Patriots Catch-22 5/28: Wednesday OTA Takeaways, Player Observations, David Andrews Retirement

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Lazar and Alex bar Blizzarre from lazarn Hello, everybody nailed it,
Joined has always buy powers.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Risk.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars The thing I
hate about people complaining about Tony You don't like it
because you can't stop it. There's a way to stop
the touch push. Don't let the Eagles get to third
and one. Some people say there's injury concerns. All the
data suggests that there's no injury problems. Is a lower
injury rate. And then there's the it's not a real
football play. You might want to look up the history

(00:52):
of the sport where it has its roots. You want
to beat the good teams, get better, don't ask the
league to stop them for you catch. That was a
good take by you on the touch push. Thank you,
You're welcome. I don't give you a lot of compliments
on new takes, So there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
You know it's genuine when I rarely do that. Hello everybody,
Evan Lazar, Alex Barth, Patriots Catch twenty two. Next couple
hours talking Patriots OTAs.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
We literally just.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Walked from the practice field into the radio studio as
practice was wrapping up for the Patriots here on this Wednesday.
So we're going to get into all of our takeaways.
We'll start the top of the show with that. We'll
take your lovely calls and emails as well as the
show goes on here. But we'll open with the show
with just our general thoughts on this practice. And I

(01:38):
would say the big storyline from last week was the
interceptions by Drake May during the open practice to the
media last Tuesday, Right, was it Tuesday or Wednesday?

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Last week?

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Today's Wednesday, So I think it was last Tuesday that
Drake May had that four interception practice heard around the world.
That was a big story. Interception free practice for Drake
May today. That's always a positive. There weren't any turnovers.
There was a time when the ball hit the ground
on a boarded snap, but frankly, it happens really quickly

(02:10):
and there's no film to go watch back, so I'm
not sure if that was a center quarterback issue. Is
a quarterback center exchange issue, Let's just put it to
you that way. But no interceptions, that's a positive. I
still thought though in general, and look, it's it's May
like we always say it's May twenty eighth. It's a
long way away from even padded practices, let alone the

(02:31):
season or preseason. But there was still a general feeling
of maybe uncertainty or just inconsistency that I saw from
Drake May in the number one offense, where it still
felt a little bit clunky at times. There are some
high throws, there were some holding to the ball. Doesn't
always seem like he's one hundred percent sure what he's

(02:51):
looking at just yet. So good news, it's turnover free thought.
He had some moments today that he maybe didn't have
last week, and in the positive direction that we can
break down. But in general, I still feel like we're
in those early days of a transition right now.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, he just looked unsure at times, which is the
best way I can put it, not all the time.
He did get in a rhythm there at one point
midway through practice, and really was Hunter Henry that kind
of helped get him through it, which duh, right, it's
his favorite receiver. So but just yeah, it's it's clearly
still a feeling how process for him.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, there was one pass, you know, over the middle
of the field to Hunter Henry that I've seen Drake
May make on film last year one hundred times and
just a dig cut and cut to Henry that he
was just a little bit early and maybe a little
bit high to it that went incomplete, and that's one
that you're used to seeing Drake May make in his sleep.

(03:44):
And so there was some of that, maybe not the turnovers,
which is were catastrophic turnovers that we saw at times,
but maybe more so that on the positive side, I
thought what you saw a little bit today when when
he started to settle down or settle in with some
pocket movement and bouncing around the pocket a little bit

(04:04):
some of that off platform stuff that we have grown
to love here from Drake May. So there's some of
those elements to it as well. Honestly, you know, from
an offensive standpoint, from a scheme standpoint, I want to
get give too much away or going too much detail
about the scheme, but so far it just feels like

(04:24):
the Josh McDaniels install like I haven't seen. There's a
lot of talk about McDaniel's going to college programs and
maybe adding things or innovating his offense or updating his offense,
whatever word adjective you want to use to describe it.
So far, we've seen a lot. They've done a lot,
which I think is always a McDaniel's staple. They all,

(04:47):
you know, McDaniels will have everything in his bag, and
they have done some outside zone maybe like more than
I was expecting, and some moving pockets as well, which
I think is good that type of stuff, even though
the pay haven't necessarily been overly successful with that over
the last couple of years. In theory, it fits Drake

(05:08):
May's skill set really nicely to have the pocket move
and get him out on the perimeter and on the
move and cut the field in half and make throws
on off platform or on the move. That's him, like,
that's when I think he Drake May is at his
best in when he feels the most comfortable. So I
think those are all good things that they've done schematically.
But at the same time, and again it's probably too

(05:30):
early to be having these conversations as his basic install
time of year. I haven't necessarily gone out of this
practice and scene and said this is a totally different offense. Right,
it's still Josh mcdaniels's system. They're still running a lot
of the same things that they were running here in
the past. So in that sense, I don't know if
we're really going to see this grand unveiling of this

(05:52):
hugely different offense. But what's been your impressions just of
what they've been doing from that standpoint, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
I mean, it's definitely to wonder how much of it
was going to be. And this is early and they're
in the early stages of install like you said, but
it's it's Josh McDaniels. Like there's some new wrinkle ish
things in there. It's not the Brady offense certainly, but
it's you You wouldn't look at this and be like,
I wonder who's designing this, Like it's a Josh McDaniels

(06:19):
designed offense very clearly, and they'll they'll work wrinkles in
here or there, but you know, like we see them
using a fallback, right, that's textbook Josh McDaniels. A lot
of different packages. It's not, And maybe some of this
is just the install and trying to go through as
much as they can. Maybe it'll translate to the season,
but we've seen this a lot. When McDaniels is the OC,

(06:39):
it's not the same five skill position players out there,
snap after snap after snap. There's a lot of moving
parts and some of that is again you're working different
guys in cause of depth, but going from eleven to
twenty one to twelve, like they're they're given a lot
of looks. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
So the other big picture takeaway offensively, then we can
go over to the defense and then break down into
vidual players from there. The other big picture takeaway I
had offensively was just watching some of the things and
again I want to try to not give too much
away here, but just watching some of the things that
they've been doing with Travon Henderson in these practices feels

(07:17):
exciting to me. They it feels as though they are
going to try to turn Travon Henderson into a featured
scheme touch player. Yeah, and instead of doing like they
tried this in twenty one with John new Smith and
it didn't really work. But Travon Henderson is.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
A much different skill skill set, you know, much more explosive,
much faster player, much smaller player, right, and just a
totally different player from John new Smith, a different position,
different everything. So they had some packages that I thought
were unique where you know, they're using Travon Henderson in
some different ways, and that to me is excited.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Now.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
The other the flip side of that is you don't
want to force feed it, which I thought in because
they gave him the big contract and you know that
he was a big free agent signing for them, that
they kind of force feeded it a little bit at
times with John new Smith where they were just trying
really hard to make John who Smith happen. Right, we
just paid this guy, we just gave him this money.
We're going to try to make him happen. I don't

(08:17):
want to see that with Traveon Henderson necessarily. But what
I'm getting at is is when they drafted him, I
felt this way, and what I've seen the last couple
of weeks, in these first two practices, it kind of
confirms it. This to me is more than just like
a traditional running back, like when you draft a guy
like you know, Genti or Omarion Hampton or something like
you're drafting a traditional running back. The way that I

(08:38):
view how they have shown us at least a little
bit with Traveon Henderson is that he is going to
be used as a true gadget scheme touch player on
a lot of different instances where he is going to
line up in some different places that isn't necessarily the backfield.
He might even line up with another running back on
the field, like they might really use embrace pony packages,

(08:58):
but it's not even like true pony because Henderson's kind
of being used flexed out like as a receiver and
in different from a different alignment. So that is exciting
to me that they see Henderson as someone that can
do that. Then you can obviously build things off of
that where he's a he's a decoy and he's not
necessarily the one that's getting the ball. But you know,

(09:20):
let's say they give him a jet sweep and they
get him out in space, they make a positive play
out of it. Well, now you can show the jets
sweep and you can run action off of it, and
then you're out here and now you're hitting the defense
at a different point of attack. He's he's really impressed
me in these practices with his speed obviously, and that
we kind of knew was going to be a parent

(09:41):
with Travon Henderson, but the usage of him is different,
Like I don't think it's you know, when we try
to compare him to backs, in this role in the past,
you know, the James Whites, the Shane Vereens, the Keavin Fulks.
Like this feels a little bit different to me than
what they did with those guys.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, it almost feels kind of Dion Lewis ish, but
he's a better receiver. Like Lewis didn't have that receiving
he wasn't as nearly as politicized receiver as Henderson. Yeah,
they're gonna I don't think he's going to have one role.
And the other thing is we know and it it
changes with some guys, but traditionally Josh McDaniels does not

(10:23):
throw everything out there with a young running back, right,
it is a slow burn. It is a slow build
up with these young running backs. And I think even
if Henderson is still involved early more than the traditional
like young running back would be the It's good. His
role is going to build over time. So whatever' seeing

(10:44):
from him now, my guess is going to be more
built into what he's doing by week one and even
in week one, two, and three. I would think the
role is going to build further from there as the
season goes on.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
And it's also some of the things that they're asking
him to do now, like the traditional running back stuff
that you're talking out that they've had slow burns with rookies.
A big part of that is reads like reading your
your run fits and things like that pros right, but
if you some of the things that they have shown
that they've done and in some of these practices are

(11:15):
are a lot more straightforward than that.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Like a jet sweeps.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
A jet sweep right, Like if he's going in motion
and he's either taking the ball or he's a decoy, like,
that's not you're not reading anything per se like that.
That's just that's just being an athlete, Like you're just
getting put in a foot race and you're being an athlete.
Like those are the types of things that maybe you
can do a little bit more early on as a
rookie that isn't as mentally taxing as being like a

(11:40):
three down back would be. So that that's, uh, those
things you can do with him right off the bat,
even if he's not mentally all the way caught up
in terms of being able to be a featured back
as like a true tailback out of the backfield.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Let's let's talk a little bit of.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Line I thought you know on this h I it's
non padded practices, and I try not to put too
much stock in line of scrimmage play and non padded practices.
But I spent a little bit of eleven on elevens
today watching Keon White versus Will Campbell, which I thought
has been the matchup pretty consistently and all of these

(12:17):
eleven on elevens that we have seen, and is kind
of the type of guy that in theory might give
Will Campbell some problems. It's a big, long, powerful edge
rusher with a good first step, and you know, there's
a size disadvantage there in terms of length with Will
Campbell and with Keon Whitey did get him clean on

(12:39):
one move, Keon, did you know on a beat his
two hands wipe, you know, kind of just dipped underneath it,
which we've seen a little bit on film at LSU
from Will Campbell. But they're they're they're going back and
forth right like there's some holding of their own there,
and then that left guard. It's just been kind of
a mystery box. I feel like at this point that
Mike Rabel might be toying with us to try to

(12:59):
keep track of all of these different combinations. I think
it was Tyrese Robinson out there for a lot of
practice today, which no disrespect whatsoever to Tyre's Robinson. I
just don't know if that's going to necessarily hold by
the time we get to August. But they're they're trying
out a lot of different people at that left guard
position as of right now, and it really does feel

(13:22):
like that spot is a completely open competition.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, it looks wide open, and there's still some guys
that are probably working their way back from injury and
things like that, but these are you know, we talked
about Layton Robinson. We talked about City So who was
here today after not having after not we wasn't here
the last open practice. We saw all right, now I'll
actually be able to get my thoughts straight. Yeah, and

(13:46):
drink some water. We talked about Jared Wilson at that
left guard spot. We didn't talk a lot about Weschweitzer.
We didn't talk a lot about Tyres Robinson. It's it's
wide open. It's anybody's game to win. And my guess is,
behind closed doors, it's probably a different guy every day
or every other day, and maybe Cole Strange had his day,
maybe Leighton Robinson had his day, maybe City So had
his day, but he was on the right side today.

(14:06):
And it's just to kind of set the stage for camp.
They're going to get everybody filled in as much as
they can, and then when the competitive portion begins, when
the pads come on in camp, it's game on.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, I am curious to see behind closed doors. You
mentioned that maybe it's rotating, and we don't know obviously
what's happening in those closed practices, but at least in
the two open practices, Leyden Robinson hasn't necessarily been at
the front of the line. And I just wonder how
this staff McDaniel's rabel view Leyden Robinson because I felt

(14:41):
about Leyden Robinson coming off his rookie year similarly to
how I felt about City So coming off his rookie year,
which was that they did some nice things, did some
good things. You know, there's a long way to go,
but you could see a skill set there that maybe
could project into a starter eventually, you know, and build
up to that. We haven't seen Laydon Robinson and be
too heavily involved, especially with like the quote unquote starters,

(15:04):
So it'd be interesting to see if that changes as
we go on here. I was surprised, as I'm sure
a lot of people were that Tyres Robinson got a
crack at it today. I didn't have that on my
bingo card as somebody that would be heavily in the mix.
It is interesting that Cole Strange has been getting some
run at right guard, which I you know, I guess
maybe they're looking at him and saying, well, if he

(15:25):
doesn't win the starting job, you know, can he be
a three position backup? Can he back up both guard
spots and center and make himself valuable that way. I'm
still waiting, and we haven't seen Jared Wilson do much
in these two practices. I don't know what it is
that he's that's holding him back, but we haven't seen
him do much. I'm still waiting to see if Jared
Wilson gets in there and starts making a push, like

(15:47):
I feel like, I know we've talked a lot about
him being a center a long term and that probably
being his most natural position is playing center, but it
still feels to me like that's probably their best five
talent wise on paper, Like the group that has the
highest ceiling would be Campbell Wilson Bradberry on when new
moses like that feels like the most talented five linemen

(16:11):
that they have currently on the roster. But that would
mean putting Jared Wilson at guard and not his natural
position like center.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
So the offensive line.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Like I said, I'm not going to look too much
into these non padded practices for the lines of scrimmage
and things like that, but that's some of the things
that we saw out there today. Moving on to their receivers.
I'm trying not to get ahead of myself speed receiver
in May, but Kyle Williams probably had the highlight of

(16:42):
the day for the offense on a go ball from
Josh Dobbs. Caught it over his shoulder. Nice adjustment coming
back to a ball that was like outside, you know,
one of those like contort the body type of catches.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
He has flashed. He gets open.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Now, him and Trevon Henderson in this setting should be
flashing there to really explosive, fast, quick twitch, good movers
at skill positions that should flash this time of year.
So I don't want to I'm not starting to print
out the Kyle Williams red jacket just yet or anything
like that. But I did through two practices, I've seen
him get open more than his fair share of times.

(17:19):
Let's put you that way.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Look, I'll say this that sorry, just little breaking news
which I think you were probably aware of. The Patriots
are going to honor David Andrews the retirement press conference
on Monday. Oh yeah, so the team just tweeted that out,
So I guess congratulations to David Andrews on his retirement.
The thing with Kyle Williams to me, we can get

(17:41):
more to that later. We should get more of that later.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
The thing with Kyle Williams to me is he is
He's out there on the field a lot. He's involved
a lot, which isn't always the case for rookie this early.
So whatever they're seeing their liking because they're giving him
more opportunities. So it is that massive caveat of non

(18:05):
padded practice and all of that, But clearly he's doing
something that the team wants to see him doing because
they continue to put him out there on the field
with the top unit. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
You know, I look at Kyle Williams and I just
like what I like about him is that he just
has that ability to get open on the outside and
they just haven't really had that. Now it's different. It's
not he's not a big body receiver and it's five ten.
We're not talking about him getting open on the outside
on on uh you know, high points and back shoulders

(18:37):
and using physicality and things like that. It's it's separation,
and it's really quickness at the line of scrimmage. Like
he beat Battle clean just right off the line of scrimmage.
You know that wasn't you know, like oh, you know
late in the down, you know, third phase of the
route that we're running by somebody, that was just we're
right by him at the line of scrimmage. So that
that's not something that they've had in a while. And
I think that versatility can really be unlocked. And Josh

(19:00):
McDaniel's offense, where this is a guy that's skill set.
You know, we've talked a little bit about Brandon Cooks,
you know, more lends itself to like the Cooks, Dion Branch,
like that type of archetype than like a true outside guy.
And they've tried so hard to find, you know, going
back to like Nikhil Harry and whatever, like to find

(19:20):
that big body outside X and maybe this system just
isn't meant for that, Like unless you're Randy Moss, right,
which is.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Just you show me a system that isn't a fit
for Randy Moss, I'll show you a bad sense, right.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Like, maybe it's just this system though, and we're talking
about mere mortals that aren't Randy Moss. It's not necessarily
meant for that. It's meant more for the separators. It's
more for you know, the four to four speed and
the good separation and the good release and all that
kind of stuff. So I'm caustiously optimistic about what we've
seen from Kyle Williams. The other receiver that I don't

(19:54):
think is necessarily getting a ton of talk out of
these practices, just because he's been around, he's a veteran
that you can see the confidence in having played in
this system.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Is Kendrick Bourne today, Kendrick Born, I just.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Feel like you knows where he's the spots that he's
supposed to be in. He knows the system probably better
than just about anybody that's on he's on the field
with at this point. He should Yeah, absolutely, and uh,
and I feel like it's just confident, it's crisp because
he has been there and done it. So I'm not
ready to write Kendrick Bourne off. I don't think anybody is.

(20:27):
But we've we've talked a lot about him being sort
of on that bubble potentially as like the fifth or
sixth receiver, and could he be the odd man out
to a younger player that's cheaper and that's you know,
a recent draft pick, those types of things. I'm not
ready to go there yet with Kendrick Bourne. I think
he's got too much. He's got just too much experience
and too much savvy within this offense that maybe he's

(20:49):
still going to be around a little bit.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
I mean, I think there are people that are utting
him off. And as I said, like, don't people want
to talk about Kashan Boody. People want to talk about
Javon Baker. Who's going to get that last spot. Kendrick
Bourn has to be in the mix. We've seen what
he can do in this offense. I understand that was
three years in a knee injury ago. I get that
it's not a perfect situation, but he just he looks
confident in this offense. He has chemistry with Drake May,

(21:14):
He's he's gonna be a factor here. He's going to
be a factor. He's at the very least, at the
very least, he's gonna make a strong, strong push for
the roster. Maybe they ultimately decide they just want to
get younger. That's probably the biggest thing working against him
is he's I believe it's going to be his age
thirty year right, I think he's twenty nine now, but
heah turnings thirty in the summer's had a major injury,

(21:34):
and right is he in the contract? Yeah, that's thirty
in August. So uh, maybe that's probably the biggest thing
working against him. But he knows this offense, he can
succeed in this offense, and he can succeed with Drake
may So. A couple more things on their receivers.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Jalen Polk still off to the side doing grounds on
air with an offensive assistant. That probably stems I'm we're speculating,
just to be clear, but that probably stems from the
injury at the end of last season.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
He's yea all the way.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Back for shoulder, right, Yeah, he's not all the way
back for full team stuff. Yet he's been doing everything else,
just not the full team periods, but he's off to
the side doing routes on air and going pretty hard.
Like I'll give him credit for that, right, Like, I
know it's routes on air, and I'm not like sitting
here telling you that it's breakout season and just.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Kind of walk through the rehab stuff.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
He looks like he's taking it on with the right attitude.
But it did stand out to me at least, and
I think we were talking about this during practice that
they as they were going down the depth chart and
getting you know, ones, twos, three circling in there, it
did stand out to me that Javon Baker was near
the back of the line. Now, maybe we shouldn't look

(22:47):
too much into depth charts in may and all that
is fair, But what do you think about You always
tell me to look at like who's playing and when right,
and when Javon Baker is out there and Ben Woolridge
is the quarterback that's thrown him the football, it's just
notable that he's out there with those types.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Well, yeah, Baker's the one guy that's working with all
three quarterbacks. Ye, Like he's all over the place, which
tells me they're really unsure maybe of what they have
in him. Yeah, and by them, I mean the coaching staff.
Elliott Wolf obviously is still here. He drafted him, but
you know, they want to see they want to try
him in different roles, and they want to try them
in different combinations and see what's going to happen. So
I think it's like anything's possible with him. I saw

(23:26):
some people talking about Mike Vrabel walked off the field
with him after practice and the two were chatting, like,
he's made some great catches in this camp. They've come
against guys who probably aren't going to make the team,
and they've come on the field with a lot of
guys who probably aren't going to make the team. So
he's doing He's making some plays. But at a certain point,
what we'll be telling is, all right, does he lose

(23:47):
those Woolridge reps get more with the first team, and
then can he contribute as consistently. Consistency has been a
problem for him. So when you see him kind of
making big plays against those lower units, you're not seeing
him pop as much with the top unit. That's where
you wonder, al right, like is he turning a corner?
Is this just Yeah, he's an NFL caliber player. He's

(24:07):
better than some of these guys that are brought in
for camp, right, But when you have just other guys
on the roster who have a stronger case to make
the team, he's gonna need to do He still needs
to do more well.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
The big throw that he caught down the field was
an obvious push off that.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Would have been not a complete OPI.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
I mean he just literally tossed the guy to the
ground like that would have been an OPI. But he
does right. He runs a nice inbreaker, like a nice
dig route. You know, at the second level. We've seen
him do it a little bit even last year, especially
in the preseason. Was one of Drake May's like first
like in rhythm, in structure throws.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
That he made.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
I want to say it was against the Eagles in
the preseason. Backside incut, he runs that route pretty well,
So there's still some juice there. And I watched Javon
Baker and I'm like, this guy's got juice. He's got talent,
Like you can see, he's got explosive movements if he
can just kind of put it all together. But unfortunately
for a lot of guy guys that are drafted where

(25:01):
Javon Baker's drafted and have similar stories. That's always their
story is he just never really was able to put
it all together. And that's just kind of the world
that that Javon Baker is in right now. A couple
more notes on offense for me, and then i'll if
you have any leftovers. Eft and Chisholm still smooth, still

(25:22):
running with the second unit, but still looking pretty smooth
out there, still catching passes. Wrote his number down a
couple of times.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, you mentioned smoothness.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
That those little jump cuts that he does in the
open field, they are kind of fifty like the one
thing that you watch with him on the tabe with
Eastern Washington. He just doesn't have a ton of bursts
with the ball in his hands. Once he gets into
the open field. He's not gonna outrun or run away
from anybody, but he's got that short area of quickness
and he's got some jump cut ability. And my guy
land Larrison just catching all the checkdowns again with backups

(25:54):
against backups, but uh checking, you know, checking those boxes.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
This early in camp.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
It'll be interesting to see, you know, at what point
do we see maybe Chisholm start to elevate a little
bit on the depth chart, or Laris and start to
elevate a little bit on the depth chart. But those
two guys I thought did the same thing they did
last week, which was when their opportunities presented themselves. They
were noticeable on the field, especially Chisholm. Chism has been

(26:20):
noticeable and both these practices.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, when do those guys move up? I think that's
probably something we get to more in the summer. Once
the pads come on. They're on the right track, they're
on the right trajectory. I just don't think these are
the kind of practices where you're making that kind of move.
But yeah, they're both doing what they need to do
and absolutely doing what they need to do. Anything else
on the offense stand out to you. Morgan Moses was

(26:44):
a little bit more relatively full participant. I don't think
he did one hundred percent of the team reps, yeah
that that top unit was out there, but he did
nine last week. So he's trending in the right direction.
That's good to see. And he had a knee procedure,
knee surgery, right, Yeah, he's working back from something he
knew the and I think he said that last week, Yeah,
talked about Kyle Williams. Jae Bell had a really nice

(27:05):
catch today. Yeah yeah, Jahem Bell made a nice like
diving slide and catch. Craig Woods was all over him
like it was good coverage. Dobbs underthrow it a little bit.
I think he'd probably try to lead Bell away from
coverage and it just turned in and one underthrow. But
Bell adjusted made a play on the football like Hooper
was out here today. So we got to see a
little more CJ. Deprie, a little more Jahem Bell, Jack
Westover looking like he's still squarely in the mix for

(27:28):
a roster spot, So got to see a little more
of those guys today. I would say Jaheen Bell did
a good job of his opportunity.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
With his opportunity, Drake may is starving, and not that
Hunter Henry can't do this, but he he loves to
throw the seam.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
He loves two routes. He loves the seam, and he
loves a.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Nice sale route right a corner flag, you know, into
the sideline with the outside receiver clearing it out like
he loves that. Those two routes and Jahem Bell, even
though he's not necessarily that traditional inline wide tight end.
There's a lot of evidence on his college tape of
him stretching the seam and being able to make those
types of plays down the field as.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
He does it more from the slot than like traditionally.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Right, and so he can do that, you know, he
can do that sort of thing, and just when you
watch these practices that that's really and if I had
to say, like my most positive I guess outlook about
this offense with Josh McDaniels is that McDaniels is very
good at accentuating the middle of the field and Drake
May is very good at accessing the middle of the field.

(28:25):
So those two guys together should marry up pretty well
in that sense. I always see Drake May when he's
going through progressions and things like that, he wants to
throw the ball through the middle of the field.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
He wants the seed the tight end, seat wants Bryson Desbet, Yeah,
he wants that tight end. Team.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
Whoever can do that the best out of this group
behind Henry and Hooper are obviously going to be here.
I think has a really good chance to make this team.
And as we move forward, we were talking about this
a little bit of practice. And I know this is
getting a little head of ourselves and away from the
twenty twenty five season, but we are a draft show.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
We are an off season show. That's our wheelhouse.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
And as we move forward here, evaluating tight ends, trying
to target tight ends in the draft that can stretch
the seam and have that vertical juice to their game,
I think is going to be something that we're going
to talk a lot about in the twenty twenty six offseason.
Like that seems like a skill set that they could
really unlock with Drake May with the right guy, and

(29:23):
we'll see if they can find that guy. Personnel wise.
Moving over to the defense, there's you know again, you know,
tackling anybody to the ground. There's a ton of physicality
for the defense out there. But the one consistent theme
upfront from the defense has been that four man defensive line,
Like that's clearly the unit that they want to roll

(29:44):
out Week one against the Vegas Raiders of Landry Barmore,
Williams White like, those four guys are have been consistently
working together in all these practices. Every once in a while,
Chase On will rotate in for Land and get some
run at that right or left, I guess the spot.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
They've both been on the field together at times too.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Like that that unit though, those four guys together with
Chase on you know, also kind of being that that
fifth and maybe Tonga over the nose in some of
their early down based office.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Just huge man, he's so big just seeing him out
that you see him every time, you can't miss him.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
That that group has been on the field a lot
and pretty consistently throughout these practices. So the two takeaways
I have from that are one, it's pretty clear, and
I I will like, I haven't been the biggest key
On White guy. I've kind of felt like he's a
little bit of a tweener. Maybe Keon White's like not

(30:45):
that he's a bad player by any means in the
old system, and he wasn't a bad player, like he
was probably one of their better defensive players last year.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
At least. It's certainly at the beginning of the year
it looks.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
More natural for him in this system, already playing with
his hand in the dirt, and.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
He said that he said he wants to play more
like he said that his first year his biggest concern was,
like he didn't want to blow an assignment. Yeah, more
than any like more than more than being worried about
making a play. He didn't want to blow an assignment.
So this his assignment in his defense is to make plays.
This is this looks like a really good fit for him.
And he's going to play more with his hand in

(31:21):
the dirt, and he's going to play close. He's not
going to be all the way outside the tackle. Is
probably going to be their head up or right outside
the tackle, like in a five technique, And he just
seems like he knows, you know, he's being allowed to
get up the field.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
Obviously, there's a lot of pass rush reps in a
camp like this, where Drabels called it a passing camp
multiple times, so you're going to see a lot of
pass rush stuff. But I just I like what I've
seen so far out of him. I think this is
a good fit for him in this scheme. But those
four guys have been pretty consistent on that defensive line.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah they have. I thought Joshua Farmer had a really
good day to day from that group up front, broke
up a pass line of scrimmage, had another screenplay he
almost grew up blew up. Even Anthony Jennings, who we
talked about last week. I think I was going to
bring him up next. Yeah, he had a really good day.
A couple of would be sacks. Again, it's non pads.
You put as much sock into that as you want to.
But they they are they are deep up front, especially

(32:19):
when it comes to the rushers. Uh, when it comes
to guys on the edge, We've talked about them, maybe
need another tackle, but they they have good depth on
the edge, and that group got after it today. I'm
interested to see.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
You know, I was going to bring up with Jennings
because I thought he flashed a couple of times today too.
Definitely had one that would have been a sack, one.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Like a clean right away sack, and another that And
there were a few times too where they they collectively
collapsed the pocket. It would have been a sack. But
you don't look at that one and say this player
stood out or that player stood out. It was just
all right the pocket. They team meeting at the quarterback
ye phrase.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
So Jennings, it's interesting to me because he's he's clearly
Landry and and Chase on are clearly at the top
right now. Of that edge rusher depth chart, and you know,
wherever you want to put keon White, you can put
keon White in that conversation. But those three guys are
clearly ahead of Jennings right now. What's Jennings's outlook because

(33:12):
I'm still trying to figure out exactly and he made
some good plays today and maybe it can translate like
I'm still trying to figure out exactly where Anthony Jennings
fits into this puzzle, because he's not really the skill
set is a edge setting outside linebacker, stand up on
your feet, set the edge of the defense against the run,

(33:32):
play on first down, like that's the skill set, and
that's just not really.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
What they're going for now.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
You know, they're really going more for up the field guys,
playmaking type of guys. And I'm just wondering where Jennings
fits into this whole thing because he's still here, you know,
him and Jelanicava are both still here, but both of them,
especially Jennings, because we've just seen him participate a little
bit more feel like an odd fit or just don't
feel exactly like what the player they've targeted. You know,

(34:00):
Landry Chase on Swinson and the draft have a very
clear body type and skill set that they are really
redundant to one another in that type of way.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
I thing. I think there's something to be said for
you don't want necessarily a bunch of guys who are
all redundant to one another. You want your starter, similar backups.
You have to change much schematically, but you have a
bunch of pass rushers. You still want a guy that
can come in there and stop the run. Yeah, you
still want a guy who can put in there on
early downs or in short yarded situations or late in
a game. Right, if you just build a team of

(34:30):
primary pass rushers, you're gonna get with the Jaguars in
London last year, They're gonna run the ball seventeen times
in a row knowing you can't stop it. Right. So
I think that's definitely Jennings's role. We'll see what happens
with Tavai. He was limited today, but you need guys
who can stop the run. You need guys who can
stop the run. He can do it, and I think
he gets underrated as pass rusher. He's not Miles Garrett,
but he can. He's not a sack guy. What he

(34:55):
did really well at Alabama, and I don't think he
was asked to do this enough here, Like he can.
He has a knack for getting in passing wings and
pushing the pocket back and even if he's not shedding,
his blocker doing a good job to get his arms
up and make sure the ball can't get thrown by
his ear. So I think he's just kind of a
utility guy. Yeah, he can play. You know, you can
move him around. He can play a different couple different spots.

(35:17):
He can play in different situations to get back up
to have he's high level backup, I think, get a
bunch of different spots.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
So they've played a little bit, you know, they've played
mostly a four down front, and they played a little
bit of over where they have four down guys and
then one guy up on his feet at the end
of the line of scrimmage. And obviously they're going to
mix and match what fronts they use, and it's gonna
be game plan and situation oriented and all that good stuff.

(35:43):
But I could see that being a spot for him
on the strong side, that could be a fit. I
just don't know if I necessarily see him as like
a hand in the dirt type of player. And for
the most part they've been four down with four guys
with the hand in the dirt on the first level
of the defense. And so where does Jennings fit into
all that? Moving back, I agree with you on Farmer though,

(36:03):
that was a good, good shout. I know he had
a couple of flashes today or it was a little
bit more noticing.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
A good day for the rookies as a whole. Good Yeah,
he's got an interesting bill.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
He's got those long arms, right, you can see that,
and uh, but he's compact, like it's not like he's
just like he's not necessarily huge in relatively speaking, of course,
but he's got long arms and he's got like this
compact frame. I'm trying to think of like a body
type comparison, and I don't really have a good one, like.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Kind of built like Barmore, isn't he.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
I think there are some overlap there, Like if you
look on like mock Draftable and stuff like that, there's
some overlap there with Barmore.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
I could see that.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
I think Barmore is a little bit bigger, you know,
but maybe that's just because he's older and Barmore like
three ten, three twenty isn't farmer like three ten.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
I don't know if he's that big farmer at the combine.
If Wikipedia has him at three twelve, yeah, I don't
know what he was at the combine. Six yeah, three
h five. We're talking.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
That's a big difference. We were going up to three fifteen,
three twenty Barmore three ten. I think Barmore plays closer
to three twenty.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Three fifteen Yeah, okay, so maybe maybe some Barmore there,
But I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued by him. The other guy
that I thought was really noticeable today from the second
level was Robert Splaine. Like Robert Splaine guy flies around.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Now I'll say this, I do not know if Robert
Splaine was cheating the play. A couple of times it
looked like Robert s. Bulaine knew the play before it
was called in the huddle. So there's a chance that
you know, they've been practicing against one another for four
or five days now, like maybe he's starting to pick
up on some of the basic install of Josh mcdaniels's offense,
and he had he was really early to the ball

(37:42):
a couple of times where I was like, that was
maybe a little bit too early, like are we are
we going off cards here? Like what's the deal?

Speaker 5 (37:48):
Right?

Speaker 1 (37:49):
You know? So I don't want to put too much
stock into those specific plays.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
But he's definitely got good play recognition, and he plays
even faster than maybe like his athletic ability would suggest
because of that, because he's he seems like he's a
half a step ahead air of a lot of these
plays at a lot of times, like they kept on
trying to get the ball outside, whether it was like
swing passes to Trevon Henderson or whatever, and Splaine was

(38:13):
on the spot immediately on a couple of those I
had not. I jotted him down two or three times
with you know, tackles that were right on the on
the line of scrimmage. So today I thought I saw
the full Bobby Spallaine, you know, I saw a little
bit more out of him today.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah, he And it's that's kind of what you look
for in these practices. Like obviously defensive players can't really
make plays because they can't hit, But do you get
to the right place at the right time. There were
two guys we talked about today being in the right
place at the right time Splayne was one of them,
and then Craig Woodson was the up.

Speaker 5 (38:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Quite he he almost had he almost had an interception.
He'd picked it off over the middle.

Speaker 6 (38:49):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, he was a high throw to see j Dupree
from Josh Dobbs and uh, he's half an inch taller,
he probably picks it off. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
So he he's been in the right spots. I think
he's great, not great so strong word. I think he's
His strength is probably playing as more of like a
zone a true zone defender. I know he can play
man to man on tight ends, and he's done that
a little bit at Cal. I didn't think it was
bad coverage by any means on the throw he gave
up to Jahem Bell, like that was more of a

(39:18):
good catch through some contact and like truly bad coverage.
But the thing that hurts Woodson I would say, in
terms of his man to man ability against tight ends,
he's got a little bit of a shorter upper body
and shorter arms, so it's harder for him to kind
of get into the catch point and make plays on
the football when he is targeted. So I don't necessarily
look at that and say that that's like the strength

(39:41):
of his game is going to be tight end stopper,
like they're going to put him up against past catching
tight ends. Where I think his strength of his game
is is playing in the middle of the field, whether
it's rotating back into that free safety role or rotating
into the shorter zone distribution as like a robber or
a deep hook or something like that, over the middle
of the both those spots I feel like center field,

(40:03):
split safety, and then underneath zone. He looks really comfortable
in all those And you mentioned the one over the
middle of the field he almost picked off. Dobbs saw
the window, Flash was gonna throw it there, and and
Woodson was just in in the window like he just
read it well and sat right there in the window
and forced Dobbs to airmail It's otherwise he's gonna pick

(40:25):
it off. So he's got a good knack to his game.
He's got some good instincts. I was not overly high,
Like to be totally honest, I was not overly high
on that pick. I thought it was the one time
where it felt like they may be reached a little bit.
There are some other safeties that I preferred, you know,
Billy Bowman, going back to the draft, and they might
have been right about Kriik woods now super early, Like

(40:47):
you're right, I'm not ready to crown him yet, but
I can watching him through two issues. You see the vision,
you see the skill set, you see the the talent
there from the player. Maybe this might have been they
might have been done a good out on this guy,
Like I'm ready to give him some tiny teeny bit
of credit because not because I'm not ready to give
him any credit for anything, but just because it's early.

(41:08):
But I see what they went for there with Craig Woodson.
The other thing that stood out in the secondary, and
this has been pretty consistent based off some of the
other reporting that's been done, is Alex Austin playing a
little bit more inside in the slot now today Carlton
Davis wasn't at practice, a veteran voluntary OTA you know,
wasn't at practice, So maybe that just gave him the

(41:30):
opportunity to go in this direction. But they've talked about variables,
introducting press conference other press conferences about the big slot
and having a bigger body type in there than a
Marcus Jones or Jonathan Jones who's no longer here. Maybe
that speaks to that. So Alex Austin certainly fits the
bill as somebody that has a little bit more size

(41:51):
that can still play man coverage inside.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, And I thought it was notable that when they
went with that look, Alex Austin stayed inside and we
saw Mark Jones working on the boundary, So they want
to get him some reps right there. I kind of
interpreted that as and maybe both ways. Maybe they want
to get Marcus Jones reps on the outside, they want
to get Alex Austin reps on the inside. So even
if Marcus Jones is going to stick around his primary
slot corner, they don't have a clear backup. Yeah. So

(42:14):
if Alex Austin can be your third boundary corner and
your select your second slot corner, that's great durability. That
probably saves your roster spot somewhere else. So good to
see that.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, So that was that. What do we get from
the Kickers today?

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Alex movie?

Speaker 7 (42:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (42:27):
So, uh, Borgallis missed one left. He missed pretty wide
left from about forty. It was a little over forty.
It's tough to see they're going the long way. John
Parker Romo hit all four of us kicks. One of
them was really close. Mike Greheese actually confirmed with the
member of the staff after practice that it was in
fact good because we weren't entirely sure. So I love

(42:49):
that that that's the hard hitting report in right, John
park Romo four for four, Boorgallas three or four with
a miss wide left.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
So I didn't track to make some misses quite like
you did. That's why I teach you have for that.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
I haven't.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
There has been some inconsistent hits, right, Like, am I
wrong about that? Like some of these that may maybe
are technically good haven't necessarily come clean.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Off of either guy's foot.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
There's been some hooks, there's been some you know, there's
been some just mishits.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
I would say. I would say Parker Romo has more.
Borgalis definitely had the one in their first practice that
he didn't get square but still hit it straight. Yeah,
the one today. I don't know what went wrong there,
but it was a pretty bad ballflight. Yeah, so we'll see.
I still think it's Borgoalis. But no punting John Parker Romeo.
Today they actually did do a couple of punts. Oh okay,

(43:39):
they did three punts at the very beginning of practice.
I don't know if this was like truly live reps
or a walkthrough, so I didn't put out the stopwatch times,
especially because one of them he kicked relatively short and
looked like he was on purpose set up a return.
That one was three point seventy five seconds. The other
two half times I had five point oh six and
then five point five to one which bounced out of

(43:59):
bounds at the six yard line. And our first one
was a beautiful punt, wown beautiful punt. That that really
that's your highlight of practice? Was great punt? Why can't
we give them credits? Five to five hang time from
Bryce Parring? Is that not?

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Is that your your highlight of the practice. I'm asking
you seriously, it's.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Probably either the Kyle Williams getting off the line on
the deep ball he caught against Miles Battle, Yeah, or
the Jahem bellcash those are probably the highlights. That's fair.
I think those are two good highlights.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
I would say Kyle Williams was probably the highlight of
practice there as well. So that that's your practice report
for you. There's one other thing I want to get
to that is obviously something that I have to be
a little bit sensitive about. But it started out the
press conference right away. It's a story. We can't really
fully ignore it. And that was obviously the video of

(44:47):
Stefan Diggs from over the weekend that's gone a little
bit viral. I'll just say what Rabel said and then
you know, if you want to give it, take you
and give a take. But he just said that we
got to make good decisions, and I think that's a
good that's a good line, right like that. That's really
what it is, right It's whether it's in the facility
or it's outside the facility. You just want to see
the players making good decisions. Yeah, oh, in any way,

(45:10):
and he brought it back to practice and said, you know,
I hope that we make good decisions out here at
practice in terms of football, you know, the actual football.
And then when we're away from this facility, I hope
we make good decisions as well. How did what did
you take it? Right off the jump?

Speaker 1 (45:24):
But I give her credit carry Kregan right off the bat,
just first question about some right thing. I mean, I
thought that obviously Vrabel had the right answer. We'll say,
you know, I don't know how much more information is
going to come out. Yeah, Like, I know, people debate
what that is in the video that he has, but
it's you can't confirm it, right, So what I I don't.

(45:47):
I'd be surprised if this is something that becomes maybe
gets some internal discipline, but I'd be surprised if this
becomes like a much bigger thing than it is at
this point now, all publicly, all we're going off of
in a different but similar thing is him posting videos
of his workouts, which you never know, right, Like you
know that that happens. Every athlete nowadays has their own

(46:08):
social media channels and they're posting videos of his workouts.
But if we're just basing off the information that we
have of him posting those videos, he looks like he's
really attacking this rehab and this return to play, and
if his head is in the right place when it
comes to football, then some of this other stuff is
just kind of what you get with the big time receivers,

(46:28):
with the highly paid wide outs. Like we know that, right,
it goes back generations that these guys are are who
they are from a personality standpoint, but from a football standpoint,
we haven't seen him out there yet. For these practices,
so we haven't seen it with our own eyes, but
we've posted on Patriots dot Com that he's has checked
in and has been in some of these practices. There

(46:50):
are pictures of him.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
I think it was over the weekend, right that we
posted of him at one of these practices. One of
these OTAs might have been last Fridays practice that he
was at. So he's been kicked around. He's been here,
been out a practice at least once. From OTAs. He
looks fantastic in some of these workout videos that he's posting.
So I guess if I had to give a take

(47:12):
on it, like I just I just don't really just
be smart, but like I don't really care, right, Like,
if he comes in here and he's defon Diggs and
he plays football and he's ready to go when he's
cleared medically and all that kind of stuff, then you
know what he does in his free time away from
the facility is up to him.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Who he dates, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, like perform, Right,
There's a lot of guys that have fun off the
field and do what they want to do off the field.
And if you show up and you play, you generally
get a little bit more freedom with that stuff. If
it starts impacting you on the field, that's another conversation.
We'll have that conversation if it does.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, So that that's practice. That's practice.
Wrap up to start off the show, we'll open the
phone lines here and just to second the emails as well.
If you want to email in at podcasts at Patriots
dot com, we'll.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Read your emails before we open up the phone lines.
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news summer is upon us and you can stock up
on everything you need to kick back and relax with
winning styles from Bob's Discount Furniture shot. Bob's from the
latest featured packed media centers made for summer movie nights,
sleepover friendly sofas and sectionals with built in pop up sleepers,

(48:19):
and Bob's signature mattresses made with cooling technology to keep
you feeling chill and comfortable. So stop in and spend
your summer with Bob's Discount Furniture, the official furniture store
of the New England Patriots.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
A little a little long on the Bob's read, but
the best one like there wasn't any huge words or like,
you know, bad alliteration, So that was a clean Bob's read.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Sometimes we get ones that throw the sales staff under
the boss that you go, good job, Evy. Sometimes there's
ones that are a little clunky, bit the hand that feeds.
This one was clean though, So good job Bob's good job.
Everybody did the sales guys ninety five break great reads. Yeah, yeah, I'm.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Sure that they loved that part of the show. What
you think, Alex, Alex behind the glass? I have two Alex's,
which is like a little confusing to me.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Honestly, let's not forget we already had this debate one
of the shows where you weren't here. You were on
the show, but I was hosting, and I did the read,
and what we figured, you're better at answering the phones
and I'm better at doing the reads. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
that's one hundred percent true. But you're you're you're the
radio guy amongst the two of us, so that that
makes sense that you would be better at doing the reads,
I would hope.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
So you also do like a lot more reads, like
I was on the air with you the other night. Yeah,
and you guys like have the whole book and everything.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
You gotta keep track of the read three an hour
during the week. Yeah, well it has to be one take.
It's live. It's live actually, uh. The the producer I
have on Sunday mornings confer Breeze. Some of the other
producers do too. I think George did it uh the
other night. It's like, if we have they'll they'll record it.
So if it lines up, they'll help you out. So
but you got to do it live at least once.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
I like the ones where you guys are in a
commercial and then you do a live read and then
you go back to commercial because I never I always
when I was younger and didn't you know, know how
the sausage is made. I always wondered if those were
truly live or if those were just like recorded.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. Not to peel the
curtain back too far, but that's what that's what keeps everybody.
You gotta be on your toes, you know, That's what
that that's the big money. If you want the on
air guys to read the ad instead of just having
the voiceover guy do it, because it's the on air voice.
So people more likely stay tuned in right right, because
they're used to that voice. That's that's how you make
the big books.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
There you go there that that's a peak behind the curtain,
A little peak behind the curtain, is right. All right,
Let's get to the phones. Lorenzo is in Virginia. What's up, Lorenzo. Lorenzo,
you there?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
All right?

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Call back in Lorenzo. You was on hold for a while.
Patty is an aguam.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
What's up? Patty?

Speaker 5 (50:45):
Guys?

Speaker 1 (50:46):
How are we doing?

Speaker 5 (50:48):
Doing all right today? A little stuffy, but I'm doing
all right. I want to ask you guys a question
about Drake May And I tried to propose this. I
tried to write this thing yesterday with you. But just realistically,
do you guys think it's Do you think it's more
probable than not that he has his breakout year next

(51:11):
year as opposed to this year? And hear me out
on this. You know, he only had two years college
experience starting. If you look at some of the best
some of the guys that had the best rookie seasons,
the two guys that come to mind most recently are
Justin Herbert and last year Jaden Daniels, both of those
guys started at least four years. I know Herbert didn't

(51:31):
start like all the games this first two years.

Speaker 8 (51:34):
And if you just built that.

Speaker 5 (51:35):
The guy's like Joe Burrow. I know he only started
two seasons, but to me, like May has more tools,
Burrows a much better processor. I mean, I think he's
he's he's you know, far superior as a processor. And
I hope make it's that point. But to me, it's
just an experience thing. And I think, like if you know,

(51:56):
and Paul brought this up, I can't remember if it
was yesterday, Evan or a Thursday on PU I mean,
this is four offensive coordinators and four years for him too,
So there's a lot that's being thrown at this guy.
He doesn't have the experience and he's got all the tools,
and I'm just I hope he puts it together this year,
but more realistically, like I could see him having his

(52:17):
breakout your next year. Although I can seem improven. And
I'll end on this, I want to see what you
guys thought about that. Heaven, why not jump around from
house the pain for the runout song?

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Okay, I can see that we did this. I've done
this so many times jump around. Come on, you don't
like jump around us. It's a good song, but like,
come on, let's do something new.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Okay, fair enough, Thanks for the call of Patty. This
was a big topic of conversation yesterday on Filter, and
I know it got some some love on the Sports
Up too, and I brought it up the other night
the Runout. There's people got takes on this, they got opinions.
Jump around.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
I think you're right, it's it's been done a little
bit too many times.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
I agree with that. It's kind of like the cliche
get the stadium excited song the breakout season for Drake
may I. This goes back to a little bit of
what we talked about last week. For me, like I,
this is my one concern about what's going on around
Drake may here. I think Josh the world of Josh
McDaniels as an offensive coordinator. I think he's a great
coach and I think he's a great oc maybe not

(53:18):
a great head coach, but a great osay And the
concern that I had was the learning curve, and that's
sort of what we're seeing now, where like the timing
and the rhythm, it just doesn't seem smooth right now.
For Drake May it still seems a little bit cumbersome
and clunky and at times, and Diggs isn't out there yet.
You're still trying to get Kyle Williams up and running,

(53:39):
but at times you still feel the lack of like
a true game breaker and within the offense as well
in these practices. And I know that a lot of people,
you know, I just quickly checked my my Twitter mentions
was always dangerous coming off of OTA practice. And there
are some comments about how you know, the clunkiness or
the unevenness of the offense. We just keep hearing this
here and you're and year out and I get that,

(54:02):
Like I I sympathize with that. I think that's that's
fair to say that. And the breakout year whatever we want, however,
we want to you know, tech, you know, define it,
define that, thank you, however you want to define that.
Between a new totally new coaching staff with a new

(54:22):
offensive system and new offensive coordinator and the fact that
they're still kind of building around him, They're gonna have
a rookie left tackle, uh there there really don't truly
have that number one wide receiver unless Digs like throws
it back right to his Buffalo days and is that guy.
So in general, like it might not be we might
not be fully there, and it might not all.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Be on Drake.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
May you know that his rookie coaching staff wasn't the
best it could have been. Then they had to change coaches.
Now he's in a different system. Now, the timing, the
rhythm of it, at least early on in May doesn't
look great, doesn't look smooth quite yet in terms of
the processing and the post snap stuff.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
And so yeah, maybe there.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Is a little bit more of a building up period here,
especially early on, where he doesn't come out year two
and make that immediate leap. Now, I mean by the
end of the season he does, and that's what we're
all hoping for. But I still have some of those
same concerns even though he didn't go out there and
throw four picks again with this the overall the timeline

(55:25):
of how quickly this is all going to come together
on offense, And I don't think that's all just because
of Drake. May I think a lot of that has
to do with, well, are they really going to be
good enough at the skill positions to ev you know,
to have him elevated and all that kind of stuff
I think is a big factor as well.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that. I just think
you got to see some sign of growth. Maybe the
leap from year two to year three is bigger, but
you need to see some sort of leap from year
one year two. You don't want to see him be stagnant.
That would be worrying.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
There's a lot of there's a lot of praise going
around right now for the Patriots offseason for Drake May.
I saw Benjamin Solac on ESPN, but he really went
had a big post where he said he'd be just
as excited about Drake May as commanders fans or are
about Jayden Daniels. And I understand where ben was coming
from with that post, because if you look at the

(56:16):
level of difficulty like he wrote, you know, Drake May
is in an offense with an offensive coordinator that not
a lot of people were crazy about, and Alex Van
Pelt he had the worst offensive line in football. He
probably had a top bottom five I should say, pass
catching group if not you know, thirty second, like it
might have been the worst pass catching group in the
NFL last year as well. So the roster around him

(56:38):
was not good, and yet he still went out there
and made plays. And I feel like that's what we're
seeing though from these practices, that there's still these moments
like he had a moment today where he just kind
of tiptoes around some interior pressure off platform, drops the
arm angle, you know, flicks it out there to a
receiver on the move, and gets a nice play out
of it out of a play that probably should have

(56:59):
been stopped in the backfield. But the big word for
him has always been, even going back to North Carolina,
is can he consistently do it? Like he has these
flashes of franchise quarterback potential and elite quarterback potential that
we saw last year that we see in these practices.
But that's what it was at North Carolina too, right.
It was kind of like for every step forward, there

(57:21):
was a step back, and there for every good play,
there was maybe a couple bad or not so good plays.
And is he getna round out his entire game. I'm
not trying to rain on parades or like trash Drake
by any means, because everybody knows how I'm a Drake
may guy, and I'm optimistic about Drake May. I just
think some of the stuff that I've heard and read

(57:42):
about the Patriots is obviously, especially from the national media,
is getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, like can
we see him do it first?

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Like well, so, so much of it is predicated even
like for me in the wind project, I had ten
wins off the schedule, right, Like that's predicated on Drake
May taking some sort of a year two leap. If
he doesn't take a year two leap, a lot of
the stuff that we're talking about doesn't apply.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
I see a lot of praise for May, for the
off season, for the coaching staff, and at the end
of the day, like they're gonna have to go out
there and actually, dude, like this is all projection, Like
they're gonna have to go out there and do it,
and I would I personally. Maybe it's because they've won
eight games over the last two seasons, Like it's as

(58:24):
simple as that. That I've been burned and I'm not
ready to believe again. But let's just see it happen
first before we get too crazy. All right, Let's go
back to the phones. Lorenzo's back, Lorenzo, what's going on?

Speaker 6 (58:40):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Hello, Hey, you're on there. What's up all right?

Speaker 6 (58:43):
Hey man?

Speaker 8 (58:43):
Thank you, thank you so much for letting me on.
I just have a few questions. That's pretty quick. Like
last year when we faced man coverage right like you said,
with Josh mccamsy like Roughouse pick Rouse crossers constantly like
with AVP, we didn't really see any of that. I
was wanting if you think that doctor return because I
know that our receivers going to separate, but you can
kind of help with that by creating traffic. Second, how

(59:07):
Josphontaniels especially spent time around colleges. I was wondering if
you think that there would be RPOs that aren't just
quarterback option runs like how Miami does it. The forty
nine ers do it, like motioning and creating space. And
do you think doctor Staniel's changed from quote like a
heavy game plan guy to more guys willing to adjust,
or do you think that if the offense struggles just

(59:29):
because of the game plan, like strictly just execution because
we know this is a big game plan offense. And
can Kyle William get open in the middle of the
field because we don't have guys who can do that.
It's all like jump ball, guys think consistent and do
you think Ethan Chisholm can be like a quick reliable
state people thinking for Drake Mick And that's about it,
thinks all.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Right, thanks Lorenzo. There's a lot of questions, but thanks
for the call.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Yeah, I think the first one about the scheme and
like helping guys against man coverage, even though it wasn't don't.
I don't remember exactly where they finished, but when Drake
May first start got in there last year for started
starting games, they were actually efficiency wise, they were really
good against man coverage. A big reason why is because

(01:00:10):
he was scrambling against man coverage and so that advantage
that they have now with man. And I would also say,
just to give credit, like Pop Douglas is a pretty
good man coverage beater in terms of receivers. He's quick,
he's good at creating separation, he can get open. I've
talked in the past about some of the concerns I
have with him again against zone, but against man out

(01:00:32):
of the slot, like Pop is a pretty good man
coverage receiver in that respect. So they had Drake May scrambling,
they had you know, Pop Douglas in isolation winning routes over.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
The middle of the field.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
So they weren't a complete disaster from like an EPA
standpoint against man coverage last year because of those two things. Now,
they didn't do a ton of help. You know, they
were stagnant offense. They were like more you know, old
school West Coast formationally and things like that. And McDaniel's
will certainly help with a lot of that. He's gonna
put receivers in stacks, he's gonna put receivers in bunches.

(01:01:05):
He's going to run pick plays. We've seen him run
pick plays for years here, crossers, pick plays, different alignments
to get receivers off the line of scrimmage and away
from press coverage. So he's certainly gonna all that kind
of stuff is I would say tenants or hallmarks of
a Josh McDaniels offense. So they're certainly going to go

(01:01:25):
in that direction and have all that in their bag.
I would say that in a lot of ways, that
two lends itself to Kyle Williams, who in college I
was a really good first level separator on a lot
of those types of routes like slants and angles and
coming into a bunch of That big touchdown he scored
against Syracuse was like a Josh McDaniels staple play that

(01:01:46):
they're going to probably run a ton. So I think
Kyle Williams getting open over the middle of the field
is a big reason of why he's here. I think
it's a big strength of his game, his catch and
run ability. His ability to catch balls over the middle field.
First of all, get open over the middlefield, but then
also transition into yards after the catch with the football.
Those are two strengths I would say. So if you
marry those things together, that's that's where That's what we're

(01:02:08):
hoping we're going here, Like, that's what we're hoping you're
going to see out of this offense. I have some
thoughts on the run game stuff too, But what do
you think about this McDaniel's offense from that standpoint?

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Yeah, Well, I mean, I think we're gonna see a
lot more that me Man Beater stuff there.

Speaker 7 (01:02:22):
Thin is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Some of those a lot of the quick release routes
with Van Pelt were more inside stuff. So some of
those more quick release outside. Some of those digs and
things like that. Why can I think of it? Edelman
and the super Bowl on the goal line. Oh, like
a whip route. Yeah, whiprout, thank you. I don't know.
I couldn't think of that. I think we'll see more
of that. Yeah, he's gonna be helpful against man coverage.

(01:02:42):
To the point he made about are they gonna be
more of a game plan offense? Yeah, are they gonna adjust?
I think the game plan offense means adjusting? Yeah, so
I do. I do think there's is this gonna turn
into a nerds versus No, it's really not. No, it's
really not. I just think I think they're gonna be
pue of one of those that practice today, and we
have one of those about every day. Yes, and nerds
are taking over. As Felger says, we have lost the war.

(01:03:03):
But it doesn't mean I won't stop fighting. But you could,
you could just like embrace it. No, but I won't.
But I won't the whole point, I won't a little bit.
I will stick. I will stick to my guns. But
you made it about nerds on me. When it comes
to McDaniels, I do think they're gonna be a game
plan offense. I don't think what we see week one
is gonna be what they are forever. I think they're
gonna attack different teams differently. They're gonna hunt weaknesses, they're

(01:03:26):
gonna hunt matchups, things like that, because at his core,
that's what Josh McDaniels does. Josh McDaniels wants to get
in the lab and pick it into an opponent of part.
His offense is more about what the defense does poorly
than what his offense does well. And it's probably my
favorite thing about Josh McDaniels. I love teams that operate
that way. I love teams that operate that way on
both sides of the ball. We talked about this when
when I had you on Monday night. Bad teams can't win.

(01:03:48):
Good teams have a way to win. Great teams have
multiple ways to win. Elite teams can win any way
they want. So I like teams that actually, and that's
in any sport. It's just philosophy of mine. But I
like teams that proactively go about making sure that even
if they are really good at one thing, sometimes that
one thing is gonna be there for one reason or another.

(01:04:09):
Maybe you just don't have it that day, maybe the
opponent as a strengthen stopping that whatever. I like teams
are proactively going about make sure they have more than
one ways to win. Josh mcdani's has always done that. Again,
that's probably my favorite thing about his philosophy is that
we are not going to be handcuffed into relying on
one thing too much. We may have a preference, we
may have something we lean on more, but we're never

(01:04:29):
gonna get caught without a plan B or a plan C.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
So one of my favorite Josh McDaniel's coaching moments during
his time with the Patriots is the Super Bowl. The
second m Super Bowl is at fifty three, right, yes,
So they put together that game winning drive at the
end of the Super Bowl, and they couldn't move the
ball all night long, Like we all remember the game,
they couldn't move the ball all night long. They've got

(01:04:54):
nothing going. Julian Edelman was really the only guy that
was making any plays on offense, and they went to
the sideline and Josh McDaniels literally drew up a play
on the sideline that was not in the weekly install
It was not in the game plan. He literally just
drew it up like in dirt, like you would in
the backyard, drew up a play. It was a delay

(01:05:16):
release to Gronk, and they got Gronk out on the
delay release and he caught the football and turned up
the field and gained some positive yards. And that was
kind of the drive starter. And then they went to
that twenty two personnel with the two backs and they
flexed out Rex Burkhead on the outside and they ran
hosts three times in a row, hit it three different
ways and went right down the field with the seam

(01:05:38):
shot to Gronk being like the big play of the drive,
and that entire drive you to your game plan point
and like looking at what the defense was doing, that
entire drive was an adjustment, Like that entire drive was
this is what Wade Phillips has been doing to us
all night.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
We's counter it. Let's counter it. Like what do I
have in my back pocket that I can counter it?
And to throw shade at my own people? Right, Like,
that's the type of drive.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
That Kyle Shanahan has not put together that Josh McDaniels did, right,
And that's that's not the spreadsheet. That's what makes him great.
That that's what makes him a great play caller and
ablate a great offensive coordinator. And to that point, to
the caller's point about being game plan oriented, if you
take that away, like you're not, you're not maximizing Josh McDaniels. Like,

(01:06:25):
that's what makes Josh McDaniels unique is his game plan
ability and his ability to adjust in game with play calling.
And if you go into it and say like, we're
just gonna do what we do and we're not gonna
adjust and we're not gonna change anything, and that's not
you're not letting him use one of his superpowers. Like
that's truly one of his superpowers. So I hope that
that's the direction that they're going to continue to go

(01:06:46):
In the run game question, he asked, And and sort
of like the RPO question, we haven't. We're really early
on to seeing some of that stuff. So I'm still waiting,
like to make a judgment on it. It's too early.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
It's it's way too early.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
Maybe we see more of that once we get out
of the basic install period. But the one thing that
I have been interested in from what they've done from
a run game perspective is they've done a lot of
different stuff, and.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
You got to have all those different options in your back. Yeah,
not to Joshington, not that they didn't always, but like
outside zone really wasn't there a go to play. They
actually used outside zone a lot in the past, and
short yardage like goal line, fourth and one, they would
run some outside zone, but they didn't run a ton
of outside zone as like a base play like first

(01:07:35):
and ten from the twenty five are going to run
outside zone. They are traditionally a downhill run offense in
this scheme. Now he did it a little bit more
in Vegas, and now he's doing it a little bit
in these practices, So maybe this is what he's doing
now right Like there's a little bit of a West
Coast flavor to it. You obviously have the quarterback that
fits it. You have a couple running backs and Gibson

(01:07:57):
and Henderson that fit it that can run that kind
of scheme at one cut and go and get up
the field. Not that Remandra can't, but I would say
from my standpoint, it's always good to have a back
that's got some speed to the edge in order to
really set up this type of play because you have
to get the defense to respect the bounce, Like if
they don't respect the bounce, then they're just going to
crowd the middle of the field and they're gonna make

(01:08:18):
you string it out and it's just not gonna look good.
So if they can do it on the left side
of the law offensive line, especially, they're gonna have Will Campbell,
who's a great athlete and can certainly whether it's front
side seal or backside cutoff, like, he can definitely balk
in an outside zone scheme. And then they might have
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
Cold Strange might be the guard, Jared Wilson might be
the guard on the left side. Like, those are two
guys that can definitely specialize in reaching and you know,
second level combos and things like that in and outside
zone scheme. And then you get Drake involved on those
bootlegs and get him out of the pocket and on
the move. All those things, I feel like are good

(01:08:56):
things for this offense potentially if they can get it
to hit right. So we've seen a little bit more
of that in these practices. Every once in a while
you'll see like a quarterback run, you know, design read
option type of play in there. But I don't think
there's been enough of a sample yet to get too
crazy about how often that's going to be called. But
I have definitely noticed just a wide variety of run

(01:09:20):
schemes that maybe with Brady in the past, and it
might have been scar somebody's talked about this in the
past about well, you know, when you have Brady, no
offense to Brady as amazing as he was out everything else, Like,
you're not going to run a lot of bootlegs with
Tom Brady, right Like, that's just not a strength of
his sore. If you're running a lot outside zone and

(01:09:40):
then you're not running the boot off of the outside
zone and you're kind of not running it, right like,
that's not the system, Like, that's not how it works
to the fullest. So they didn't have a ton of
boots in the offense because Brady wasn't a runner and
it wasn't you know, that kind of athlete, So they
didn't really do a lot outside zone. But Drake is
so again to your point, maybe that isn't Josh mcdaniels's uh,

(01:10:03):
you know, right hook, but it's like something that he's
got that's.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
A compliment to have.

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
Yeah, exactly, all right, let's get back to the calls.
Todd is in the car today.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
What's up? Todd?

Speaker 5 (01:10:14):
I honestly have to say.

Speaker 6 (01:10:16):
I don't know him enough about Drake May's history playing
and college and stuff to know. Can he be a
game plan type QB?

Speaker 8 (01:10:23):
Can he adjustin, you.

Speaker 6 (01:10:25):
Know, game from games or does he need a set,
you know, a series of plays in a playbook that
his you know, what his standard is and where he
gets comfortable. So I'm a little bit worried about that.
And I have one favorite ask the two of you.
Rook used to have a draft, an NFL draft before
each season. Do you think you guys could run that,

(01:10:45):
because since he's kind of gone, that'd be kind of
cool if you do that. So I got a request
and a question for you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Thank God, What do you mean by your draft? Yeah?
What do you mean? Todd?

Speaker 6 (01:10:55):
Is the NFL dot Com draft option, and Matt can
explain it. You'd email out to all the people that
signed up for it, and then everybody would show.

Speaker 8 (01:11:05):
Up and we all would draft our teams and TWNFL
dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
Oh, like a fantasy football a fantasy football.

Speaker 8 (01:11:13):
Thing, like a fantasy football league.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Yeah, it was fantasy football. Yes, okay, got it? Todd?
All right, thank you? Sorry, we both are not We're not.
Another one of us is truly a huge fantasy guy.
I'm not. I Yeah, I did the Punter League last year.

Speaker 6 (01:11:25):
That was it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
I don't even know if we're doing that again this year.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Yeah, so I I just runs the league, so I
do hurdle because you know, you gotta do that one.
But I have one team, maybe two max if her
dad does his league again as well. But that's only
because it's family that I'm doing. You know, I'm doing
leagues with them.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
But my Favorit book had a league and I guess
the winner got the host with John or something. Oh, yeah,
that is true. Yeah, my favorite thing with fantasy is
just sitting there, like would be sitting there on Sunday
and watching all the scores roll in and watching Red
Zone and like the live time. Yeah, you know, I
I don't get the same thrill out of it just
checking Sunday night and seeing how everybody did. In reality
is on Sundays, I'm here, I'm working. I can't really

(01:12:02):
do that. It just turns into me checking at the end.
So that kind of took the air out of the
balloon for me.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
Yeah, that's totally fair. I feel the exact same way
about fantasy. And then on top of that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
I am if we do the Kicker the punder league
again though you're in the puddle league. Yes, no, yes, yes,
you're gonna be the.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
Other thing that I find really hard about fantasy and
I'm not asking for any sympathy whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
I have an awesome job.

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):
But when you have to make those last minute lineup
to adjustments when an actives come out, we're just busy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Right, We're dealing with the we're doing that's the thrill,
That's what I'm saying. We're doing other things.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
And I over the last couple of years, there's been
a couple of times where I've started guys that are
inactive because I've just been too busy to working on Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
You don't get to do fantasy football in real time.
Like I just live vicariously through my friends teams because
they asked me for advice. Not always right. I don't
know why they still ask me, but they asked me
for advice, and I usually get You know, I have
two or three friends that played pretty intently, so I
know who's on by we get time, we get talked over.
I know who's on their teams because they're asking me
this and that so I lived like Carelly through those teams.
I root for those teams.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
So I actually what I did this past year because
this happened to me a lot of the last couple,
especially since I started working for the team and traveling
to every road game. And I actually just like I
have just do it, Like I just I gave her
my password, and I was like if I if I'm
starting somebody who's.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
Like I wanted to scratch her. I don't care. This
is it's a that's an episode of the league right there.
If she wins, then we both win. If she so,
it doesn't really matter. I remember when when Kevin hacked,
didn't Kevin hack Jenny's computer to Kevin's computer to change
the line of collusion. That's right. That such a great
show in a bad way, like they like yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:13:47):
she she no, Well there was one where she thought
she was helping him because she didn't trust It was
like a running joke through the show that she knew
Baull better than he did, and she kind of did.
Yeah and so she but like he found out, but
I think he ended up winning. Anyway, I'm due for rewatch.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
But all that was such a good I will fully
admit that that just does better in fantasy football than
me one hundred percent because to your point about us
not watching on Sundays, like I don't watch a ton
of the rest of the league all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
Because until you have to right about to play the Patriots.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
Literally, I literally watched the Patriots, and I watched the
teams the Patriots play like those are the two that's it, right,
So you know, we don't get uh, we don't get.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Red zone, Paul.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
You know, Paul, there's a running joke on the post
game show that Paul watches red zone, you know while
the postgame show is going on.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
And I we don't really get to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
So I I will admit I I've lost my touch
in fantasy football over the last few weeks. Through I
go back, I used to be really good at it,
like five ten years ago, and now that it's like
my job, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
It's a little hard.

Speaker 7 (01:14:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
So I'll go back though, and I think it's NFL
plus as like the ten minute condensed twenty minute condensed game.
I usually go back through on Monday and watch all
the games like that. But even still that's not like
a perfect encapsulation that can all run together because you're
watching what like ten of those twelve of those.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):
Yeah, I don't even have the time for that because
we're I'm watching the Patriots all twenty two and I
got to take my notes and break it all down
and you know, inspect their film. So I just kind
of bypassed that. That's why I and I hear the
complaints about Thursday Night Football and the product and stuff.
I absolutely love Thursday Night Football because it's one of

(01:15:24):
the only times where I actually had to sit down
and watch football uninterrupted. So like Thursday and then sometime,
you know, I'm usually working pretty late on Mondays during
the season, but like every once in a while, if
I get my stuff done, like Monday Night Football, any
primetime game, I'm in because I actually get to watch
the game without working.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
Well, we got more. We have more primetime windows this year,
so there's more red zone Sundays. Like the past couple
of years, it's been by Week and Thursday Night Football
and that's it. And maybe they had a four o'clock game,
you got like the first half of the one o'clock
window of red zone. We actually have a few full
red zone Sundays this year, and I love one o'clock
home home game. You come home around eight o'clock after
the game was worthing, usually walk in, walking in, like

(01:16:05):
right on your carry on.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
There's nothing better than sitting down knowing your day is
done and you know the day is in the bar
and then you get in there and Sunday night football
is just starting and you're like, this is great. So
I'm I love Thursday night football and I'm in the
minority of that. But it's totally selfish. There was one
other thing that Todd brought up that I wanted that
was more serious than what we were just talking about. Oh,

(01:16:29):
the Drake May and you know, him having the mental
capacity to kind of adjust and all this, I would say,
it's TBD. Like I'm not sitting here saying that Drake
May doesn't because I don't know. I don't think we
could really say that based off of last year because
I just don't know what they were running last year. Like,
I just don't think last year.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
Was truly.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
A McDaniel's PhD level offense, right, So, like it's hard
to say based off of last year, and then he
was in college before that, so it's not that I
don't think he has that bone in his body to
be able to be the maestro, to be the you know,
the conductor at the line of scrimmage and change week
to week. And may I think he probably does have

(01:17:12):
some of that, But based off of what we're seeing
out at this practice, you know, today and last week,
there's there's a learning curve going on right now with him,
and there's a timing thing and a rhythm thing going
on with him right now that was really similar to
what we saw out of him last year at this
time and at the beginning of training camp, and we

(01:17:32):
go always go back to that, like Eagles joint practice
territory of training camp. It did seem like a flip,
a switch was flipped in that practice week where after
that he looked like the better quarterback in camp or
the best quarterback in camp from that point on. And
I hope we get to that point with him this summer,
maybe sooner, but I hope we get to that point

(01:17:54):
eventually sometime soon, but we're not fully there yet. And
that that's the one hesitation that I just have with
this whole thing right now, is that he still looks
like a guy that is learning and it's like in
a process and is trying to get through things and
get through progressions and trust what he's seeing. And I
just don't fully see him letting it loose just yet.

(01:18:17):
And that has to come before we start worrying about, Oh,
the Raiders are like a big quarters defense and these
are the quarters beaters we're gonna put in this game plan,
and like, you can't get to that point until you
get you that's like step three, and we're on step one,
Like you got to get through this part of the
offseason and part of the install before we can start

(01:18:39):
talking about game planning. And one week we're playing a
zone defense, heavy defense that we're gonna run these plays.
The next week we're playing a post safety man defense,
and so we're gonna run those plays. Like that's all
great in theory if we get there, you know, And
I just don't know if we're there yet, certainly not
in terms of this time of year. But I'm also

(01:18:59):
not sure if this is the year that that's going
to be fully unlocked. It it's a concern of mine,
it really is that not that he can't do it,
but that how long it's going to take, how long
it's going to take. Yeah, like, how long are we
going to be sitting here two weeks into camp and
still waiting for the switch to flip on. It will

(01:19:20):
flip on, I have no doubt about that, but just
how quickly can it flip on for him is a
big question. Did you have a thought on that at all?

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
Or no? You're pretty much covered.

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):
All right, let's get to the back to the phones.
Rio is in Texas without Brio.

Speaker 4 (01:19:36):
Hey, gentlemen, how you doing this afternoon?

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Good?

Speaker 4 (01:19:40):
It could have been one to call in since the draft,
but unfortunately the timing hasn't been right. Since you have
a later show today that gives me an opportunity to
So I just want to make a comment and then
ask a couple of questions. First is for Bart Kyle
Williams Gang represent.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Good call, first time I called in.

Speaker 4 (01:19:58):
You guys love that guy, So yeah. First question, did
you see that clip of last week during OTAs where
Williams caught a long pass and then Fun Diggs was
celebrating with him, and Diggs was out there looked like
he wasn't wearing a brace or anything on that prepared knee,

(01:20:21):
and the knee looked pretty swollen. Kind of messed up.
Have you guys seen him in person to see, you know,
how he's progressing as far as that injury goes.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
We haven't. He hasn't been here for crack.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
So now that was the one practice just based off
of photos that we posted to the website that we
can we know that he was at because of the pictures,
but there was no media at the practice.

Speaker 4 (01:20:42):
Okay, okay, Yeah. And my second question is I made
this comment during the draft when they drafted Joshua Farmer.
Are you guys concerned at all with how light they
are upfront on defense? I had asked about the Seattle
cover three looks, and I wasn't really talking about the
back end that they That's what I focused on. I
was talking more about the four to three under that

(01:21:04):
they played, where they were able to roll out that bigger,
strong side defensive end. You know, a guy who's potentially
too gap and kind of you know, get some beef upfront.
Because I just keep going back to like how they
played against the Jaguars last season and you know, you
got what was seventeen or eighteen run plays in a
row and they just couldn't get off the field. Do
you see them, you know, having the schematics, versatility, and

(01:21:26):
the personnel to be able to actually adapt if the
team decides they want to try to run down there.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
For Yeah, that's a that's a good question, Rio, thanks
for the call. I have been small see, concerned about
the size up front for a while now. Now tong
is a monster. He's a big dude.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
Yeah, bar More when he's healthy and he's right, is
also a big dude. But I still feel like they like,
what's their their best run defense front? Now, Landry's a
really good run player out on the edge. Yeah, he's
a good duet. Yeah, you know, through the middle of
the defense. And especially because they've gotten a little bit

(01:22:05):
smaller at linebacker too, by choice, they've gotten smaller at linebacker.
I do have some concern about teams leaning on them now.
It's gonna be only a certain amount of teams are
stylistically prepared to do that, right, Like, I don't think
every team, especially in the modern NFL, is built to
take advantage of that. But they have Buffalo twice on

(01:22:27):
their schedule. Buffalo has kind of become that a little bit,
you know, certainly more so last year than a year's past,
where you know with James Cook, like they can be
a bully, like they can run the ball down your
throat in Buffalo Baltimore is on the schedule, certainly can
do that Vegas Week one with Ashon Genty might try
to do that, right that that might be what they
might build their offense around.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
So I hear Rio's point.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
You know in the Seattle three they had the designated
pass rusher, the the Leo or the Rio role that
you know was truly a designated pass rusher in their front.
That role I based off of what we've seen in
at practice they've used Keon White, I would say mostly
on that side of the of the formation or that
side of the field, and that type of role.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Landry.

Speaker 3 (01:23:12):
They they like Landry as a run defender, and rightfully
so he was a really good run defender even last
year when the pass rush numbers dipped a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
So could they use like a.

Speaker 3 (01:23:23):
True three four now he gets three four is the
wrong way way to call it? Like a true too,
like the Rio's point, like a two gapping end maybe,
But I do think that bar Moore is that when
he's right, So maybe they end up kicking Barmore a
little bit further outside if they have to. But it's
something that is a concern to me, A small seat

(01:23:43):
concern right now is right up the gut. Like I'm
not talking about the edges. I think they're gonna have
the athleticism and the playmakers outside with Landry and Keon
White and Anthony Jennings probably mixing in a little bit
there on the edge. But our team's going to be
able to line up under center and run it right
at you. And if they do, are you going to

(01:24:04):
be heavy enough sturdy enough to stop it?

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
Yeah? We've talked about this, like are they maybe a
defensive tackle short now? They have some guys that are
smaller that are skilled run players like Joshua Farmer. So
even like Milton Williams, right, we'll see what mil Williams
wasn't really be used in that role in Philly. We'll
see how he looks in that. But I would not
hate them outing another nose tackle just to add another
big body in the middle.

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
Yeah, it's a it's a fair question there by Rio
all Right, Randy is in Providence.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
What's up, Randy?

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
Hey, guys, how's going to good? So a couple more
questions for you number one. You guys have mentioned a
couple of times spanning a different podcasts, not just this one,
but Wilson playing guard potentially, And I'm just wondering if
you guys know if he has any history at all there,
And why do you think that if you want Wilson

(01:24:54):
and Bradberry on the field at the same time, that
it would be Wilson you prefer to move as a
boat to Bradbury.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
Yeah? Oh what else you got?

Speaker 9 (01:25:05):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
Yeah, so two more quick ones. Do you think this
is going to be a run heavier offense? I think
back to like the early days of Brady where it
was like they were mostly asking him to just not
make mistakes.

Speaker 6 (01:25:17):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
He would throw for like two hundred and twenty yards
all the time. I remember I used to like take
him on my fantasy team and be.

Speaker 8 (01:25:24):
So annoyed at it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:26):
But he wouldn't throw the interceptions. You know, it was
just no mistakes. And do you think he's going to
kind of want to slow play Drake along like that
and just say what, We're not going to ask you
to throw for miles. We're just going to ask you
to not throw to the other team. Yeah, And then
my last one was just what sort of patience do
you think Rabel was going to have with Diggs kind

(01:25:47):
of social life. I guess it's like his girlfriend is
Cardi b. That's not like a tame celebrity. A lot
of pictures and stuff like that are bound to pop up,
and he's bound. This is the second ota, Brad just
he already got a question about one. Right, it's gonna happen.
What sort of patients do you think he's gonna have
with that?

Speaker 3 (01:26:05):
Yeah, it's all fair questions, Randy. What was his first question?
That was a good question. I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Oh boy, we're bad today. Yeah, train sitting out in
the sun. There's a good question too, And hang on,
I'll go back and find it. Okay, just to answer
backwards because I just totally spaced right there. Sorry, Randy.

Speaker 3 (01:26:26):
I would say that the patients thing with Diggs is
is a good question. I I don't think that, you know,
we're I'm that worried about it yet. Because of the
type of coach that Rabel is though. I think Rabel
is the type of guy that can get people to
buy in, they can get people locked in. And I'll
just and Diggs's defense I'll just say again, like I

(01:26:47):
he was, he looks really impressive in these workout videos, right,
and it looks like he's really attacking rehab and doing
a good job with that. So as long as he's
coming and doing his job that he's being paid to
do in terms of playing football for the Patriots, and
he's not, you know, getting into any legal trouble off
the field. Like I have to imagine that none of
this has really been made into a huge deal just yet.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
Internally, he's that's a guest, He's Stefan Diggs. He's a celebrity. Yeah,
Like he's a beyond sports celebrity, and you know what
you're getting into when you sign a guy like that. Yeah. So, uh,
the first question was going, so we've talked about if
it's gonna be Wilson Bradbury on the field together, that
was it's Wilson at left guard. Why not move Bradbury
because Bradbury is a true center? Yeah, Bradbury has been
a center going all the way back to college. Is

(01:27:29):
seventh year in the league and he's been a center
for all six of his previous seasons. He's also smaller. Yeah,
I was gonna say, does he have the sized play guard.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
Yeah, much smaller player than Jared Wilson. Jared Wilson does
have some guard in his background. He in college at Georgia.
He's a one year starter at center, but he started
the at Georgia as a guard and played a lot
of garden practice for the Bulldogs in practice, and so
he's cross trained at both positions. Again, I Wilson's natural

(01:27:58):
position is center, like, that's his long term position. And
I do want to talk about David Andrews here in
a second as well, and don't want to forget about that,
but that's his natural position.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
But there might be a case to be made.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):
And I know you've made the case of let's not
mess with it in terms of his development, which is
also a fair point, but there just might be a
really strong case to be made that for the twenty
twenty five Patriots, the best position for Jared Wilson has
left guard, so that they can have all five of
those guys together, you know, Campbell, Wilson, brad Berry on
when New Moses is probably on paper their best five

(01:28:30):
man combination, and the only way that happens is if
Wilson plays guard right. So that's the thought process there.
But I agree with you from a standpoint of you
messing with his development. I think that that can be
a fair point too, if that's the way it is.

Speaker 1 (01:28:45):
I still think if Wilson's good enough to play, is
good enough to play center? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:28:49):
Yeah, So before we get back to the calls and emails,
I do want to talk about David Andrews, and I
don't want to forget, So let's do it now.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
David Andrews.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
The Patriots just tweeted that David Andrews is going to
have a retirement press conference on Monday. He's officially retiring
from the NFL after a great career here in New England.

Speaker 1 (01:29:11):
Two time Super Bowl champion. How many times is he
a captain?

Speaker 6 (01:29:15):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
Five?

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
Six, seven times team captain? I don't know six, I
have the exact number off the top of my head.
But represented the organization just as well as any player
possibly could. I would say in my time covering the team,
it's a it's a three horse race. But specifically, I guess,
just to me from the guys that I got to

(01:29:36):
know a little bit better, Devin mccordy and David Andrews
were the consonmate of consonmate pros that I've ever been around. Yeah,
Slater would be the third one, of course. And I
would put David Andrews in the same exact category as
I would put those two guys as just like not
only a perfect leader, but also just like that's a

(01:29:58):
football player, Yeah, like that's an nf fell offensive line.
And the toughness and the attitude that he brought. He
was always like a guy that would stand up for
any of the quarterbacks, whether it was Tom Brady or
Mac Jones or Bailey, Zappy or Drake or whoever Cam Newton,
he stood up for all of them. He was always
tough as nails. He was always clutch. He had big

(01:30:18):
blocks and big moments and big sequences as a Patriot,
obviously as a two times Super Bowl champion, there is
no doubt in my mind that David Andrews will wear
a red jacket some day. He will be a Patriot
Hall of Famer. One hundred percent can almost guarantee that
he will be a Patriot Hall of Famer. Will He
used to wait four years until you can get on

(01:30:39):
the ballot, and then there obviously could be a log
jam still going on as we've seen already with Edelman
and Viniti and Gronk coming up and other guys coming
up as well. But he, to me, will be a
red jacket guy not before long. And it'll be cool
to send him off on Monday and have that press conference.

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
Yeah. I know some people roll their eyes at the
Patriot Way thing because the way the last few years
have gone. But you talk about what the Patriot Way
is at its core, and when we talked about that
when they were winning, right, the Patriot Way. What is
the Patriot It's David Andrews. David Andrews is the textbook
Patriot Way. An undrafted guy, undersized, came in here, worked
his ass off, proved he could be a good football player, improved,

(01:31:19):
took coaching, took accountability, became a leader, became a core
member of the team. I would make the joke when
they wore the throwbacks, like the guy in the helmet
snap in the football, that's David Andrews. Like everything that
their run was is embodied by David Andrews.

Speaker 3 (01:31:37):
I give him a ton of credit. Obviously, the winning's
great Super Bowl rings are great. I give him even
more credit for how he handled himself the last few years. Yeah,
because I am sure and he's spoken about it has
been extremely difficult on him to go from a perennial
Super Bowl contender to a team picking in the top five.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
That cannot be easy.

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
And he every time, you know, he was asked to
be available, he was available. He was one of the
first guys to the podium after all these losses recently.
He was always one of the first ones up there,
oftentimes still in like pads, like game pants and like
basically in uniform still and come up to the podium
and do his press conference, and always a stand up guy,

(01:32:23):
always answered questions, always took accountability for the team's performance.
He was out of anybody that's been on this team
post Brady Like. He was pulling on the rope as
hard as you possibly could have pulled on the rope.
And unfortunately, over the last couple of years, just not
enough guys pulled on the rope in the right direction
with him. But it wasn't David Andrews Like. He was

(01:32:44):
not a problem. It was not him that wasn't putting
in the effort. It's a bummer that the career, his
career nine years in the league is ending on this note.
You know, injury last year more or less ended his career.
It sounds like he's that a little bit on his
own podcast, so to have his career end like that, obviously,

(01:33:05):
the Patriots cut him earlier this offseason. The idea was
probably to give him a chance to catch on elsewhere.
I have no inside of information or whatsoever on whether
or not he even had any calls or had any opportunities.
But he has opted to retire. So that retirement press
conference will be on Monday afternoon at three thirty. We
are expected to be out of OTAs that day and

(01:33:26):
then they're going to have the press conference after that,
So it's going to be a jam pack day. And
I do believe that Patriots dot Com will carry it live,
so you'll be able to watch it on Patriots dot
com and on Patriots YouTube as well if you want
to watch the press conference. So it should be Uh,
those are we've only covered a I've covered we did.
Devin mccordy's slater didn't do one, so I haven't done

(01:33:48):
a ton of them.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
Did I don't do one? He did know because it's COVID.
Oh he like zoomed with us. Yeah, and he did
in the fall or.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
He did the video with him on the field where
he announced it and and you know the Foxborough Forever
stuff and all that. But I think Devin McCarty might
be the only guy that's done this like a true
retirement press conference. In this vance y I started covering.
Well that's another one too. You mentioned it, Edelman and
the fox Barrow Forever stuff. Yeah, one of the few

(01:34:17):
guys from the run who'd in, uh mccordy to one
of the few guys that didn't go elsewhere. Yeah, and
if you remember back he I think was it the
Ravens or the Dolphins that we were all sure like
he was gone.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
Yeah, after the twenty twenty season. He misses the twenty
nineteen season with the I think it was with the
blood clot plays in twenty twenty, which nobody expected coming
off that blood clot in COVID. Yeah, played played that season,
and then in twenty two twenty he was a free agent.
He was supposed to be the passing the torch to
Ted Carris, and that was one of the big things
that offseason was you have a rookie and not that

(01:34:50):
anybody had anything against Ted Carris, Ted Krress a great player.
Ted Carris ended up having a great career for himself.
But I remember one of the talking points that offseason was,
all right, the probably gonna have a rookie quarterback coming in. Boy,
it'd be great to have a guy like David Andrews.
It's going to be a shade when he leaves. And
then at like the eleventh hour, all of a sudden,
David to the point where Ted Carriss had resigned to

(01:35:10):
like a starter contract. Everybody thought he's gonna to the center.
Then Andrews comes back and tells you what they thought
of him, that they had paid Ted Carris like a
starter and still took Andrews back. And Ted Carris ultimately
ends up starting that year because they moved the offensive
line around a bunch over the course of that season.
But David Andrews wanted to come back. They wanted him
back that bad. I think the twenty twenty one off

(01:35:31):
season speaks a lot to what David Andrews meant to
this team.

Speaker 3 (01:35:34):
Yeah, I just I can't stress enough just how impressed
I was with David Andrews post Brady, Like it's one
thing to be on board and be a great teammate
and be a great locker room guy when you're winning
and you're going to the Super Bowl every year, when
that turns in the way that it did, and the
team goes to picking in the top five and winning
four games a year, and he's still the same guy,

(01:35:55):
and he's still a stand up dude. And even being
around the team last year he was injured, like he
was out there at those practices when it was like
thirty degrees out the team had like four wins, three wins,
and he's out there trying to help his teammates get
better as a coach essentially. You know, he's done some podcasting,
He's done some stuff with you guys, or he's been
on the air a couple of times with you guys.

(01:36:17):
I don't know if media is his direction. I don't
know coaching his direction. I know he's talked in the
past about not being able to be too far away
from football, like he needs to be in football some way,
just to scratch the itch post playing career, is that media?
Is that going into coaching, We'll see it. But it

(01:36:38):
was a great career. Nine years, two time Super Bowl champion. Yeah,
David Andrews is one of my personal favorites. I had
some great stories too. Just a great guy, a great patriot.
All right, let's get back to the phones. Mark is
in Connecticut. What's up, Mark?

Speaker 9 (01:36:53):
Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call as always a well.
I love the rant that you guys just went on
about David Andrews. I mean, he's just a body, like
Alex was saying, the Patriot way, first guy to the
podium every time. Just a true professional and I love
him absolutely. The other couple of things real quick, is
Jalen Folk do you think he's going to turn into

(01:37:15):
a Taekwon Thorarton, you know, Nikuil Harry, Like, is he
still nursing an injury right now?

Speaker 5 (01:37:20):
Is he practicing?

Speaker 9 (01:37:22):
I'm just worried that, you know, it's another second round
bust out of him. And then the other thing is
I love the fact that Kendrick Warren is, you know,
reviving his career.

Speaker 8 (01:37:31):
Again with Josh McDonalds because we all know he.

Speaker 9 (01:37:33):
He knows the system well and I'm really rooting for him.

Speaker 1 (01:37:37):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for the call. Mark.

Speaker 3 (01:37:38):
So, Jalen Polk is we mentioned this earlier in the show,
but Jempo's here, He's participating limitedly limitedly that word, he's limited.
He is limited in these practices and during positional drills,
during individuals and things like that, he's participating. But then
when they go to team, when they go to eleven
on eleven, he's doing routes on air on the side

(01:38:00):
field while everybody else is doing team. So he's not
fully cleared yet for team. It doesn't seem like he
is coming off that injury. I really confirmed this, but
I believe it was a shoulder right, that sounds right.
At the end of last year, he ended the year
actually on IR now is one game he missed with eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:38:18):
He missed one game on injured reserves shoulder injury.

Speaker 3 (01:38:21):
Shoulder injury. So I assume that he had some sort
of surgery or something like that on that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:26):
He was going to sling some of those offseason videos. Yeah,
so he's coming back from that in terms of bust.

Speaker 6 (01:38:33):
Uh. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:38:34):
The tough thing about Jalen Polk, I don't want to
write anybody off, and I certainly don't want to write
off a guy who's going into year two after a
year one was really just not a great setup for
a rookie receiver. Now with that being said, there is
not a lot of history of a receiver putting up,
was it eleven catches, twelve catches, twelve Yeah, something like that,

(01:38:59):
and then going on and blossoming into a great receiver,
even a good receiver.

Speaker 1 (01:39:04):
There's just not touchdowns.

Speaker 3 (01:39:07):
There's just not a lot of like that could be
one game, right, You're right like that, there's just not
a lot of precedent for that in terms of it
panning out. Now, maybe there's a little bit more precedent
for him then going on to just being an NFL player,
Like a guy that's contributed can contribute, but in terms
of him being like a big time contributor or an
impact player. I'm not ready to close the book because

(01:39:28):
I wouldn't. I wouldn't close the book on any player
that's his youngest, Jalen Polk. But uh, we're we're in
dire times, like we're we're pretty unrealistically projecting forward. If
we're thinking that he's going to go on and be
like a high impact receiver in the NFL based off
of his rookie season, the two things working for him

(01:39:48):
one horrible setup for any rookie receiver last year, like
that offense. Uh, the coaching staff, all of that just
wasn't set up for success, and they admitted it as much. Yeah,
Elly Wolfs submitted as much. The other thing that I
think is working for him is that, for better or worse,
a lot of his struggles as a rookie were mental,
I think more than physical.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
Once he didn't get that heel in against Miami in
Week five, he just kind of forgot how to play
football for a little while there. He was just not playable,
Like it was just a mental hurdle that he was
not able to overcome. So hopefully with an offseason, you know,
the more time that's passed from that, like maybe he
can get out of his own head a little bit
about all these different things. I mean, you hope that

(01:40:32):
kind of the reset is what he needs. And a
lot of it was mental last year. But it's just
it's so tough to turn around the fact that he
is limited right now, like he's playing catchup. He's already
playing ketchup. But then the fact that he's behind in
terms of this injury and he's not out there with
everybody else makes it even tougher. So you hope he's

(01:40:52):
good to go by the start of camp and he
can really compete, but he's just there's so many areas
in which again he's playing catch up. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
Absolutely, all right, let's get to some of these emails.
We have a couple good ones here. So this is
a good one here from Stevie Steve Steve, so I'm
assuming his name is just Steve, so it goes Steve.
He asks, how do we think that the Rabel defense
will defend the tight ends, especially week one looking ahead
to brock Bauers in Week one with the Raiders. It's

(01:41:22):
a good question because they had they had a specific
like tight end stopper role in the Belichick style defense
where you know, whether it was Kyle Duggar or Patrick
Chung and his like career renaissance second, you know, life
there in his career, whatever the case may be, that
for a long time, it was that like cover safety
role that I played man to man on tight ends

(01:41:43):
for the Titans defenses. With Rabel, like they were a
little bit more zone heavy, a little less man to man,
so you know, they were a little bit more in
terms of zone distribution, Like that's how they would cover
tight ends. Right, you just have guys bodies in the middle,
of the field and zoning guys off and things like that.
I still feel like we've seen quite a bit of
manton Man coverage as you would expect with Gonzo and

(01:42:03):
Carlon Davis and the players the Patriots may have, So
I wouldn't be surprised if it looks similar and you
have some of those cover safeties again, whether it's you know,
a dugger Craig Woodson potentially competing for a role like that,
Alex Austin, maybe you know as like an inside corner,
like a slot corner. But you know, Bowers is like

(01:42:24):
more of like a flex receiver than he is. He's
more of a slot receiver than he is like a
true tight end. So maybe like that they cover him
in Week one with a corner, you know, if you
want to get specific to Brock Bowers. But I think
it's going to be pretty similar based off of what
we've seen. Now we've seen very little, but that's where
I'm at with that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
Yeah, I mean, Craig Woodson probably makes most sense as
the tight end stopper in general. Do you want to
throw Brock Bowers at him in his first NFL game?
That might be where they go Austin or they go
with Peppers, and it'll probably be multiple I mean, he's
their top receiver. He'll be double teamed and he'll get
a lot of attention. But I think ideally Craig Woodson
slots into that role.

Speaker 3 (01:42:59):
Yeah, I agree, and I you know, he did a
little bit in college. Now, he had his ups and
downs in that role in college. I remember Gats in
the Syracuse tight end he had a game against him.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
Well, Gats is another one of these guys. He was
a wide receiver when he entered college.

Speaker 3 (01:43:12):
Yeah, game, you had a couple of big catches against
Craig woods And I'm still weary if that's really a
strength of his game. But in terms of getting on
the field and like give the opportunities that might be
there for Craig woods and it feels like those opportunities
are better suited. You know, Duggar and Peppers are going
to be Duggar and Peppers. They're going to play their roles,
they're going to be starters, they are going to be

(01:43:34):
full time players. So if he's going to get on
the field, it's going to be you know, potentially could
be him being able to lock down tight ends it's
like either him being able to lockdown tight ends or
him playing center field, Like those are the two ways
that he really has a path on the field. All right,
this is a question from that one Boston fan. He
has a Twitter account. I 't know if he's getting
his Twitter account a little bit, but he asks, uh,

(01:43:55):
you know how big how I guess to rephrase this,
how uh frequently with the Patriots use trick place on
offense this year. I think it is a good question
because McDaniels has always been a trick he loves trick place.

Speaker 1 (01:44:09):
Morton last year. I mean, I don't know, I don't
know if I can give you a percentage won a
game when every other game something like that, But they'll
they'll be a feature.

Speaker 3 (01:44:18):
Yeah, there's there's no doubt about it. Like he's a
big trick play guy. Yeah, whether it's I don't know.
I call a flea flicker a trick play. I don't
know if it's truly a trick play. It's kind of
maybe in a slightly different.

Speaker 1 (01:44:32):
Box, but I think it's a trick It's a common
trick play, but it's a trick play.

Speaker 3 (01:44:36):
So he's a big flea flicker guy. Yeah, he's a
big double pass guy. Yeah, I mean the pass the
ball out to the receiver to then throw back to
the back and the screen in the flat is like
a McDaniel's trick play staple.

Speaker 1 (01:44:47):
Yeah, you pull you screen out right, you pull the
offensive line out left, and the wide receivers back left.
Who is the throwing wide receiver now though, So Kendrick
Bourne's done a little bit, A little bit. I don't
know though, if there's none of them really have quarterback backgrounds.
Do they bowlk Baker? Oh, Kyle Williams in high school? Yeah,

(01:45:08):
I think was a quarterback. So maybe it's Kyle Williams
or they gonna have a rook you mas throwing the ball.

Speaker 3 (01:45:12):
And I know we're not really supposed to say this,
but not this in practice this year, but in the
past Hunter Henry's throwing some passes in practice.

Speaker 1 (01:45:19):
Now most of the time is goofing off. But like
those Arkansas tight ends, remember a j Jerby, Maybe he's
got a little bit of an arm. I don't know.
Maybe that's tougher to do though, because they rarely put him. Well,
maybe it'll be different with Josh McDaniels. Yeah, how much
should Henry line up out wide into twenty twenty one,
because not a ton they're gonna know if Hunter Henry's
lined up on the boundary, Hey, something's coming. Yeah, usually

(01:45:39):
it's you know, they all the Patriots run place to
set it up, and maybe that's something we see more
than this.

Speaker 3 (01:45:45):
Yeah, So all their double passes in the past, for
the most part, I shouldn't say all. It's just off
the top of my head. The ones that I remember,
they used to use Gronk as like a blocker, like
as like a personal protector basically for the thrower. So
they put the Edelman outside, they put Gronk on the
line of scrimmage. Edelman would like take a five steps

(01:46:05):
back to how to be a backwards pass, and then
Gronk would literally pass it in front of him and
just stand in front of him. You watch the touchdown
passa Danny A. Mondola against Baltimore in the playoffs. Gronk
is the one that is basically playing left tackle for
Julian Edelman, so most of the time that's a tight end.
So maybe that would more be Hunter Henry's role.

Speaker 1 (01:46:22):
They actually throwing the pator Henry fifty eight uh snaps
in the out wide. Now he did play a lot
in the slot. It's actually career high slot usage for
him in twenty twenty one. So yeah, on the Baltimore win,
your point Edelman lines up out wide. Yeah, but he
actually motions in and by the time the ball snapped,
he's a slot receiver. So yep, a little short.

Speaker 3 (01:46:42):
Motion and then the other So they like that play,
right obviously double true double pass.

Speaker 1 (01:46:47):
Like here, I'm sorry, I just like sneezed it in
the mic. I thought I muted my mic. I hit
pause on the computer. I'm so out of it. So
did that earlier today too, and I was thinking like, man,
I hope I don't do that and hit pause on
the computer, thinking I think everybody will forgive you. It's
a it's gross.

Speaker 3 (01:47:03):
So you had the the Edelman double pass, like back
to the to the screen side, right, So you have
like the that's the line of scrimmage play where they
throw it out to Edelman and then they throw the
screen across. Then they also have like just a straight
double pass like Damn and Dola in twenty fourteen, Like
that's just a out to the receiver up the field
double pass. Then the other thing that they built in

(01:47:26):
to the screen one is that they would have the
receiver on the screen side run a deep over and
he actually hit Philip dor Set for a touchdown in
Philadelphia on the downfield throw.

Speaker 1 (01:47:37):
Was that the one Dorset got hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:47:38):
I don't I don't know if he got hurt, but
he kind of touchdown. It was the only touchdown of
the game for the either two and it was an
Edelman touchdown pass to Philip dor Set and McDaniels. Josh
did a podcast with Julian Edelman. It must have been
like Games with Names or one of the Edelman shows,
and they talked about it, and I guess, like that
route is just a clear out to clear out that

(01:48:00):
side and it's really not an option, like it's you're
not supposed to throw it. The only time you're supposed
to throw it is if he's like wide open, like
there's like literally nobody covers him and he's wide open.
But this wasn't that, Like this was like a throw,
like he threw the ball to Phillip dor Set like
a quarterback would. And Julian Edelman said that he remembered
the night before the game they had to walk through

(01:48:22):
yea and he jokingly threw the he jokingly through the
pass the door set and McDaniels was like, you better
not do that in the game, And then he did
it in the game the next day and I and
I think the quote was like you maverick or something
like that, like and McDaniels was pissed that he actually

(01:48:42):
made the throw, but it was for a touchdown, So
can't be two pissed you're a touchdown only touch of that.

Speaker 1 (01:48:47):
Again, that was a rock fight that game. That game
was brutal.

Speaker 3 (01:48:50):
This is a good catch twenty two question here to
wrap it up on because this could take us a
few minutes to get there. So this is a very
long email from Robert, very well thought out Robert. I.
I apologize that I can't read the whole email, but
I will summarize. So the summarization of this email is
about a concept that you and I have kicked around
many times on the show about an NFL developmental league

(01:49:14):
and having some way in the off season, yes to
allow NFL players to play in the spring leagues as
a way to develop their skin, a whole plan for
those So the UFL is going on right now, correct.

Speaker 1 (01:49:29):
Their final week in the regular season, is this week
this weekend?

Speaker 3 (01:49:32):
It's the ratings have been awful, if I'm not mistaken,
like no one cares.

Speaker 1 (01:49:36):
Not as bad as some of the other spring leagues.
But it's not like it's not the NFL. Not a
ton of people are watching. No.

Speaker 3 (01:49:42):
So the way that this is mutually benefited, there's obvious
benefits for a league like the UFL to bring in
NFL players because that would then get us sick goose
to watch right well, and.

Speaker 1 (01:49:55):
It becomes it becomes part of following your team because
if the Patriot to have a player assigned there, you
want to see what he's gonna do. Is he gonna
make a push with the roster, especially the quarterbacks. I'll
say this about the UFL, like it's not as bad
as a whole. The football is not as bad as
people make it out to be. The court, there's not
nearly enough quarterbacks, so the poor quarterback play brings everybody

(01:50:19):
else down. The number of like overthrows or bad reads
or guys just holding the ball, leading the sacks, miss
picking up protections. If the quarterback play was better, the
league as a whole would be a lot better.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
So that being said, the concept that we've always kicked around.
And let's be clear, this is not Drake may going
to play in the springley. This is I know he's
not on the team anymore, but this is Joe Milton
going to play in this even he might be astra
like I too good.

Speaker 1 (01:50:47):
Yeah, it would be like a guy who finished it
probably would be a guy who finished the pass season,
like on the practice squad or not on a ringar
guy like a future contract guy. Well, he's a rookie,
so that's different. I'll get to that in a second. Yeah,
but you probably would need some So I think the
probably something written into the contract where the player would
have to agree to it that like, hey, we are
allowed to ask you to go play in this league.

Speaker 3 (01:51:09):
So there's a lot of benefits from obviously the spring
league side in terms of money and revenue, but the
other the real advantage I think for NFL teams for
this is that once you get into the season, especially,
there's just not a ton of reps for these backup rights,
and especially at positions that are very technique based, like

(01:51:30):
offensive line. Everybody talks about how the offensive line play
around the league stinks, and it's a developmental issue. It's
a pipeline issue, and it's just across the league.

Speaker 1 (01:51:43):
Teams are having trouble finding enough talent on the offensive line. Now,
I'm not suggesting that this would solve all your problems,
but it does. It will, in theory, increase the talent
level of the offensive line, the pool around the league,
and the floor of the talent around the league if
you would allow and we're talking about practice squad guys

(01:52:06):
and maybe on rare, rare exceptions, like back end of
the roster guys that didn't play at all in the
NFL and we're like healthy scratches all the time or
whatever the case may be the year before. But this
allowing that to happen, I think would be huge for quarterbacks.
It'd be huge for linemen. Yeah, and other positions too.
You know, there are always benefits to getting live reps.

(01:52:27):
You can't replicate live reps, and especially once you get
into the season, it's really difficult to replicate live reps
for backups because they just are all the starters are
repping all the time and these practices and there's not
a lot of contact to begin with. A lot of
these practice especially late in the season, aren't even full
contact practices anymore because guys are banged up and stuff
like that, so the coaches pull back. So this would

(01:52:49):
allow you know, good examples in the past that we've had,
you know are like guys like a Trey Nixon, right,
who's like trying to make the Patriots team a year
in and year out, can't break through. If he goes
to the UFL and plays live football in the spring,
does that put him in a better position to potentially
make the Patriots roster in the summer, And then it's
more content, which the NFL is all about, because now

(01:53:11):
we're following this thing and we're talking about Trey Nixon. Hey,
Trey Nixon had eight hundred yards in ten games in
the UFL, Like should we be noticing that? So I
would take it to another level. I think the spring league.
First of all, you'd have to shift it. This is
my idea. You don't do it this time of year.
It goes from the week after the Super Bowl to
a couple of weeks before the draft. That's what I

(01:53:33):
would run. And you have three groups of players street
free agents, street free agents, So these are just guys
that don't have a team they're veterans, they can play.
The second group is players assigned by NFL teams, and
you would figure out what qualifies a player who can
be assigned and how they'd get split up on the
different teams. You could also, by the way, do that
with coaches and maybe give some young coaches experience. But

(01:53:54):
you know, maybe NFL teams want their players to play
for a certain coach, they send him to a certain team,
or you send a guy close to where he played
college because that's good for the Development League because they'll
get some groups. And then the third group you make
for certain players coming out of college, you have to
declare for the draft. You can't do this and go

(01:54:15):
back to school, but you make it an alternative to
the Senior Bowl Combine circuit. Okay, so a young guy
like you wouldn't have a top pick doing this, right,
But a guy that's on the fringe, so Ben wold
Ridge would be a great example of this undrafted player
doesn't have a ton of tape. What's the combine really
going to do for him? He didn't get invites to

(01:54:36):
the Senior BOWLD. No, he's going to go play in
this league and now we get to watch him, And
imagine if especially there aren't some bigger name quarterbacks that
aren't looked at looked at. It's like draftable guys. Perfect
example of this, dju Ungalle Yeah, right, was nothing was
happening for him at the combine. He wasn't gonna raise
his stock. If he go plays and plays in this
league and he lights it up, should he be drafted?

(01:54:57):
How high's he going to be drafted? Blah blah blah,
something like that. Right, They ultimately went in the first round,
but guys like Johnny Manziel and Tim tebow Wright would
have would have been things for this. So I think
they should do that. And then that's why you have
to have the league end before the draft. And there
is some precedence for this. Uh was it? Uh? Stickers?
I forget his first name. The corner Quantes Stiggers. Oh yea, yeah,

(01:55:21):
who was in the draft last year. Yeah, he didn't
play college football. He was supposed to play college football
and the pandemic captain and he had some stuff in
his personal life and he dropped out and he ended
up signing with the CFL, and he didn't do really
much of the offseason program or the pre draft process.
He was just in the CFL and the Jets drafted him. Yeah, so,

(01:55:43):
and I think he actually played like a good amount
last year, so you could you you there is some
precedent and there was another corner two a few years
ago did this who got drafted. I think of the
the XFL at the time you create, you let college
guys play in this league to try to up their
draft stock who maybe need a little bit more of
the showcase. It's nothing against the Senior Bowl, but Senior

(01:56:04):
bowls limited reps, and there's a lot of good players
there and it's just one game in three days of practice.
Some guys might need a whole season. You give those
guys an opportunity to maybe show what they can do
with a little more room.

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
I just think there's a lot of advantages from the
live rep aspect, especially for offensive lineman. I'll go back there, like,
if you want to improve the talent of the offensive
line around the NFL, you're not going to do that
with guys that are blocking against air or against like
you know, in these non padded practices and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):
They need live reps.

Speaker 3 (01:56:36):
They need real reps in games, and you can get
those in these types of spring leaves. Now the obvious
question would then be like injury concern, and I think
to that point, and this happens with rookies that don't
that are unsigned, You sign a waiver and basically you
get treated like you're on injured reserve. You get placed

(01:56:57):
on injured reserve by your NFL team. The waiver that
you sign says that you will be compensated like you
would be if you were on injured preserve during the
NFL season, And it's basically just an extension of that
and that way there if you know, I hope not,
but like if Eft and Chisholm were to go do
this next year and he were to get seriously hurt,
hopefully not if that ever happens, but if it did,

(01:57:18):
then he would be covered, you know, in terms of compensation,
so it wouldn't be like out of a job.

Speaker 1 (01:57:23):
On the same line, and Chishm would have been the
guy that could have gotten played in the league this
year and probably would have gotten drafted if he could
showcase against some professional talent. The guys you taught were
talking about assigning to this league. Yeah, you need to
do it if you want a chance to make the team.
So it's not, well, I don't want to get hurt
and risk my contract. Right, you don't do it, You're
probably not gonna have an NFL contract.

Speaker 3 (01:57:42):
Yeah, like the couple, you know, a lot of them
are rookies that I'm thinking of off the top of
my head.

Speaker 1 (01:57:46):
But like even like a guy like like.

Speaker 3 (01:57:48):
Tyres Robinson who we talked about today, got some run
at at left guard. Like if he had been able
to play in the Spring League up until this point,
like maybe he would have a like I wouldn't be
dismissing it.

Speaker 1 (01:58:00):
Maybe he would have a real show. So I'll give
you another one. Vaderian Low. The Patriots trade for Vaderian
Low during the twenty twenty three season. He doesn't play
a ton. Then they go back last off. He's saying, Okay,
this guy might be our starting left tackle. You assigned
him to the league, and you would have some sort
of deal with the coach that, hey, you were assigning
him to you as a left tackle. You're going to

(01:58:21):
play him at left tackle. That's who want him to develop.
And he could have gotten a bunch of left tackle reps.
Chookes a core for same thing. A guy that signed
for not a lot of money. Now would he have
gone through with it, I don't know. But like in theory,
all right, this guy's the right tackle. We need to
make get reps at left right. We're going to assign him,
and you tell the coach in that league like you're
playing him at left and the league would agree to
it because they're getting these players they wouldn't otherwise get.

Speaker 3 (01:58:42):
So we have to wrap. But I want to last
point on this. I think the other the last frontier
for this, and you mentioned it briefly, if you can
find a way that let's just say it's, uh, you
know how many teams are in the NFL right now?

Speaker 1 (01:58:56):
Eight? I think the rumor is that it might be
nine or ten next year.

Speaker 3 (01:59:00):
So it's a little bit much in terms of this
just in general, if you say, like these two teams
are running like a Shanahan West Coast, and these two
teams are running like a McDaniel's EP system, like you know,
old school McDaniels, and then these couple of teams are
running like the Andy Reid version of the West Coast,

(01:59:20):
like the West Coast Spread or the West Coast College
and that way there when you start in the same
thing on defense, like that way there when you started
signing the players, like the Patriots can send their guys
to like the EP team, and then you know, the
Miami Dolphins can send their guys to the West Coast team.
And then you're running the system and running the scheme
with the verbiage and all that stuff, like those players

(01:59:41):
are that.

Speaker 1 (01:59:41):
Going to be running probably lined I don't know that
it would be that formalized, but like you're gonna have
if if the NFL. So there's two ways you go
about this. I think if I remember correct, in the
NFL Europe, there was like pre set these NFL teams
are linked with this europe team. Yeah, so maybe they
do that. But if you're just choosing where you send players,
NFL teams and NFL coaches are probably gonna have relationships

(02:00:03):
with a lot of these coaches and they're gonna be
able to say, I want my going to this team
because I know that he's going to get like the
coaching that I wanted to get. Yeah. Yeah, so they
actually it's a good collection of coaches. I'm trying to
pull the list up. I think that we have this
concept NAIL.

Speaker 3 (02:00:22):
We've been talking about this for like five years. We
have this concept nailed down. So Roger Goodell UFL commissioner,
if you want us to come, he's the commissioner of
the league.

Speaker 1 (02:00:34):
Or is he just like the figurehead of he owns it.
Oh that's a little different. I feel like that kind
of makes him the commissioner.

Speaker 3 (02:00:40):
If you want two people that have thought more about
this than anybody else. The two of us have this nails, like,
we know exactly what needs to be done, we know
exactly how to get there. Maybe we need some suits,
some lawyers to come in and help us, like figure
out the injury settlements and all that good stuff. But
we have this concept nailed so we're available. We will
come in and we will tell you and we will

(02:01:01):
lay you, lay it out for you and tell you
exactly how this can be done. And to a point
you made earlier, we are the sickos that on a
random day in March when the Spring League is going
on and a Patriot player that was assigned to a team,
we will we will talk about it, we will write
about it.

Speaker 6 (02:01:21):
We will.

Speaker 1 (02:01:23):
Like in the draft in it. By the way, they
don't there is no commissioner. Oh best I can find. Okay, well,
we're available. The Rock, we are available. I forget he
has a business partner there. I forget her name, but
it's it's two people, all right. So that does it
for this week's show, we'll be back. President is a
guy named Russ Brandon.

Speaker 3 (02:01:41):
There, come on, Russ, come on, Dwayne the Rock Johnson,
we are ready to go here next week, we'll be
back on Wednesday. We'll be back to our normal time
at noon. No practice that day, so we will be
back at noon and we will talk about Monday's practice.
We'll talk about David Andrews' retirements ceremony. We'll touch on

(02:02:02):
Mini Camp, which is not next week, but it's the
following week, and then that's a wrap on the off
season program, and then we go I'll go on vacation
for the summer until training camp. So that's a schedule
for the next couple of weeks. We'll have you covered
throughout all these OTAs in Mini camp right here on
Patriots Catch twenty two for Alex Barth.

Speaker 1 (02:02:19):
I'm Evan Lazarre. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks
for watching Brite.

Speaker 7 (02:02:24):
Hey, this is Alex. Thanks for tuning into the show.
If you really want to help us, make sure you
like us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get
your podcasts. Also, make sure you follow us on the
New England Patriots YouTube channel to see this show and
everything else we do here at the Patriots.

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
Thanks a lot,

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