Patriots Catch-22 8/20: Vikings Week Recap, 53-Man Roster Projection, Preseason Finale Preview

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Lazar and Alex Barth.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Bizarre and Lazar.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hello, everybody nailed it joined us Always buy ours Barak.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
The island is expanding for Afton Chisholm.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Okay, why is it an island for Afton Chism. That
is a quarterback thing. That is a quarterback thing.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Afton Chisholm.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Regardless you want to get mad, I'm calling it an island.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm not saying it's not deserved. I just think it's
over analogy.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
The island is expanding.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
But it's not an island. He's not a It doesn't
make any sense.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
People are building houses, they're buying land, and then they're
building houses. So if you want some land on Afton
chishom Island, als, you better start to purchase right now
because it's getting a little crowded over there.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
That was before the eton Chism moment even happened.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I stand by my need. A better term for that
now is making the football.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
You put it. You have an island, and there's real
estate available on the island like in the old days,
like before Martha's vineyard in Nantucket got all populated. There
was open grass and open dirt for people to build
houses on efton Chishm Island. Now bumping. This is we
got multiple.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Train you could have first class tickets on the train.
About that. Nowfton Chisham City you can still do real
estate and city not island. It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
It makes more sense. And that was the last Thursday
show Alex before the preseason game even happened. That was
just based off of practice. So now this efton Chishm Island.
This the island is bumping. Now we got we got restaurants,
we got bars, we got we got beaches where we're
full on. You know, Martha's Vandernard Nantucket. Eft in Chishm Island.

(02:08):
That that's our chappie, you know is in there.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
The Patriots play the Raiders week one. Their best receivers
Jacoby Myers, right, yes, could me and Jacoby Myers both
be on Christian Gonzales Island then in week one technically
because if Christian Zalaz shuts him down, we're gonna talk
about him being on Gonzales Island saying this is what Also,
I am a fan of Christian Zales, So I like,
do you understand that's you.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Understand why it doesn't work. I understand, but it's different.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Like, Okay, in this scenario, it's a different past.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
It's a different context of using this term.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
When there's a stut. When there's like a UDFA corner,
late round traffic corner and a year or two in
camp that absolutely pops, you're gonna need a new term.
So I'm just saying start now. So it's all standard.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Anyways, we're gonna get to et Chisholm, not that we
didn't just talk about him just now, but we're gonna
do three up, three down from the preseason game against
the Vikings, a little bit of a regular season mode,
if you will. In terms of the show format today,
we're gonna go back and we're going to recap the
week that was, talk a little bit of Drake May
three Up, three down, and then we're also going to

(03:13):
preview the Giants game, but mostly talk within the prism
of the Giants game, of the roster cut down days
now six days away or less than a week away
from roster cuts. So bubble players, Alex, you published something
about bubble players the other day, we're gonna talk about that,
and I know, I know that we're going to talk

(03:34):
a lot about the trade market because it's the NFL
hot stove, if you will, is maybe a little hotter
this year, at this time of year than I remember
it being in the past. Like there's some big names
that are floating around there, like Trey Hendrickson and Terry
McLaurin and Micah Parsons, but even some little names, you know,
not little is the wrong word, smaller names like we

(03:57):
have locally here that are starting to make waves and
rumors and all that. So we're gonna get to all that,
but I want to open the show with a look
back at this past week and specifically discuss some of
the things with Drake May, because whether it's here, whether
it's your station, whether it's just the ether narrative out

(04:18):
there right now, I do think we're we're getting a
little ahead of ourselves with some of the commentary on
Drake May in terms of where he's at right now.
And this isn't to make excuses, this isn't to you know,
apologize for him or anything like that. We're gonna we're
gonna talk critically, We're gonna evaluate his performance critically here

(04:40):
in a minute. But I just want to put some
things about where Drake May is in perspective for everybody,
because I feel like we're getting a little bit ahead
of ourselves with some of these things. This is a
twenty two year old kid that's made twelve NFL starts,
that's going into his second year. Just in terms of

(05:00):
of NFL years, I just want to rattle off a
few things. But most of these guys that I'm going
to bring up were still in college at this point
right when Drake May is in terms of years on
this planet, right, But in terms of NFL years, you
have Patrick Mahomes started one game his rookie season. It

(05:22):
was a Week seventeen game where they benched out or
they rested Alex Smith, I should say not benched, rested
Alex Smith and gave Mahomes the game. Because they the
Chiefs that were already in the playoffs, they had nothing
to play for meaningless Week seventeen game. They gave the
kid the start. So Patrick Mahomes at this point in
his career had one NFL start under his belt. At
this point in his career, Josh Allen was coming off

(05:43):
a season where he completed fifty two percent of his
passes and threw more interceptions and touchdowns. At this point
in his career, Joe Burrow tore his ACL his rookie
season and had not a very good year in Cincinnati.
Tour's ACL was coming back off the ACL. Lamar Jackson
his rookie year, only started half the season in Baltimore,
won some games, made the playoffs, but there were a

(06:06):
lot of questions. We talked about it at the time,
a lot of questions about him as.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
A passer, A far cry from the Lamar Jacks.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
He was at that point was like a running quarterback
right and were so all I'm getting at it just
from a bigger picture since with Drake may Is, I
know we all want the answer, like we all want
to know if he's the guy or not. We all
want to know if he can lead them or not.
But let's just let's just take a pause and just

(06:36):
recognize that as a young kid, he's still developing. Let's
give him time. Let's give Josh McDaniel's time. Let's give
him like Rabel time to work with him, and let's
see where this thing goes. By the year end, of
the year if we still have doubts or we still
have concerns, and that's a different story. But right now,
they haven't played any games yet, and I'm hearing I

(06:58):
haven't heard anybody actually say it, but I hear people
wanting to say the B word, which is bust.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, and it's.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Been We are way way, way too early in this
process to be throwing things around like that. So that's
just my soapbox. I just do. I listen and I read,
and I'm not knocking anybody in particular. I just know
that this is all out there that like Drake May,
you know, is he clutch, is he a winning player?

(07:26):
Does he have it? Like all these different types of things,
which are fair questions in the bigger picture. But let's
see it like, let's let's give it a beat, let's
give it a pause, and let's let's get there first
before we start throwing things around. That That is my
defense of Drake May. And then I do want to
break down some of the things that are the goods
and the bad, Like I don't want I'm not shying

(07:47):
away from the bad stuff, but I just think we
have to keep it in perspective.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
So I think this is where you see, you know,
we when we do the draft you bring out in
the nerd love this. We don't need to make this
analytics thing. But the nerds love the early breakout player. Right,
is the term you use the guy that has more
success at at nineteen twenty twenty one years old as
opposed to the guy that really doesn't start, you know,

(08:13):
becoming a star player in college till twenty one, twenty
two years old, I think, And that's why I don't
disagree on the nerds with that. I just don't think,
oh my god, I needed math to tell me the
players that are good when they're younger are also going
to be good when they're older. But I think that
the COVID era of college football may have proved a

(08:33):
temporary exception of that, because I think it can swing
further in the other direction, where when you have guys
who have had six seven years of development in college
before they get to the NFL, that is going to
show up immediately, and that's guys like Jane Daniels, that's
guys like Michael Pennix, right, and then you have the
flip side like Anthony Richardson. Bonnicks is a Componex and

(08:55):
more starts. To anybody, it should have brought up the
old man bon Nicks, and then on the flip side
of Anthony richards In, who there were also guys who
were coming out too young, like I think you can
come out. You also had this element of being a
copycat league where Josh Allen breaks out to Colt see
Anthony Richardson, who threw I think less than four hundred
passes his entire college career. He was just young. He

(09:17):
didn't break out young, he was just young. I think
Drake makes somewhere in the middle of that. My big
thing with Drake May, when you talk about a bust,
it's a player whose talent was misidentified. I don't think
Drake May's talent was misidentified. The talent is there, you
see it in flashes. I think Drake May is at
the crossroads where many young players across positions, frankly, across

(09:38):
sports kind of hit after their first year, not every
and this is where it goes. This is where I
bring back the age, like the older players have already
worked through a lot of In the NFL is obviously different,
jayde and Daniels had a lot of ups and downs
in his college career and he kind of learned how
to work through that over multiple years. Michael Pennix had
maybe more ups and downs than anybody, and he learned

(10:01):
how to work through it. Drake May was a red shirt,
had a great first year at UNC, lost a lot
of talent and was not quite as good but still
good as second year. And that's basically coaching staff turnover
to right. So I think what Drake May is working through,
which again is not uncommon. The last thing that comes

(10:21):
for young players, especially at the quarterback position, is consistency.
There's a lot of young players and you see flashes
of what they can do, but if it only ever
stays flashes, it's irrelevant because if you're a high pick,
you're expected to be more than that. It's about consistency.
Can you do the good things on a consistent basis?

(10:42):
Can you cut out the bad things on a consistent basis?
So where I'm at with Drake May right now is
the talent is there? I feel comfortable saying talent that
we saw when he was in the draft process last year.
Like check, we identified that correctly on the outside. Obviously,
more importantly, the Patriots identified that correct play on the inside.
But can he make use of that talent at a

(11:04):
consistent level as a pro. That's to me what ultimately
year two's about. There's ways that manifests itself right, cutting
down on the turnovers, taking better care of himself when
he runs the football, things like that. But what that
all falls under the umbrella of this is a very
talented individual. Can he display that talent on a regular basis.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, it's a good point in terms of the timeline.
And one other name I wanted to bring up, not
to pick on him, but Mac Jones after his rookie season.
Everybody was pretty high on him. Yeah, after his rookie year.
And to your point about the early breakout and the
talent and that whole side of it, that ended up
being mac Jones plateauing like that was the peak of

(11:47):
mac Jones in his NFL career, whereas with Drake May
he might not have had the immediate success that mac
Jones had, but you would like to think that over
the course of the next two to three years he
is going to rise to a level that was much
higher than what mac Jones was. I brought up all
these other quarterbacks not to say that he's gonna go

(12:09):
win multiple MVPs like Lamar, or he's gonna win multiple
Super Bowls like Mahomes. I just want to keep in
perspective that a lot happens in the first two or
to three four years of a quarterback's career, and there's,
like you said, like there's a lot of roller coaster
to start for most guys, whether it's sitting like Mahomes,

(12:31):
or it's uneven play like Josh Allen, Like, there's a
lot of that that goes on. And right now we
are in the middle of it with Drake May. But
we're not at the end where we're starting to make
proclamations about Drake May. We're on the ride. We are
we are on the ride, like the roller coaster has started,
but we are on the middle of the ride and
we're right at the drop, but we're not at We're

(12:53):
not on the other side yet, So let's just let
him develop. I have a lot of faith in McDaniel, especially,
but Rabel two. From the intangible stuff that we've seen
Rabel pushing Drake with. I have a lot of faith
in all that, in the infrastructure that they have around him,
more so than I did, especially last year, so I'm

(13:14):
optimistic now. I do want to talk about him in
an objective way too, and not just defend the wall
on Drake May because the preseason tape in my mind,
hasn't been great. It just hasn't been very good. Now,
why is that? I think there's two different conversations to
have there. You know, I think everybody can watch his

(13:36):
film or watch the game live against Minnesota and see
the high throws that he starts the game out with,
and that's very tangible, that's very apparent. But I'm less
concerned about those throws as I am some of the
reads and some of the decisions that he's making within
these games. That is more concerning to me, because I

(14:00):
think he's gonna hit open receivers more times than not.
Like I think he's gonna make that throat to pop
Douglas eighty five ninety percent of the time. It just
was one of those times where the ball got away
from him a little bit. Maybe he wasn't one hundred
percent sure if he was gonna sit or if he
was gonna keep running. I think there was that element too.
Mike Rabel was asked about Drake May the other day,

(14:20):
and he did bring up being on the same page
as receivers and miscommunications and things like that. So I
do wonder if that is going on a little bit
as everybody starts to pick up this Josh McDaniels offense,
not just him, but the receivers also, So I think
there's maybe an element to that. The one thing that
I've seen on his film for the first both weeks

(14:43):
is that he's having some issues with processing post snap movement.
So like when the defense shows you something pre snap,
and then NFL defense especially, they're gonna disguise and then
they're gonna rotate into some different post snap, and how
do you react to that pre snap post snap movement.

(15:04):
We talked a little bit about the strip sack last week,
and I think it was the same sort of thing
they showed him single high and then then when they
fell out of coverage there when the ball was snapped,
it ended up being a too high look, right, And
a lot of the time in Josh McDaniel's offense, you
have coverage beaters to one side and coverage beater to

(15:25):
the other side. So it's like when you drop back,
if you have let's say it's you know two by
two right, you have two receivers and one on either
side of you. You might have a two high beater
to your left and you have a single high beater
to your right, and based off the read that the
quarterback gets, that's the way he's going to open to
look to throw. So if you're expecting single high and

(15:47):
then you open to the single high side and then
it's actually too high, well now you're holding the football
because you're you're indecisive, or you're not reading the right
side of the field, or whatever the case may be.
So in the Minnesota game, I thought there were a
couple of instances where Minnesota would show him one coverage
pre snap, then they would rotate into something or fall

(16:08):
into something different post snap, and it just caused Drake
May to have some hesitancy, like he just wasn't one
hundred percent sure at what he was looking at. To me,
that's at least what it looked like. I'll give you
an example the throw to maccollins that he actually did
hit out of structure on the third down play. I
know it's going around Orlovsky tweeted about it. There's a

(16:30):
big play to be had in the pocket. There he
has two receivers Pop Douglas and Kyle Williams winning down
the field for potential touchdowns if he just stays in
the pocket and makes a throw from the pocket. So
on that play, they start Pop Douglas in the slot,
and Pop Douglas motions from the left side of the
formation to the right side of the formation. When he

(16:52):
motions the nickel, the slot defender follows him man coverage right.
So Drake May is saying, oh, this is single high
one safety up top. The indicator is telling me it's
man to man. I have man to man coverage. So
he starts looking at Pop Douglas thinking I'm gonna go
to my man beater. I'm gonna go to Pop, who

(17:12):
usually wins in those situations. On third down, when the
ball was snapped, the nickel actually falls into the half
field and they end up playing cover two out of
a single high Look now that's the league like that.
That's how a lot of NFL defenses are doing it
now Sundays. But when they spun it and the nickel
dropped out and he played cover two, Drake May held

(17:33):
the ball because he didn't I don't think he was
one hundred percent decisive or sure of what exactly it
was that he was looking at. So those types of things,
to me are a tiny bit more concerning than like, oh,
he missed this throw, because I expect him to correct

(17:53):
the throw that he missed, Like, I don't think that's
going to be a consistent thing where he's spraying the
ball over Douglas's head when he's wide open. When teams
see that on film, that maybe he has some problems
with post snap rotation, they're just going to keep testing
him on post snap rotation until he figures it out.
That to me is something that could be more indicative

(18:14):
of a bigger picture type thing. So that's a long
winded way of sort of breaking down what I saw
on the film. But is there anything else you wanted
to add about Drake before we move on, Because overall,
like I said, like I don't this is not alarm
its like I said earlier, it's early, Like this is
we're very early on in this process with Drake May

(18:35):
and we're especially very early on with Drake May in
an offense and with the coaching staff that can rise
to the level, right like Mike Rabel and Josh McDaniels
are have the experience and the wherewithal to coach a
player like Drake May and get the best out of him.
So I want to give him grace. But if we
have to look at the film objectively, those are just

(18:56):
a couple of things that I saw.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, I mean the sprays are the sprays goes back
to my consistency point. They were an issue last year.
They've been less of an issue over all this summer.
Maybe more in the last week or so than they
were previously, but overall they've been less That's one of
the big consistency points for me. Can Drake make cut
down on the sprace Because he can do that, There's
gonna be opportunities to be had. We've seen it with

(19:18):
this offense. I think the wide receivers, you know, collectively,
have put together a nice summer. Kasehawan Boody has succeeded expectations,
MATC Hollins s exceeded expectations. Pop Douglas is that expectation.
But I mean he's been good, right, So I think
overall Javon Baker kind of will see if he makes
a team, but kind of come dow nowhere. I think
There's gonna be opportunities for him. He's just got to

(19:39):
be able to capitalize on those opportunities on a more
regular basis than he did last year.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah. No, it's a great point because I don't want
to make too much out of the preseason game because
they're going up against the twos. Now, I sometimes like
when it comes to going up against starters and backups.
Let's be clear, the twos that Drake May were facing
on Saturday are going to make the vikings. They are
just not their starting frontline players. It's not Byron Murphy,
it's not Jonathan Grenard, like it's Dallas Turner. It's the

(20:06):
next guys, right, it's they're two's not their practice squad guys.
So it wasn't like he was going up against total nobodies.
But still, the fact that there were open receivers, I
don't want to make a big deal out of necessarily
for the preseason game, but in the joint practices I
felt the same way that there were open receivers. So
that's positive that one they might have upgraded enough at

(20:30):
the skill positions to be competitive. I don't know if
they've upgraded enough to be a contender, but they've upgraded
enough to be competitive. And then also it's you know,
a feather and Josh mcdaniels's cap. He's getting guys open.
You know, he's scheming things, he's dressing things up, he
is getting guys open, especially in those joint practices. So
those are all positives. We want to do three up,

(20:51):
three down from the preseason game as well. So let's
get into that. Do you want to start us off?
Because I have a feeling that ours is going to
be pretty similar this week. I feel like there aren't
too many to pick from, But who are your three up?

Speaker 4 (21:04):
All right?

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Start with your ups first?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
I mean first up. Obviously, he's Aston Chisholm. He was
the best player in that game. He was unbelievable. I've
said this for a while with Chisholm, like my I
don't want to say hold up, but my thing with
Chisholm was usually the last thing you're looking for with
the UDFA who's making a roster pushes is he working

(21:26):
with the ones and just to kind of get that
that what's the confirmation and that he obviously hasn't done that.
He still hasn't done that, but at a certain point
it's like, all right, well, if he's just gonna be
against the twos, let's see what he looks like with
the twos. And it's not like it's close, right, he
looks like what you expect a starting caliber player to

(21:46):
look like against twos. Case in point, look at Anthony Jennings,
who he knows, a starting caliber player who's further down
on the depth chart for other reasons. And we'll get
to but I mean, he's he was dominating. And the
other thing is that the one thing we really hadn't
seen from Chisholm, because you can't really see it in
a practice setting, is the yards have to catch stuff,
the ability to make tacklers missed because obviously not tackling

(22:06):
in practices, and he was tremendous in that regard. Certainly
so looks assuming that he's healthy and can start the
season on the roster, which was Mike Reese noted he
was riding the exercise bike pretty vigorous le during practice
the other day, which is a good sign like that,
I'm sold he's a roster lock. I'm good.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, I'm with you. I think he made the team.
On Saturday, and we played that clip to begin the show,
from last week's show. Yeah, and I not to This
is not patting myself on the back, but that was
before the game. That was us talking about ethon Chishom
just based off of the press.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
I will say somebody in the YouTube comments and hearing
that pointed out the island thing with cornerbacks is because
it's a place of isolation from civilization, so to have
it also be a place of community for fans is
totally upside down.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
No, it makes total sense. No, I'm not gonna argue
about this. He's Chisem Islands.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
But okay, it's not I said it incorrectly there. It's
not he's Chishm Island. It's that it's it's Chishm Island,
as if like we were in isolation with thinking that
Chisholm was good, but now it's it's hopping on the island.
Look right now, everybody wants real estate on the island.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
We touched the Sun last year with the Manhattan Project
as a nickname. I don't think we're gonna get close
to that, but I'd like to follow it up with
something more than Chishm Isld. No, it's not Chisum Island,
but that's what it's gonna be.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
I was living on an island, supporting efton Chisholm, and
now the island is expanding. Now everybody's on the island anymore.
It is still an island. It's just a hopin island.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
It's a Ruba that you're missing. So analogy is so broken,
it's perfect, so broken.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Now now we we just we've civilized this island now
and people people are on the island and we're packing
it in. We're ready to go. So here's my take
on because I think you you summed up the game
stuff good. I think the one thing that should be
said about fon Chism is that I don't think it's
necessarily a total fluke that he's doing this. I think

(24:11):
their only question that evaluators had about and Chism in
the draft was the four seven forty straight line speed, Yes,
straight line speed, The quickness, the place drain, the ability
to catch the ball in traffic, even the ability to
break tackles is there on the Eastern Washington tape. And
he had all sorts of production in college. I know

(24:33):
he I don't think he broke Cooper Cup's records, but
he was like one of the only receivers I think
they have three hundred career catches besides Cooper Cup at
Eastern Washington. Yeah, so he was right there with a
lot of Cup stuff from Eastern Washington. And so this
wasn't a fluke of this guy is, you know, coming

(24:55):
completely out of nowhere to make a roster push. This
was a player that had draftable film in college, that
ran a bad forty and because the thresholds an archaic
thinking about the forty yard dash, people just wiped him
out from their draft boards. He just was undraftable for
a lot of teams. So once he came in here

(25:15):
and he started doing what he was doing, and I
want to reiterate that he's doing this in practice as
well as the games. Yeah, once he started doing this,
it wasn't like, oh, this is some fluky preseason Maurice
Harris type of situation. It's like, oh, wait a second,
like these kids, this kid's skills are translating to the

(25:35):
NFL game from what they were in college. So Fton
Chisholm had Day three tape at Eastern Washington and he
went undrafted because of the forty times. So in that respect,
I think that it makes it almost even more real
that maybe they might have found something here. It obviously
helps that he's playing in an offense and in a

(25:56):
role that's very hyper specific to his skill set. It's
a slot or Z receiver role in Josh mcdaniels's offense.
That is, you know, the Edelman Welker, Troy Brown, Deon
branch if you want to go back that far. It's
a highly productive role within this offense, which helps in
his skill set lends itself to that. But I think
the main thing to take away from this Efton Chisholm

(26:17):
thing is that if you just drafted him based off
of tape, then you probably were talking about a guy
that was like a mid to late day three pick.
But because the forty time he goes undrafted and the
hands up here as a UDFA with the Patriots, So
I think he made the team. The most important, press
or impressive thing I know to a lot of people

(26:38):
as the broken tackles, I don't necessarily look at it
the same way because he, like the guys that are
trying to tackle him aren't exactly frontline players. So I
don't know if he's going to break four tackles like
he did on his touchdown against the starting defense, but
the ability to separate quickly, find space and zone coverage,

(27:00):
attack the football in the air with strong hands, and
finished through contact at the catch point, like all of
those elements offton Chishm's game belong. He has good instincts
with the football in his hands, even though I don't
know if the broken tackles are going to be as
high of a volume. I think he has good instincts
for where the open field is, where the green grass is,
where people are coming from you're trying to tackle him,

(27:21):
which I think is an innate field thing that comes instinctively,
is not necessarily a natural trait. So all these things
I think are really positive about eton chism. You mentioned
that he hasn't done it against starters. I think that's
a fair A fair question is whether or not he
can do this against starting caliber players. But he proved
it he's on the team. I think he's done plenty

(27:43):
to make a roster, especially one that doesn't exactly have
a stacked receiver room. I think he's done more than enough.
Who's your second up?

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Real quick cut? More things onon Chism.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
One. Can you name the only two Eastern Washington players
who have thrown a pass in the NFL? Kendrick Bourne, yep,
another the other one? You should you know him like
you did. He's a very notable player.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Oh, I got Kendrick Bourne.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Cooper Cup.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Oh so he's also he's thrown a trick pass as well.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, Eastern Washington has not put out their twenty twenty
five media guy yet, so I don't know if he
broke cups records. Mother thing like like. Also, let's just
let's not get ahead of ourselves with Cooper Cup. At
the same time, Don't get me wrong, I'm very impressed
you Meanton Chism. Yeah, well, let's not get ahead of
ourselves with Cooper Cup.

Speaker 5 (28:29):
Two.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I guess let's not call him Cooper Cup. That's what
you're saying, Let's not get ahead of ourselves with Fton Chism.
And what I mean by that is like, he's had
a great summer and he's earned a roster spot and
for a UDFA, that in itself is a significant accomplishment.
Let's not act like he's gonna come in and be
their wide receiver. One. No, let's not act like he's
kicking Pop Douglas off the field.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
One.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
They can both be on the field at the same time.
There's plenty of room for that in Josh McDaniel's offense. Two. Like, yes,
it was back to your point earlier about Drake May.
It wasn't descrub, but it also wasn't the starters. Like
we've seen a limited sample size. What we've seen is impressive,
and you only get a limited sample size to make
the team. You're gonna get more of a sample size

(29:09):
to as the season goes on, Like how many pass
seven catch this year? Right? I feel like there's some
people acting like he's gonna be the go to guy
maybe eventually Julian Edelman took four years, and that's not
to say he's gonna be Julian Edelman, but he made
the team. He made the team. I just want to
be able to check that box and appreciate that for
what it is, because it's an accomplishment without going over

(29:33):
our skis.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
No, I'm not going over my skis. And we've talked
about this off there, Like he made the team, it
stops full stop, Like there's no projection of what he's
gonna be in terms of his rookie season that he's
gonna be this number one receiver. I'm not even sure
he's gonna be on the field, Like, I don't even
know if he's if he's a game day acting.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
I mean, if they're gonna keep six receivers, he probably
gonna have to play special teams.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
But right the one thing that I would say would
just and I want to get back to another thing
that you said in terms of if I again like
it's it was just the forty time, Like if it
was if this was a situation where this guy was
a five foot nothing, one hundred and twenty pound you know,

(30:17):
you know, right, sure, okay, like if he was just
not an NFL athlete, and I would sit here and say, okay,
like maybe this is kind of just preseason training camp flukiness.
But this guy was was on people's radars. You know,
he went to the East West Shrine Bowl and had
a great week. They're at the Shrine Bowl. He it

(30:38):
was just the forties. So I'll really reiterate that. The
other thing that you mentioned that I wanted to hit
on before we move on is how they can kind
of play multiple slot types at the same time. And
I actually yesterday, you know, Humble Breck. I was talking
to Julian Edelman yesterday. I'm gonna do just.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Real quick going into last year, and this is actually
absurd yea in terms of IFFT and have caught Cooper
Cup in terms of receptions going, so I just have
going in the last year and last year Afton Chishom
was a two twenty six. Yeah, Cooper Cup has the
record for twenty eight. Yeah, he had double yards aft
and Chisham had twenty five hundred going in last year.

(31:15):
Cooper Cup had career sixty four hundred.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
I don't think that Fton Chishm had four thousand receiving yard.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
He I believe he eclipsed a certain threshold that only
so I think at Eastern I think it was like
three hundred career catch.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Three hundred catches.

Speaker 6 (31:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
So just to finish the take I saw going to
Edelman yesterday, and I'm going to publish a piece probably
next week about all this, just about uh, the slot
receiver in mcdaniels's offense and you know how you play
that role and his thoughts on pop and eftin Chisholm
a little bit as well, and we were talking about him,
Edelman and Danny A. Mondola and what made those two

(31:51):
guys truly different. And Edelman was saying that Danny M.
Mendola was a pure slot. He called him an F. Yeah,
they call you, they call it an F F receiver
in the offense, he was a pure slot receiver and
Edelman was really a Z who in three receiver packages

(32:13):
would occasionally go play the F and be the primary slot,
but in two base, in two receiver based packages, he
would be the Z. He would be an outside receiver.
So Chisholm to me is an F like he's a
pure Danny AM Mondola slot. And that's the comparison that
Josh McDaniels has has brought up. Pop, on the other hand,

(32:34):
might be able to be more of like a Z
or a joker or a flanker, a guy that moves
around the formation and plays off the line of scrimmage.
So to your point, like you can play in three
receiver sets, you can play a pure slot like Ft
and Chisholm, and you can play a Z like Pop
Douglas and have both of them together. So in this case,
even though it's not a perfect because it Pop and

(32:56):
Edelman are very different players, maybe a little bit better,
but Hogan was.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Big, So that's that's the But the skill sets more
similar because it's more based on straight line speed and.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Like downfield ability. Yeah, so you know that was what
Edelman was saying, was that the two of them would
play together in three receiver packages, but a Mondola really
wouldn't play it into receiver based offense, right because he
wasn't like that kind of which you.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Don't need to do that like to make for for
Chisholm to make an impact or pop. Honestly, I think
even before Chishom carves out his role, when they go
to twelve or twenty one, it's digs in either Kishan Buda,
Kai Williams or mac Hollins. Like that's what it's been
all summer. Pap has been the guy that's come off
the field when they bring on a second running back
or second tight end.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah. So here's an email from Tom. I'm gonna I
want to give read this email because it's real. It's funny. Okay,
Alex is one hundred percent right, and chishm Island does
not make sense. Island are reserved only for elite corners.
You leave them in isolation, and QB's are afraid to
go there. Everyone thinks of revis Island when you hear
island exactly. It just does not work for receiver. This
is too much of a defense connotation. You can say

(34:02):
Chisholm train or Chishm Express. You get it before there's
too much momentum. Baby, Chef Chisholm. Sorry I can't read today.
Chef Chisholm, Chisholm bandwagon, the Church of Chisholm. I don't
like that, not on this show. Fine, but with father Fred,
you know Fred Kersh, Father Fred. But Chisham Island is

(34:23):
straight disrespectful to reeves an island nicknames reserved for elite
cornerback play.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
I will say, somebody in the YouTube comments brought up
you could talk about a tackle having an island, so
I'll give you that.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
I want to be clear. This was not Chisham Island, right,
But I was on Chisholm Island. That different.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
So many people here it the other way, Pruse it
doesn't work.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
I am not saying that his nickname is Chisham Island.
I am saying that there was an island of eft
and Chisholm og fans, and we were all on the island,
and now we are welcoming. I am not I'm not
a gatekeeper here, Alex. I welcome everybody. Everybody, come, come
on the ferry. You can come out to the island.

(35:06):
It's all right. You can. You can enjoy the beaches,
you can enjoy the views. I'm not I'm not trying
to tell you that you can't join the island. I'm
not saying it's Chisholm Island. I'm saying that I was
on the island, on the bandwagon, if you will, of
e fton Chisholm. And now we're good. I I all right,
let's move on.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Let's move on.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
Who's your second up?

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Second up for me was Anthony Jennings.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yep, I say one.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
I'm there's some reporting out there today from Andrew Callahan
that the Patriots are, you know, open a business for
trading him. And look, I ultimately get it if you
can get something good for him, if you don't think
he's gonna play fine. I like to see them find
a role for him. He's talented. I don't know that
this team is in a spot where they can walk
away from just talent. I don't know what that role
would be. Maybe he's not gonna handle a backup role well,

(35:53):
but like as as Harold Landry's as the Harold Landry spot,
as the second guy in that spot, I think Afredy
Jennings would be really good to have. I do you know,
came out with three sacks and he's against backups. The
pass rush isn't always gonna look like that for him,
but again, that's what a starter against backups looks like, right,

(36:15):
so he can be competitive against the starters. I ultimately
think he ends up. I had him on my last
ross projection. The more I think about it, I also
kept seven edge guys, which is probably unrealistic, but I'd
like to think he belongs on the team. He might
ultimately not make it, but he's making it tough on
him with performances like that.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
Yeah, I agree with your point about I was looking
a little bit at just trying to put together a
roster projection just for myself on a Pats Picker, which
is a great little thing by patsfans dot com. I
think it is ian logsite. They do a great job
with Pats Picker, and you can it just does it
for you, right, you know, it's all the players, and

(36:59):
he counts it for you and it makes it nice
and clean. And I was trying to uh, I was
doing it myself and guys like Anthony Jennings. I was like,
who are we keeping over Anthony Jennings that, I'm like
banging the table for that. I'm like, I need to
get this guy on, and we need to part ways

(37:19):
with Anthony Jennings to get this guy on. I felt
the same way about Javon Baker. I felt the same
way about Kyle Dugger, where I was just like, Okay,
if you can find somebody to trade Kyle Dugger for
and you like the compensation and you know, so on
and so forth, I can see the reasoning for it.
But this team is not in a position yet where

(37:43):
they have fifty three locks on this roster, right Like,
it's not like we're sitting here saying man like, they're
gonna have to make some tough cuts like no disrespect.
But we're just not there yet. So Anthony Jennings fit
fits a similar mold. Okay, so maybe Landry Chase and
Keon White are going to play over him if healthy, Yeah,

(38:03):
what happens if one of them isn't healthy, right, And
do you want to maintain that depth? Uh? And do
you want to have an NFL player that you can
fill in for that? And if you're cutting you know,
a UDFA or one of these rookie draft picks that
you drafted the late day three to keep an Anthony Jennings,
I'd rather keep Anthony Jennings, Like. I just don't think

(38:25):
that there's a people pushing him off the roster.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I'm with you and I now, if somebody comes along
because you like a third round pick, fine, right, but
I don't think that's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Yeah, So I had I had the same way I
had Chisholm Jennings. Who is your last guy?

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Uh, Travon Henderson And it's limited, but he's he's just
so good. He's just so good. And you saw the
contact balance and the power after seeing the speed last week. Uh,
put him on bubble wrap. I'm good. I'll see, I'll
see against Vegas. Trevion like done more than enough at
this point. I still don't think he's ever going to
be that like Bell cow back, because don't think Josh

(39:00):
Mctageal's gonna do it that way. And if I'm the Patriots,
like take a lesson, Ohio State goes out, gets Quinn
shown Judkins in the portal limits Henderson's touches and he
actually becomes more productive because of that. I I got
to pull up the set. I believe he had the
same number of scrimmage yards per game on despite playing

(39:22):
less games or something.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
I think he had. Didn't He have more yards from
scrimmage than the year before.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
He had.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Two hundred more yards one hundred and fifty more yards
per scrimmage on four less touches. Yeah, So like if
I'm the Patriots, take the lesson from that. You know,
I get maybe some people are uneasy with Ramandre Stevenson
because he's struggled at times the summer. He's banged up.
Now I keep him for now. I don't think you're
gonna find a better early down bowling ball back than
him at this point in the offseason. And if you

(39:50):
want to address that down the road, maybe you do.
But like it's it's got to be one A and
one B. I don't think that Trayvon Henderson's guy you
want touching the ball. You know, close to three hundred
times season.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
He feels like a ten to twelve touch guy, a
game where you are finding ways to get him the
football in space as much as you can, while also
recognizing that you don't want to run him into the ground.
So ten touches twelve touches are right around two hundred
on the season, and that includes receptions, which I don't

(40:23):
think is exactly the same as like running in between
the tackles in terms of wear and tear. I think
that that's a feasible for Travon Henderson. I almost put
Travon Henderson, but I have a feeling that he might
get retired from the upslist at some point this season.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Can we do that to a rookie.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
I didn't want to overuse it. We've only ever done
that with I knew you were you know we were
probably going to get to him. The one other up
that I wrote down was Ben Brown, who I thought
was really good in this game. I thought he moved
a lot of scrimmage really well. With Will Campbell on
that left side, they picked up some post snap movement
pretty well in this game. He continues to be clean
in pass protection. He's pretty good in pass partis last

(41:00):
year too, and that continues to be a strength of his.
I'm starting to get to the point I was a
Bradbury guy. I've been a Bradbury guy, but I do
start to wonder a little bit here, and I wanted
to kind of dovetail this into a conversation about what's
going on on the interior offensive line. Is their best

(41:22):
line going to be some sort of combination of Campbell, Wilson,
Brown on when New Moses, and no Garrett Bradberry, Because
I think if you're just basing it off of strictly
off of who's played the best, and not necessarily Garrett
Bradberry's a veteran, he's a guy you signed, a free
agent and all the different baggage that comes with it.

(41:44):
I think that you could objectively say that Jared Wilson
and Ben Brown have outplayed Garrett Bradberry. I just don't
know if they're ready to pull the plug on the
veteran center, young quarterback battery like that whole thing.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
I think that is part of it for me. Ben
Brown and Drake may have worked together before, so I
know Ben Brown's young, but but you have that unless
they're worried about how Brown's picked up the offense. The
fact Brown's gotten so much, like it makes sense. But
Brown and Wilson are both working so much at left
guard right Like, at a certain point, if one of

(42:19):
them is going to be the center, he's got to
start playing center. That's not really a switch you want
to make Saturday night before the first game of the year. So, yeah,
I'm with you, And maybe it ultimately becomes that once
we get a few weeks into the season like we
did this last year. We all kind of knew Chukes
wasn't going to work at left tackle, and it worked
itself out eventually. I'd rather Drake may not have to
go through that, But and the offense as a whole,

(42:41):
I should say, but I think that is their best group.
I still think Jared Wilson's a starting caliber NFL center.
The only problem is he had a couple of bad
snaps early in the summer and then he really hasn't
played center since outside of those few snaps in the game.
So where are they at with him actually snapping and
does he need to work through that? Are they good
with him as center? Did that worry them to the

(43:01):
point where he's a guard? Okay? If that's true, find
playment guard, because I still think he can hold up there.
But now you got to get Ben Brown working at
center to work with Drake May. If it's just the
two of them rotating at guard, that's an outright position battle.
And I mean it looks right now like Garrett Bradbury's
the starting center. As much as he struggled, it doesn't
look like he's budget.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
It seemed to settle down for him a little bit
after the Commander's preseason game. He had a decent game
one of the preseason.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
That wants to know if you're on Ben Brown island.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
No, No, that doesn't rise to island level.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
But because it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
The first preseason game against the Commanders, I thought Garrett
Bradbury played pretty well in and then he was kind
of the entrench center from that point on all of
last week in the joint practices and then in the
preseason game on Saturday, and then we came out of
the preseason game on Saturday, and all of a sudden,

(43:57):
there's a mix going on in there between Wilson Brown Bradberry.
I want to be clear, Bradberry's only playing center, yeah,
but Brown is playing some center. He's playing some left guard.
Wilson obviously played both positions in the game as well,
So Bradberry's only playing center, but he's in a mix
of three guys that are rotating in from a bigger picture, yeah,

(44:18):
you know, sort of cycle. So the one thing that
Bradbury has going for him is not how he plays
after the snap. It's before the snap. He's a veteran center.
You have a second year quarterback. He's a guy that
can help Drake May with protections and mike calls and
sniffing out blitzes and seeing things and all that kind
of stuff. There is something to be said for that.

(44:40):
There's a lot of value in having an experienced center
working with a young quarterback. But does that push Is
that enough? Is that enough for Gerett Bradbury to hold
off guys that are better than him currently? I would
say we'll find out.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Clearly has been so far, but that can change. When
this is where this is not a Patriots thing like league,
Why there's so few opportunities to actually evaluate these offensive
linemen with the restrictions on padded practices and things like
that in the summer, when a lot of it is mental,
it can be enough to hold them on. Right when
it gets live, when the lights come on, that can

(45:17):
change real quick, right.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
But I guess my point is, and this is sort
of a take, Like I guess if you kind of
know that this is going the other way with Garrett Bradbury, Yeah, Like,
do you carry Garrett Bradbury on the roster knowing that
he has a very very short leash and then he's
probably like he might spend the majority of the season

(45:39):
on the bench.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
To your point, they might have that roster spot just
by the rest of the roster. I have them keeping
ten offensive linemen on my last roster projection, which is
a lot, but I kind of noted in there it
might be like last year. It's at different positions, but
it might be like last year where some of these
battles continue in the regular season. The other question I
have about Bradbury, and this is just because a lot
of guys have taken this approach in recent years, Like

(46:01):
he seems like somebody who's bought into the program and
is in on Mike Rabels, in on Josh McDaniels, and
like's working with the younger guys and all of that.
Like from talking to him. That's that's what he seems
to be. But all these guys are competitors. Is he
somebody who you know, who's the first round pick, he's
a seven year starter. Does he look at it if
they do make the switch and say and basically request

(46:23):
his release right and say I want to go somewhe
where I'm gonna have a chance to start and play.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
I just wonder if you do that now instead of
a month from now at a fairness to him, right,
because I think Jared Wilson's the center of the future. Yeah,
and he played thirteen snaps at center in the game.
I thought it went pretty well, and you know you
were talking about, well, those guys haven't worked as much
at center. I do wonder if, like Wilson and I
hear you in terms of working it with Drake May specifically,

(46:51):
but if Brown and Wilson are natural centers, yeah, so
they're learning guard as players that really are position one
is center, in position two is guard. So like for them,
maybe center is more like riding a bike and guard
is really the one that needs to have ramps. So
if you move Ben Brown back to center, who was

(47:13):
Drake May center for most of the year, last year.
I don't know if that's necessarily a huge transition. So
like I just look at it that way, and I
do wonder with roster cuts coming up, And this is
totally take speculation, Like is there a world where they
just look at it and say, well, Bradbury or Brown
beat out Bradberry.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Well, I mean brad Breaker still say stay is the
backup second he could right then it becomes Bradbury versus
c col Strange, right, which I think Bradberry is gonna
I think Bradbury gets it too in that in that scenario,
but unless he doesn't want to be here as backup,
that would be and that just to fitish conversation, that
would be cold Strange's path to the raw. I think
that's cold Strange is basically only path to the roster.
At this point, let's go to the downs. Be a

(47:54):
little bit quicker on the downs. Yeah, my first down,
just get it out of the way.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Was was Drake Like, even though I said all those
things defending him at the beginning, it still wasn't good enough.
And it's still he's still got to be better than that.
I don't think we need to belabor the point. Oh
I had Drake.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
I have one more sneaky up by the way. Oh yeah,
Jordan Polk. Yeah, Jordan Polk has made a little bit
of a roster push here down the stretch, and he
might be somebody that starts on the practice squad and
comes into the picture later. They are going to love
the way he chased down the returner on that kickoff
the all Rable brought it up. He had the interception
last week, He was ready to run stop this week.

(48:31):
Who's the Who's the sixth corner right now? If they're
gonna keep six, which they might because of injuries.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
So Gonzales, Davis, Jones, Austin, DJ James and so do
you have DJ James on on like.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
He's he's clearly the fifth corner just based on the
way they're off right right, You said six, So that's
what I'm saying. They keep six because of injuries, but.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
We're stretching it to get to six, is my point.
James is already your fifth guy.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
But Christian Zalz has been banged up. Yes, Carlton Davis
has this injury history, Marcus Jones has this injury history.
If you're gonna be short at safety two, that might
be a spot where you want to carry a little
extra depth. Who's six corner right now?

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Probably miles battle based off of what they've done, all right,
but maybe if you consider Jordan Polk is a corner.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
So he can play a little bit bit of both.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
I think he's really a nickel, right he's slot.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Yeah, so they might need a slot. Yeah, Okay, anyway,
that was just take I had all right, So I
had Drake mayonack to it. Sorry, I forgot. I went
to the bottom of my notebook to make sure he
missed anything. I forgot. I had that down there.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Did you have any who was your down?

Speaker 1 (49:29):
First down? Kyle Duggar?

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Okay, I had him on here too.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
I just I he didn't have He had an okay
game to begin with that, and it ultimately wasn't called
a fumble. But that play at the end, you know,
Mike Riebel kind of talked about it the other day.
That's everything this coaching staff has preached removing from the
program since day one. It's a good point, and I
just don't I get Ultimately it didn't impact the result

(49:53):
and it wasn't called a fumble. But the preseason event
is more about looking about the process than the result.
It was the regular season that happened. We probably laugh
about it, move on the preseason. Something like the fact
he was on the field to begin with on the
final well, that's not a good sign.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
That was like ninety percent of the reason why I
had him on here is because he's playing well.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
I literally had the thought, I'm like, if Kyle dugger
gets a pick on the last play of the game,
that's going to be an interesting little event to have
fun with and talk about. But you know, the fumble
is not not what you're looking for in that situation.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
So I will give this to Kyle Duggar. I had
him on here because of the same exact reasons he
was playing in the game that late, and because of
the the near fumble at the end. I actually watching
his tape, you know, there are obvious he has some
stiffness to his game and coverage that we've known as
existed this whole time. Yeah, it's not new. When he
plays deep safety, I do think that he's somebody who's

(50:48):
limited range wise and like doesn't necessarily have that preferred
vision to like see the entire field and really process
what's coming into his zones. And things like that. So
I think there's some elements that when he plays, you know,
away from the football in the deep part of the field.
But with Dugger, I just the thing that I keep

(51:09):
coming back to with him is you just rep you
kind of summed it up perfectly. That type of stuff
is the exact type of the s that gets you
beat that Mike Rabel is trying to eliminate from the program, right,
And that's the type of thing that the buttoned up
type of stuff that they are trying to eliminate from

(51:30):
this football program completely so that they can get back
to a level that they want to be at. And
with Dougger, I just I don't that's kind of a
perfect em example of a one play example of that happening.
And so it's a good point. I had him on
there for that reason as well, and because he was

(51:50):
playing late in the game. Now, the one thing I
want to bring up with Kyle Dugger in the defense
of Kyle Dugger. Our first year, my first full year
twenty eighteen, I was at the Patriots' final preseason game
against the New York Giants in the Metal Lands, Okay,
because I remember I was still living in New York
because you weren't a training camp. And I decided to

(52:11):
go to the game, and they got me a credential.
Thank you, Thank you Zanas for getting me the credential.
And I went to the game. Jason mccordy played the
entire game. He was just like Kyle Duggar. He was
in the game for the last snap of the of
the play of the game. And I remember going into
the road team locker room in the Medal Lands, which

(52:33):
by the way, has two road team locker rooms. There's
one for the Jets and one.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
For the understand why they did that, which is very confult,
I understand, Oh, it's because that way when they have
neutral Syche games, they have two locker rooms. Okay, maybe,
so when you have Army Navy there, I went for
Army one for Navy. Right, they don't have to like
use the like when they came here for Army Navy.
Navy used the Patriots locker room, which is a nice
gesture by the Patriots, obviously, but it's also like a
whole other thing you have to do.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
Right, So I remember going into the road team locker
room that night.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
One of the things, did you I think I remember
reading this when the Jets play the Giants. When they
play each other, I think the road team has to
use one of those road team locker rooms. I don't
think they're allowed to use their own.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Locker because it's like and they have to be at
a disadvantage of being in the road.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
I think I remember, everything has to be equal. Yeah,
I'm gonna look that up. I think I remember seeing that.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
That's crazy because your locker is literally like right down
the ball and you can't use it anyways. So Jason
McCarty sat at the locker, stood at his locker or whatever,
and I remember being in the scrum talking to Jason
mccordy and him not knowing if he made the team
or not, Like he was one hundred percent on the bubble.
One hundred percent on the bubble, played into the fourth

(53:42):
quarter of the last preseason game, and this was when
there were four preseason games, So I think that made
even more. It made me meant even more at the
time that he was playing, and later that year he
ends up breaking up the pass and the Super Bowl
that won them the game, and the rest is history.
So as much as I I want to sit here
and say that Kyle Duggar looks like he's on the

(54:02):
outside looking in. It kind of looks like Jason McCarty
was on the outside looking into. Now, maybe his brother
being a team captain and one of the better Patriots
of that generation, that might have played a role in
the fact that he ended up making the team. But
Jason McCarty ended up making the team. He ended up
having a great season with the Patriots. He ended up
making the play of the season in the Super Bowl

(54:24):
for the Patriots. So my point is is that maybe
there's a sliver, tiny little bit of hope that this
could turn back around for Kyle dugger at some point.
So I just want to throw that story out there
because I think it's I always think of that when
we talk about this kind of stuff with Jason McCarty.
All right, last one here for real quick.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
The Jets can use their own locker room or the
Giants when they're the road team, but they have to
walk in a different way and it's resulted in players
sometimes walking into the other team's locker room.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
That's crazy. So I had may, I had Duggar. My
last down here was Javon Baker, who Mike just tweeted
a couple of minutes ago that Javon Baker is traveling
to New York for the preseason finale, so he hasn't
been practicing the last couple of days, but maybe he's
still gonna play in the game. I know that there
was some bad luck for Javon Baker in terms of

(55:15):
the balls he was getting from Josh Dobbs.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
It wasn't I'll get to that when I do down.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
Yeah, it wasn't perfect from Josh Dobbs by any means
in terms of throwing to Javon Baker. That definitely contributed
to the one for seven that Javon Baker had one
catch seven targets in the box score. But I just
thought with Javon Baker, it's still just isn't fully clicking
for Javon Baker. The consistency that you were talking about
for Drake may is really there with Javon Baker.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
Two.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
He has moments, but the route running, I thought there's
a couple of routes that I thought were ify in
the game. You know, does not great job pushing vertical
and getting the corner out into space and then kind
of breaking down and creating separation at the top of
the route. Even the throw that Woolridge completed him, I
thought was he was blanketed. The ball just kind of

(56:03):
squeaked through the corner who had his back to the
quarterback and didn't know the ball was coming. The throw
at the back of the end zone, I kind of
thought Javon Baker stopped down on his route, Like if
he kept running the back of the end zone there,
I think that that's a more catchable target. So there's
just some little like route running things with him that
I still think pop up every single time he gets
a lot of snaps or reps in a practice or

(56:26):
a game. That's just you're just missing that last piece
for Javon Baker. So I had Javon Baker on the downs.
Oh in the false start, the fall start was he
knew it in the moment, like I'm on the bubble,
I'm competing for the roster. I can't be making mental
errors like that. So made Javon Baker Kyle Duggar, who
was your last one?

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Uh? I leave one?

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Oh? Who were your last two?

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Josh Jobs was one.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
I had already said my piece about Josh Jobs on
our post game show, and I kind of went after
him a little bit.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
So I'll just say, like when you're the backup quarterback, right, obviously,
the backupquarterback's not gonna get perfect. I'm just gonna miss
him throws you just can't get people hurt. You just
can't be leading guys out in traffic. And that's like
even the throw to Kyle Williams. I don't hate the
concept behind it, Like, yeah, he's gonna take a hit there,
but that's that's big boy football. Sometimes you're gonna go
over the middle in the NFL and you're gonna take

(57:17):
a hit. But all the more reason that throw needs
to be at the numbers or lower so he can
catch it and get down and protect himself or even
like a little behind them, well behind him or somewhere.
When you put that ball out in front of up
over his head, he's now fully exposing himself. I don't
remember who's a linebacker, safety, Whoever's lurking there in the middle,
and that's how that happens. So I'm not expecting I'm

(57:37):
not expecting Josh Hobsy perfect. He's obviously, I think, been
a little less than expected throughout the summer. But that's
one where like you just I remember a couple of
years ago when trace McSorley was here and he was
the third or fourth string quarterback, and you know, I
made a deal about it, and people like, right, he's
not gonna make the team. W are you talking about it?
They were like three or four guys he got hurt
because he was just leading them into places that he

(57:59):
shouldn't been lead eating them. And then most of them
were guys that weren't going to make the roster, but
he got It was the year if he was drafted.
He got Taekwon Thornton hurt, which you know in retrospect,
but like that's that's the one thing is backup quarterback.
He can't be putting your guys in harms away, So
he's a down. And then Demontre Jacobs was a down
for me. Started camp looking like he was going to

(58:19):
be in the mix to be the third tackle. Then
it was you know, Marcus Bryant took priority over him,
but he was still clearly getting reps with the second unit. Now,
Jacobs has fallen behind Darian Lowe, who also did not
have a very good game, but at least he's still
in the picture, I think, and let me be clear,
because they apparently it wasn't clear about it clear enough
about this for Felger, I do think there's a chance

(58:40):
they find a tackle on waivers who ends up being
their fourth tackle. No, that's not an ideal situation. It's
better if he's a better player than who you have.
I think you do it, obviously, But Jacobs, it does
not look like is going to make the team. I
think Lowe's ahead of him right now. But I do
think there's a room for them to find somebody better.
Marcus Bryant's been solid, and if he's your third tackle, okay,

(59:01):
but he's really young. You know, he's a rookie. He's
a little more raw. I'd like for them like I
like him Wore as a developmental player. Let's say something
happens where Morgan Moses or Will Campbell is going to
miss multiple weeks. Maybe you give Marcus bryan a shot.
But I'd like to have a little more proven commodity
with a slightly higher floor than what they have in

(59:21):
Darien low Right now, maybe they can't find that guy.
I don't know that they ultimately can, but I would
take a look.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
This is I put this play this was this was
a rough film for Demontre Jacobs. This is that was
one of the that was bad.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Well, I just on the usage. I was thinking, just
on the usage.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
The film was. He was like this was last year.
He was better than that. Like he wasn't good last year.
I don't get me wrong, but he was better than that.
It was it was a tough watch for him and
run and pass block and it was a tough watch. Yeah,
you're Josh Dobbs point is a good one. I like
I said, I kind of said my piece to exact
same take on post game with him. It was it

(01:00:00):
was really just disappointing from all angles that Kyle Williams
getting open in the game again. He actually the ball
kind of found him a few times. This time he
had three catches on three targets to start the game.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
He did hang on to the one where he got
lit up. Yeah, And I thought, I that obviously we
shouldn't get hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
I thought he got opened a couple of times with
Drake in the game too. I mentioned the one earlier,
and so I felt like a big game was coming
for Kyle Williams where he was kind of gonna get
some momentum and get some confidence going and then low
hol defender drops out sits right there over the middle
of the field. Josh Dobbs leads him right into the

(01:00:38):
into the robber help and boom out for the game
out for all week this week. Who knows if he's
gonna play tomorrow night or not, but probably not. Like
not great, right you have? You finally had a shiny
new toy and then the shiny new toy broke right,
and that's that's never great. So that's three up, three down.

(01:00:59):
We're gonna get open the show up now to your
calls into your emails. But before we do, base right
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(01:02:02):
of the New England Patriots. All Right, you guys have
been waiting on hold. We appreciate it. We're gonna get
to your calls now. Nate is in Connecticut. What's up, Nate?

Speaker 6 (01:02:10):
Hey, guys can hear me? Well?

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Yeah, I got you, all right, sweet.

Speaker 6 (01:02:15):
So my question for you guys, so recently Elliott Wolfe
came out and said that they'd be absolutely well, they'd
absolutely do anything to help the team, including some high
round draft picks in the trade talk for any player
that would help the team. What player do you guys think?

(01:02:39):
What he what's he talking about. I know there's probably
a mix of players that could really help the team,
But what position do you think we would really need
the most help at? Is at edge with Micah Parsons
or you know, another like a Trey Hendrickston.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Who do you guys think could be Okay, Yeah, thanks
for the call, Nate, So obviously, I mean we can
just do this now because then you're gonna get to
it at some point. Guys like Hendrickson, guys like Terry McLaurin,
guys like Michaeh Parsons. Everybody would take those guys on
your team.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
If you go back and listen to how the question
was asked, and no offense to Phil Perry who asked it,
I just to parse the words. He basically said, would
you trade a first round pick if you felt and
make the team better? And Elliet Will said yeah, which, yeah,
if it's gonna make the team better, you trade the
first There's so much context missing from that conversation. Does

(01:03:30):
trading a first round pick for Terry McLaurin do they
feel that would make the team better? Like in the
short term, obviously it would. Do they feel like ultimately
they'd be in a better position as an organization. Some
people would probably argue, no, would you trade a first
for Michaeh Parsons? Absolutely, hell yeah. It's gonna cost a
lot more than just one first to trade for Michael Parsons,
So don't I don't know how much weight you put

(01:03:54):
into that answer.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Yeah, And I guess, like, let's just I'm back because
if people, I'm sure is gonna be a lot of
the questions today, you know, what would you trade? I
want to take Micah out of it, because I would
not trade what it would cost to get Micaeh Parsons,
Let's put it that way. I don't think that Michael
Parsons is getting traded because of that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
I think he has to. I mean Jerry, him and
Jerry Jones have been hurling insults at each other.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
I think they're headed for a divorce. I don't think
it's today, Like, I don't think this is happening this
at this time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Period of n I think he's just gonna sit out games.
I don't know, but I doesn't seem that kind of guy.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
I don't think it's happening now. Maybe in the off season.
Maybe I when his contract of like is really at
the end.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Have I told you my like tinfoil hat idea?

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
Sure? I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
So I scratch your back, your scratch mine. Yeah, Michael
Parsons for Trey Hendrickson in a first The Bengals issue
with Hendrickson is his age. The Cowboys issue with Michaeh
Parsons is him and the owner hate each other.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Now, maybe Trey Hendrickson hates Jerry Jones too. I don't know.
It's possibility, But doesn't that kind of solve everybody's problems.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Yeah, that's not a bad trade idea. So now let's
talk about a tree hand. So I'm taking Micah Parsons
off the table because I think if you're gonna trade,
it's not it's not totally.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Let's just to actually play it out for the people
who wonder.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
I think it would take like what Clil Mack got
traded for a couple of years.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
First round picks.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Yeah, two first round picks plus plus.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
So here's the thing. If well, he's gonna be worth
more than Khalil Mack because he's older, he's younger, and
he's had more production A.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
Little bit younger, I mean, Cleio Mack was a great player.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Yeah, Parsons better in the position, he's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
Better, but we're not Cleo Mack.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
I think it's three first, okay, even if it's two,
Like the Patriots have multiple needs they need to address
before their contender. Yeah, Michaeh Parsons alone doesn't make them
a contender. Case in point, on a better roster in Dallas.
How much playoff successes Michael Parsons brought them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
Yeah, but that's not totally fair. Like there's there's twenty
one Patriots and Cowboys, probably the Cowboys, but like, it's
not just Michaeh Parsons's problem that they can't win in
the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Right because the talent around him is not enough. But
the talent around him is not enough there what situation here?
And the way to add that talent is going to
be through the draft, and now you're giving up those picks.
So I feel trust me, I feel kind of gross
saying no to Michael Parsons. But the Patriots is just
not in that spot. I think it's a contender that
feels they're a step away. It's Kansas City, it's the

(01:06:16):
usual suspects. It's Kansas City, it's Buffalo They're not gonna
trade him the Eagles, so they're gonna trade in the division.
You know, do the Bengals get creative and put trade
Efferckson on the table? Those are the teams you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
I don't think that. I don't think Michael Parson's getting
trade is on the table because I think the asking.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
But I'm saying if he does. If he does, the
Riots are not the kind of team that's trading for him.

Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
I don't think any team's trading for him. Honestly. Hendricks
let's talk a little bit about Trey Hendrickson, because this one,
I do feel like is a little bit more real,
and not just in terms of the Patriots interest, but
just in terms of getting him getting dealt Because a
big reason in my mind why a guy like Marca
Parsons isn't getting traded is because the absolute boat that

(01:07:01):
you were going to have to give the Cowboys to
get him out of Dallas is insane. Like the trade
package you're gonna have to put together to get Micah
Parsons out of Dallas is going to be incredibly astronomically
high asking price. I don't think that that's necessarily the
case for Trey Hendrickson. This is a guy that's disgruntled
with the contract. He's thirty. He's a pass rusher that's

(01:07:22):
on the wrong side of the thirty years old threshold.
So you're looking at Trey Hendrickson as like a two
to three year player and that sort of window. So
I don't think that you're going to have to give
up two first round picks and maybe even more for
a guy like Trey Hendrickson. If I was the Patriots,
and I'm not saying that this would.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Get it done.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
If I was the Patriots, I might think about offering
a second round picking Keon White for Trey Hendrickson. I
think that that's probably where I would go, Like, here's
you know, key On White still young. Yeah, potentially a
sending player that plays the same position. It's it's swapping,
you know, in one in, one out. Maybe if you're
the Bengals, you ask for a player in the secondary too,

(01:08:05):
because their secondary is not good.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
Kyle Duggar, take them.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Kyle Duggar. I've heard Marcus Jones's name thrown out there,
just because you know Alex Austin's ascension.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I'd rather trade Kyle Duggar.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
I mean, I think everybody would rather trade Kyle Dugger,
but something like that for Trey Hendrickson. If the Patriots
are as interested as some of the reporting that's out there,
I don't think that that's totally like the Bengals are
so clicking and hanging up the phone on that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
The thing you have there that's nice is remember how
for years and years the Patriots just churned out corners
like Udfa's late round picks because that was the coaching
staff specialty. Mike Pellegrino obviously tremendously talented cornerbacks coach. Isn't
that supposed to be with this team miss in the
front seven with this coaching staff is so I trust them,
you know, to find a pass rusher in a fourth threat.

(01:08:54):
Maybe it's Britain Swinton, maybe it's a lashaponder, right, So
I do still think they'll have that younger guy in
the pipeline. I would probably do that. The problem is, like,
so I had Trags on the radio on Saturday to
talk about this. Trags made it sound like the Bengals
want a first plus. Trags made it sound like the
Bengals listening, And I don't want to put words in
his mouth. That just texted him to kind of make sure.
But the gist of what he said was basically, the

(01:09:17):
Bengals taking calls on Trey Hendrickson doesn't necessarily mean the
Bengals are about to trade Trey Hendrickson. The Bengals taking
calls on Trey Hendrickson is more about, well, while this
nonsense is going on, let's see if somebody will get stupid.
Let's see if somebody will give us a first and
something right. And if nobody gives them that. Trags seem

(01:09:37):
to think Hendrickson will ultimately cave and play on the contract.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
I think that might be the most realistic thing. No,
the reason why I said, I think Trey Hendrickson, Micah Parsons,
and Terry McLaurin to me are pie in the sky.
I think those are dreams, pipe dreams.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
I'm leaving that door open from mclorn a little bit,
a little bit, a little bit pipe dream a little bit.
At your organization, man, it's a different ownership, I know, different.
They have a different everything's different. They have a different owner,
they have a different general manager.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Different owners have like not many.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Dan Snyder owned the team for like our whole.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Life, not them, but like there's other organizations that's that.
That's just who they are in all of sports, in
all of sports, that happens.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
It's different with with Trey Hendrickson. No, I think that
there is some real smoke to him potentially getting traded.
And I'm not saying that it gets the deal done.
That's just if I'm the Patriots, you make that offer,
right like you you put it on the table, and
a deal for Trey Hendrickson, like I said, and to me,
it would be Hendrickson for Kean White second round pick,

(01:10:41):
and then maybe if they want one of your your
defensive backs, you can throw one of the defensive backs
from YouTube?

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Do you not?

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
Like Christian Gonzales?

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
But like, do you think that's a wow offer?

Speaker 3 (01:10:50):
No? I think that's a fair.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Okay, That's the thing I think with the Bengals, it's
not here's all the offers, let's pick the best one.
I think it's if somebody wows us will trade them
or not.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
We want But I'm just not going any further.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
I'm not either that's it. What about this one? And
I don't know whether or not the Bengals would do this.
I don't know if it technically is more and by
the way text of Trags, he said the Bengals might
be looking for a first and second or first and third.
I think that's kind of the point. What if the
Bengals look at it and say, Okay, Trey Hendrickson in
are first for your first, essentially one of those NBA

(01:11:24):
like pick swap trades.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
I don't think they would do that, the Bengals.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
That's what they think of Drake May.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
I think the Bengals are gonna want are gonna don't
want to win that trade vi al inside. I don't
think they're gonna do something that would be my offer.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
Every looks Trags is there. Trags knows Trags did not
think he was going to be traded.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
I'm not saying that I disagree with Trags. I'm just
saying or challenge, you know, the great tracks, challenging his his, uh,
his information. I'm just saying, if I was the Patriots,
if I was Elliott Wolf, I would pick up the
phone and I would say to the Bengals, this is
our offer, and I would offer a second, our second
round pick in twenty twenty six Kean White, and they

(01:12:05):
can they can pick from, you know, a bile of
our corners or defensive backs that we don't really.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
I don't think that gets it done.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
I don't think it gets it done. If it's the
offer I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Making, Oh, then he's not coming here.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
So because the other thing, I'm not putting it past
some team that's you know again on the line. You know,
Eagles of thirty million dollars in cap space.

Speaker 3 (01:12:27):
Yeah, because Howie Roseman's a genius, right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
What's stopping Howie from flipping from college Eagles being like,
here's our first Nothing like that makes sense to me.
Nothing I could see that it would be unfair.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
So can can I talk about a little bit more
of a realistic trade scenarios? Because I know everybody wants
to talk Hendrickson and Parsons and McLaurin. There's a some
reporting out there, various reports. Now all this scuttle butts
starting to reach the surface that the Vikings, the forty
nine ers, Yeah, is the third team. There's a third

(01:12:57):
team that are shopping for veteran wide receiver.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
The Steelers. Steelers, their wide receiver room is not good.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
I'll figure out, I'll find it. But it was definitely
the Vikings in the forty nine ers. I know that
those two teams so.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
One of the best coaches in Kyle Shanan.

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
The Patriots. The one thing that they might have that
might not have a tremendous value. We're not talking about
Trede Hendrick sent is Kendrick Bourne. And I wonder if
Kendrick Bourne is a potential trade. And I know everybody
is saying, well, what are you really going to get
back for Kendrick Bourne? Well, isn't there a world where

(01:13:36):
they get the old I always go back to Jacoby
Brissett for Philip dor Sat. I don't know why, it's
just the trade. I always go back to, Yeah, isn't
there a world where they could get they could trade
from a position of quote unquote depth with a team
that is trying to fill a need and trade from
their depth. Let's say, I don't know, just spitballing left

(01:13:57):
guard center in that's your offensive line, even backup tackle,
backup tackle. I'm not saying that you're getting a starting
caliber player out of one of these teams, but maybe
you can get somebody that you like a little bit
more than the guys that you have in here At
one of those spots for a player like Kendrick Bourne,
who if healthy, if he is healthy, can go someplace

(01:14:20):
else and contribute. He can be the third receiver in Minnesota.
Right He can fill Jordan Addison's shoes for four weeks
until Jordan Addison comes back from that suspension and then
be the third receiver in Minnesota. I wonder if maybe that,
if we're talking about realistic trades and we're getting rid
of the big star names that everybody's bringing up, I

(01:14:42):
feel like the more realistic trade is the Patriots taking
a guy like Kendrick Bourne and trading him for to
floridify their depth at another position like tackle guard, something
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Real quick on Steel's wide receiver. Yeah, it's not good
after DK Metcalf. Yeah, I'm just reading alphabetically here, Calvin Austin,
Brandon Johnson, Lance McCutcheon, Scottie Miller is still in the league,
ben'scronic Keishawn Williams, Roman Wilson, and Robert Woods and they
worked out Gave Davis the other day.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
Okay, so the Jets are the third team, which I
doubt the Patriots would probably not deal with the Jets.
But it's the Jets. This is Diana Russina Jets, forty
nine Ers, Vikings Jets.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
I trade Jalen Polk to the Jets.

Speaker 3 (01:15:25):
So is there a trade? And you know, just looking
at the forty nine ers like offensive line depth chart,
there's nothing that like really stands out to me. But
is there just a trade with one of those teams
the Vikings who you just saw by the right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
So I want to ask you that because Matt Doloffe
actually wrote this morning on ninety eight five the sports
sub I noted, I don't I got to pull up
the thing here. I apologize, Mat, actually haven't read it yet.
I was going to do it when I got home,
he mentioned. He mentioned I usually do it while making dinner.
He mentions Justin's school scully left tack the backup tackle there.

(01:16:02):
They also have. They have a couple, you know, backup
left tackles. I think he's the favorite to win the job.
Maybe not him, but he mentions Walter Rouse as well.
But any of these guys, Walter Rouse, Justin Schooley, Logan Brown,
who I think the Patriots worked out before the draft,
if I remember correctly, tackle from Kansas. Yeah, we know

(01:16:22):
Bill used to do this right, you go to the
joint practice, you see a player you like, you Adam right,
did any of the vikings and all open up to
guards too, But you were there any of their depth
offensive linemen stand out to He was like, yeah, this
guy like you kind of made note of him.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
The one guy that I that has been around and
has I believe started some games in this in the
league is Blake Brendle, who's a guard, could play left guard.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
He was the starter for them.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
I don't believe so because they drafted Donovan Jackson. Oh
that's right, so I think he's gonna start. But Blake
Brendle has been a starter in the past. Like maybe
you look at him and say, think that he's better
than Ben Brown?

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Did he have a good week last week?

Speaker 3 (01:17:01):
Better than Garrett Bradberry. He's just somebody that I noted
on their roster. I'm not going to sit here and
say I, like, you know, studied Blake Brendle every second
of the practice. But that was I mean the one
guy that I went to tackle that was really impressive
throughout the entire week. But I assume they're going to
keep him. As Elijah Williams the defensive tackle. He had
a great game, great practice. He was really disruptive. But

(01:17:23):
I think he's gonna make their roster, and you know,
I think he's someone they have plans for.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
Well, I mean they the Patriots could use nother defensive tackle. Yeah,
pull up a Vikings ross projection. Let's see, is he not?
What was his name?

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
Elijah Williams. Yeah, he's He's a good player. He's kind
of like a you know, similar body type I would
say to like Jeremiah Farms, but maybe a little bit
more active than Jeremiah Farms.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
First ross projection. I pulled up the Vikingsage dot com
does not have him on.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
I think he's on.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
But how about the Star Tribune.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Uh, let me look up real quick. This is a
good rate. This is a good rat.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Great, just me reading roster projection.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
So Blake Brendle, just to tell you, last year he
started seventeen games for the Vikings.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
I thought I was seven. I think he played in seventeen.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
No, he started seventeen. I'm looking at it right now.
Started seventeen games last year. So he's a full time
starter for the Vikings last year at left guard. I
just wonder if that's like a spot that they look
at right, left guard, maybe center, but I think between Wilson, Brown,
and Bradbury they probably can find a center out of
those three guys. Left guard is maybe the one position
that if you can fortify that and then Wilson comes along,

(01:18:33):
maybe a little bit slower, but eventually as your starting
center this year. I don't know that's just me spitballing,
but I feel like that's if you want to be
realistic of like what trade could the Patriots actually make.
I feel like that's more in the wheelhouse and not
the Micah Parsons Trey Hendrickson splash.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
So for what it's worth having, I just pulled up
five roster projections for the Vikings. For them were fan blogs,
but I didn't find their guy from the athletic. None
of them have Elijah Williams making the team.

Speaker 3 (01:18:59):
Okay, well, I just maybe I just sniped that maybe
you found a guy a lot, but he's a defensive tackle.
I don't know if that's necessarily what we all had
in mind, but.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
But I mean the Patriots could use some defensive tackle depth.

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
Yeah, you know, Spencer beaufort Is on the forty nine
ers roster. I don't know what's happening with him. You know,
Trent Williams is obviously their starting left tackle. But with
Trent Williams, he's always in and out, you know, in
terms of health and all that kind of stuff. You know,
they have to manage him, they don't. They have Matt
Hennessy on their roster too, as a backup center who's

(01:19:30):
played a little bit in Atlanta and stuff like that.
More of like a zone center, but kind of like
a Bradbury. Honestly, it's similar kind of players. But some
of those rosters I would look at if I was
the Patriots and the Vikings in the forty nine ers
call and say, hey, like, what do you want for
Kendrick Bourne? I'd want a player.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
Yeah, I'm with you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
Give me a backup player. We'll give you our backup player.
Everybody's happy. I'm with you, all right, Let's get back
to the calls. Patty is an aguan. What's up, Patty?
How good signer for leaving you on hold?

Speaker 7 (01:20:00):
That's sorry.

Speaker 8 (01:20:01):
I was hoping he'd give me a little bit of
a vine too of him, because I got a long
way to get to Grahama's house. But I will get
to my question. I found it interesting, really interesting yesterday
as she started bringing up Drake May and his processing
skills on to you and then you know, you had
an excellent open and then set the table excellently today

(01:20:22):
because I was gonna call yesterday uh to you and
asking that before you even brought it up. And I
think a lot of times, you know, us New England fans,
maybe the younger ones get a little bit impatient what
they've seen over the last few years and don't realize
that this kid's going to be twenty three there. I mean,
their their roster isn't where it needs to be yet.

(01:20:44):
And if you look at like and Alex you brought
this up earlier, look at all these guys that have
come into the league mostly like if you, if you've
played three to five years in college football and you're good,
it's going to translate. I think the one guy beside
from May that only played two years in college and
came in and has a superpower as Joe Burrow. His

(01:21:08):
processing speed in my opinion and skills is better than
anybody's in the NFL's right now. So it's gonna take time.
That's that's kind of what I wanted to get at.
But my question regarding Drake May and his processing is
do you think there's anyway Josh can help him, like
pre snap, before the before the sound goes out in

(01:21:28):
his helmet, he says, you know, something like, hey, if
they wrote Tate coverage this way, you know, maybe look here,
look here, or if they do this, you know, do this.
You know, I know it's it's kind of stupid and
you know, kind of enough too sway to ask it,
but is there anything that Josh can do to help them,
you know, help him along the way before he gets

(01:21:50):
really good at reading defenses. And that's all I got.
I'll take it out there, guys.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
Yeah, Patty absolutely, but I talked about that on the broadcast. Yeah,
but I do think that some somewhat of his a
slippery slope because you don't want to put too much
information in his head, right, So yeah, but I you know,
I'm not saying that Josh doing that. I'm just saying like,
at some point he's got to play well.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
So this is what McVeigh did. McVeigh would be in.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
High to the Patriots combat that they spun it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
They just waited till that fifteen second mark hit and
then they did everything. But yeah, no, he can be
in his ear saying check this, watch that. Like Evan said,
it's a fine line. You want to help him out,
but at a certain point you want to take the
training wheels off. And you know, teams may wait until
after that fifteen second mark when the head set shuts off,
to really declare what they're doing defensively, So you don't
want to solely rely on that. But Josh can do that.

(01:22:39):
And so what I was referencing from the broadcast Drake May.
I think it was Drake may Wright or was it
McDaniels who had told him. No, was Drake may told
Zoe in a production meeting that McDaniels in his headset
much more than Alex van Pelt was last year. Van
pell would basically read the play and be done with it.
Now those plays are much longer. I don't know how
much more time they had, but McVeigh would not McVeigh

(01:23:01):
Van Pelt would would read the plane and be done
with it. He didn't say what else McDaniels is saying,
but he said McDaniels is basically in his ear up
to that fifteen second park. So I do think there
was some of that going on.

Speaker 3 (01:23:10):
Yeah, no, And I think that can be really valuable.
And like to Patty's point, it might be something like,
I'm gonna trust you to read the initial coverage of
what the shell that they're in, but just in the
back of your mind, like, okay, it's third and six,
and situationally, from a tendency standpoint, Brian Flores really likes
cover two in third and six, Like that's just a

(01:23:32):
coverage that they really like at this down and distance.
These are all things that NFL coaching staffs scout ahead
of time, is down in distance, situational tendencies, like what
are the teams like to play in these situations? So
maybe they get to the line of scrimmage and you know,
they're looking out at it and Josh McDaniels is like, huh,
that looks like it's this, but I know that they

(01:23:52):
actually really like to play man in this situation even
though this looks like zone. And he could say to Drake, hey,
just just keep in the back of your mind that
this could be this could be man, right right. That
type of thing absolutely could be helpful and hopefully that
is where they get to it. So I'm interested to
see where that relationship goes, because I think that was

(01:24:13):
a really good story that they told on the broadcast, which,
by the way, just quick aside. I don't watch a
lot of the game broadcasts, Humble Breck, but I was
home for the game on Saturday because I was doing
the our pre and post game show instead. They did
a great job, Zoe and the McCarty's, I think are great.
It's not the traditional play by play color guy, but

(01:24:36):
their insight into breaking down the game is especially the McCarty's,
Like the thing that I think it was Devin. Sorry,
I sometimes it's hard to tell which one is Devin,
which one's Jason, just by their voice. But Devin was
talking about the quarterback can like place the ball in
a certain spot to force the receiver to turn that
way because like he can see the receiver's back as

(01:24:57):
to the defense, but the quarterback can see it. You
can see where the space is in the defense. So
he's talking about how Dobbs put the ball on Chisholm's
inside hip and Chishms spun outside, and he was like,
I bet you Dobbs wanted him to spin inside. Like
just little insights like that we're really really good on
the broadcast. I think this says pc P seas in Virginia.

Speaker 4 (01:25:18):
What's up, hello, guys.

Speaker 5 (01:25:21):
I want to make sure you got to Henry before
I start talking to you.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
Yeah, yeah, you're good.

Speaker 5 (01:25:25):
Okay, okay. The thing is like lot you want at
the same time making excuses about, you know, by Drake
May's you know time in college and this and that
and the third. But the thing about it is that
this team, the progress is going to hinge on his
ability to dover the ball accurately and be able to
read the field. Because even with some of these teams
that you guys attend to old rape far as the

(01:25:46):
so called contenders or contenters whatever, they're pretty much in
the same but as New England right now. I mean,
like I say that they don't have world beats an
office line, they don't have World beats a receiver a
couple of teams do, but they able but their corta,
they're able to deliver the ball and the field well
enough to keep it pushing like New England is right now.
And that that's different because if you've stacked roster or whatever,

(01:26:09):
and it's not too much different. But these other teams,
the players. You really actually have some players out to
ask compete. Now, I'm like, you know, you know, that's
what we have to say that for the first time
in the last four years. So Drinke May does better
at those things, those some of those things they think
you have to compete taking compete well.

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
And if he does better those of those things, Yeah,
thanks for the call, PC. I think I got most
of that. I think that. Look, I'm not trying to
make excuses for Drake May. I'm not trying to excuse him.
Like we broke down the entire game and the things
that went wrong for him in that game. So I'm
not trying to excuse him. All I'm telling you is
is that you got to be a little bit patient,

(01:26:44):
Like we got to give this a little bit of
time before we start making declarations. Is he or isn't
he the guy? Or you know, is he or isn't
he a killer? Is he or isn't he clutch? Like
I hear all these things. We talked about the whole
clutch thing yesterday, and this is going to gets bogged
down if I go on this direction. But I'm going
to go there anyways, about like clutch and you know
the nerds and clutch doesn't exist, and so they they

(01:27:06):
were teasing me about that, and like all these different
types of thing, think it exists. I do, but I'm
probably a little bit more reluctant than you want me
to be about it. I can't grow up in I.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
Mean, I was gonna say, you watched Tom Brady for
how many years?

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
I can't grow up in an era of Boston sports
with David Ortiz and Tom Brady and think that clutch.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
Seen that video of the Oklahoma State to you ever
seen that video of the Oklahoma State quarterback? I forget
They're on the road somewhere. There's like two minutes ago,
it's a close game. He's taking the shotgun snap and
you can literally see his hands shaking. Yes, you ever
seen that? Watch that and tell me clutch doesn't exist.
Some people are built for it mentally, other people's aren't.
You can't qualify that, you can't quantify that.

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):
I know, I'm not arguing with you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:27:42):
Only thing that I brought up, and you know this
is a bigger thing that I really didn't want to
do today, but whatever, the only thing that I brought
up was that the athletes of today, the modern athlete.
And I do this all the time, and I brought
him up yesterday. I do this all the time with
Jason Tatum, who you know, I would go to bat
four any day of the week. Where Jason Tatum, the

(01:28:05):
same way as a lot of athletes nowadays, gets labeled
as somebody that's not that alpha, that's not that competitive,
you know, uh, you know, hates to lose so bad
that he you know, is maniacal. He's not clutch. I
hear that all the time, right about Jason Tatum. He's
not clutch. You don't trust him late in games, like
all this type of stuff. I think you hear it

(01:28:26):
a little bit, you know, maybe not as loudly, but
a little bit about like a like a David Pasternak, right,
like he's not he's a great player, but he's like
a winning player, right, these types of things. And I
just my whole thing about Dot Combat, Yeah, my whole
thing is is just like maybe that's just not how
a lot of these kids are wired, and maybe we

(01:28:47):
just kind of have to give up on the Brady's
and the Jordans and like the maniacal competitors like I
think Mahomes is probably the closest thing that we have.
Burrow certainly has it, Yeah, but it's really not you know,
Lamar gets gets you know, brated for this all the
time that he doesn't have the winning gene.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
Josh Allen doesn't. But how's he done late in some
of these playoff games.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
So I just say, like, let's just give it time.
Let's give Drake some grace, Let's give it time. Let's
not get impatient with his development. If we're still talking
about all these different things and all these issues in
these peaks and valleys and these inconsistencies at this time
next year, then we can start having the real conversation

(01:29:31):
of whether or not he's the guy or not. He
gets three years. In my mind, he has three years
to make it happen, because then you have to make
a decision on the fifth year option, you have to
start contract starts to matter. So in my mind, he
gets three years. I'm giving him this entire year as
a developmental year. Once we get into next season and
we are in this spot next season, sorry, if he
doesn't start to show that he's rounding out and the

(01:29:54):
consistency is leveling off, then we can start to have
these other conversations. Until then, it's way too ear in
my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
Yeah, I mean, like he's got to show some progress
this year.

Speaker 3 (01:30:05):
Yeah, it's a developmental year.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
Got to go up, He's got to go up. But yeah,
it's you know, usually midway through year two you kind
of have an idea because you got to decide when
you want to start doing work on the quarterback last.

Speaker 3 (01:30:14):
Yeah, all right, let's take Sean and Vancouver. What's up Sean?

Speaker 9 (01:30:20):
Hey, guys, Yeah, you were talking about chism earlier, but
I want to go a little deeper in terms of
predicting where he's going to be. I mean, I see
like a ceiling as the twenty thirteen Patriots with Edelman
and Amadola, And in that season, Amadola was second on

(01:30:40):
the team to Edelman in terms of receiving yards. I
don't know if that's too crazy to even put as
a ceiling for a guy who's, you know, an undrafted rookie. Now,
do you do you see him like as being the
sixth receiver when he makes a team, or do you
think he's moved ahead of Boudet and and and maybe

(01:31:01):
even mac mccollins seems like he's playing really well and
it's really import next. So do you see that Josh
bringing in that same kind of plan where you're using
the players like him and Pop on the field at
the same time. Where where do you think it'll go?
All right, I'll leave it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:18):
With that, thanks, Sean. I think we could get there.
I think we're still a little bit early, is what.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):
I mean by not getting heead of it, And yes,
it is exactly what I was talking about. So Danny
and Mondola is a five year NFL VET, big free
agency at that point, playing an offense that also included
Rob Gronkowski playing for Tom Brady or with Tom Brady,
and by the way, second on the team in terms
of pass catching fifty four catches, six hundred yards, like
that's don't be wrong. It's a solid year, but that's

(01:31:44):
not ipop that's not usually your second receiver. Just all
ran through Edelman that year. That's too high a ceiling.
That's too high of a ceiling. He hasn't pought passed
Kishon Boody, he hasn't passed mccollins because he's not he
hasn't Like we're watching them in practice, he's not out
there within.

Speaker 3 (01:32:01):
He's very much.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
Barely he's a nice has he caught a pass from
Drake May I think this summer, but it's we can
count on the elevens and I think you got them
on one finger if there is one. And I don't
mean to disparage the kid again, he's been great, but
and I feel like we do this at times, and
I've been guilty of this because we're not talking about
the top of the depth chart this time of year,

(01:32:23):
last week and a half, the preseasons all about the
bubble unless there's like left guards different because there's two
guys battling for a starting job. We're not talking about
the guys that are entrenched in their positions. We did
that at the start of camp. We gave Kaishun Booty
a ton of flowers for the progress he's made and
continues to make. We covered that it happened he's going
to be one of their top receivers. There's not much
new there to talk about. We've moved on to talking

(01:32:45):
about the bottom of the depth chart. If Fton Chishen
was going to pass Kaishon, Boody and mac hollins, we'd
have seen the evidence of it. Because he would have
passed them in terms of reps, like, that's literally what
that is. Mac Hollins is out there getting as many
reps as anybody. Kaishon Booty is still out there consistently.
So Chisholm is a good developmental player. I think there
might be a couple of packages for him in the offense.

(01:33:05):
I don't think you won't see him him being a
featured player. I want to pull up with Danny A.
Mondola's snap percentage was that year if I can find it, Like,
I don't know for me, Chisholm, if he's around twenty percent,
I think that's a good number. Danny Mandola was on
the field sixty two percent of the time for the
Patriots that season, im pending injuries. I don't see Chishm
getting there this year.

Speaker 3 (01:33:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
Again, the role. When I talk about him in that role,
I mean, like how you're designing the plays for him.
It doesn't mean that you're gonna call that plays at
those plays at that rate right away.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
He is on the team, He's made the team. We've
both of us feel that way. But yeah, and barring
an injury, I would say to probably both Diggs and
Pop Douglas because to me, that's really what this is.
Like Diggs, I think, is going to be your your
starting Z or your primary zer receiver, and then Pop
is going to be like a Z slot. And so

(01:33:59):
in order for Afton Chisen to play, it significant the
mat where we can start talking about him having actual
volume stats, like he's gonna have to get on in
the field over those two guys, which is only happening
if there's an injury. Yeah, so if Pop gets hurt,
then there's probably more one for one there with Chishm
to get playing time. Diggs, I think is a little

(01:34:20):
bit of a different thing, like Digg's gonna play a
lot on the outside. I don't think Chishm's playing on
the outside.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
Diggs gets hurt, I think that probably means either more
of Hollands and Booty on the field together or maybe
that's where more Kyle Williams Kyle come in, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34:34):
Right, So I think that it's really Pop and if
Pop gets hurt, knock on wood that he doesn't, but
if he does, then maybe there's a path for Fton
Chisen to play. And that happened for Edelman like that
Welker got hurt and Edelman played, so that that happened
for for Edelman, so it's not totally out of the
realm of possibility, but we hope that doesn't happen. And injury.

Speaker 1 (01:34:55):
Ronk got hurt in thirteen, right, and that allowed them
they because of that, they play more left in Edling
a lot more time on this.

Speaker 3 (01:35:02):
So I want to get to a preview sort of
preview slash bubble talk here in a second, but the
calls are just rolling. Take a few more. Brad is
in Ohio. What's up, Brad?

Speaker 7 (01:35:13):
Hey, how you guys doing today?

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
Good?

Speaker 4 (01:35:16):
Good?

Speaker 7 (01:35:17):
Uh, just a couple of questions I have for you
and stuff I've heard each of you talk about in
the past, and and just an observation that in my opinion,
Drake mays an a plus D pastor when Brady was
a B plus. And so that's that, I mean, it's
just my take of you know, long life Patriot fans.

(01:35:38):
And so that being said, if we take Josh McDaniel's offense,
and and Evan's even mentioned this about shorter receivers running
over the middle like deep overs, it seems Drake struggles
with those kind of plays. Can we like, do you
think McDaniels can tailor the offense and become more vertical,

(01:36:01):
given the wide receivers would allow him to do that
throughout the season and use more different route concepts to
be different than a Brady type offense that you know,
was basically.

Speaker 5 (01:36:14):
A lot of over the middle.

Speaker 7 (01:36:15):
Brady was the best at that and Drake struggles with it.
So what do you guys think about that?

Speaker 3 (01:36:21):
Thank you, Yeah, thanks for the call, Brad. So I
do think that there were iterations of the Brady offense
that were more down the field. So obviously with Randy
Moss was here, but even like in twenty seventeen with
Brandon Cooks, they added a more vertical element to the
passing game. So I think there were and we've talked
about Kyle Williams Brandon Cooks like that sort of being
an overlap in terms of usage of the routes that

(01:36:44):
they were going to have Kyle Williams run. I still
kind of feel that way that there could be some
overlap there if you go back to seventeen Cooks. I
brought up the size thing yesterday on PU with Pop
because if you're going to target a receiver down the field,
you know ten fifteen twenty plus yards down the field,
that's five foot eight. Like, that's that's not a very

(01:37:05):
big target to hit, right, it's a smaller catch radius
to hit. Not to mention, even if you're putting some
air under it, like is he gonna be able to
go above and win the ball and you're not gonna
throw a jump ball to Pop Douglas. That's the point
I was making. The one thing that I would say,
because I think Pop has nine things over Efton Chism.

(01:37:26):
I think he's faster, I think he's quicker. I think
he's more dynamic with the ball in his hands. The
one thing that I would say that Efton Chism has
is a little bit more size. He's a little bit
of a bigger target than Pop Douglas is. So it's
not nothing I do. I've noticed that the last two years,
this year in camp and then last year at times

(01:37:47):
with Pop, like there would just be throws with Pop
that were just a little too far in front or
a little bit too far ahead of, you know, over
his head. It was just these little like little ball
placement things that Yeah, it could have been communication, it
could have been you know, this route was breaking at
five steps and he broke it at three or these
little minutias that they coaching staff last year brought up

(01:38:09):
at times with pop. But I also think an element
of it is that he's five foot eight and he
just doesn't have a great catch radius. You know, He's
just not a very big target down the field. So
that that's part of it. Now, that's not really a
big concern when you start talking about first level targets.
It's just when you start to work your way down
the field. You know, when he's winning on a linebacker,
you know, splitting the safeties in cover two and he's

(01:38:32):
winning a foot racer with the linebacker, but it's going
to be like a forty yard bomb into the end zone.
Like that's a little bit of a harder throw to
make when you don't have somebody that you can trust
to go up and win the ball. So it's just
a little thing that I've noticed. It's not like anything major,
But hopefully that answered the question. All right, A last
call here that I want to get to our preview

(01:38:52):
of tomorrow night Z is in Western mass what's ups hi?

Speaker 4 (01:38:56):
How you guys doing. I'm just mad at everybody. Why
did everybody have to get on Drake May when Rabel
didn't you know, why didn't he do the same thing
as the Vikings in Chicago did? What's their offensive That's
all I got to say, thank you?

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
Okay. So I think as he's saying that they make
enough improvements on the offensive.

Speaker 1 (01:39:16):
Line, I don't know that or if he wants the
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:39:20):
The blame to go to the offensive line or well.

Speaker 1 (01:39:23):
Or did he mean like hiring Ben Johnson in Chicago,
maybe they could have done more for their offensive line. Yeah.
I think we said that at the time. The unit
is what is at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:39:32):
I think they could have done one thing more and
I think that that would which is something we banged
the table for on this show, which was signing a
veteran left.

Speaker 1 (01:39:39):
Guard or trading for Joe Toney.

Speaker 3 (01:39:41):
Yeah, but like I get, like, Joe Toney is a
twenty million dollar a year player, So like that, if
you're if you're trading for Joe's if you're trading Joe Tuney, though,
then you're you're taking somebody else that you signed off
the roster. This is how it works. Like you know
that you're not going to just show out. It's not
like they could have had Joe Toney and right like
it was going to be Joe Toney in.

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
This case, I think they could have In this case,
I think they could have.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
All I was all I wanted out of left guard
was the Morgan Moses of left guards, Like who is
the veteran left guard on the market that you can
sign to a one or two year deal to hold
down the position for twenty twenty five as you start
to develop some of the depth and some of the
draft picks that you've made on the interier Jared Wilson,
Leaden Robinson, Kayden Wallace, like, whatever the case may be,

(01:40:26):
they didn't do that. So if you want to second
guess them on the left guard spot, that's why I
brought it up as potentially trading for one at this
time of.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
Year or and I want to make sure my take
doesn't get misconstrued. How I say this. I like Jared Wilson,
I like to pick. I think Jared Wilson's their center
of the future. I think drafting him made a ton
of sense if they're gonna play him at center, if
they knew they were going to be so locked in
on Gear Bradbury, and maybe that's ultimately won't be the case.
Like this is why this is a weird take, but
like from what we've seen, it's been a ton of

(01:40:55):
gear Bradberry at center. If they knew, look, we can't
have a rookie center, we need a veteran and Garrett's
gonna be the guy. Maybe taking a guard there instead.
But I like they took Jared Wilson. I would just
like to see them play him at his natural position.
They feel like he can get what I'm saying, Like,
I'm not saying that Jared Wilson was a bad pick,
but so I asked Doug Moroun when we had the
offensive coaches and not the defense. But the response that

(01:41:17):
he had to my question about playing Jared Wilson at
guard was that Jared Wilson swung at both guards, as
he's like to say, plays both guard spots and practice
at Georgia, and given the fact that he was going
up against Jalen Carter and all those Jordan Davis and
all these beasts at Georgia on the defensive line every day,
they felt like he had enough reps and was battle

(01:41:39):
tested enough at guard to maybe play guard and flex
the guard even though he didn't play guard in a
game at Georgia. I'm with you, though, like I think
that that's it's different. It's different to do it in
practice again on the scout team, compared to doing it
in a game, even at the college level.

Speaker 3 (01:41:54):
That's different. So that was sort of what the answer
that he gave me. But I hear I would have personally,
I would have signed Like I said, I would have
gone out and signed them. Morgan Moses have left guards.
I would have plugged him in at left guard for
the year. I would have trained Garrett Wilson or Caro
Wilson Jared Wilson at center, and hopefully halfway through this season,

(01:42:18):
Jared Wilson's your center. You have a stop gap left guard,
and the next offseason you go back into the well
to find a true left guard of the future. Yeah,
that was the one second guest that you have now
to me though, like as much as we can second
guess them on that, you also have to give them
credit for signing Morgan Moses and drafting Bill Campbell because

(01:42:38):
the one thing we haven't talked about is tackle.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
I mean, we've we said this going to the off season,
they were not gonna be able to fix the entire
line in one year, and we knew that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:45):
Frankly, if the one spot that they couldn't fix was
left guard, I'd rather be left guard than left tackle.

Speaker 1 (01:42:50):
Yes, But the fact it's now becoming both left guard
and centers, what's a little worrying to me?

Speaker 3 (01:42:54):
Yeah, I agree with you there, No, it's the interior.
It's funny. And we were harping tackle tackle tackle, Well
they did, you know, sign one and draft one at
tackle that. Oh we actually got Soto. Why did that
not hit me? We finally got so that kind of
stabilized that for the time being. And now all of
a sudden, all the problems are happening in the ind here.
So it just moves aloud. All right, let's talk bubble,

(01:43:15):
Let's talk tomorrow night against the Giants. Last fifteen minutes here.
I want to read this email really quickly because I
think this sets up the conversation. Not well, this is.

Speaker 1 (01:43:24):
The YouTube chat. Seems to think we have a bunch
of good emails.

Speaker 3 (01:43:26):
Okay, sure, this is from Ben and North andover. He
has some like roster clarification questions which I think are
important for this conversation. So the emergency third quarterback. I'll
just sum it up here. You cannot use the practice
squad elevation to make the quarterback eligible. Correct. That is correct.
In order to make the third quarterback active on game

(01:43:47):
day or designate him, I should say on game day,
he has to be on your fifty three man round. No,
it didn't change.

Speaker 5 (01:43:54):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:43:54):
I think where it changed was they.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
Proposed it and it didn't change. I've clarified, have you.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
Okay? I thought you couldn't name a practice squad player
the emergency third QB, but if you elevate the quarterback
from the practice squad, you could.

Speaker 3 (01:44:08):
Then name him. That was the proposal.

Speaker 1 (01:44:10):
That was the proposal got town.

Speaker 3 (01:44:11):
It didn't get past yet. Okay, it's still in the
in the ether. So as of right now.

Speaker 1 (01:44:16):
Here, this is from last year. Nfl PA vetos Emergency
third Quarterback rules is NFL dot com vetos. You said
the word veto right, so let me read it. The
NFLPA next a league wide, a league approved rule allowing
an emergency third quarterback to come from the practice squad
with unlimited call ups. The rule averts the twenty twenty
three parameters, which states that an emergency third QB must

(01:44:39):
be on the fifty three man roster or as one
of two standard elevations for the week. An elevated QB
would have to be activated. Oh, would have to be active. Okay,
so I get what it's saying.

Speaker 3 (01:44:50):
Wait what I'm telling you that you can't you can't
do it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
I'm an elevated QB. But this contradicted.

Speaker 3 (01:44:57):
I know it's I know, I know. Can we just
move on? They would have to carry three quarterbacks on
the roster. I'm telling you they would have to carry three.
I'm moving on to the second question, the IR designated
to return question that we get.

Speaker 1 (01:45:14):
A lot, so I understand this one.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
On roster cutdown day, you can place players on injured
reserve designated to return on cutdown day when you hand
in the packet to the league. Of these are this
is how we got down to fifty three players on
that transaction wire, you have to say, I'm just using
him as an example. Kendrick Bourne is on injured reserve

(01:45:38):
designated to return on cutdown Day, so Brock Lampy is
not eligible for this. Kendrick Bourne, if they decide to
IR him on Tuesday and part of the roster transactions,
is eligible.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
So the way it works is it's not all right,
we're gonna put five guys on IR and then we'll
decide which two are coming back. Like you get two guys,
you specifically say that guy's coming back, and like you said,
it has to be on cutdown day. So anybody that's
already been placed on IR is not eligible. I think
they have. And I don't know the exact injury status
of these players, but based on what we've seen, I

(01:46:12):
think it's pretty clear cut that there were two guys
who qualify. It's Kendrick Bourn and Jelawney to buy right,
But you have to carry that player on the ninety
through two cutting down day. You can't.

Speaker 3 (01:46:22):
It can't be brock Lampy. Uh, they play somebody else.
It can't be Isaiah. I think it can't be. It
can't be one of these other.

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):
I think you can designate guys earlier, but you have
to designate them when you place them. I don't think that, oh,
it has to be that way because it's literally a transaction.

Speaker 3 (01:46:37):
Like think about it as like this is processing through the.

Speaker 1 (01:46:39):
League today, so it'll be the And again, it's not
you can't name five guys all right, Well, we're gonna
put Born to buy Polk Baker. Who else is hurt
like Williams? Right, We're gonna put those five guys on
and then we'll decide when we get into the year
which two we want to pack. No, it's it's two guys.
So I forgot about Kyle Williams when I said that.

(01:46:59):
I really hope Kyle Williams is not going to miss
significant time. Even if he's gonna miss two games. We've
seen what missing. He'd essentially missed two months because it
would be from when he got hurt, and then I
think would be three weeks before the first game, right
from when he got hurt. Yeah, and then he'd missed
the first four weeks of the regular season.

Speaker 3 (01:47:15):
I don't think that this is I have no information.
I just I don't think we're there. Okay, good, I
be Born and Tabaya the two.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
Right, I think those are the two guys that make
the most Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:47:25):
So with that being said, ending obviously, tomorrow, you posted
something about your bubble. Yeah, you have a nineteen player bubble,
which I think says a lot about kind of where
we're at right now with this roster. There's like when
I did my like, you know, roster projection unofficial. I
had like forty three or forty four guys that I
felt like really needed to be on the team, and

(01:47:46):
then I had eight or nine spots that I think
were totally kind of up in the air.

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
Yeah, so that's where I'm at, exactly. No, I'm saying, Okay,
I thought you met that last year. Last year, So
that's where it really but go ahead. So well, the
philosophy behind it, if for those who haven't listened to
the show before, is basically doing a roster projection the
same way, not you pick the bracket like pick your winners,
but the way March Madness puts the bracket together, because
it's not the bet was now sixty eight. It's too

(01:48:12):
many times it's not the best sixty eight teams in
the country because, for instance, the champion of the A
Sun may not be a better team than like the
seventh best team in the in the Big East. But
there are spots reserve for the conference winners, right, so
every team And yeah, the practice squad elevations leave a
little bit of gray area here, but there's less flexibility

(01:48:33):
with that than people think. For the vast majority every
team is going to keep at least two quarterbacks. Every
ting's going to keep at least three running backs, four
wide receivers, on and on and on, right, So when
you chop those out, that gives you fourteens going across
the league. Like using positional minimums, that basically gives you
fourteen spots that can be won by the best player left.

(01:48:55):
But that number then on and that's league wide. That
number on a team to team base comes down further because,
for instance, four ride receivers is the minimum. The Patriots
have five six roster locks. If we're gonna count Afton Chisholm, right,
you know, it doesn't count if you keep a fallback,
it doesn't count if there's like a Matthew Seedter Slater
special teams like guy who's not gonna count against that

(01:49:16):
wide receiver minimum. So every year that number changed it
a little bit. Last year I had the Patriots with
eleven at large spots. Yeah, eleven or twelve. I think
there were some guys that were on the fence with
ir This year I have them with ten at large spots.
And then the flip side of that is, okay, how
many people are competing for those spots because you might
have guys like again, is Josh Dobbs, one of the

(01:49:38):
fifty three best players on the Patriots, might not be
he's gonna be on the roster right. Jeremiah farm is
another guy I consider a roster lock, just because I
don't think they have enough defensive tackles without him. If
Isaiah Eiden had been healthy, I probably would have put
them both on the bubble and opened up that spot.

Speaker 3 (01:49:55):
So it's not to cut you off just we have
so read nineteen.

Speaker 1 (01:50:00):
The point I'm making is there's players who are on
the bubble who aren't on here because they're either gonna
make it as a part of their position to get
to the minimum or they're not. They're competing against the
other players at the position. These guys are all essentially
competing against each other. Okay, the bubble to me is
Jamichael Hasty, Terrell Jennings, Kendrick Bourne if he doesn't go on,
Ir Jay von Baker, Vederian Lowe, Cole Strange, Caden Wallace,

(01:50:23):
City so Tyres Robinson, Anthony Jennings, Truman Jones, Elijah Ponder,
Jelani Tavai, Monty, Rice Miles, Battle, Jordan Polk, Kyle Duggar,
Dell Penneth Pettis, and Marcus Apps.

Speaker 3 (01:50:35):
Yeah, so I had a bunch of the same.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
Let me just clarify this too.

Speaker 3 (01:50:39):
That's a lot of names we just threw at you.

Speaker 1 (01:50:41):
So Hasty and Jennings aren't both gonna make the team, right, right?
The one one might make it, they both might not
make it. Same with the offensive line, So some guys
have better chances than others. But that's what I have
as the bubble. And like John Parker, Romo right not
on there because he's either gonna make it or not.
They're not going to keep two kickers.

Speaker 3 (01:50:56):
So I didn't I didn't do I looked at my
own list before I looked at your list. My list
is a little bit smaller just because yeah whatever, I
kind of did it off the top of my head.

Speaker 1 (01:51:05):
Did you have more roster locks or did you just
knock count as many guys on the bable.

Speaker 3 (01:51:08):
I just didn't count as many in the bubble. So
I had Dugger, Jennings, Baker, Low Strange, Wallace, and then
I had a couple of rookies like Farmer, Swinson, Ponder.
I think that they're going to probably keep all three
of those guys.

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
Farmer and Swinston, I feel comfortable saying our locks.

Speaker 3 (01:51:30):
I don't know. And then I also put you know,
Born into Vibe Slash, Ir Cole and I are here
as well. Uh, you know, DJ James probably on the
team because they just need the fifth cornerback spot and
he is the fifth corner.

Speaker 1 (01:51:43):
Right, So that's where you get into he like, he's
not a lock in terms of he's going to start,
but because they need X number of corners just to
fill out the roster, you don't put him on the bubble.

Speaker 3 (01:51:55):
So out of your group, out of this group, who
who can really like who has the most to win?
Who is the most approved Tomorrow night? But against the.

Speaker 1 (01:52:04):
Giants, just looking down my list, I think Jamichael Hasty
can kind of solidify his spot if he's solid.

Speaker 3 (01:52:09):
He's a nice little player, Like I know, he's nothing
flashy or special, but.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
He's a good special team player. He's a good special
teams player. He's a multifaceted running back. He's not necessarily
amazing at at anything, but you can put him in
any situation. He can be a multi positional backup or
multi roll backup for running backs. Yah if rom Andre
Stevenson's banged up a little bit, which we know he is.
He's in a non contact jersey of practice. You probably
want to keep four backs. Hasty is gonna play in

(01:52:34):
the kicking game like I have him on. I had
him on my last ross projection. Most to win, just
going down my list, Javon Baker obviously a ton any
of the Lineman, Cole Strange, Kiten Wallas City. So Tyre's
Robinson not in uh five here, low Strange wall is
so Robinson. You're not gonna have all five of those
guys make it. I don't think all five of those

(01:52:56):
guys are gonna miss it either. We're gonna have a
couple of those guys. It's basically who is it, who performs?
Who you know? I think Truman Jones, Elijah Ponder in
good spots, Jordan Polk Like to your point, you kind
of put DJ James on by default. I guess I
throw Miles Battle in here too. But I think the
interesting thing with Polk is if they're gonna cut Dougger,

(01:53:16):
I'm uneasy about them keeping for safeties, and and that's
for safeties. I gotta double check my ross rerection. I
think that's for safeties with schooler right, so.

Speaker 3 (01:53:26):
That no, it would be yeah, yeah, for safeties with.

Speaker 1 (01:53:30):
Schooler Hawkins, Pepper, Schooler Woodson. If they don't keep Doug.

Speaker 3 (01:53:33):
This is my point, like when I was doing the
roster projection yesterday, Like Kyle Duggar, unless you find a
trade partner for him, it's kind of hard to keep
him off, like just you know, like just unless he's going.

Speaker 1 (01:53:45):
To be a problem in the room, b I, if
he's a backup. But like, so that's where del Pettis,
Marcus Apps, Jordan Polk, right, there's a safety spot to
be won there. Now that might be a spot. This
is where and anytime I explained the positional minimums people
shoot back. Will he kept one quarterback in twenty twenty
one because these are practice squad elevation?

Speaker 3 (01:54:02):
Still crazy, don't you can't go back?

Speaker 1 (01:54:04):
Well, del Pettis is a guy. Maybe they could get
to the practice squad initially, elevate for a couple games,
and then sign to the roster. So but like you
want to make the case if you're del Pettis or
your Marcus Epps or you're Jordan Polk, like they probably
should look to keep a fifth safety. And maybe it's
not initially, but let's not forget that the roster. Let's
not forget the roster doesn't lock in week one. They

(01:54:26):
have a good game and they look at it and say,
all right, we're gonna put him on the practice squad.
But like, once the spot opens up, this is the
first guy that's getting signed. That's not nothing either. So
I think any of the safeties with Dougger, they're gonna
have to sign it. If they move on from Doug,
or they're gonna have to sign a safety at some point.
Maybe they keep Maybe they keep five initially and that's it,
but if they keep four, it's not gonna stay that way.

(01:54:48):
They're gonna have to add another at some point.

Speaker 3 (01:54:50):
Maybe maybe they keep Epps. They seem to like apps.

Speaker 1 (01:54:52):
They do seem to like apps. But if your EPs
aor Doug, if you're EPs or Pettis, maybe that's making
that case that Okay, we're not gonna keep you on
the initial fifty three, but if you come back on
the practice squad, you know, first spot we get, you're
gonna be the guy that we signed.

Speaker 3 (01:55:04):
So the I agree with you, safety is a spot
that's still kind of uncertain. And then the other one,
like you mentioned, is those backup offensive linemen like you
had a Vederian Low, Cole Strange, Caden Wallace, Leyden Robinson,
Tyres Robinson. If you want to throw him in there,
you know how many of those guys do they keep?
How do they keep any of them? Do they keep
a slew of them?

Speaker 1 (01:55:25):
I think they have to keep at least one or
two of them, because without any of those guys, they're
at one, two, three, four, five, They're at six or
seven linemen.

Speaker 3 (01:55:33):
Forget So right now I have Strange on and it's
not so much that I think that he's played his
way on. It's more the positional flexibility. Yeah, he can
play center and he can play guard. So just in
that sense, like Leiden Robinson Caden Wallace are one position.

Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
Back up the King, Wallace can back up a right tackle.

Speaker 3 (01:55:53):
Maybe this coaching staff hasn't viewed him as a tackle,
that's true. So those two guys in particular, it's the
same thing. They don't have the depth a tackle to
really care about this. But like Vederian Low, to me,
is a left tackle backup. We've done those Low on
the right side thing and it's way worse than on
the left.

Speaker 1 (01:56:11):
So I'll give you just just to kind of put
a cap on it, because I do on my ross projection.
When I do the ross projections was separate than the
bubble I do. Like the last three on last three off.
I actually did for this most recent one, last five
on last five off because it felt so close. So
this is essentially forty eight, forty nine fifty. So this
is essentially player forty nine through fifty three, No fifty seven, right,

(01:56:33):
because you know, five on a.

Speaker 3 (01:56:35):
Lot of names and a lot of math, and we're
two hours into the.

Speaker 1 (01:56:39):
Show, right, so my last five on, So this should
be forty nine through fifty three. Anthony Jennings to Michael Hasty,
Venderian Lowe, Can Wallas, Cole Strange. I had Cole Strange
is player fifty three. Player fifty four was Kyle Duggar,
last five off Kyle Duggar City, So del Pettis actually
should have moved del Pettis up. It should be Kyle
Dugger del Pettis jaevon Baker City. So and then I

(01:57:02):
actually used a waiverclaim. Offensive tackle is one of my
last tu because I am still not convinced that the
lineman they have now, I'm still not convinced that there's
not gonna be alignment on the team week one that
isn't on the team right now. So I'm not saying
that's great, but I do think it's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (01:57:17):
So I had Brad Burry Ben Brown on when Wu
Wilson Strange as the interior five interior alignement, uh, and
then I had Campbell, Moses, Bryant Lowe as a tackle,
so nine linemen, which I feel like maybe you could
you could get Caden Wallace on there too and make
it ten like you did. I think we pretty much
had the same thing and that was maybe the one difference.

(01:57:39):
I could be talked into that, But I feel like
those five guys. Strange makes a team because of his
positional flexibility. If you want to if you get into
a world where your interior is Wilson on when Wu Brown,
I don't know if Bradberry is here, so you might
need Cold Strange to be that top backup on game day.
Positional flexibility kind of thing. So that's what I had.

(01:58:02):
But I still feel like if I had to, I
had to guess where they're at right now trying to
sort out these competitions. It's interior offensive line, like which
guys are they going to keep out of that group?
In safety, I think those are the two spots Anthroontiy Jennings.
I feel like it is his own thing, like that's
just a system fit thing, and you know, just do
they have a role for them and all that kind
of stuff. I do unnecessarily look at edge is like

(01:58:25):
this is a competition still. I just think it's more
about Anthony Jennings safety and interior offensive line, two positions.
I'll be watching tomorrow night, Tomorrow night Patriots Giants preseason finale.
This game's on Amazon. I believe it's We're not carrying it.
It's not a Patriots broadcast, so it's national broadcast on Amazon.

(01:58:48):
Eight o'clock Pregame Show six forty five. Your boys on
the pregame show again, second week in a row. So
I'll be on the pre and postgame show tomorrow night
with Paul with deuced Claudia's back as well. So we'll
have you pregame six forty five postgame immediately following the
conclusion of that game. And so we'll see you guys
then and We'll be back on Catch twenty two next week,

(01:59:11):
probably next Wednesday. Roster cutdowns will have happened, so we'll
know the Patriots initial fifty three man roster. As always,
things are pretty flexible, as they like to say, fluid.
You know, it always changes. But we'll be able to
break down the initial roster for you guys next week.
So until then, signing off for Alex Barth Alex behind
the Glass. I'm Evan Lazarte. See you guys tomorrow night

(01:59:32):
for Patriots Giants, See you then, right.

Speaker 1 (01:59:37):
Hey, this is Alex.

Speaker 3 (01:59:38):
Thanks for tuning into the show.

Speaker 4 (01:59:40):
If you really want to help us, make sure you
like us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get
your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:59:45):
Also, make sure you follow us on the New.

Speaker 5 (01:59:47):
England Patriots YouTube channel to see this show and everything
else we do here at the Patriots.

Speaker 1 (01:59:52):
Thanks a lot,

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