, maybe even six throws in the second
half that were just franchise quarterback stuff. And I don't know,

(14:38):
you know, to your point, like, is that sustainable? That's
not how you want to play every week? Is that
you're asking your quarterback to make these ridiculous off platform,
on the move type of plays. You don't want that
to be your base offense. Like, that's not the goal here.
But I don't think you're going to have to play
that way against the New Orleans Saints, or against the

(14:59):
Tennessee Titan or against the Cleveland Browns, Like you don't
think you're going to have to have him put the
superman cap on quite as much as he had to
in the second half. But the fact that he was
capable of doing it and he went into Buffalo's house
and outdueled the MVP in his own building, I mean,
that is big time stuff from Drake May, and it's

(15:19):
hard to not just be over the moon excited about
his trajectory overall. And then obviously what we saw individually
in this game. Was there anything else that stand out
stood out from you from Drake in this game before
we get to some of the other stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
I mean, you hit on a lot of it there.
I just think some of the things he didn't do
as well, not putting the ball in harm's way the
big one for me. This is a sneaky, huge play
in this game, and there's you can see the direct
line of growth when it comes to Drake May to
play before the field goal. So was it like third

(15:53):
and six? I think yeah, And there obviously we saw
the kick after. So maybe this is unfair to Andy
Burgallo's to say it. They're in like fringe field goal range, right,
you know, right around the thirty five yard line. Bubbalos
out of timeouts, there's like about a minute left, and

(16:14):
they decide to throw it. Yeah, and remember they did
this same thing. That situation was a little different score wise,
but they did something very similar against Miami. Miami was
out of timeouts, Patriots are trying to kill the clock.
They'd a lead, but they throw the ball on it.
It was a second or third down when Miami didn't
have any timeouts and there was nothing there, and Drake
May threw it away and it was almost very costly.

(16:36):
Ultimately they recovered, but it was almost very costly. This
time they do the same thing. There's nothing there. What
is Drake May do? Steps in the pocket, make sure
he gets back to the line of scrimmage. He doesn't
just take the sack in the back that make sure
he gets back to the line of scrimmer as close he can.
It gets down and keeps the clock running. It go
if you if you look at it in the stat sheet,
I think it technically went down as a SAT zero.

(16:59):
It did. That's a hell of a sack man by
the quarterback. That's a great sack by the quarterback.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
That it is it is. I put it down as
a plus play and it's the first time I've ever
recorded a stack as a plus play.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
And we're gonna get called fanboys and bobos for it.
But like you go back to the play against Miami
and then three weeks later, same situation, he fixes it
in a bigger spot with more pressure. That's growth that's growth.
That's what we're looking for this year. Didn't put the
ball in harm's way, didn't cost the yardage, kept the

(17:34):
clock running. It's it's it's for all the throws he
made in this game. There's some spectacular throws. What a
heads up play by the kid. And that's the kind
of thing you want to win. You want to beat
not just win games, but beat the good teams, and
you want to win games. They're gonna put you in
the spot to be in the in the postseason and
compete for a title. You have to make those spectacular

(17:56):
plays too. But you have to make plays like that.
I always go back to, maybe this is unfair to
Drake me, but one of my favorite, not my favorite,
but like super underrated Tom Brady play in the Snowbowl
before the forty eight yard field goal. He does the
same thing where there's nothing open, he doesn't put the

(18:16):
ball horms when he gets back to the line scrimmage and
that when they needed it. There's a forty eight yard
kick that's good for.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Maybe fifty in the blizzard.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, but like smart quarterbacks have to be able to
make that play. It was super encouraging to see him
step up and make a play like that.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, So they rolled a pocket and they tried to
sneak Remandre into the flat for just like an easy
you know, kind of throw into the flat on third
and short. He ideally he gets up the field, he
stays in bounds too, and you get an extra free
like eight yards out of it. Right, that was the
goal of the play. And they tried to pick off

(18:49):
a man defender in the box with I think it
was MATC Collins who was on that side of the field,
and they're just kind of running like a pick or
a rub. They're at the line of scrimmage, and the
Buffalo credit they zoned it off, right, they didn't follow
it and man, they the outside corner stayed outside and
didn't take the cheese and they zoned it off and
so it was covered like there was no place to

(19:10):
go with the ball. And uh, and Drake May breaks
a tackle in like eight yards in the backfield to
get out of the sack and then gets it back
to the line of scrimmage. It was I've ver Able
talked about it on Monday. That was the play he
kind of brought up in the press conference. Uh, to
your point about growth and you know, developing and all
that kind of stuff. We know he's got the arm talent,
we know he's got the athleticism, but the mental side

(19:33):
of the game is the next step for him, is
the final hurdle, if you will, And he seemed to
take it in a lot of different ways. And I
just have to say, you know, just lastly, just to
gush a little bit more here, the whole shot the
Kish on Booty to put them in field goal range
is just a nuts throw. Like I get everybody's like
hold like again, like I get the everybody's drape all

(19:54):
over him, and he throws it to Digs like to
start that drive. That's a hell of a play. But
like I don't want to see him making that type
of play right like that, that's not ideal, that's not
I don't want to see that ever again. But the
throw to booty is like conventional offense, Like that's the
way in structure, yeah, yeah, thank you in structure. And

(20:15):
that is a just ridiculous throw in that spot, not
only to just throw it perfectly with your exact amount
of you know, touch, but also with pace to get
the ball there before the safety begetted over the flat corner,
but also just to standing there in the pocket and
get drilled why he's doing it too. We all were

(20:37):
kind of waiting and hoping to see that clutch, that
game winning drive from Drake May And now is that
that throw took some stones to fit that ball in there? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Throw?

Speaker 2 (20:48):
All right, Let's move on to some of the other
good stuff in this game. Let's stick on offense. I
do want to talk a lot about the defense too,
because I thought they were They were really good in
this game as well. But the other sort of big
picture takeaway from this game, Alex is obviously the performance
of Stefan Diggs. And just I wrote down like, do
the Patriots have a number one wide receiver? Like we've

(21:10):
been talking about this for five years, like, you know,
trying to find that number one wide receiver really since
like Gronk and Edelman started to age out of football,
that that's been the conversation over and over again. And
I understand it was against his former team, and Stefan
Diggs was all sorts of jazzed up to play in
this game. But now this is two games in a

(21:32):
row that he's gone for over one hundred yards going
back to the Carolina game. So it's not like every
other game has been like, right, for fifteen yards and
all of a sudden he has one hundred and forty
five against his former team. Just not to like throw
you know, stones, but remember in it was a twenty
three right, Yeah, twenty three Juju had a huge game

(21:54):
in Pittsburgh and was like terrible the rest of the year.
Like that's one of those games where it's like, yeah,
year you got up to play.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Here four, Well that game was that was like week twelve.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, this was back to back really good games from Giggs.
This game, though, in particular, was again like I said,
it was Drake May's Mondleiser. This was Stefanazaggs had a
lot of great games in his career. Yeah, this was
like watching him run routes in this game was poetry,
like he was just dancing out there.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Well, and I think the cool thing is a lot
of great receiver You look at the great receivers who
play into their thirties, and there's not a lot of them.
It's really hard to play receiver in your thirties. Just
the I can't say I've tried to do it, you know,
outside of backyard football. But like you look at the
history of wide receivers who are continually successful past the
edge of thirty, it's not a long list, especially recently,

(22:42):
but the guys who've done it, there's an element. And
I don't I don't want to completely say Diggs reinvented himself,
because I do think that this was a part of
his game throughout his career, but like he's not the
deep threat anymore, and his ability to get open into
the intermediate and create after the catch that isn't his
primary tool, and it kind of feels like it is

(23:02):
now and he's thriving on it. So that's really cool
to see that you mentioned, you know, this was one
of the best games of his career. This didn't look
like the big games he had in Buffalo. It's like
schematically it looks different, but he's winning another way, which
is awesome to see. And yeah, I thought he was
really good in this game. I do. I think it's
an outlier. I mean, I don't think he's gonna have

(23:23):
one hundred and fifty yards every week, right, but I
think he's at like he's a guy that's gonna keep
teams honest and he's a guy that's gonna dictate coverage.
You asked, do they have a number one wide receiver
in the short term? Yes, Now he's thirty one years old,
and I just kind of talked about how tough that is,
and I still think it's something we talk about as
a long term need when we get to the offseason.

(23:44):
But I mean, Tuesday morning, who after Drake May? Who
do you think the first player the Saints brought up
was in the meeting And.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
It wasn't Christian Barmore and Milton Williams. He was tremendous.
I mean, he had sixty two yards after the catch. Yeah,
out of a you know, his one hundred and forty five.
I think it was forty six something like that. I
don't know if he's gonna be that much of a
yack monster every single week. But what was so impressive?

Speaker 1 (24:12):
But can he turn like the one with where May
flips it forwards where he is the defender hanging on him,
which is obviously an impressive throw with people losing track
of Diggs breaks the tackle and it turns a two
yard gain into a ten yard gain. The one on
the first play the game, he turns an eight yard
game into like thirteen fourteen yard gain. Can he do that?
It doesn't all have to be that one in the
fourth quarter where he breaks like three tackles and goes

(24:34):
for whatever it was forty yards something like that. Yeah,
it doesn't have to be that. But the four to
five yards per catch you're finding that wouldn't otherwise be there.
Can he continue to do that? Which I think he can.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And the last thing I just
wanted to mention about Diggs. I talked about this last week.
The Panthers did not have j C. Horn travel with
him in the Week four, and he won the matchup.
Every time Mike in their second corner was lined up
across from Stefan Digs, he torched him. Like all the

(25:05):
big plays that he had in that game were against
Mike Jackson. Then you fast forward to this week and
Tredavius White is on him a couple of times and
Christian Benford did not travel with Stefan Diggs, and Stefan
Diggs hit a thirty two yarder. I believe it was
White who was the primary coverage defender. I know that's
off script, like that was a broken play, but the

(25:27):
thirty yarder that he hit in the fourth quarter that
you mentioned is from inside the slot where he gets
matched up on his safety and he burns the safety
after the catch with the breaking you know, Cole Bishop's
tackle and going down the field. So what I'm trying
to get at is is like if you don't come
into these games now as the opponent and say we

(25:48):
need to put our number one corner on Stefan Diggs,
He's going to beat everybody else he put across from. Like,
so if you're the Saints, if you're the Browns, like
with Denzel Ward, like you have to start thinking we
have to put our number one corner on Diggs. And
when we talk about like coverage, dictating receivers and game

(26:08):
plan players, like that's the whole point. And now all
of a sudden, maybe there's less attention on Hunter Henry,
or there's less attention on the other receivers like Hollins
or Booty or Pop Douglas or Kyle Williams. Maybe there's
less attention on the run game, which we'll get to
in the bads. Right, Like, if you have to do
all these things, if you have to put safety help,
if you have to put your number one corner. That's

(26:30):
the hierarchy of the offense that we've been talking about
the last couple of years that they haven't had because
they haven't had a Stefan Diggs. So even if the
production for Digs isn't the same every single week, if
teams have to now come in and respect that the
Diggs is still in his prime and still very capable

(26:50):
of having one hundred and fifty yards on ten catches,
then it just kind of changes how your defenses defend
you offensively, which can be just as important as him
catching ten passes in a game. So it's all of it,
you know, put together that has really made this passing
game one of the most efficient passing games in the
league through five weeks. And I kept hearing people saying, well,

(27:13):
look at the level of competition in the opening month,
like let's pump the brakes. Well, now when you do
it against Buffalo, who had a top ten pass defense
in the NFL by Dvoa coming into this game, Like
how many more weeks do we have to wait before
it's enough of a sample size to say that the
Patriots can throw the ball? Like, because we're five weeks
into the season now where they have played a good

(27:33):
pass defense, and they still were able to move the
ball through the air in the second half pretty much
at will. I mean he had one incompletion in the
entire second half of the game, thirteen for fourteen, one
hundred and eighty four yards. So we goshed a lot
about the offense. Let's gush a little bit about the
little more about the offense. Of course on this show.
Of course you can.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well you were posting about it on Twitter. Yeah, and
talk about the line. We'll talk about it. Oh so
you weren't as high on the line as other people.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
No, I we can talk about it now.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Were you going to talk about it in the bads? No?

Speaker 2 (28:06):
No, I mean obviously the run game needs work.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
So I all right, let me rephrase that. Can we
talk about pass protection?

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Pass protection was good? Now, I thought that the pass
protection rate, you know, the pressure rate, excuse me, was
a little.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Bit deceiving in this game. Yeah, Drake made left. He
ran himself in pressure a couple of times, a.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Couple of times, especially in the first half, but in general,
he as soon as he saw Blitz he was out
of dodge. And this kind of goes back to not
to like totally change the subject and make it back
a Drake thing again. This is something that that I
think we all need to come to terms with with

(28:44):
the style of quarterbacks in today's NFL. The old like
sort of adage about beating the blitz is you replace
the ball the blitz with the ball right. If you
get a linebacker blitz, then you throw it over the middle,
right where the guy blitz from. If you get a
corner blitz, you throw it right at the open space

(29:04):
on the outside. Like that's the whole mantra or the
coaching point that from twenty five years ago, when you
know Brady started and Drew Brees started, and Peyton started,
and all those guys started playing football. These guys don't
play that way. They are athletes, they're mobile, they have
exceptional arm talent outside the pocket. So when Drake may

(29:27):
sees a free runner coming or he sees a blitzer
coming and he feels like his running back is losing
in pass protection, these guys are not standing in there
and staring down the barrel and making five yard passes
behind the blitz anymore. Go watch Mahomes, Go watch Allen,
Go watch Lamar Jackson. Like those guys. These guys are

(29:48):
getting out of dodge, right, that's just the way that
they play.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Let me ask something, is Matthew Stafford the last true
like statue esque pocket quarterback, last great one? Anyways?

Speaker 2 (30:00):
It may probably a last great one. Yeah, I mean
Stafford early on in his career could move a little bit.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
But yeah no, but like there's and there's still some
guys that do it. But it's just see the last
guy that's going to be dominant playing that way.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Maybe it's just not that league anymore. Like they don't
play that way. And you can say that the old
way is better than the new way, and you might
be right, like you might you might have a point, but.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Well, the roles make it more advantageous to play the
other way.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
These guys are going to when they sy blitz especially
you know there was one in particular where they ran
a coffeehouse stunt right where the guy kind of fakes
like he's going to drop into coverage, sells it and
then blitzes and they got him. The Patriots is like
the parting of the Red Seas, Like the whole middle
of the line opened up. I think Errett Bradbury was
supposed to have him, and he got fooled by it.

(30:46):
And there's a free runner, you know, coming right at
Drake May and he probably could have stood in there
and hit the slant the pop Douglas behind it, but
instead he rolled out to his right and bought himself
time and hit digs along the sideline for like a
ten yard game. The old quarterback coaches would say, stand
in the pocket, stare down the barrel, and hit the

(31:09):
slant right like that's like what that's what they would
want you to do. But these guys don't play that way.
It's just not their playing style. So could you say again, like,
I'm not saying it's right or wrong to think that
they should be standing in the pocket and making those throws.
I just don't think we should hold it against Brake
made that he doesn't because it's just not really innately.

(31:30):
It's just not his instincts, right, It's just not how
he's wired, and it's not how he plays. I thought
the line and pass protection was mostly good. I did
think Buffalo did generate some pressure with their blitzes in
the second half of this game, but I thought it
was mostly good. And Will Campbell at this point is

(31:51):
at least, if we're being conservative, an average pass blocking
left tackle. Yeah, and he's trending toward above average pass
blocking tackle. And given the narratives, given the conversations, the limitations, YadA, YadA, YadA.
If you told me that he was going to be
like the twentieth best tackle and pass protection in the
league his rookie year, and that's both sides, I would

(32:14):
have definitely taken that. That's both sides, right, not just
like yeah, yeah, yeah, like twentieth best tackle out of
like seventy qualified tackles. Then that's right about now where
he is in pass blocking efficiency. I don't know how
you could be disappointed.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
By that starting caliber left tackle. Those are not easy
to find.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, so they definitely seem like they found their guy
in that respect, the run blocking and left tackle specifically, No,
because I don't think PFF makes it too easy to
fill filter out the right and left tackles. So I
could look at it and try to eyeball it in
a second, But that's that's right where he's at right now.

(32:51):
He's like twenty second or something like that out of
like seventy two qualified tackles, seventy qualified tackles. And pass
blocking efficiency, so he hasn't given up a Saxon's Week one,
he is.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
That's the Sewell's a right tackle. Yeah, Bull's place on
the left side, right, Yeah, all right, Bulls, Colton Miller,
Joel to right tackle, Jawan Taylor.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Well, Joe was playing left, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Why was he?

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Because later I heard that's right Now he's Jawan Taylor,
Darnell right lane, Johnson is right, Deon Dawkins Tunsel shout out,
Germaine Luminor ninth overall my all tackles playing right, playing right, ye,
ninth over It's impressive. Titus Howard, Patrick, Paul Roger Rosengarten,
Paris Johnson, Anton Harrison, Morgan, Moses, Charles Cross, Brainsmith, Mike

(33:37):
and Glinchy, Colt mckivitz, Will Campbell. I guess I should
have been counting how many right tackles were in there.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
I would say we're probably at like the tenth or
eleventh best left tackle.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, fringe top ten left tackles rookie. Yeah, it's I mean,
a long way to go, Like I don't want to
take the full victory lap right now because watch it'll
suck this week. But I know it looks very promising,
is the point. It's, uh, he doesn't look out of place.
There were people who thought he's gonna look out of
place right away, and.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
He doesn't look out of place. And even for the
most part, like his losses, he's not getting blown by
and his losses, and he's giving Drake May at least
chances to step up or move the in the pocket.
And then you know the last thing on Campbell, I
just there are some flashes in the run game where

(34:21):
he's just doing things that are just not really normal.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Once or twice a week that he's just leveling a
guy ten yards downfield.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, I mean the five yard run by Remandre that
put them like into comfortable field goal range, because nowadays
a fifty two yarder is comfortable field goal range. And
the way he hit that, Jared Wilson whiffs on the
double team, completely falls on his face on the double team,
and Will Campbell just blocks the guy himself, but he

(34:49):
just takes the guy. He runs his feet and he
just moves the defensive tackle out of the gap and
opens the gap and opens the door for Demandra Stevenson
to get through the line of scrimmage. That is a
play that when you watch it, you know when Wilson
gets over extended, and we'll talk about that in a
little bit, when he gets over extended and he gets
kind of beat on the double team, like that should

(35:11):
be a stuff that should be stopped in the line
of scrimmage. But Campbell just takes the guy and just
walks him out. And it's just like you look at
these the playing strength and the power that he can
generate is really impressive. Let's talk about the defense. We
can talk a little bit more about the offensive line
here in a bit. Defensively, I think the number one
thing that stood out to me from this game on

(35:31):
the positive side, and then I'll gloat a little bit
about the man coverage was the run defense. The run
defense was terrific in this game. Buffalo came into this
game number one in the league in rush EPA. I
think they were number two in success right like they
were the best run offense in the NFL through the
first four weeks of the season. The Patriots hel James
Cook to three point three yards per carry. His highest

(35:54):
or longest run was nine yards. In this game, they
shut down Buffalo's run game completely and they really took
that out of their arsenal, and that was extremely impressive
to see. A lot of guys were a part of that,
even like I know that they got the two you know,
boneheaded penalties at the end of the game, but even

(36:15):
like Corey Dirtin and Joshua Farmer were giving them good
snaps on first and second down in the run defense,
they were very stout. They have been playing the run
differently than the way Belichick played the run in those defenses,
which we can talk about, which I think is kind
of unique and kind of cool for me because when
I watch the tape, it's very different, and like learning

(36:37):
the differences between the two styles of run fits and
things like that have been interesting. But they we came
into this game saying that they had to stop James Cook,
that that was just as big of a deal as
stopping josh Allen, and they came in and they completely
took James Cook out of the game.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, the front's been just dominant, just just unbelievably dominant.
And you're I talked about earlier, Milton Williams Christian Barmore,
the way those two guys are playing off of each other,
it is a significant development. Forcing teams to choose Kiris
Tonga has been.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
I should have mentioned him.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, he's been excellent. And then yeah, you're starting to
see some of these depth guys step up and make
some plays as well. So against the run and the past,
they they've been they've been excellent.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah. So the one, the schematic thing I wanted to
talk about. I'm going to try to explain this and
hopefully everybody can follow. So in the old system, the
Patriots were very disciplined in their run defense, and they
would set the edge of the defense, so they would
play they would have their edge defenders play the outside
shoulder of the tackles, and they would want to set
the edge of the defense with their edge defenders and.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Force the Collsworth kept talking about them crashing in.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, and force the ball back inside. So the old
defense wanted to force the ball inside. They wanted to
force it to you know, back in the day, it
was Vince Wilfork and it was you know, Dante high Tower.
Yeah sure, Alan Branch said it recently got.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Just yeah sure, Alan player.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, for like one year are talking about jacket.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
You're asking who's in that role. Alan Branch was in
that role and he played it.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Well, so disrespect I'm not disrespecting Alan Branch. I'm not
trying to get bogged down on Alan h Then. You know,
even recently, like they've had really like good run defenses,
even at the end of the Belichick tenure, when everything
else was falling apart, they were still able to stop
the run. But they always had these big backers, you know,
Juwan Bentley types in the middle of the defense, and

(38:33):
that was what they wanted to funnel the ball to.
Now they actually want the ball to bounce. They want
to force the guys to the outside. They're doing what's
called spilling, which is when they take the inside gaps.
The edges are now playing the inside shoulder of the
tackles and they're playing inside to the b gap and
they're trying to get the middle clogged up and then

(38:56):
forcing the ball outside and then they're just gonna chase
it down when it gets outside. So there are going
to be times. There was a time in this game,
two instances in this game where it looks like they're
giving up the edge, Like it looks like Harold Landry
is going inside trying to shoot the gap and he's

(39:16):
giving up the edge but they have what's called a
force defender, whose responsibility it is is to set the
edge of the defense. Usually that's like a defensive back
or the nickel corner. Sometimes if they're wrapping, it's a linebacker.
But the point is is that they want the interior
guys to shoot the gaps. They want the guys on
the line of scrimmage to slant inside, shoot the gaps inside.

(39:39):
And what you're seeing is that right now, the Patriots
are leading the NFL and negative play rate against the run.
They have the highest percentage of plays for negative yards
in the run game in the NFL. Because they are
shooting gaps and because they are making plays on the
other side of the line of scrimmage. It's really it's
kind of like it breaks your ba a little bit

(40:01):
because you're watching and there are times where Landry is
just vacating the edge and you're like, where's he going? Right,
And James Cook bounced a few times in this game successfully,
but even when he did, it was for like six yards, right,
Like they were able to swarm and get to the
football and establish that force defender, at least in theory. Now.

(40:25):
The one thing I would say that is a little bit.
You know why Belichick probably didn't like playing this style
of defense is that it puts your corners, especially your
nickel corner, your slot corner, and the safeties at the
point of attack, which is a really hard assignment for
a lot of those guys. So that's the downside of

(40:46):
this is that, you know, a couple of times it
was like Craig Woodson, a couple other times it's Marcus Jones.
Like now, putting those guys at the point of attack
can be difficult, but that's really the mechanics of their
run defense has completely changed, where now everything is about
taking the inside gaps, getting up the field, and not
necessarily as a dead set on setting the edge of

(41:09):
the defense, which I think is interesting and has been
really productive and effective for them over the last couple
of year weeks. But it's funny like watching it and
being like, well, they blew the edge, right, but it's
not actually blowing the edge in principle. The other thing
that I wanted to bring up with the defense was

(41:31):
the man coverage. You know, forty one per man coverage down.
The numbers are not other worldly. It's not like they
held Josh Allen down necessarily in man coverage, he was
still pretty effective. I think he was like ten for
fourteen for one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy yards
against man coverage. So it's still really good production for
the Bills offense in man coverage. But I'm gonna go

(41:52):
on your side of the street for a second with
this a little bit olex Like this is kind of
a mindset thing to me, like where it's like, we
have better corners than you receivers, right, Keon Coleman, Khalil Shakir,
nice players, But what we're going to come out and
we're going to play man to man coverage and we're
going to challenge these guys to beat us in man
to man. Now, we'll get to the bads with Dalton

(42:14):
Kinkaid here in a second. But for the most part,
you know, Marcus Jones gave up two catches to Shakir,
but he also had to pick and coverage on Shakir
and then Keon Coleman, who I still continue to think
is limited as a receiver basically to one a one
trick pony with the jump balls, really did not do
much in this game outside of that one third down

(42:35):
catch on Carlton Davis in the fourth quarter. So the
mindset of we're going to challenge, we're going to play
man coverage, I think is really good from a confidence
standpoint and just from a whole like kind of culture standpoint.
And then I also thought in this game, what they
were able to do is they were able to get
Josh Allen to be a little bit indecisive. I thought
he was holding the ball. I thought he was scanning

(42:57):
a lot looking for open receivers extend plays, and then
holding and holding and looking around trying to find outlets,
and they kind of got him off his game a
little bit. Now, he was still really good, like, don't
get me wrong, he was still a net positive in
this game, but he was also not superman like. He
was not what we normally see from Josh Allen when

(43:20):
he's on his game. So whatever, you know, the man coverage,
taking away the run game, I think those two things
together kind of got this Bill's offense off its game
a little bit. And the turnovers and the penalties I
think were a byproduct of that in a lot of ways.
So you can say that Bill's off and shoot them
shot themselves in the foot. They did, especially early on

(43:41):
in this game. The first quarter was a flagfest for
them offensively, and that hurt them, but it was good
to see them come out. And I thought he looked
a little bit rattled honestly in this game at times,
especially late, which was good.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
I mean, there's evidence of it. He starts yelling at
Anthony Jennings at the end of the game.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Let me I think Josh Allen little bit of a
sore loser.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Oh you just hate him?

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Well, he's one, hang on, hang on. This is why
I paused. I don't know that that's a bad thing
for a quarterback.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yeah, Brady was.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and but like everybody, oh Josh, he's such
a nice guy and he's such a no, he's kind
of an a hole, and you get to now, you
don't see it a lot because objectively, he's not losing
a lot of games right now. But I think they
got under his skin. And because he's not in that
spot that often and he's still younger, Like Brady learned

(44:38):
to hone that later in his career and didn't even
when he got frustrated, he didn't let it impact him.
But like, like, he wasn't in that spot a lot,
and I think he kind of had to learn that thing,
like most quarterbacks do. I think Josh Allen got. I
think they kind of pissed him off that he couldn't
do what he wanted to do. The plays he wanted
to make that are usually there aren't there. He couldn't

(44:59):
run around as much. He started forcing running around a
little bit late in that game, and you saw it.
His emotions came out a little bit, which doesn't usually
happen with him. He got a little pissed off. And
so again I'm not knocking him for being the sore loser.
I think you want your quarterback to be a little
bit of an ale at times. But they and now
you're gonna have to deal with that in the flip

(45:20):
side when he comes back up here in December, like
he's gonna have a hair cross his ass. Yeah for you,
and he's you're gonna get his best punch because he
didn't get his best punch on that was not his
best Punchich apparently was me knocking him for saying that,
Like we had a whole thing at halftime. I was
very confused by that. I meant to ask you about that,
but they very clearly got to him mentally, and it

(45:43):
showed a little bit and he was more than a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Oh, I don't want to take like the numbers that
he had were still really good. Like it's not like
he played awful in this game, but he just didn't.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
He started making bad decisions in the clutch. And they
want terrible decisions. Let me afraid what they weren't bad
at And he's was not making the right decision regularly
down the stretch. And that's a mental thing because he's
been a lot better about that as of late, and
he's always been. He was doing that against the Patriots
before he was doing it against anybody else. So yeah,
I like, No, I think they rattled him, and I

(46:14):
think it was more in a little bit, and I
think they raled them. I just want to clear this up.
So we were texting at halftime, if you don't mind me
doing this on the air.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
No, And because I'm sure I was right, Well, we
were kind of.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Talking about the game. I mean you were and you weren't.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
I don't even remember what I said.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
You basically said, I'll go back and find it. You
basically said, like that's the worst half of offense. The
Bills have played ever or.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Not not ever, but like this year definitely.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
And I just kind of said, like, I, I don't know,
they were fine. You said, no, no, no, You said I
didn't feel good about second half. You said I didn't
feel good about.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Second I didn't feel good about it.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
They didn't score at the end of the first half,
and that scored the touchdown, and that worried me. And
you said the Bills played about as bad as they
could offensively in the first half, and I said, that's true.
I said, the Patriots defense made some plays. And you
took that as the slight of Josh Allen, which me saying, no,
he's actually not playing that bad. I actually think the
Patriots are kind of having some siller. He really was

(47:15):
knocking Josh Allen.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
I don't understand that because I felt like they really
did not play well in the first half.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Offense, we're fine, They've played worse.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
I don't know. The first quarter they had like five
or six penalties against them on offense, and then they
turned the ball over twice. I think if.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
You want to talk about the turnovers, they they yeah,
they the turnovers were uncharacteristic to them, but.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
They hadn't lost the turnover batt on twenty five straight.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
He still he was still like making some throws and yeah,
but he always makes it, so yeah, it was uncharacteristic.
I don't think it was as bad as they could play.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
It was. That's as bad as they could play in
the first half. The second half, I thought that.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
I think the Patriots defense was part I'm not saying
that the defense isn't part of it. So okay, I
took that comment to mean, like, the Patriots defense has
nothing to do with this the no, no.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
But the Bills definitely were off their game.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
They were off their game. I think calling it as
bad as they me saying it's not as bad as
they could play, I don't think is a knock on
Josh Allen.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
The other thing that Josh Allen's the only what I
should have said, Josh Allen is the only one who's
playing well. None of he was getting That's what Bills
fans think every game is. Was Josh Allen doing everything
one on eleven, him getting no help. That's kind of
what the first half of that game was actually.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Okay, So the last thing here on Josh Allen and
then we'll move on. I watching him over the years,
and you know, watching as much of him as we
have as Patriots fans. When he gets in, everybody's terrified
of letting him get into playground mode, right, Like no
one wants to play him off script. But I'm telling you,
when he gets like that, he's worse. He's a worse quarterback.

(48:48):
Like when he's playing in structure and on time and
in rhythm, he is unbeatable.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Now he is a new development, yes.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Like in the last two or three years, last two years, Okay, sure, whatever,
But the point is is, like I say, coming into
this game, that all these teams are playing soft zone
coverage and they're backing off and they're trying to keep
them in the pocket, and they're playing that whole game
like march on us right might go yeah, ten, twelve, thirteen,

(49:17):
fourteen plays, and this Bill's offense is just said okay,
Like they've just said, okay, we'll turn around and we'll
hand the ball off to James Cook, we'll throw the
ball out in the flat to Khalil Shakir, we'll use
Dalton Kinkaid, like they've been more than happy to just
matriculate the ball down the field, and they don't make
mistakes like they used to. Now they did in this game,

(49:38):
but they didn't for the first four weeks of the season.
They didn't at all last year. They don't. Alan doesn't
make mental mistakes anymore in structure. He's not missing throws
like he used to from like an accuracy standpoint in
structure anymore. And to me, like, all you're doing by
playing that style is you're allowing him to play within

(50:01):
himself and not start to try to be a hero.
And whenever I watch him, I really do think that
the way to beat him is to get him to
be reckless, like get him to start running around, get
him to start throwing all these off platform throws and
trying to create out of structure and trying to do
all this different stuff, because he makes more mistakes that way.

(50:22):
And yeah, he's probably gonna land some punches playing that way,
whether it's with his legs or with his arm, But
you also are going to land some punches, like you're
also going to force turnovers. You also are going to
get third down stops to keep them to a field
goal late in the game. They when you just let
him sit there in the pocket and make throws and
you're just watching him, you know, as a defensive line

(50:42):
you're just staring at him make throws because you're so
petrified of him getting out of the pocket. He has
evolved like he is more than capable of playing that way,
and so I think you can't play him like that anymore.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
I also think this is where you get some of
the disconnect in the narrative of Josh Allen in the
way he's talked about versus what he actually does. I think,
and I'm not saying teams directly are like this, but
I think this is kind of why he's viewed the
way he is around the league. You watch the highlights
and you see him make two or three of those

(51:14):
unbelievable off structure plays per game. You think like, wow,
like he's doing this every because he's good at that. Yeah,
and you're like, wow, he's doing this every week, and like,
you can't let this guy get out of structure. I
see these plays every week. But then when you cause
you're you know, people are watching on red Zone, are
watching their own team, whatever, they're looking on Twitter, when
you actually watch him play a full game, yeah, he

(51:35):
makes two or three of those plays. But you also
see how many misses there are in there, and I
think teams get so freaked out by the two or
three plays he does make, because he does make. What
were he had two in this one. I'm trying to
remember what they were not The one on the first
drive was a nice play by him. Nobody gave Dalton
Can gave credit for that catch. That was a nice catch,
but he did, though there was one I did. I

(51:56):
texted you right away, what a catch by Dalton can get?

Speaker 2 (51:58):
It was good catch. No one's talking about.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
I didn't see one person talk about what a cat
not on the broadcast.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Nobody will get the King kid.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
He was good. You can probably remember better than me.
But there were two or three players where I's like, yeah,
all right, Josh Allen, whatever. But the one like the
one a keyon Coleman in the back of the end
zone and that it's like the way to play him
is you live with the two or three right and
you because people don't realize how many of those plays

(52:26):
he tries to make him dozen't and he still makes
them at a higher rate than most. So it's not
me saying he shouldn't do it. It's not a criticism,
even though you want to make it one. But it's
like that's kind of the way you play him now
is yeah, he's gonna get his but we'll take the
five or six incompletions on the reckless plays that come
with it, rather than let him sit in the pocket.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah, and that's I think that's exactly what they did.
I think that was the game plan, like to rush
te off. They did use some spies and like low
zones and stuff like that to spy him a little bit,
but they did not hold back the pash like this
wasn't a mushrush, contain them in the pocket, just watch
them throw type of game plan. This was, you know,

(53:08):
let's get after him a little bit, and it worked,
you know, over forty percent pressure rate. It definitely worked
and had an impact in this game. The last good Obviously,
we spent a lot of time on the goods this
week for right rightfully, so I want to give some
kudos to your specialists over there, Barthy.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
There have three especially player the week in a row.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Borgallis drills it Andy Andy in the postgame locker room
with the chance drills a fifty two yarder and Sneaky
Big play in this game, Bryce Bearinger hit a seventy
two yard punt that flipped the entire field in the
Patriots favor and made the Bills go on a long
drive and they ended up stalling out and kicking a

(53:48):
field goal. I believe on that drive that was a
really important punt that I don't think Israeli getting talked
about because of all the great things Drake made it
in this game, But any two yard pint in that
spot was really really important. So both specialists coming through a.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Couple things with a nerd out here a ton we
got very minor Patriots breaking news, well major to some. Okay,
all white uniforms this Sunday.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
I did it. Yeah, I knew that. You knew that.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
We didn't announce it, they just announced it. They've never
worn white pants with these jerseys, so that's new. Yeah,
first time thing.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
I believe it's the first time that they've done that
white out since twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
So not even the silver pants, not the blue, not
the blue pants. The other thing. So you want to
talk about underrated special teams plays in this game? Yeah,
and this this goes back kind of like I talked
about Drake may earlier right and taking the zero yard sack.
Andy Borgollis hits the fifty two yard or kick the
crap out of it. Awesome kick, deserves a ton of praise.
Let's not forget he so remember in Miami again. I'm

(54:52):
gonna go back to the Miami game and this is
lessons learned. And they ultimately won the Miami game, but
it's lessons learned. He hits that hits that hu huge
fifty three yarder after missing a couple of kicks, and
then what does he do? He puts the kickoff short.
They try the dirty kick. It's a bad time to
do it. He puts the kickoff short to give Miami
a short field. It really could have cost him. It didn't,
but it really could have. What happens this time, hits

(55:14):
the fifty two yard and what does he do? Perfect
kickoff right between the one and two yard line. You
can't place it any better than that. It requires a
long runoff. It takes seven seconds off the clock. That
costs the Bills an entire play. They probably could have
run two plays at the end of that game. If
it's a you know, a less impressive kickoff and the goal,
and then they only draw the hold or they also

(55:36):
draw the hold, so it backs them up even more
So Jeremy Springer for not going I hate. I'm not
anti the new kickoff rules. I like them. I know
him the minority on that. I hate the dirty kick
in that situation. It's cost too many teams this year.
Teams need to stop doing it. I love that they
didn't do it in that situation. So credit to Jeremy
Springer for making the adjustment. Credit to Andy Borgallis for

(55:57):
hitting the big kick coming back in excellent kickoff. Excellent, excellent,
excellent kickoff. Cannot stress that enough. And then the coverage
team not only tackling him when they did, but drawing
the hold and backing them up. That kickoff was a
significant play. And like it happened right after the field goal,
don't lose track of that kickoff. That was a major

(56:18):
play for them. So and it was something that they sorry,
something that they watched three weeks ago. Yeah, and boom,
turn around and fixed it. So I just really.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Quickly on the punt, I short changed in my yard.
It was seventy three yard punt. So the Patriots ended
that fifty three at the net. Yeah, that ended that
drive before on the Vederian low fall start, which ouch
at their own twenty seven yard line, Barringer booms it
seventy three yards and gets them to the Buffalo twenty

(56:48):
and that was the drive that the Bills kicked the
field goal to tie the game. They stall out on
that drive if that pint doesn't go seventy three yards,
and let's say the Bills start at the Patriots forty
yard line instead their own forty yard line, excuse me,
instead of their twenty yard line, Like, maybe that drive
doesn't stall out, and it's a touchdown on that drive
and they take a lead, and then the Patriots have

(57:10):
to score a touchdown at the end of the game
to win it. So it just was a really big
swing in this game. Both specialists were really, really good
in this game. I thought they deserved to be on
the goods. I really think that it's been a strength
of the team overall. Now there's been some penalties on
special teams early on in the season. They have seemed

(57:30):
to clean that up a little bit as the season
goes on, and now that unit has become a real
strength of the team. All Right, we gotta get to
some of the bads talk about the running back situation.
I do want to talk a little bit about the Saints,
and we'll take your calls, but we have to take
a quick break to pay the bills.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
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Speaker 2 (59:53):
Twa twenty catch catch catch it catch catch football fans
now that traditions matter, turning moments together and is something
truly epic. They're what inspire us to make our Masa
and tostitos the traditional way, starting with whole corn kernels,
no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. All you gotta do,
all you got to give to have a perfect crunch.

(01:00:14):
Discover your next tradition this football season, head to the store,
grab your Tostito's team bag and scan the code for
a chance to score an epic experience with the Patriots
Tostitos tradition matters. Bront Workwear makes work boots in apparel
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(01:00:35):
the real workers in the trades that help design it.
You can even try brunt out on the job and
if it doesn't blow you away, they send it back.
Save a ten dollars on your first order at brontworkwear
dot com, slash Patriots or with coupon code Pa Ta Pats.
I almost wore my bront quarter zip today, but it
was a little too hot. So I stuck with the polo.

(01:00:55):
But it's almost quarter zip season and then and the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Bunch get into quarter zip season already, so you can't.
But like quarter zip or sweatshirt and shorts, that's the best.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
That's I don't like wearing shorts in the office. Nobody
give you that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
You can't take anybody seriously in shorts, but in general
like quarter zip and shorts, sweatshirt and shorts.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Also, shout out to Fredo and to Tostitos just makes
a mean buffalo chicken dip.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
And really.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
And since we started dating, she like told me when
we first started dating, she was like, I like my
buffalo chicken dip is like famous, and I was like, okay,
all right, let's see it. And every Sunday home game
she makes it now for me to bring to the
game with me because it's that good and all. I
really like the scoops. The Tostito scoops are the best
chip to eat the buffalo chicken dip with by far.

(01:01:52):
So shout out to the wife, Shout out to Tostitos.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
You know, I make like nachos. Yeah, so sometimes I
make with the regular chips, but I'll get the scoops
and then you fill the scoop, you put in a
little bit of meat and the sauce and whatever and
vegetables and the cheese, and you can essentially have like
they're like nacho cupcakes kind.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Of you see what I'm saying, right, That's kind of
what it is with the dip, right, because yeah, the
scoop and then you can put the dip in there
and it's like a little you know, like cookie or
cupcake or whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Real quick before before we get back to it. You
know what else is talking about the weather and the
changing of the seasons. Today is a very big day
on the football calendar. Why is that starting today? Because
this happens every year and it starts today, usually starts
this this Wednesday in October, there is an NFL or
FBS game on. Yeah, every single day for the next

(01:02:41):
forty nine days. There is a football game on to
watch every day between now and the day before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
We got Missouri State and Middle Tennessee and Liberty and
UTEP tonight shut out Pop Douglas. That's right, Pop Douglas.
I don't think Patriots have anybody from any of those
other school. But and then obviously Thursday night football Tomorrow
night and we're off and rolling.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
So it is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
This is what I call peak football season.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
We're in it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
It's every single day, and we're gonna get our first
sports Equinox soon too.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
I guess we got a coup more wins the NBA's
last week in October.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Yeah, so we got Celtics there, like the twenty second
I want to say, I am We're probably gonna watch
and hopefully they are better than I expect. That's all
I'm gonna say about the Bruins. I was also very disappointed. Well,
and then we'll get back on top.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
I will say, real quick, Bruins former player who coached
elsewhere and then came back to coach the team. That's
kind of in right now. It's kind of the thing
in the city.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
So okay, I'll give it a two second Bruins take. Yeah,
they should be pretty good defensively like McAvoy, Lynn Holme
zador Off and if Swimming gets his head out of
his butt, then they should be able to keep the
puck out of the net.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
I think we are going to see a lot of
one nothing into one overtime games is what I think
we're gonna see, so but that you can win a
lot of games that way. It's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
I actually feel like there's a number of and the
Bruins are maybe a little further behind where the Patriots are,
but I do feel like there's a lot of parallels
talking about this Patriots team going into the season and
talking about this Bruins team did what was the number
one take all off season with the Patriots, how how
are they going to be? What are they gonna do?
It all comes down to what quarterback. I kind of

(01:04:21):
feel the same way about the Bruins. There's probably a
ceiling with the roster, but it's Jeremy Swayman. It's the
young quarterback, it's the young goalie. And Swayman's a little more,
you know, has a little more experience, a little more season.
He's still a young guy, right, Yeah. I feel like
he is there, Drake May, and they're gonna sink or
swim with him, just like we felt like the Patriots

(01:04:42):
are gonna sink or swim with Drake May. And obviously
they're doing a lot of swimming right now.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Okay, so there's your Bruins man and I hope you
enjoy it. I made it relevant, so the the bads,
there are some bads in this game. I don't want
to gloss over him just because it was a great win.
I think the biggest one, though, to come out of
this game is a combination of that's going on with
the Patriots run game. They're running back position with Antonio

(01:05:05):
Gibson's injury. For those of you that might not know,
he tore his ACL in this game on Sunday. He
is out for the rest of the season and crutches
after the game. It was a bummer bummer of an injury.
So there's a million different technacles to talk about with this. Yeah,
I think the first one that I want to talk about, though, Alex,

(01:05:25):
is just what is wrong with the Patriots run game,
because right now they are thirty second in the league
in rush EPA, They're thirty first in rushing success rate,
so they have one of the worst run offenses in
the entire NFL. And they even are still at the
bottom of the league if you bake in Drake May's
rushing yards and rushing production, which is not good. So

(01:05:48):
I did some digging on this last night, and my
findings were a little bit troubling. I'm not gonna lie
to you because I would have much rather have heard
the stats and the film and all that say. It's
four new pieces on the offensive line. It's a new offense,

(01:06:09):
like they just have to gell as an offensive line
to get this run game going. But from a metrics standpoint,
from an analytical standpoint, it's not the run blocking. Now
that's not to say that the run blocking is.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
What does the tape tell you?

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
The tape is telling me the exact same thing, and
I'm trying to kind of get this out. So they
are averaging right now two point three yards before contact
per rush, So that tells you really like how much
push they're getting. Yeah, right, two point three yards before
contact per rush is eleventh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
That's pretty good number.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Eleventh not bad.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
I think they were like they might not have even
been at one last year. They were right around one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
So eleventh is decent. Now there's another statistic that I
really like and shout out to FTN Fantasy, which is
kind of like the New Football Outsiders. They have a
really coolest stats hub. DVOA is part of it, so
if you want to subscribe to it, that you get DVA,
but you also get a lot of these numbers that
I'm reading off. It's a really cool resource. Adjusted lineyards

(01:07:13):
is basically just like a fancy way to account for
the offensive lines production in the run game, Like how
much is the offensive line helping the run game?

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Isn't that just yards before contact?

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
It's a fancier yards before contact? Okay, but we have
yards before contacts just tangible adjusted lineyards. They are seventeenth,
so middle of the pack, not not terrible. So based
off of yards before contact and adjusted lineyards, they should
be like a middle of the pack, solid fine run team,
average run offense, and they're thirty second in the league.

(01:07:45):
So what's going on? Like, what's wrong? So there's two
things that I see.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
By the way, last year they were one point two
yards before contact, Okay, I think that got boosted late
in the year.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
So here are the metrics. This is the Patriots running backs.
This is what the ball care years are responsible for.
Yards after contact yep, thirty second, dead last in the NFL.
One point five yards after contact per rush. That is
thirty second in the league.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I have a theory on that, but continue, they're.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
Mistackles, forced rate, or they're avoided tackle rate thirty second
nine point four percent, thirty second in the league. They
are dead last in avoiding tackles and they are dead
last in creating yards after contact. They are getting some push,
they are not getting the backs to the second.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
They are getting what's being given to them and nothing more. Exactly,
So is that on traditional runs or on all runs?
On all runs, so you include scrambles? Uh no, those
are just traditional design run but it includes like the
Trayvon Henderson seventeen yard end a round week one and
like that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Okay, anything that goes down as a rush attempt, that's
not scramble. So the stats tell you that it's a
running back problem, not a blocking not saying that they
would be in the number one rush offense in the
NFL based off the blocking that they're getting. But the
stats are telling you that it's a run blocking or
excuse me, it's a running back problem. The running backs

(01:09:15):
are not doing anything with the football. Now, the film,
I think is always going to be there's a million
different reasons why, right, Like, there's not ever going to
be one reason. But what I'm seeing on the film
is that they're running a lot of outside zone and
duo outside zone, stretch right, just aim it right at
the tackle, everybody steps out ninety degrees and we're stretching

(01:09:39):
to the sideline. The goal of that play is to
cut back that you want to try to pin the
defense into the sideline and then cut the ball back
through the middle of the field. That's the goal. But
what's happening to me is that I don't think the
backs are really letting things develop in the way that
they need to, and they're not hitting the cutback lanes
consistently enough that are forming the other run scheme that

(01:10:01):
they're using a lot, which I think speaks to the
yards before contact metric being in a good spot. Is
they're running a lot of gap or duo, which is
just double teams on the inside and there the line
is going to block the bigs, they're going to take
the defensive line and they're just going to double team
on the inside. And then once you get to the
second level, you know, once you start talking about the

(01:10:21):
linebackers and stuff like that, it's two fold on the back.
So one it's on the running back to make the
linebackers wrong. So if the running back plays the A gap,
you bounce to the B. If they play the B,
you bounce to the A right. That's their responsibility is
to read the movement of the running backs at the
second or the linebackers at the second level and make
them wrong, put them in the wrong gap with the

(01:10:42):
cut that you make.

Speaker 5 (01:10:43):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
The other thing is is that you aren't going to
get on duo. You're not going to get a lot
of second level climb, Like the blocks are not going
to always develop to the second level or the third
level of the defense because they're double teaming on the
line of scrimmage. So it's on the backs once you
get down and you get some of that momentum, it's
on the backs to break tackles, like the backs have

(01:11:05):
to either avoid the tackle or they have to run
through arm tackles, and they have to make yards after
contact to really hit those explosives off of duo. So
I think that that's probably what it mostly is is
a combination of the scheme that they're running and the
types of runs that they're running. They're really majoring in
duo and outside zone, like those are the two runs

(01:11:25):
that they're running most of the time. But the other
thing that I see a lot of too. Statistically, they
are one of the worst offenses in terms of the
running back production. Like just what they're getting from their
running backs has not been good.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
So I do wonder if part of that especially, I
don't know if you can break that number down to
the last three weeks, Some of those numbers probably good.
When you're fumbling a ton and you're being told you
got to hold onto the ball and you know you're
still being put back out there. Yeah, you're not going
to break as many tackles. You're not gonna you know,
make as many guys because it's two hands on the ball.

(01:12:01):
You don't want to stay up too long. You get
it punched out. Like you're more focused on that, and
that's maybe not a bad thing.

Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
But like.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
I don't know, I guess that's the end of the tape.
But do you see where I'm coming from, Like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
No, they do wonder run game right now is they're
not getting stuffed. They're not getting negative runs.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
They have like the fewest stuffs, right so.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
They're tenth and stuff rate, which is good. And they're
also tenth closed yeah yeah, or tenth best. You know,
they're also tenth best in power success rate. So they're
the third and fourth down and goal line runs. They're
they're getting the ball in the end zone and they're
getting those first downs and they're not getting a ton
of negative plays. So I said yesterday on PU and

(01:12:42):
I stand by it after doing this deep dive, like
the run game is keeping them on schedule enough where
they can still remain balanced, So they're not if you're
running on first and ten and it's becoming second and twelve,
you have to abandon the run, right, That's kind of
what happened in Week one, Right, they couldn't get the
run game going at all. But if you're chipping away
in the run game where it's like three, four five

(01:13:03):
yards at a time, maybe you're not hitting any explosives
in the run game, but you're still staying on schedule.
That's good enough. If you're this efficient passing the ball.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Yeah, and especially in the Josh McDaniels offense, where it's
all about staying on schedule, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
If you're efficient enough in the passing game, and they
have been highly efficient off play action, I should say
as well, which is a big part of this, that
second and seven becomes a first down then it doesn't
matter that you're not hitting explosives in the run game.
But it's when you get into second and twelve when
you can't pick up a third and one on the ground,

(01:13:40):
you know, when you can't punch it in down on
the goal line in the run game, like that is
when it starts to really hurt you. And so that's
the run game.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
The running back situation is a whole other layer is
a whole nother thing. This season, they have to ride
with Ramandre Stevenson and Treveon Henderson like they're not going
I don't think. I mean, maybe they could swing a
deal out the deadline, but I don't think they're gonna
go out and get a factor back that's gonna change
the hierarchy of their back.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Do you want my conspiracy theory?

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
So I'm not saying they're gonna do this. I don't
even know that I'm saying they should do it. But
there's a team that is struggling that already made a trade.
Start selling off pieces.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
You want them to trade for Derrick Henry.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
I don't know if I want them to, but like,
can we have some fun and talk about this? He
has the relationship with Rabel, they have the cap space
to absorb what is a monstrous contract like Baltimore might
be selling now he's had some fubble problems too, and
he hasn't quite been the same guy at times this year.
But like, how does it not cross your mind? It
does if we're gonna do all this stuff about AJ

(01:14:47):
Brown and well, Mike Rabel and AJ Brown in their relationship,
and the Patriots need a receiver to trade for a
running back bike, And I mean, what would you have
to give up? Like, I'm not giving up a top
one hundred pick for one year as great as Derrick
Henry is, sure, you know, but like I don't know,
let's have something that I'm bringing this up to have fun,
which I know you hate, but like, no, it's a
fair point because if they're gonna if they're going to

(01:15:09):
trade for like you call the factor back, Yep, it's him.
They like they're not I've seen people throughout Breese Hall
and Devin h Haan, those guys are not getting traded
in the vision or like Camara, it's not gonna happen Camara,
maybe Kamara, but like if you're gonna trade for Kamara,
who do you think Rabel would rather trade for Kamara
Henry because they're probably gonna cost you about the same.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
I think Rabel would probably rather Henry McDaniels might rather
come out.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Now, that's an interesting point.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Because Kamara is so good in the passing and he's
such a matchup weapon in the passing game that I'm
sure Josh would love to have Kamara.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
That's an interesting point.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
So it's a good point.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Do you think they'd cost about the same?

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
I can't are they they're they're like, I feel like
they're around the same age.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
But yeah, about Kamara's thirty I think Derrick Henry's thirty one. Yeah,
so I think the contracts are relative similar to Henry's
thirty one.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
I wouldn't rule out a trade for running back because.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
It's not just but not necessarily those guys just like
a running back.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Yeah, but even in contracts, I wouldn't hold it against
him if it was one of those guys either, because, look,
you have a chance to really do something here this season.
Like you might be year ahead of schedule, this might
be like the Commanders were last year, But you have
a chance to really do something in a weaker conference
this season in the AFC. You know, no Burrow, whatever
is going on in Baltimore, who the hell knows. You know,

(01:16:31):
the Chargers are falling apart. They have injuries all over
the place in Los Angeles. Now, like this is Kansas
City's two and three, Like they're gonna get hot Kansas City,
I think at some point. But they're not in a
good place. Houston hasn't been very good. Like, you have
an opportunity here to do something this season, and this
is right now, at least offensively. This is the biggest

(01:16:53):
problem they have on the team is their lead back
is keeps putting the ball on the ground and they're
getting no extra production out of their running backs, Like
they're not The running backs are not adding anything to
the offense right now, and that is hurting them. It's
it's really the only thing that's hurting them offensively. So

(01:17:13):
if you trade for a running back like Derek Henner
and Alvin Kamara, that's obviously a big swing. But even
a running back that maybe is comparable to Remandre that
can just put Remondre on notice a little bit like
that I think could be very helpful too. And let's
face it, like Remandre is fumbling the ball. Now, Antonio
Gibson's hurt, he's out for the season, and so you

(01:17:37):
need depth at running back, but you also might need
you might need a bell cap, like you might need
a number one guy. And I'll just say get this
off my chest now. I've been going back and forth
on Twitter with people about Travon Henderson, and I'm just
telling you how I see it with Traveon Henderson. I'm
not trying to, you know, kill the kid. He's a rookie.

(01:17:57):
He's developing. He has not played particularly well. He has
not played particularly well. And I get that he hasn't fumbled,
and that in itself is probably like a baseline of like, well,
Reminder keeps putting the ball on the ground and Treyvon
Henderson isn't. But he hasn't played particularly well. His rushing
numbers are not particularly productive. He's at like three something

(01:18:19):
per carry. He is having a lot of trouble in
pass protection and with pass blocking. He gave up another
hurry in this game and pass blocking. So he is
still developing. He's not coming along as quickly as we
had hoped, Like we had all hoped that he was
going to be a year one factor for the Patriots
and it hasn't come to fruition yet. So the worst

(01:18:42):
thing that you can do, in my opinion, is to
put more on his plate. Now, he's going to organically
have more on his plate because Gibson's not healthy, but
to purposely put him out there for forty to fifty
snaps a game is just going to kill the kid's confidence,
like he's not there yet. And the other thing I
would say about Henderson is that he's not built for it,

(01:19:07):
Like this is not the role he was drafted to play.
He was not drafted to be a lead back. And
I keep hearing him compared to other rookies like Genti
or Omarion Hampton or Judkins, and you're comparing him to
different kinds of backs, Like you're comparing him to what
more is like Ramandre Stevenson than what is Travon Henderson.

(01:19:28):
Travon Henderson was drafted to be a passing game player,
to be a sub package running back, to be a
change of pace guy. He was not drafted to carry
the ball two hundred and fifty times, right, That's not
why he's here. And when Ohio State tried to do
that with him, he got hurt, and that's why Ohio
State went out in the portal and paid Quinchhn Judkins.
This is literally what happened at Ohio State is they
put too much on Trevon Henderson's play and he wore down.

(01:19:51):
So he's just not that's not who Travon Henderson is
and right now version of who. Yeah, they need to
get him to p before we can start talking about
volume of snaps and touches for him there giving him
nine or ten touches the game. He's doing just fine
with it, Like does let him develop, don't force him

(01:20:13):
more on his plate if you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
Not that there's that much more they can put on
his plate too, because his usage is already pretty high.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
For SI snap right, he's second on the team and
touches like he's getting on the field. He's playing, And
we were talking about this yesterday. It's not like they
red shirted him. It's not. This is not a James
White Remondre Stevenson situation, Remondre's rookie year where they he's
riding the bench, he is playing, he is getting touches,

(01:20:43):
he is returning kickoffs. I don't think he's ready for more.
I really don't, and I don't think that he's built
for more either, Like that's just not the role he
was drafted to play. But most importantly, I don't think
he was. He's ready to play more and to take
on more responsibility. What do you do on kickoffs?

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
So I wonder they're gonna need that third back maybe
in the short term, like maybe they trade for for
a factor back further down the road. If you just
want a guy that's gonna take a couple carries the
gameplay special teams to Michael Hasty's on the Dolphins practice
squad yep, and he was the kick returner here last
year and we know he can do that. And you know,
after him, it's not Marcus Jones or Popped Douglas. They've

(01:21:22):
Jeremy Springers talked about this. You need a guy, you know,
more of a running back, build a bigger body. Do
you try Kashawn Booty?

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
I don't know, what do you think about Kyle Williams
because he's practiced it since the summer.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
So that's one where I wonder, like do they feel
like he is the build for it or was that
more of an emergency thing. I get more involved, get
him more involved.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
Sorry to cut you off. You get them, you get
them more involved. And those are probably two of your
fastest guys that are returning kickoffs now. So I just
wonder if that maybe is an avenue for Kyle Williams
to be more involved.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
It's important. We just talked about the new kick. It's
a new play, it's it's yep and that role specifically,
teams are not kicking to Travon Henderson, so this guy
is going to be essentially your kick returner. Trayvon Henderson's
out there as a de turn at this point. Although
you you did this on Twitter, I wanted to ask
you about this. Yeah, so that because then shows on
the broadcast and it didn't show up in the All

(01:22:18):
twenty two.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
So they's very annoying.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
They did like a late yeh switch.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask a question to Springer,
which I know is gonna blow your mind.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Because usually don't even go to Springer. I swear to.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
God, I saw this in the press box and maybe
I'm hallucinating, maybe I miss saw it. Now they definitely switched. Yeah,
that is on the All twenty two that they switched.
But I could have sworn watching it in the press
box that they lined up with Remandre on the return
team's right and Trayvon Henderson on the left, and they

(01:22:54):
did that right after Gibson got hurt. I think there
was maybe two kickoffs in between, and Remandre was on
the right, and so the Bills kept on kicking it
to Remandre, and then on the last one they switched,
and it like baited Buffalo into kicking the ball off
to Remandre. I feel it because they had their whole

(01:23:14):
return coverage set up and the kicker was already angled
that direction and the return with you know, the coverage
was already scripted to go in that direction, so he
couldn't kick it off the other way, and so he
was forced to kick it off to Travon's.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
Any rule about those back guys moving, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Either.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
The front guys can't.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Yeah, no, there's no rule about that, because the back
guys that like he can move before the ball is
caught too to get out and they move before it's kicked,
is what I'm saying. Uh that I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
I don't know that, but I think you'd have to
be able to because like or you could well they
did it. Could you switch in time? Here's another wrinkle
you could do. Teams catch on you switching, stack them
to put him next to each other.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Stack him and do it at the last second.

Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
And then yeah, do it. Have Henderson goes wherever the
ball is and now they have to kick it short
and try that dirty kick and the teams aren't good
at it. You're gonna get start the bolt to forty
yard line a whole hell of a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe I was hallucinating, but
I swear to God, and then I tried to go.
The TV copy doesn't show it. Yea, the All twenty
two doesn't show it. But I could have sworn that
I saw them switch at the last second, all right,
really quickly, because we're going long here on all this
covering tight ends on defense. Dalton Kinkaid didn't answer there. Yeah, problem,

(01:24:34):
And I'm not the biggest Kincaid guy. I tipped the cap.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
He proved me wrong at least for one game. I
like kids these players, you know, I just you know me, like,
if you can't block, and then you're not for me.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Well, no, he's a slot receiver. Yeah, but he's a
decent player, and no, because you got to make sure
Josh Allen gets all that credit.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
So burn Jalen Hawkins and Craig Woodson in man coverage
on Roberts Plain. He also was ruled that zone like,
he was also really good in zone, finding the soft
spots and zone. They did drop Millon Williams on one
of them, which was whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
Okay, well so crant and then go ahead, Yeah, Collinsworth
giving Josh Allen a ton of credit for not getting
picked off by Milton Williams. You obviously didn't hear this.
He did like a whole thing about how what a
play it was that Josh Allen didn't get picked off
by defensive tackle. Nothing against Milton Williams, but like, yeah,
it shouldn't be that hard to figure out your receiver

(01:25:26):
clearing face on the defensive tackle and then whatever it
was later that drive. The next drive, same sort of concept,
he gets picked off by Marcus Jones. I just that
was it was, although I will say so it was
a little much from Collinsworth until Drake May started making plays.
And then because I usually don't I usually don't mind
Collinsworth unless it's allan or Mahomes For whatever reason, he's

(01:25:48):
not as bad with Lamar Jackson or I'm just not
recalling it. Yeah, he kind of started doing it with
Drake May so maybe there's a new member of the club.
They don't have any more scheduled Sunday night football games
this year. But like he, Drake May drew out annoying
Chris Collinsworth, which is complimentary to May.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
So covering tight ends is a problem. It's so funny
how things change so quickly. In the NFL. They had
nothing but box safeties and now they have nothing but
free safeties. Like Jalen Hawkins and Craig Woodson are not
man coverage players. They are free safeties that to plete

(01:26:27):
playing in the deep part of the field, helping over
the top of the defense, whether it's the middle split
safety whatever. They they're both decent against the run, and
Hawkins is a decent blitzer, but neither one of those
guys is built to cover a tight end. Bowers torched
him Kincaid toward them. They they're giving up seventy five

(01:26:48):
yards a game to tight ends right now, that's second
in the league. Now, they played some good ones, like
I'll give him that, Like Pittsburgh also has good tight ends,
but they're not covering tight ends very well. Do you
try Do you try to put Kyle Duggar back in
the plan? You try to put Alex Austin like inside
and have him cover tight ends just on third downs?
Do you try Marte Mapu maybe as like a tight

(01:27:11):
end stopper. I think they need. It's to the point
now and maybe New Orleans doesn't necessarily have the tight
end to make them pay for it. I think it's
to the point now where you need to start to
like think about it differently, like how like who else
could we use, you know, especially on third third down,
Like if it's third and eight, you know, can we
put a guy specifically out there, like Alex Austin who's

(01:27:33):
just going to cover Concaid one on one right and
so that we don't have to expose the linebackers in
the safeties to the tight end. So it was a problem,
you know, what would you do there? That's what I
would do. I would try to try some different people.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
Yeah, I mean that's basically my answer. You know, I
broughably talked about them adding a running back to me
trade deadline, finding a tight end stopper, whether that's a linebacker,
whether that's a safety, whether that's a corner. You could
try Alex Austin, you could try Kyle Duggar, maybe try
Martine Mapu. Like, I don't know who the right answer is.
I would just keep trying people because you've got to
find somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
I would try Alex Austin and again, like, this isn't
having him play in your base defense.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
This is obvious passing situations and right third down, obviously,
I will say what I mean, Juwan Johnson's not a
bad player. When's the next time they face an elite
tight end? Who's Titans tight end? Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:28:22):
Ninjoku with the Browns?

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
Oh yeah, okay, three weeks and then Kyle Pitts and
then you got Kyle Pitts and then you've got.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
I don't do the Bucks have a tight end? They do?

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
Why am I blanking on who? We did this earlier
this year and I was like, oh, he's an underrated player,
and now I'm blanking on who it is because I
forgot he was still there. Kate Aughton, Oh right, solid,
anything special jetsaid nobody Mike is sick. He's actually been
good in Cincinnati. Yeah, now their quarterback will be I
don't know Giants said, they don't exactly have Why am

(01:28:54):
I blank on his names? Like one of my favorite
players growing up? What was their tight end? That was
like awesome? Yes? Uh? And then you get the Bills again,
the Ravens.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
So they got a couple more yep, you know Bill's
Ravens Mark Andrews again.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
Yeah, they got to get the charge Smith at the
end of the year one more time.

Speaker 2 (01:29:11):
Seventy five yards per game, second most in the NFL
to tight ends. Right now, that's a problem. So a
couple of more on the stuff that gets you beat.
Remandre's fumble obviously, just again have to mention it. And
then I'm going to come to your side of the
street with the penalties, not because I.

Speaker 1 (01:29:30):
Mean those very much gotten them beat.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
Yep. So these penalties are putting them in the stuff
that gets you beat this week because these are different
kind of penalties. These are late hit personal foul penalties
with the game on the line, and this is not
holding or false starting in the first quarter. This is
tackling a guy when he was already tackled and running
the passer. Buffalo goes on a whereas it's a eight

(01:29:58):
place seventy four yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter.
Thirty of the seventy four yards were Patriots gifting them
fifteen yards on penalties.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
Yep, that drive.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
I mean, like, who knows what happens on that drive
if they don't have two.

Speaker 1 (01:30:15):
Backbreak the game. And look, I'll say I said it
last week, I'll say it again more so with the
Gibbons penalty. The other two are just bad penalties. But like, yep,
that crew was calling it tight. They were calling it
tight all night. Some of that was ticky tack obviously
not those two, but like the Gibbons, one's TICKI tack.
But they're calling a ticky tack all night. You got
to know and you got to adjust to that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:35):
So that was the drive that made it twenty to seventeen.
So it's a ten point game at that point. To
your point, if you force a punt there, that's game
over probably right then you're in your four minute offense
and you know you're trying to ice the game at
that point. That those two penalties basically kept building.

Speaker 1 (01:30:53):
Even if you know you're going to take a significant
chunk off the clock. The Bills will go down, get
one score, use up all their timeouts.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
And yeah they really got those two penalties kept them
in the game. And the one on schooler was bad too.
That was literally one was.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
I said there were a tickie tack. They were penalties?

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
Are they not?

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
Whatever happened to the hip drop thing, because that's a
clear hip drop tackle for Marcus Jones. They just didn't
call when they threw the flat I was like, oh wow,
they called.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
A hip drop pempty basedop call.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
Did they ever start?

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
They did for like a week? Okay, it was an
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store of the New England Pagers. All right, we've been
keeping you guys on hold for too long. I apologize,
but we're gonna get to your calls now. I will
wrap the show with a little bit of Saints as well.

(01:32:02):
Patty is an ag on what's up Patty Jen? Thanks
for waiting quick.

Speaker 7 (01:32:07):
I just hey, no problem. So I got a point
and football question and kind of a cupcake question for
you guys. So my point is, just looking forward, I
don't see the Saints game as a trap game. I
don't think there's going to be any trap games this
year because I don't think Brable is going to allow
this team to and and their their play demeanor and
their attitude towards their opponents to to like sort of

(01:32:30):
become complacent. And the question that I have is, do
you think if Biggs keeps this momentum going, do you
think it will hopefully open up things for Kyle Williams.
I know I've been I've been throwing his name out
there a lot. I just want to see what they
have in the kid. That's the that's the football question
and the cupcake question I got for you guys is
what's your favorite Jersey mic sub minus the Club Supreme.

Speaker 2 (01:32:53):
I'll take it off there, all right, thanks for the call, Patty.
So favorite Jersey Mike sub is the chicken Chipotle, all right,
that's my favorite. Obviously I get the turkey like most
of the time because I'm you know, not going to
eat that, you know, chicken cheeseteak all the time, but
that's my favorite one.

Speaker 1 (01:33:10):
It's official sandwich pride of the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
Now right, yes, I can say that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
No, I just I just want to make sure right
in trouble, Yeah, the uh.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
It's a trap game.

Speaker 1 (01:33:21):
It is a trap game. It is, and it's a
young team. And look, they should be that emotional after
a win like that. They should feel good about themselves.
It's a good accomplishment, it's a big accomplishment. But there's
a level of being a professional of coming back the
next week and playing to that same level that some
of these guys just have it. Not that they have
failed to do it, they just haven't been in this spot.

(01:33:42):
So no, it's absolutely trap game. It's one hundred percent track.
I think Vrabel will do his best to eliminate that.
I'm sure you know. I said it on the radio
this morning. And it's been set on the radio and
on TV the last three days. Maybe Vrabel's playing a
super cut of it in the locker room right now
to let everybody know.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
But this is a track, yep, a trap game. It's
the second of three road games in a row. And
I am saying this is somebody that does not play
very much notable in the Lazar House, right, and it's
three straight road games. It's tough. It's hard. No, I'm
saying this on the part. I'm not saying this about me.

(01:34:20):
It's hard. It's hard to go on the road three
straight weeks. Not only that, but like we landed here
in Providence at four am on Monday morning, after seven
it's sneaky, like it's hard to catch up. By today
is the first day that I start. I'm feeling like normal.
And I didn't play in the freaking game, right, So like,
trust me when I tell you it's it's hard. The

(01:34:43):
other thing that I would say, and this is just
my personal opinion, it's New Orleans and it's Nashville, Okay,
So like, let everybody's gotta be like, this is a
two back to back road trips where you're the Patriots
are really going to to prove how disciplined of a
program they have. Yeah, you know, our guys locked in,

(01:35:06):
Our guys, you know, going out in New Orleans. Are
they going out in Nashville? Are they locked in? Are
they ready to play? Uh? Dad's gonna be big. Now
they might be good enough, you know, just to talk
a little bit about the Saints, because we have like
thirteen minutes left, they might be good enough to beat
the Saints.

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
Even on their like a C or or D effort,
it would still be disappointing. It would put a D
effort after beating the Bills, but they might be good
enough to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
So with the Saints, their offense I think is one
of those offenses that is not impressive on paper and
uh frankly not overly impressive on film either, especially their
offensive line. And I think Rattler is like an NFL quarterback,
but I don't know if he's a starting NFL quarterback.
But they have some sneaky good skill talent, Like do

(01:35:56):
they are.

Speaker 1 (01:35:56):
They a little dolphinsy and the way they're built schematically no,
but personnel wise, the old Dolphins in terms of the speed,
speed and Rattler, I think there's maybe maybe not to now,
but like younger to because he can run a little bit.
You can run a little bit. He can throw the
ball down the field.

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
I just think, you know, they have sneaky skill talent.
I really really like Rashid Cheed. I think he's gonna
be sought after commodity if he hits the open market. Yeah,
and just want fast guys. You gotta sign your fast.

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
He's fast.

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
Stand he's fantastic. He's fast. And so he's going to
be a free agent next offseason. I don't know if
the Saints are gonna let him be a free agent
next offseason, but technically he's on an expiring contract. Alvin
Kamara not the Alvin Kamara from five years ago, but
I can still break tackles. Is still a mismatch in
the passing game.

Speaker 1 (01:36:50):
You can't forget about him.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
Alave and Brandon Cooks are NFL receivers, so this group.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
Jawn Johnson's a solid tight end.

Speaker 2 (01:36:58):
If they had a better offensive line and a little
bit of a better quarterback, I don't think this offense
would be thirty second in the league. Like, no, they're
not that bad, but they are contending for the first
overall pick. I think they're twenty second in the league
on DVOA on offense, so even like it's not terrible,
like it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
The actual number that matters. They're twenty seventh in points.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Yeah, so it's not god awful on offense on that
side of the ball, twenty fourth in yards and then defensively.
I wanted to talk about this because I was very
excited when one more.

Speaker 1 (01:37:28):
Thing about the Saint team just looking at it now, Yeah,
credit to them. They don't turn the ball over. They've
only turned the ball over three times this year.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
Yeah, no, they don't. They don't score a lot of
points though they had five, right, they first five turnovers
against the Giants last week and put up twenty six points,
and they scored six points off those five turnovers. Like,
they just don't score a ton of points. But Shaheed
hit an eighty seven yard touchdown last week.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):
Yeah, he's very.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
Capable of just popping a big play. Alvin Kamara can
still run the ball and Spencer rattlers like Sneaky Mobile.
They've ran him on some design runs, like some Philly
style stuff that Kellen Moore ran last year with the
Eagles with Hertz and some of it's worked, so it's
not a completely I think that the take is like,
don't let the offense sneak up on you. Like it's

(01:38:17):
it's not completely. Now their offensive line blows, and I
think the path to a blowout for the Patriots in
this game against New Orleans is their defensive line just
taking over against the Saints offensive line. The Saints are
missing stays A Ruiz. I don't know if he's gonna
play in this game, but they're on a backup right guard.

(01:38:40):
They've moved Trevor Penning inside to left guard because he
failed outside at tackle. Former first rounder Kelvin Banks is
their left tackle. He's a rookie.

Speaker 3 (01:38:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
They their offensive line is like last in the league
and everything like, they've had a really tough time blocking.
So when they have Milton Williams and Harold Landry and
Christian Barmore to this week and hopefully you know, Chase
On's back Tonga tonga like that, that's gonna be tough
for New Orleans Patriots. Now, the other side of the ball,
which I wanted to talk about because this is one

(01:39:11):
of our favorite people that is coordinating the Saints defense,
and that's Brandon Staley. Brandon who I think it might
be like the first coach that we argued about. Yep,
this is like pre Kyle Shanahan arguments. I feel like, well,
I mean it's the same idea. So Brandon Staley is coordinating?

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
Uh now, because when do you get hired by the
Chargers like twenty one already in San Francis.

Speaker 2 (01:39:35):
Yeah, but Shannan, at that point, I don't think it
was like you really hate Brandon Staley.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
I just don't think he's a very good coach. He's
very He's a very good head coach. And I say
that all time. There's some guys that are good coordinators
but not good coaches. I look at what happened with
the Chargers and look at what they're doing now without him.
I think that the evidence stands on its own. He
was not ready for that job, too much of a
math heavy approach, among other things. He if it's this

(01:40:01):
and I need to dig more into the Saints defense
on my list do today? I remember with Chargers he
didn't really care about defending the run. He was bothered
by that. Does he still doesn't so not much. We
said it last week the Bills team that was not
good against the run. The Patriots need to get the
run game going. They could not do that. Well, here
we go again, a good week to get the run
game going. Can they do it? But I will say, you're.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Gonna say something nice about Brendon Staley.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
I'm gonna say something nice about Saints. It's a good front.
It's a good front, Devon Godshaw, Brian Berze in the middle,
Cameron Jordan can still play their linebackers tomorrow, Davis P. Werner, Chase.
It's honestly, and I think Chase, it's honestly kind of
crazy that this team is this bad. The roster's not
I mean, they're not a playoff team, but this is
not like a bottom of the league roster.

Speaker 2 (01:40:47):
No, but that was my takeaway.

Speaker 1 (01:40:49):
Now and now their secondary is another story.

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
Their secondary is not great and their offensive line.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
Is right, But that's front is actually especially the line.
I really like Brian I think underrated player. Yeah, and
I think him and Godshaw compliment each other.

Speaker 2 (01:41:03):
Well, so you said some things there about Staley that
I think are relevant. The first thing is his whole
thing that started to explode in the NFL, him Vic Fangio,
all these gurus defensive guys basing their defense out of
two high safety shelves. Right, So two high safeties, you're

(01:41:25):
taking a guy out of the box. It doesn't necessarily
mean light box if it sometimes means neutral where there's
seven guys in the box, but you're not having that
extra hat in the box, so you're light in the box.

Speaker 1 (01:41:34):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (01:41:35):
Now, when you're light in the box and you have
Aaron Donald on the defensive line like he did with
the Los Angeles Rams, Aaron Donald can take back gaps, right,
he can play two gaps and he can make up
for the fact that they're a man short in the box.
When you have the Chargers defensive line that he had
as the head coach there, and now when you have
the Saints defensive lines a little bit better but still

(01:41:58):
not you don't have a Hall of Famer like Aaron
Donald might be one of the best players at his
position in the history of the NFL. So it's harder
to play the run out of those boxes. But what
they do in the secondary that they do pretty well,
which I broke down on bu TV this week. If
you guys want to watch it match zones, they play
a lot of match coverage in the back end, so

(01:42:18):
they're carrying verticals and then they're passing off the underneath
routes as like as zone. You know, Saban and Belichick
invented this thing. You hear a lot from the Saban tree.
They call it rip Liz, you know, and riplaz is
just the way that they make the calls and determined
if it's a zone side or if it's a man's side.
You also hear a lot of like fangio parlance, which

(01:42:39):
is like palms and things like that. Basically it's match quarters. Okay,
that's a fancy way to say it. And all of
that does is that if you're a quarterback, you in
a receiver too, like you have to understand are they
zoning this off or are they manning this right, because
that's gonna lead you to some traps, like if you

(01:43:00):
think it's man and then but actually they fall off
in its zone, then you're going to be thrown into
a team party, right, So you have to be on
your p's and q's there. It's a good scheme. Defensively,
he's not a good head coach. I've conceded that point
to you. But he runs a really good highly sophisticated
defensive scheme. They pressure a lot, they play a lot

(01:43:20):
of disguise back end coverage with their match zones. It's
a hard defense to prepare for mentally. Yeah, so those
are the things that they bring to the table. Offensively,
I think they have sneaky skill talent. Defensively, I think
that they have a good scheme also really quickly on
the defense, Tomorrow Davis is an awesome linebacker. He's a

(01:43:41):
really good player. He can cover his butt off. He's
extremely athletic. So, like you said, it's not a team
that has no talent. They just don't have a great quarterback.
They have a first time head coach, and they have
some fatal flaws, like the offensive line.

Speaker 1 (01:43:55):
The spots are they're weak. They're really weak. That's the thing.
It's not like, Okay, they have a good front and
they're secondary's fine, or oh they have good and the
spots where they're strong they're not like overly strong either.
But it's it's I don't think it's entirely They've also
played good teams. I think the start season right yep,
Cardinals nine or Seahawks, Bills, and then they beat the Giants,
So I don't think one and four is entirely reflective

(01:44:16):
over that roster. I don't think they're a playoff team.

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
But can we do lightning round through the round?

Speaker 1 (01:44:21):
Let's go real quick?

Speaker 2 (01:44:22):
All right, real quick? If Ryan in New Jersey is
still hanging on Ryan, what do you got?

Speaker 6 (01:44:27):
Hey?

Speaker 8 (01:44:28):
What's going on?

Speaker 7 (01:44:28):
Guys?

Speaker 2 (01:44:28):
Thanks?

Speaker 7 (01:44:29):
Good call, really quick question.

Speaker 8 (01:44:32):
First, what are you guys seeing on film that's prevent
Kyle Williams from being more productive?

Speaker 7 (01:44:35):
And two?

Speaker 8 (01:44:37):
Is linebacker a tight end a bigger need heading into
the draft?

Speaker 2 (01:44:39):
Thanks? Thanks for Ryan. Kyle Williams, He's to play more
like he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
There's receivers playing well in front of him.

Speaker 2 (01:44:46):
There's flashes, there's flashes of separation on the all twenty two.
It's exciting to see that. That's why I wanted to
maybe put him on kickoffs, to just give him an
opportunity to touch the ball in a different way, a
different phase of the game.

Speaker 1 (01:44:57):
Linebacker, I think at linebacker, what tight end?

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
I understand the future need at tight end, but I
think that Henry and Hooper still have something in the tank.
For the short term. They're gonna need a I think
this plain is a good player. He had a really
good game. They need somebody next.

Speaker 1 (01:45:12):
I think this is going to be a fun linebacker draft.
I say that because a lot of the guys I
really like or juniors. Yeah, so some of them might
not come out because when it's a loaded class, guys
might stay to be a higher pick next year.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
But weak side linebacker like a true coverage you know,
speed sideline to sideline linebacker to playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:45:31):
Polane Kyle Lewis from pitt who you won't might not
need a draft that high.

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
All right, Sean is in Vancouver. What's up, Sean?

Speaker 6 (01:45:39):
I noticed by in the fourth quarter. I know he
didn't play that much, but did they use him at
all in the first half? And the other question I
have is Zach Moss a possibility to uh to pick
up That's it. I'll take up there.

Speaker 2 (01:45:52):
Yeah, thanks Sean. I they did play to Vie a bit,
and I thought he was actually pretty good in this game.

Speaker 1 (01:45:56):
I thought he played well a limited role, but but
he gained something.

Speaker 2 (01:45:59):
Yeah, he was played holes in the run game and
was a little bit sturdier in there than like a
Christian Ellis. He did lose one edge on an outside run,
but overall, I kind of saw a vision of how
they could use him as like an early down stack
linebacker that I'm in on. I thought he was pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
On Zach Moss. He had a neck injury last year.
He hasn't played since, So I always wonder with guys
like that, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:46:21):
Yeah, Austin is in New Hampshire. What's up? Austin?

Speaker 7 (01:46:25):
Hey guys?

Speaker 8 (01:46:26):
Any quick question for you? A Are you anticipating them
to try to sign Christian Gonzales this year due to
the free agency cap and then also just with the
way drag Mays balling, do you guys project to see
another big move on free agents and a lot of
guys interested in coming here?

Speaker 2 (01:46:42):
Yeah, Austin, So, Christian Gonzalez is extension eligible next off season,
so we can start having this conversation. Yeah, well that's
what I meant. Yeah, yeah, So we can start having
this conversation in February and March when they get into
the off season. He is extension eligible and as the
Dallas Cowboys can tell you, doing it early is much
better than doing it late.

Speaker 1 (01:47:03):
So if they can move on because Witherspoon's too, so
you want to sign him before the Seahawks signed. Witherspoon
was the other question. Uh yeah, Drake May is gonna
be a drawn fregency. Yep, at least for just some extent.
I don't think they'll have, you know, everybody banging down
their door, but that's somebody you can sell.

Speaker 2 (01:47:21):
That was a great lightning round. Good good job by
the callers. I appreciate that. Sorry we didn't have more
time to talk to you, guys, but this was a
huge Ware's Real football is a big breakdown on the
on the win on Sunday night. We will be back
next week, same time, same place. We'll talk about the
New Orleans Saints. We'll preview the trip to Nashville for

(01:47:42):
Mike Rabel back in Nashville to face his old team
and the Tennessee Titans and cam Ward who's been pretty good,
pretty good cam warden.

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
His interceptions turned into touchdowns.

Speaker 2 (01:47:52):
Yeah, I'm excited about that one. So we'll see you guys.
Thanks for watching.

Speaker 1 (01:48:01):
Hey this is Alex.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
Thanks for tuning into the show.

Speaker 1 (01:48:03):
If you really want to help.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
Us, make sure you like us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:48:09):
Also make sure you follow us on the New.

Speaker 2 (01:48:11):
England Patriots YouTube channel to see this show and everything
else we do here at the Patriots.

Speaker 1 (01:48:15):
That's a lot

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