Patriots Catch-22 9/3: Latest News, Season Predictions, Raiders Preview

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Lazar and Alex Barth Bare and Lazarren.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello, everybody nailed it, Joined as always by ours.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Here is Evan Lazar and Alex barn. I mean, I
think there are people who play fantasy football who are
real football fans. I'm not saying all fantasy football players aren't.
I think there are some people who played fantasy football
and not a football fan in the sense that I
enjoy watching NFL, I mean a fan of the sport itself.
I think there are some people that play fantasy football.
They know the quarterbacks, the running backs, the wide receivers,

(00:47):
and the tight ends, and that's it. They know the numbers,
and they don't maybe know what's behind those numbers, how
they get there. That's what it.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Bothers me a little bit about the fantasy community. They
basically take the trenches out of their thinking.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
And the defense entyre well, yeah, but like specifically, I
would say, I feel like if you only pay attention
to fantasy and that's how you base all your takes
off of just fantasy football, then do you acquiring wide
receivers and running backs and tight ends?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Is the only means that matter.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
This and these are the people I'm talking to me.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
I have a fantasy draft tonight. Actually, I'm in two
leagues this year, and I don't know how I feel
about it. I'm not gonna be I'm gonna be honest
with you. It's kind of lost a little bit of
its luster to me. Maybe that's just working in the.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, so you know, when people ask me why I
don't do it. I was never a big fan of
it to begin with. But the thing is, like what
I like doing was plopping down on the couch on Sunday, yes,
and watching the points come in real time and outside
of you know what, two or three weeks a year.
A few more this year is a few more prime
time age of the Patriots. But like, I really can't
do that on a Sunday and watching the Patriots game,

(01:56):
So that that took a lot out for me. I
do still need to set up the punter league.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
I knew you were going to.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Can you do the draft tonight?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
No, I can't. I have another fantasy draft to night.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
By tomorrow night tomorrow, during the day, we'll figure out
I'm to make sure you want to draft. No, we'll
make sure you can do the draft. I don't want
to do the punter league with that. I'm not gonna
do that to you. I did it, I didn't do
it last year, and I know how much you missed it.
So I want to make sure you get involved this year.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
No, I'm good. I'm good.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
No, I don't worry. We'll get you in. Don't worry
about it. I'm happy to do it.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
So one thing we were talking about from a fantasy thing.
Then I promise we'll move on from fantasy and talk
Patriots here in a second. But I was trying to think,
like how much of an advantage could having Travis Hunter
b because if he scores touchdowns on defense, then you
might get those points. But I guess in standard scoring
in most from most places like ESPN and stuff like that,

(02:50):
they'd only give you defensive points if it's an IDP league,
if it's like an individual defensive point.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
And I think even if you had like Marcus Jones
as an IDP, I remember this was a thing like, yeah, touchdowns,
like you didn't get the points for that, which you should.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
But yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I'd like in baseball, I think you have to.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
I thought I found a loophole with Travis Hunter. You know,
like Marcus Jones is another good one. Speaking Marcus Jones,
captain Captain Marcus Jones. I thought maybe I had found
a loophole, but I did not. It turns out, at
least based off of most standard scoring systems. All right,
that's enough Fantasy football. Evan Lazar Alex bar Alex behind

(03:29):
the glass with you here for the next couple of
hours on Patriots Catch twenty two one housekeeping item. I'm
hoping that we're going to be able to keep the
show at this time slot moving forward for the next
seventeen hopefully plus weeks moving forward in season. We'll see
if that's the case. We obviously have to adjust based off.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Of Monday night game and one Thursday, and we're one Thursday,
and I came, all goes out the window? Was it week?
Is week five? Monday night or Sunday night, Sunday night? Okay,
so in Buffalo we should have some Yeah, we only
have a non Sunday game.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
It's late in the season. Yeah, it's a week eleven.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
I want to say right there, the Thursday night football game,
right is they're Thursday and yeah, and then Monday nights
a few weeks later, so that'll be a mess, but
we get to get to that, yes.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
So not too Yeah. I think we'll be able to
leave the show here, which will be good. So ten
to noon on Wednesdays, and of course you can get
the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. But I want
to open with some Patriots news. Then we are going
to talk a little bit big picture about the season

(04:34):
as a whole. I have nine questions going into the
season about your twenty twenty five Patriots. I don't like
using the word concerns because you know, we have to
be careful about concerns here, but also because I feel
like it's not necessarily that they're all concerns. I just
feel like they practices are questions. There are questions about
the team. So we have nine of them. We're gonna

(04:56):
get through those, and then we'll talk a little bit
of Raiders will take your Wonderful, We'll preview the game
on Sunday. We'll get some emails in. But starting with
the news, Alex, we were not on the air or
the show had already aired last week before the Patriots
released Jabriel Peppers. That happened on Friday, afternoon. A surprise,
A surprise, no doubt about it, one of those surprise

(05:18):
cuts that came out of nowhere. But I think one
of the big things that I took away from this mover,
or my take on the whole thing, I want to
be consistent because last week I gave them flowers for
holding their water on Kyle Duggar and Anthony Jennings and
at the time Kendrick Bourn until we found out that
that was also not for long. But I gave them

(05:40):
credit for holding the water on those guys and not
just giving up on those guys because they're not scheme
fits or whatever the case may be. You know, your
new regime, your guys like that whole thing. I thought
they were a little bit they were a year too early,
in my mind, from having the depth and the talent
on the roster to be able to do that and
cut ties with NFL players with NFL caliber talent was

(06:04):
starting caliber talent. Frankly, in the case of Jabriel Peppers,
I thought they were a little premature to do that
this time around. I was a little bit surprised that
they did do that. I thought they were going to
hold on to some of these guys through the season
and just see where it shakes out. So that's just
my opinion on it. But at the same time, just
to talk about why it happened, I think at some

(06:25):
point in this offseason, pretty early on, I would say,
maybe even in the spring, because Kyle Dugger, remember he
wasn't practicing, is still working back from that ankle injury
during OTAs, it felt like they decided it was gonna
be Kyle Dugger or Jabriel Peppers, not Kyle Dugger and
Jabriel Peppers. At some point pretty early on in this

(06:46):
offseason in this process, so they decided and they looked
at it and said, we feel like we are better
off playing what's really a true free safety and a
true strong safety or a box safety, and not playing
those two guys together, which was the vision when they
signed both those guys to contract extensions last offseason. So

(07:07):
now this new regime comes in and we can get
into the minutia of the scheme and all the different
things that go into it. But I think they decided
that they were not stylistically a fit as a pairing.
And we had talked about this when they extended these players,
that they were a little bit redundant, that there was
definitely skill set overlap between the two of them, And

(07:27):
it seems to me, just from the outside looking in,
that Mike Vrabel and this coaching staff agreed that they
were too redundant to one another. Now, the second point
of that is, if you know that there's really only
a role for one of these guys on the team,
that only one of these guys is really going to
see any sort of amount of playing time, then you

(07:49):
have a culture locker room angle of this as well,
where if a guy like Jabriel Peppers, who former captain,
well paid player, outspoken player that sort of has a
feel I would say for the beat of the team
and the heartbeat of the team, if you have a
guy like Dad that is not playing on Sundays, what

(08:13):
does that do to sort of the leadership structure of
your roster. So I think that's why we got here.
I think it's Dugger or Peppers, not Dugger and Peppers
from a football standpoint. And then also how was that
going to jive in the locker room If Kyle Dugger
and Jabrel Peppers are your too highest paid safeties aren't

(08:35):
playing on Sundays. What was your take on the whole move.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
I agree with the lot of that. I just you know,
so I and I think if they had traded Dougger,
Peppers would still be here. But going from Dugger looking
like the odd man out to Peppers, who ultimately did
they think would help the team more and you just
kind of hope that's what was driving the decision. But
I was surprised because the difference between Dugger and Peppers.

(08:59):
Pepper rolled in decrease until really late in the summer,
to the point where I kind of wondered if it
was just a load management thing to keep him fresh
for the regular season, and obviously, looking back, that wasn't it.
But this guy looked like a leader. We saw it
in Fortune Foxborough, right and it was just apparent if
you were watching this team day in and day out
in camp. And yeah, I was pretty surprised by it.

(09:22):
You know, good player, I think, still a good player.
It puts a lot of pressure on Craig Woodson. And
that's kind of a theme. I know you have your
seven questions. I have one big one and then a
couple of smaller ones I want to get to. I
don't know where you want to fit mine in, But like,
that's another rookie that's going to be front and center
for this team.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I get that, you know, I said
this to Paul the other day. I get if you're
doing Madden ratings, Yeah, then Kyle dugger and Jabriel Peppers
are probably rated higher in the game than Jalen Hawkins
and Craig Woodson. But what they're asking these safeties to
do is going to be sick magnificantly different. And I

(10:02):
think the biggest part of what they're asking them to
do that's different because to me, I've heard a lot
about how they're going to ask the safeties to cover
in man. I think they always had the safeties covered
in man, like Patrick Chung was their tight end stopper
for years here. I think early on in Kyle Duggar's career,
when he was playing off of Devin mccordy, he covered
tight ends a lot pretty frequently. So I don't think

(10:24):
that the man to man stuff is necessarily new. What
I think is new is that they're going to be
playing a lot more in the deep part of the
field as safeties, whether it's split safety structures like quarters
coverage or Cover four. I think they're going to be
doing a lot more that they're going to be a
lot doing a lot more of Tampa or Cover two,
and so in that you need to have safeties that
are athletic, rangey, instinctive players playing over the top of

(10:48):
the defense. And I just don't think that either one
of these guys in Pepper's or dugger are really built
to do that at a high level. And maybe Jalen
Hawkins and Craig Woodson aren't the splash players, impact on
the ball production type guys that Duggar and Peppers would
have been or are, but they're going to keep the

(11:10):
top on the defense, and I think at the end
of the day, that's what they're more looking for their
safeties to do. To sum it up, you know, maybe
a little bit more concisely, they now want the safeties
to be past game players. They want those guys to
be cover players. They want those guys to cover ground,
to cover space in the deep part of the field,
and not so much be we're coming downhill at the

(11:32):
line of scrimmage and stopping the run with our safeties.
So that's a big difference in scheme and big difference
in skill set, and I don't think it. Mike Rabel
downplayed the scheme thing as a factor in all this,
but then he was asked directly about Craig Woodson and
immediately brought up athleticism in range. So I feel like
that is not a mistake or that was not unrelated there.

(11:55):
So that's Jabriel Peppers. One last thing on Peppers are
using surprized that because I took the timing of it
as they were probably trying to find a trade for
one of those guys, Kyle Dugger or Gabriel Peppers. I
know there's a ton of reporting out there that Kyle
Dugger was on the trade block and teams were very
well aware that he could be had in the trade.

(12:19):
So the timing of it to me speaks to they
probably were trying to trade Kyle Dugger or Jabriel Peppers.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, they didn't.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Really get an offer that they loved, and frankly, Jabriel
Peppers was easier to cut from a contractual standpoint. But
are you surprised that there was not more of a
market to trade either one of those.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Guys Peppers definitely. I think Dugger, just because of the contract,
maybe made it a little tougher. But Peppers has shown
he can still be a contributing player. So you know,
maybe some teams were the injury last year and him,
you know, him missing time last year. But yeah, I
was a little surprised. I'd want Jabrill Peppers on my
football team, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, Yeah, it's a good point. I was surprised. I
thought they would be able to get some even if
it's just day three, right swap.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
If you're like a contender and you're looking for somebody
to come in and bring a little edge to your defense,
it's exactly the guy you're looking for to me.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah. The other bit of news here over the last
couple of days Patriots announcing their captains six captains Drake
May Hunter, Henry Robert Spoleain and Harold Landry, Marcus Jones
and Brennan school Are. I'm not surprised by most of those.
I am surprised a little bit by Marcus Jones, not
because anything, you know, disrespect meant to Marcus Jones. I

(13:33):
just didn't really see that one coming. And I am
a little bit surprised that Morgan Moses was not named
a captain. But what was your take on the captains
and more specifically, any surprises for you.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Morgan Moses was a little bit of surprise. I think
mainly like a good mix of returning players and guys
who are new you know, Splaine and Landry. Those are
two guys that this coaching staff is very familiar with,
even though they're new to New England, so that doesn't
surprise me. Aton Schooler was the obvious choice for the
Special Teams captain. C Drake May starting quarterback like last

(14:08):
year was different. He was a rookie, but he was
going to be a captain this year. Really the two
you know spots up in the air, Hunter Henry and
Marcus Jones. With all the turnover, were they going to
bring back a guy who was a captain last year?
And Hunter Henry and I think he's somebody Mike Rabels
talked about his leadership. I think he's somebody that has
earned that. And then Marcus Jones there were some questions
about just how big of a role he'd play on

(14:28):
this team as one of those holdovers, another guy where
there were scheme fit questions. Not the Special Teams captain.
I don't think they have two Special Teams captains. That
would be pretty rare. Maybe the defense special teams captain,
but I think that's a sign that they still have
big plans from on defense. I saw some people surprise
Christian Gonzalez isn't a captain. Nothing against Gonzales, kind of

(14:49):
a quieter guy. I don't know that he's like that.
Those are all very vocal players. There's not a lot
of outside of maybe Landry, you know, and maybe this
is just my point of view, but Drake may is
obviously the quarterback. Roberts splain. You hear him a lot
at practice. He's jumping around, he's bought around. Hunter Henry's
a guy that you know, is a veteran that you
see a lot of the players gravitate towards younger players,

(15:11):
gravitate towards Marcus Jones, a guy that has been a
vocal leader on this team. You saw it going back
to last year. And I think they really not a
lot of those quiet, lead by example kind of guys.
These are are first off the bus, front of the
line guys. And it doesn't surprise me that's what Mike
Gravel wants. But it's nothing against Gonzales. I just think

(15:33):
there's kind of a theme here that he maybe doesn't
fit as.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Much Yeah, honestly, I didn't even consider Christian Gonzalez and
they're running to be a captain. And again that's no
disrespect to Christian Gonzales whatsoever. But and I was on
your station last night with Joe Murray and he brought up,
like Marcus Jones being a captain. This is what your
station does, right. They spin it as like it was
just a shot at Gonzalz. I didn't even consider that
angle of it because to all your points, I don't

(15:57):
think Gonzales is really necessarily that vocal guy. I think
there will be a point in his career where he's
sort of like the elder statesman and it becomes like
a quiet leader and just someone that people lead by
example and look at and say, that's that's the peak.
You know, that's a guy that is doing it at
a really high level. And then also frankly, like he

(16:19):
hasn't practiced since July twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
That's probably and we're going to get to that.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
But that's a big part of this is like, these
are the guys that have been there, that have been
practicing every single day, that have been out on the
field and in the meeting rooms and in the huddles
and all that good stuff. So it's again, it's not
a knock on on Gonzales. I just I don't really
I don't really care to be honest with you about
like is this guy a captain? Is this guy not

(16:44):
a captain when it comes to like the best players
on the team, right, So it doesn't really bother me
one way or another. But there's the last thing on
the captains. One thing I was thinking about with Marcus Jones.
I agree with you that he's like a sneaky, vocal guy.
He's also a that has a little bit of what's
the word like overlap or similarities in with Mike Rabel

(17:07):
and the fact that he plays in multiple phases. And
I wonder if that was a factor at all that
Mike Rabel sees even though they're very different players, very
different positions, all that stuff, he sees a little bit
of himself in terms of like the sacrifice for the team.
Like if they said to Marcus Jones, we want to
put you on offense, he would play offense. If they
want him to return kicks and punts, he's returning kicks

(17:29):
and punts. If they wanted to play slock corner if
they want him to play safety, like he's doing all
of it. And Mike Rabel was the same way as
a player. He was a three phase player, and I
wonder if there's a little bit of that going on
with Marcus Jones as well.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
So do we know so two things? Well, do we
know if they're going to actually physically wear the sea
this year?

Speaker 3 (17:47):
I believe so, but I don't know that for a fact.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
The other thing I do like that they did this.
So there's those six captains, But then Calebon Chase On
is going to be a game day captain or a
week by week captain. For week one it's against his
former team obviously had a great summer. I think deserves
some recognition. Do we know is this gonna be like,
is there gonna be a game day captain every week?

Speaker 3 (18:10):
That would be My guess is that it's gonna rotate.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Love that that's super college football, yep. But I just
think that's a cool thing, Like it's a good way
get guys a little extra recognition. You'll see a lot
of the times, like is the case with Chase On
it's against you know, a former team, or maybe if
a guy is a really big matchup that week and
just kind of hey, we got your back, we're behind
you thing. I've always liked, you know. Again, that's more
of a college thing than the NFL thing. Although I

(18:35):
know the Titans did it last year post Rabel because
Harold Lanjury was a game day captain at one point
last season. I don't know if Rabel did it in
Tennessee before that. I need to look that up. But
I'm a fan of it. I think it's a cool,
cool little thing, and it'll be fun to track that
all year.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, that is a cool thing and it'll be fun
to track. I agree, And I like it too, because
even though it's probably not a ton like at least
it's it might be a little bit of motivation for
some of these up guys that weren't named captains but
probably deserve to be recognized as leaders of this team.
Like that might be, you know, one week, the game
day captain, like when they play the Jets at Morgan Moses, right,

(19:11):
you know, something like that, Like they just to give
those guys a little bit of kudos in a little
bit of love, even though they're not considered permanent captains.
So that's the news of the day.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
And so it looks like Tennessee just had seven captains.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
So I thought they had seven captains is last year.
I had looked that up before the captains came out
to try to get a gauge of of exactly how
many they would have. So it sounds like they're doing
six plus one with rotating game day captain as as
instead of seven permanent captains. Really quickly, though, do you

(19:45):
know what I like to eat, Alex when I'm watching
football games? Some toastedos?

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Do you?

Speaker 3 (19:50):
Are you toasted too?

Speaker 5 (19:52):
So?

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Football fans, though, know that traditions matter, turning moments together
into some something truly epic. They're what inspires to make
are masa and tostedos the traditional ways, starting with whole
corn kernels, no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives, all to
give you that perfect crunch. Discover your next tradition this
football season. Head to this door, grab your tostito's team

(20:14):
bag and scan the code for a chance to score
in an epic experience with the Patriots. Toastedos. Tradition matters.
All right, let's get to our questions. I have seven
plus plus two from you, so nine questions seven on
my own. We'll get to your questions. Don't worry. I'll
mix them in there.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
But I do mine first or last because mine's much
more bigger picture of yours are more individually focused.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Okay, we'll mix them in there. Okay, So I think
you got to start here whenever you're talking about big
picture questions with the Patriots, and that's just what Drake May.
And we've given a lot of takes on this show
about Drake May over the last several months and where
he's at and all that good stuff. But now the
regular season's here and it's time to really see where

(21:01):
he's progressed and all that stuff. So my question with
Drake May is does he take that next step? I
think that's the number one question with this team right now.
But also like what would that look like to you?
What would it look like for him to take the
next step? Because I think it's subjective. It could be
wins losses, it could be statistical production, it could be
eye tests, Like there's a lot of different ways that

(21:22):
you could uh, a lot of different angles, and it's
I think a subjective thing person to person.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
So I mean I think it's multiple things, right. The
big number that I've continually thrown out under a turnover
a game. So if he plays all seventeen games and
this is interceptions and fumbles sixteen or fewer interceptions in fumbles,
now that can't come at the expense of making plays.
You want to see the touchdowns as well. But that's

(21:47):
kind of been a big one for me because I
think this defense should be a turnover game defense. I
really do. So if Drake may can keep it under
a turnover game, you've now won the turnover battle for
the season. That is going to really help you out.
The other thing a lot of people point to year
two is kind of the make it or break it
year for quarterbacks, and there's some truth to that. Usually

(22:08):
if you don't figure it out by the end by
the end of year two, you're not gonna have much
success in the NFL as a quarterback. Right You get
these guys like Baker Mayfield and Gino Smith and we'll
see this week in Sam Darnold, but they usually have
to change teams and it's years later, and you know,
if you're going to kind of hit it from the
jump as a top pick and justify that pick, you

(22:30):
got to show progress in year two. Josh Allen was
one of these guys. Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts. I think
Bryce Young will see what he does this year, but
people realize how good Bryce Young was second half of
last season. We'll see if he can continue to build
on that. But there's also within that, whether it's Alan
Burrow Hurts, I mean, a lot of these top quarterbacks

(22:50):
who kind of it clicked in year two for them,
they were a lot better in the second half of
the season than they were in the first. And it
wasn't like they flipped a switch and we eate and
suddenly we're good. But there was this gradual growth. So
however you want to measure it, turnovers, touchdowns, you want
to use one of your for cock to numbers, go
for it is Drake May better at the end of

(23:11):
the year than he was at the beginning. I think
that's also very important. I don't want Drake May to
play his best game of the year this Sunday. I
hope he plays a good game and it'd be great
if he plays his best game of the year this
Sunday and we look back at it and say he
peaked in the opener, that's probably not a good thing.
Remember who peaked in the opener year too. Talking Matt Jones, Yeah,

(23:32):
I had a whole thing about he threw for three
hundred yards. Why you worried some of us didn't really
feel like you were. You stood on that hill alone
and you were correct. I wanted to give you your
flowers for that. So that's not me saying I hope
Drake may sucks Sunday. Obviously not. But and it's not linear.
There's going to be some up and some down. But
his last eight games collectively should be better than his

(23:52):
first eight games, if that makes sense. Like I just
I want to see him continue to get better over
the course of the year. If he's stagnant, even if
he's okay, but he's just stagnantly okay, that would be
a little worrying long term. So cut down on the
turnovers and improve as the season goes on. Those are
my two big check marks for him.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, I agree with that. I think the mine is
more and I think yours is too. Like I test subjective,
you know, just sort of feel thing.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
I can't give you an exactly, like, thirty touchdowns would
be great, but if it's thirty touchdowns and twenty five turnovers,
I'd be kind of worried about that. And he's Jameis Winston.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
And I'm also not like a big I don't really
do counting stats either, because if he has twenty touchdowns
but they have like twenty five rushing touchdowns to a
team because they're running it in from.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
The five yard If they're running in from the five
yard line all the time, don't you think he's going
to be a little part of that.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, But I'm just saying, like, if that is what
they do, is they get down you know, he gets
them down there and then they're just a smash mount
team at the goal line and they're just punching the
ball in without throwing it. Then I'm not going to
hold that against Drake May that they didn't have a
to in a red zone passing production because they're running
the football effectively down in the red zone. So what
I look at with Drake May and I think this

(25:07):
is just true for all these quarterbacks, and it's sort
of a feeld thing or an eye test thing that
you're just gonna have to trust your gut on is
does he start to take control of games? Like, does
he start to really be a master at his craft,
and I think when you look at all these great
quarterbacks across the league, what you notice with all of
them is that they have this like cool, calm sense

(25:29):
of the game where it just feels like they are
the ones that are operating at a higher level than
everybody else And to your point about it getting better
as the season progresses, this is probably not going to
happen immediately for Drake May, especially with a new offense
and a new offensive coordinator and a new system to
assimilate to, but eventually you'd like to see him have

(25:52):
that feel of the game where it is clear that
he's the one dictating the terms of the game to
the defense versus reacting to the defense. And I wonder
if they can get him to that point this year.
I might be a little bit too high of a bar,
but just when I watch quarterbacks around the league, whether
it's Lamar, whether it's Allan, whether it's Burrow, whether it's Mahomes.

(26:14):
Obviously Brady here for us for the last twenty years,
you can tell that they have this They are above
it right, like they're operating above everybody else where. They
have this instinctive feel for the game and That's what
I would like to see from Drake May. I understand
that he has all the physical abilities. I understand that
he can make some unbelievably good throws, but can he

(26:35):
situationally lock it down? Can he perform late in games?
Is he going to be able to you know, third down,
they're going to throw something exotic at us, and we're
going to handle that from a pre snap perspective of
getting everybody blocked and knowing where our weaknesses are, our
vulnerabilities are, and being able to beat those types of things.

(26:55):
Once you're playing that chess match as a quarterback, that's
when you're reaching that next level. Because all these guys
have physical talent. I think you can name twenty quarterbacks,
twenty five quarterbacks in the NFL that have physical talent.
But the question is is can you really be the maestro?
Can you be that chess master above all else? And
I think that's what made Brady great, I think that's

(27:17):
what made Manning great. I think that's what made a
lot of these guys great. So I'm looking for Drake
May to take that next step there because we will
be able to at the end of the season make
a sizzle reel of fifteen great Drake maythrows, I have
no doubt about that. But is he going to be clutch?
Is he going to be situationally locked in?

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Is he going to be consistent?

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Is he going to be consistent? Is he going to
solve problems on the fly that the defenses are presenting
to him and be a step ahead of defenses. I
think that's where they really need to get him going.
Is the thinking part of the game more so than
anything to do with physical. That's decision making too, to
your point about turnof yes, So all that stuff is

(27:58):
really the next step. And I love I love Mike
Vrabel's approach. I love you know, Josh McDaniels too. But
we've seen it in all the behind the scenes stuff
in Forge and Foxborough, how much he's pushing Drake May
on those elements of it, of being clutch, of being
on the details, situationally on leading, on you know, showing

(28:18):
that energy and that leadership quality to his teammates. That
that is going to end up making or breaking this
this quarterback, it breaks and breaks all of these guys.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
So just real quick, quick to close the loop on
what I was saying earlier, Josh Allen second year, Yes,
first five games, five touchdowns, seven interceptions, two hundred twenty
four passing yards per game, finishes the season with three
thousand yards, twenty touchdowns, nine er scepters. I know some
of these guys have running stats, but nobody's really worried

(28:49):
about Drake May's ability to run the ball. Jalen Hurts,
super Bowl winning quarterback. Year two starts three and five.
Throws for year two a as a full time I
might have a year for Hurts, so let's skip that one.
Joe Burrow second year, and he's coming off an injury,
starts with twenty touchdowns, eleven interceptions in his first nine games,
two hundred and seventy seven yards a game. Finishes the

(29:10):
season ten ands, and the team was five and four.
Finishes the season ten and six thirty four touchdowns, fourteen interceptions.
Lamar first five games of his second year eleven touchdowns,
five picks, two hundred and fifty four yards a game.
Throws for third thirty one hundred yards, thirty six touchdowns,
six interceptions, so twenty touchdowns to one pick down the stretch.
His second year, they start three and two, they finish

(29:32):
thirteen and two. Justin herbert second year, sixteen touchdowns, six interceptions,
just under two thousand yards total to start the season
over his first seven games, finishes the year throwing for
five thousand yards, thirty eight touchdowns, fifteen picks. So with
just about all of these guys, I know it bears
out for Hurts. I just instinctively pulled out the second
year of his career when his second year is a

(29:53):
full time starters twenty twenty two, it's a year later.
All of these guys, like mid October is when it clicks,
you know at some point, and the October.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
They all had the physical ability.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
It's just you got to see a certain amount of it.
So to go back to your point, like what's a
good year for Drake May, Let's keep an eye. They
go to Buffalo in Week five and we all know
that's going to be a tough game. Right after that,
they have a stretch where it's the Saints, the Titans,
and the Browns, and granted to those games are on
the road, but that's kind of in that timeline where

(30:29):
a lot of these year two quarterbacks have taken off.
It's a week week part of the schedule. There should
be a ton of opportunities for him to as he said,
and he said in a different context, but get some
layups in before you start shooting threes. Those three games out, Well,
that was right up your alley there. Oh, I love it. Yeah,
he knows the truth about that covers two sports for

(30:51):
that really does. It's a very useful take. You can't
say he's wrong because you won't say he's wrong. That's
and he was a good basketball player back in the day.
One knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
You could shoot threes to that's yeah, but he got
the layups first.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
That's the stretch where I'm looking for Drake Made to
really take off. Like if Drake May's going to have
the kind of ascension of some of those guys I mentioned,
there's lesser quarterbacks. I know, there's like the five best
or four of the five best quarterbacks in the league.
If he's going to have the ascension, that to me
is where it starts. So is in that run of
games and then we're you know, we're going to be
talking about you know, you'll hear my station was the Saints, Titans,

(31:25):
and Browns, Like, of course he's playing, Well, what did
you expect after that, you got the Falcons of have
a really good defense, the Bucks, the Jets, the Bengals
have less of defense, but like that will be the Bramer. Okay,
is he making the Falcons look like he made the
Titans look Yeah?

Speaker 3 (31:39):
So I just you said it earlier. I want everybody
to keep in mind that this development is not going
to be linear. Yeah, if you're expecting him to just
continue to ascend. And this is why with some of
the reporting on what's been going on at practice when
we were able to watch practice during training camp, this
was part of my I guess scripe with the way

(32:01):
it was being talked about with Drake Mays because if
you were just expecting every single practice to look great,
and that was the only way you were going to
be like pleased with his training camp and your two
here was that if it was just a arrow pointed
absolutely upward to the sky every single day, better better, better, better.
I don't think that's how it worked with any of
these guys. I don't think that's how it's worked with

(32:22):
any quarterback in the history of the league, that every
single practice was better than the last practice. It's a
you learn from the mistakes, you take the lumps, you
figure it out, You're you're practicing, you're trying things like
that's where the guys that have ascended, And then all
of a sudden, to your point about all the stats,
it just clicks. It's the they're great.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Not game to game, but the overall trend is upwards
as we get to the end of the year.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeap, all right, let's move on to the second one here.
So just kind of going I could, I went almost
positioned by position with it a little bit, just some
of my lingering questions here. Number two on my list
was does Rimandre Stevenson remain the lead early down back? So,
in my mind, based off these running back roles of

(33:10):
what they might have here this season, Travion Henderson is
going to be stagnant. I think his role is going
to be the same all year long. I don't think
they're gonna mess with Travon Henderson's role. They're gonna say,
this is what we're gonna do with you. I think
it will probably be around twelve to fifteen touches a game,
both in the run and pass game, and that's gonna
be his role for his entire rookie season. The spot

(33:33):
that might change is going to be that early down
back role between Remandre and Antonio Gibson. So that is
the one that I could see some fluctuation of usage.
Whereas Henderson, I think they're just going to kind of
keep him on the status quo. With Stevenson and Gibson,
the obvious number one question is can Remandre hang on

(33:56):
to the football? Yeah, because I do think he's their
best first and ten from twenty five regular personnel.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
You know, full back in the back ball body blowback.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
He is the best early down between the tackles back
on the team. But we all know about the ball
security issues, and I don't think that Antonio Gibson is
a slouch. I think Antonio Gibson is a solid NFL
running back. The stats last year more than bear that out.
So long story short, I would just say, can Remandre
hold onto the football long enough to hold on to

(34:26):
his job? Like That's really what it comes down to,
because I do think Antonio Gibson is going to be
a consideration not before long. If form Andre Stevenson continues
to have ball security issues.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, I mean he's right there and he can handle
some of that stuff. Stevenson does and he's a capable
pass catcher as well, so he gives you a little
more unpredictability when he's on the field. I just think
the big thing is they need somebody reliable in that role.
You cannot use Trevon Henderson as a bell cow back.
They try to do that at Ohio State. It seriously

(34:58):
limited his production. It's it's more he's not a volume player.
You guys have heard me talk about this, like he's
got to be. You use him in spots, third down,
two minute things like that. So Stevenson's stepping up and
returning to what he's been and I'm with you. I
think he's a solid early down back when he holds
onto the football. And seven total fumbles over his first

(35:21):
three years and then seven alone last year. That's jarring
and that trend cannot continue. But if he can get
back to holding onto the football, I think him in
Henderson is a good one two punch and then Gibson
factors in there as well, and I think he can
kind of spell both when needed. You almost throw him
that Rex Burke head role. But if Stevenson's putting the
ball on the ground, it changes everything. Like to me, ideally,

(35:44):
Ramondre Stevenson's usage rate is probably low to mid forty percent,
Traveon Henderson is high thirty to low forty percent, and
then Antonio Gibson makes up the difference forever he makes
it up. Yeah, that's what I think that ideally it
will look like. But you can't do that, seems and
can't hold onto the football.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
The comparison that I keep on going back to with
Travon Henderson as Jamier Gibbs, maybe he's not as good
as Jamiir Gibbs. I think that remains to be seen.
But just from a usage standpoint and a skill set
role standpoint, I think they're very similar in terms of
how they should be used. Jamiir Gibbs has been fifty
to fifty five percent of the snaps.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
He's Detroit fifty six last year. Yeah, that's that's I
don't know that. I'd have to see what touches are.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
So he was his rookie year. I want to say
he averaged somewhere around fifteen or sixteen touches.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Again, he had two hundred thirty four touches. He had
three hundred two touches last year. I don't think you
can give Trayvon Henderson.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
But that's also we're also talking about years down the line.
You know, Jamier Gibbs established himself.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
I think that this is just kind of who Travon
Henderson is.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
I think there's a chance that they can get there eventually.
For Travon Henderson, I just wouldn't do that to him
as a rookie. But it's different, Like, Jamiir Gibbs is
an established star in the league, so now obviously the
Lions are featuring him more out of the backfield as
a rookie. That wasn't as sssarily the case right out
of the gate, so they used deminted things. He's always
been right around fourteen fifteen, sixteen touches a game, Yeah,

(37:07):
and his impact is so big still because he's so
explosive and because he's so dynamic with the ball in
his hands that even though he doesn't play the entire game,
it still doesn't feel like you watch the Lions and
you're like, where's Jamir Gibbs been? Right, it's a massive
impact player, right, so I think you can still have
a massive impact.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
Also side note, I just pulled up touches per year
twenty fourteen. Dude, is how much the game has changed.
So last year, Saquon Barkley led the league three hundred
seventy eight touches, which was forty more than the previous season.
You go back just ten years, twenty fourteen to Marco
Murray had four hundred and fifty touches. I remember that
the Dallas covers go could you I don't know if
that's possible current NFY.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
I remember DeMarco Murray was talk about fantasy DeMarco Murray
was the fantasy bat because of the volume that he
was getting. It was insane.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Eighteen hundred yards on the ground, another four hundred three
the air. Third that's dude, he had a So that
had been a that was a well earned offseason by
DeMarco Murray four hundred forty nine, Larry Johnson four hundred
and fifty seven going back to six, but that was
a different game.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
So Jamiir Gibbs his rookie season, just to end this point,
he averaged twelve attempts rushing attempts and three and a
half catches per game, So right around sixteen touches per game.
The attempts, the rushing attempt seems a little high for
Travon Henderson. I think that's maybe a little bit too many,
but that feels about right. I would say, you know,

(38:36):
twelve to fifteen touches a game, most of them playing
in the subgame, you know, subpass game and getting the
ball to him in space and trying to limit the
between the tackles running and the body blows that he
takes from doing that. I think that's about right, and
I would expect that to stay stagnant, whereas this the
lead role, you know, the early down role is going

(38:57):
to change. I think if Vermondri's even scann hang onto
the ball, it's definitely going to change. I don't think
that this coaching staff is going to ride, ride or
die with Mandre. I think they like Antonio Gibson. I
think Antonio Gibson's a capable running back to step in
if they feel like they need to go that direction.
So Remandre is a little bit un notice there, all right,
next one here on my list, and then we'll get

(39:17):
to one of yours. What version of Stefan Diggs or
the Patriots getting Because this has been another one of
those that's been a very hot button topic this summer.
The beauty has been in the eye of the beholder.
With Stefan Diggs, it feels like everybody has a little
bit of a different take on how his training camp
went and how he looked in practice. I have been

(39:39):
box checked with Stefan Diggs all summer long. I think
he's looked exactly how I expected him to look. I
think he looks like he still has explosiveness. I think
he looks like he can still get open at this
level in this league, at his age and coming off
the injury. I have a very few concerns honestly about
Diggs on the field and what he's shown me in
training camp, But I'm a not necessarily in the majority

(40:02):
of there. I think a lot of other people feel differently.
So how do you feel about Stefan Diggs and what
version of Stefan Digs the Patriots are getting.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
I'm encouraged, you know, It's it's a much different setting
once you get into these games. But physically he looks
at better than you could expect given you know where
he's at coming off the injury. It's just a matter
of does that translate into games and once he starts
getting hit, you know, can he maintain? And it is
he going to start strong and fall off, But I

(40:31):
I didn't you know, when they sign him, I didn't
think he was gonna play week one. I thought he's
gonna open the sea'son pp and I didn't think we're
gonna see him camp or anything like that. And I
thought this question would be what happens when they get
Digs back. So he's not gonna be like prime Digs
like he was in Buffalo, but I still think he
can be. I still think he'd be a thousand yard receiver.
It's gonna look a little different. We've talked about this.
It's more of a chain move than a big play
threat at this point, but I'm I'm excited to see

(40:55):
what he can give him.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Eye test wise, I think he's passed during training camp,
and I just I see a guy that still definitely
has some juice in his legs and still looks explosive
and looks sharp coming out of cuts. So I really
have been pretty optimistic about what I've seen from Digs.
And I think part of my optimism too, stems from
the fact that Josh McDaniels is really really good at

(41:19):
getting receivers like Stefan Diggs open off the line of
scrimmage and finding different ways, whether it's between alignment, formation's motion,
stack spunches, things like that, that Steffan Diggs is just
going to get to the top of these routes and
he's gonna have a two way go where he can
break in or break out to get open. There's gonna
be a pocket of space there for him, and I

(41:41):
just have a lot of confidence still that he can
do that at a very high level. I don't think
they're going to be asking Steffan Diggs too much to
be the backside receiver in a three by one and
just run by somebody on the outside. I don't. I
think they realize that he is more of that chain mover,
more of that flanker zero now where they are going
to move him around. And I think that combination of

(42:04):
McDaniel's combining some of the scheme tools that they can
use to get him open, and then Digs just savvy
and veteran savvy with his route running is a really
nice blend between coordinator and play caller and receiver. So
as long as Devon Diggs still has the juice and
is going to be one hundred percent healthy coming off

(42:25):
this knee injury. I don't really see any reason for
this not to work out. So I've heard a lot
of different things about digs and how he hasn't necessarily
put up a ton of practice production, you know, and
team drills and things like that, But just watching him
move and watching him practice, I feel like he is
more than past my eye test of what I expected

(42:48):
him to look like. And we'll see if it ends
up translating, but I'm pretty optimistic that it's going to
end up translating. So before we continue our list, here
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don't you get to your rookie thing now? And then
we'll continue the list here.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
So this is kind of my big picture question for
the team going Drake May is obviously the big one,
right where's Drake May at the other big one? I
wrote a column about this on ninety eight five the
sports sub dot com this morning. You can check it out.
Is Look, it's not a hot take to say the
Patriots need to have a better draft class this year
and they've had. I get like, choker, Wow, the Patriots

(43:44):
need a draft better good take part. It's a little
different than that they can't better. It's not like, all right,
you know, they need some of these guys to hit
and build depth. Then there's some developmental players and we'll
see down the road. That's not what this is. That's
what it's been in past years. That's not what this
year is. They need a lot of these guys to hit,
and they need them to hit right away. I count

(44:07):
six rookies that are either going to start or be
in a heavy rotational role right away. There's not a
lot of plan and B like depth options behind most
of them. And then there's two more guys that probably
aren't in that position right away, but could get to
that situation relatively quickly. So just to go through the
list will Campbell, and look, will Campbell's fourth overall pick.

(44:30):
No matter the situation of the roster of the team,
the fourth overall pick, especially to premium position, that guy
should be starting. So this one's not at a character.
But what are the options behind Will Campbell if he
doesn't work out or if he gets hurt, we'll get
to it. There's some, but there's not a lot. But
Will Campbell boom right there? Trayvon Henderson, we just talked
about him. Is he their main big play threat on offense?

(44:54):
I mean, I think Pop can give him a little
bit of that, maybe digs, but he's their best big
play threat on offense. They have some other that can
help them kind of march their way down the field,
but that big play attack he's there. He's the guy.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
He's their matchup weapon, like he's their biggest mismatch.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
It looks a lot different offensively off Trevon Henderson does
not pan out, So that's two. Jared Wilson. All indications
are he's gonna be the starting left card and if
it's not, and he might end up playing at center
if Garret Bradbury continues to struggle, they have Ben Brown
behind him. That's kind of it. Cayden Wallas is a
converted tackle. He's mainly played on the right side, So

(45:27):
especially if Bradbury continues to struggle, Wilson has to work out.
Not much you can do if he doesn't. Craig Woodson,
now with your Bill Peppers trade, he's your starting strong
safety and he's gonna play a lot. He's gonna play
in the box, and he's gonna help play the run.
He's gonna help cover tight ends. Those are two things
they struggled with this summer. And then obviously have Andy
Burgallis is your starting kicker. There's no plan be there.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Uh, park talk about the kickers.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Parker Romo not here anymore.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
You not know Julian Ashby Love, You're gonna get the drum.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
And I'm just going in the order of the draft
to the drafts. And then Julian Ashby the same thing.
He's a starting a long snapper. There's nobody else here.
And in a team they have the they are tied
for the most one possession losses in the last two years,
and I believe they have the seventh worst winning percentage
in those games. You want to get better, it starts
being better in one position games that a lot of

(46:15):
that is special teams, right, you miss a field goal
that can swing it, and you can miss the field
goal because of a bad kick. You can miss a
field goal because of a bad snap. If they're going
to get better, it starts with getting better at one
possession games. You're gonna be better at one possesion games.
It means being better in the kicking game. So those
two guys are in a key spot as well. So
that's Campbell, Henderson, Wilson Woodson, Borgalis Ashby who are either
starting or if not starting, because I think the concept

(46:37):
of a starting running back unless you're Derek Henry, doesn't
really mean anything in heavy rotational roles. Then you have
Kyle Williams, who it looks like they're base eleven to
start the season, is going to be booty digs and
Pop mac hollins is going to mix in there as well.
So it's a little tougher to tell exactly where Kyle
Williams sits in that in that depth chart just because

(46:57):
and using the not the unofficial depth like really what
they're doing, right, He missed the last two weeks of
camp because he got hurt in the Minnesota game, so
it's tougher to tell, but they're gonna need his speed.
They're gonna need a speed, They're gonna need his ability
after the catch. He is going to work his way
to that rotation at some point during the year. And injuries.
You know, Pop Douglas has had some troubles staying on
the field. Diggs is coming off the ACL. Those are

(47:19):
probably the two guys who were chiefly in front of them.
They're gonna need Kyle Williams play meaningful stamps for them
at some point this year. And then the other guy
is Marcus Bryant. Marcus Bryant ideally plays no snaps this
year because he's the third tackle and you want your
starters to start. Do you know how many tackles played
all seventeen games in the NFL last year?

Speaker 3 (47:37):
Not many?

Speaker 1 (47:37):
I bet seventeen. And of those seventeen, there's only two
sets of teammates. The Saints had both starting tackles play
all seventeen games in the Packers had both starting tackles
play all seventeen games. That's it. So odds are Marcus
Bryant's gonna have to play at some point and he's
gonna have to start at some point. He's clearly the
top backup right tackle behind Morgan Moses. Left tackle. They

(48:00):
do still have Darien Lowe, but I wonder, Evan, just
given the way this coaching staff has approached players they inherited,
if Marcus Bryant will get the first crack at that
if Will Campbell gets hurt, now maybe he has, you know,
a shorter leash at left tackle then he does on
the right side with her Darien Lowe still there. But
odds are he's gonna Marcus Bryant's probably gonna start a
game or two at least for this team at some

(48:21):
point this season especially. That's just what history tells us
the way again, seventeen, that's it. That's both sides. Seventeen
of sixty four tackles last year started all seventeen games.
So you're gonna probably see him at some point. So
that's six rookies starting or an impact roles right away.
Kyle Williams will be in one, should be in one

(48:41):
at some point. You hope Marcus Bryant's not, but odds
are he will be. This is not hey, they're developmental players.
You know he's going to grow into this role Bill
Belichick used to ease the rookies in, there's a veteran
there alongside him as either plan A or a solid
play and B and okay, well if he doesn't hit
right away, we have a options and there's time. That's

(49:02):
when we talk about draft classes hitting in the past.
A lot of it is you look at last year's class,
Javon Baker, developmental player, that twenty twenty two class that
didn't pan out. There were developmental players there that Okay, well,
he's probably not going to make an impact a year one,
but that doesn't mean the pick isn't a hit. You know,
if he and obviously a lot of these guys didn't,
but comes along in year two, year three, he's going
to replace this veteran that's on the roster. And that

(49:24):
was the plan. You're drafting a guy year two early,
and that can be a successful draft in some context. Now,
this isn't totally uncommon for a team that's churning, like
turning over their roster as much as the Patriots have,
but this is where they're at. These are not developmental players.
These are guys that if the Patriots are going to
be you know, really make a playoff push. The majority
of these guys, if not all, have to hit right away.

(49:44):
It's obviously not binary, it's not all or none. But
they're going to need a lot of these guys to
be starting caliber players as rookies. Sorry, that's the whole rank.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
No, that's fine. It was a good rant. I think
the biggest thing that you just mentioned there at the
end that stands out to me is starting caliber. It's
one thing to be playing right, it's another thing to
be playing well. And I think that's what we've seen
in these last couple of draft classes, is that guys
have maybe been playing because the depth on the roster
didn't allow them time to not play and develop in

(50:13):
the behind the scenes. Like maybe they didn't win at
the height of the dynasty when they just had droves
of depth. For example, last year, Laden Robinson, he was playing,
Was he playing well? But I would even say that
last year's draft, like the jam Bulk was playing, But
was he? Was he good?

Speaker 1 (50:29):
But they had it and maybe they obviously weren't great,
but they had playing b's for some of those guys.
They had Kendrick Bourne coming off i R. They had
kJ Osborne who didn't work out, but was a veteran
who had you know, played in the league.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
To me, isn't like Booty and Mac Collins like those guys.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
So at wide receiver. Sure, And that's why I didn't
include Kyle Williams on my list of the six reel
impact guys. Who is the Kendrick Bourne coming off I
or to rescue the team of big play threats on offense?
Or Trevon Henderson who is the Hendrick Bourne at left guard?
If it doesn't work out for Jared Wilson, that's fair there,
And like you can say it might be Ben Brown there,

(51:08):
but okay, what if Garrett Bradbury doesn't work at center?

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Well we'll get to that.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
But I see Kendrick Bourne, I guess that would be.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Co Yeah, And I think we're on in the same
the same spot with it, Like they don't they need
these rookies to be good. Like it's not that they can't.
They can't just be out there, they can't just be
taken out space. They need to actually play and play well.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
And it's it's different than your average, But the point
is it's every year you want your rookies to be good.
But most years, most teams and again this is not
unique to the Patriots. This is not something that's unprecedented.
But most years, most teams, Okay, well, if this guy
isn't great from the beginning, we have other veterans we
can put in there, or we can, you know, kind

(51:50):
of cover him or whatever we can. He there's more
time from development. If he doesn't really hit that stride
in a year two, it's okay. He can still be
his success. We can still be successful as a team
this year without him. Can the Patriots still be successful
without these guys being good players?

Speaker 3 (52:06):
I would say no to Campbell and Henderson. Those two guys, though,
were drafted in the top forty and they should be
immediate impact players. I guess in hindsight now that Jabrill
Peppers has gone, Craig Woodson has a lot on his plate.
But at the same time, you could still go back
to Kyle Duggart and he's still here. Jared Wilson is
another one that probably is in a similar boat as

(52:29):
Henderson and Campbell, because it's Ben Brown, it's Kaden Wallace,
like those are their backups right now, and you would
like to think that Jared Wilson is better than those
two guys, and.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Then the kicker and the long snapper. Of course, those guys,
they just have to be good like there's no consider
there's nobody walking through the door. So yes, two special
teams players. Six sounds like a dramatic number. Two special
teams players kind of dress it up, but it is fair.
The rookies don't have to hit. They have to hit
right away, and they have.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
To play like they have to be good like again,
I think a lot of the times two things happen. One,
they keep the majority of the draft class on the
roster and everybody it's like, oh, good, good draft class.
They everybody made the team like that, that's not the bar.
And the other thing is, oh, the rookies are playing okay,
but how are they playing right like? It's again, it's

(53:16):
one thing to just play. You can play guys like
Polk played, Leiden Robinson played, obviously Drake played like guys
played last year from the rookie class. And now a
year later, how do we feel about the twenty twenty
five rookie class or twenty twenty four excuse me, outside
of the quarterback, not very good. So they have to
play it and they have to pan out and that's

(53:37):
a big part of this whole thing right now for
Mike Rabel, and not to change gears here at all,
but he was asked on your rival station on the
EI about the Micah Parsons trade and whether or not
the Patriots were in the Micah Parsons sweepstakes, and Rabel
brought it up. He said, we need, we need to
We need draft picks, like we need to hit on

(53:57):
these draft picks. We need to develop talent. We need
high first round picks. We need depth on this roster,
and we're not in a position yet to be giving
away draft picks. That's a really big part of this
entire thing. It's probably the biggest part, frankly, of the
entire thing and this whole thing working is can they
start drafting and developing their own players again? Can they

(54:19):
have homegrown talent where every two or three years they
don't have to dip back into free agency and spend
three hundred million dollars on day one of free agency
to replenish the top of the roster because they missed
on a bunch of draft picks. They can't keep having
that happen. They got to have homegrown talent. They got
to develop homegrown talent. Now my next one here on

(54:40):
the offensive line. He brought up the rookie offensive lineman
on the left side. I think that gets a lot
of talk, and rightfully so. I'm actually maybe a little
bit more optimistic about that too, because maybe it's just
who they're replacing in the bar being so low of
them being better than what they've had at left tackle
and left guard over the last couple of years. But

(55:01):
at the same time, I would much rather take the
talent that Will Campbell and Jared Wilson are bringing to
the table and live with some of the rookie growing
pains that are inevitable than what they've had the last
couple of years. I'd much rather take their arc of
development versus Vederian Loewe and Laden Robinson's. I think they're

(55:21):
just so significantly better than the guys that they're replacing
just from a talent standpoint. I'm not saying it's going
to be perfect. Just from a talent standpoint that I'm
willing to give them some grace and let that go.
The one thing that I would be concerned about right
now on the offensive line is center. I think Garrett Bradbury.
In my question with Garrett Bradbury is does Garrett Bradbury

(55:44):
maintain the starting center job, but can he hold on
to that job for the duration of the season, of course,
taking injuries out of this, right, does Garrett Bradbury survive
the season at center? Because if he doesn't, and he's
a liability to the point where they have to replace
Garrett Bradbury at center, We've been down this road before

(56:05):
where that becomes a house of cards. Like now all
of a sudden, you're moving people around, You're putting Ben
Brown in the starting lineup, or you're kicking Jared Wilson
over a spot to center after he's been playing left
guard for eight weeks, and you're doing this whole thing
that they often got in trouble with, for example with
Mike on Winnu, where there it was inside outside, inside outside.
You would love health permitted to just put Jared Wilson

(56:28):
and Will Campbell on the left side and leave him
there for seventeen weeks and not mess with those two guys.
But if Garrett Bradbury can't hold up at center, then
it creates this potential house of cards or shuffle where
now everybody's starting to kind of move around there on
the interior. So where's your faith right now? Like, where's
your level of concern with Garrett Bradbury.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
I mean, he's gonna be the guy. You know, we
talked about this. They're past the point where they can
switch it. It's tied into Jared Wilson. If if Jared
Wilson's solid and you can just plug Ben Brown in there,
I think Ben Brown's a capable starting center. Like I
guess the faith in Bradbury is. I'm not convinced he's
going to be their starting center for seventeen games, even

(57:10):
injury aside. If Jared Wilson slid, you can plug Ben
Brown and then he gives you more or less what
he gave you last year. I think they'll be fine.
If you're also worried about left guard, it gets a
lot trickier. And now maybe you're more hesitant to Paul
Garrett Bradbury because who do you want to You know,
now you decide who do you basically leave out there
to struggle. Do you put the rookie out there and risk,

(57:30):
you know, upsetting his confidence for the long term, or
do you leave the veteran out there, even if he's
maybe a slightly worse player. So if Jared Wilson hits,
I feel good about their their center position even if
he's not there. But I Bradbury, somebody will be keeping
an eye on early, Like I don't feel like he
has a strong stronghold on that job.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
No, no, do I. And it just goes back to
like a Skarnak thing where a continuity on the offensive
line is so important and it might not be your
most talented five players on paper that end up being
your best five on the offensive line, But if they
can play on a string, and if they can play
together and they have that continuity and they're seeing it

(58:11):
through the same set of eyes, like that can trump
talent at that position because it's a five man unit
versus one, you know, individual player. So there might be
a case to be made that Ben Brown is better
than Garrett Bradbury anyways, just individually, he's just a better player.
But I think the better case would probably be that

(58:33):
maybe Ben Brown is just better suited to be the
center in the current real time you know, current time here.
So we'll see what ends up happening with Bradbury. There's
some optimism about his run blocking based off the preseason,
but we all know that play strength and holding up
against bigger bodies on the interior is going to be

(58:54):
the number one question. Is he getting walk back into
the quarterback? Is he able to dig out and move
nose tackles like that. That's really where it starts an
end with Kerrett Bradberry. So we'll see if he ends
up holding down the position. Ben Browns had a nice summer,
so maybe you can be a little bit optimistic about
what he could bring to the table. But if I
had to say my biggest concern on the offensive line,

(59:15):
it's not the rookie left side, it's center. I really
feel like the rookie left side is gonna do its thing.
It's gonna have some highs, it's gonna have some lows.
But overall, over the course of seventeen games, assuming those
two guys stay healthy, it's gonna be better. It's gonna
be improved from what they have. And that's the baseline
for right now. Center. I don't know if it's gonna
be better than last year, and that's gonna be a

(59:36):
big question mark for the team. All right, let's move
over to the defense. We probably should go a little
bit faster than we've been going, honestly, But let's move
over to the defense here. I have a couple of
defense more health related type things. I think this storyline
Alex and we brought it up yesterday on Patriots Unfiltered,
and maybe kind of feel even stronger about it. Christian

(59:57):
Barmore and his health status, his ability. I would say,
less so to be out there, but more so to
be fully locked in Christian Barmore and be able to
give them seventy five eighty percent of the snaps and
play that much and play it at a high level
like we know he's capable of doing from earlier on

(01:00:18):
in his career before the blood colts popped up. He
has been sneakily on a pitch count all summer long
in practice where some practices he's participating in full and
some he is not. I don't because of what's been
going on with Gonzales and then obviously all of the
question marks on the offensive side of the ball. I
feel like this has flown under the radar with Christian Barmore,
that are they going to get a fully healthy, full

(01:00:41):
go Christian Barmore come Week one against the Las Vegas Raiders.
I think still remains to be seen a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
I think he looks right when he's out there. I
think you're going to get a fully healthy Christian Barmore.
The question is how much of him do you get?
To your point about the pitch count? Is he out there?
I'm trying to remember what his snap percent which was
his last fully healthy season. Obviously last year you kind
of throw that out. Good for him getting back, but
he was he was managed that whole time. So he
played sixty six percent of snaps in twenty twenty three,

(01:01:10):
which was a career high. Do you get him forty
percent of the time, fifty percent of the time, sixty
percent of the time. Like I think, when he's out there,
he's gonna be really good, because he looked really good
this summer when he was out there. I'm not super
worried about that thing. It's more just does the pitch
count continue into regular season games?

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
And early on in the season, guys rotate all the time,
Like we're Week one, it's going to be a big rotation.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
And you know what, one sixty six percent is pretty
high for an interior defensive lineman. So if he's up
over sixty percent. I would consider that a full go.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
Yeah, I would wait to judge this question for about
a month or so, because we won. Is always a
heavy rotation.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
I'd wait to judge most of these questions for a month.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
But yeah, nobody has played a full game from start
to finish yet, so no one I accept. Maybe the
quarterback is going to play every single snap on Sunday,
I would say, And sometimes the offensive line, you know,
guys like on when Wu like he might play, you know,
the whole duration, Campbell Moses like, those guys might play

(01:02:11):
the whole way. But a lot of the times that
doesn't happen, even on the offensive line. So Week one
is always a crapshoot when it comes to that. And
then Week two is going to be one hundred and
ten degrees in Miami, so there's gonna be another rotation there,
whether it's conditioning wise just because it's early on in
the season, or weather wise being down in Miami in September,
that's going to be a factor as well. So when

(01:02:33):
you put those two things together, or at least going
into week three before we know fully are these guys
going to be full tilt as Christian barm Or one
hundred percent cleared and healthy, so we'll see what ends
up happening. But his snap count, his pitch count during
training camp. Again, I think, you know, other stories have
sort of pushed this down, Like if there was no

(01:02:54):
Gonzales thing, if Jabrill Peppers did not get cut on
a Friday afternoon after cut down day, then like these
things would probably be bigger stories. Diggs obviously is a
huge story, but Barmore's snapcount, pitch count, whatever you want
to call it, and just overall effectiveness. They need Christian
Barmore to be the twenty twenty three version of Christian Barmore,

(01:03:17):
the guy that played last year. All the kudos in
the world for him get getting back, but he would
be the first to admit that he was a shell
of himself last year. He did not look like the
dominant force that he can be if he's at the
best of his ability. Christian Barmore is a better player
than Milton Williams, like, Christian Barmore is their best defensive
lineman if he's full peak Christian Barmore like in twenty

(01:03:38):
twenty three. So I think it's a big part of it.
I think they need Christian Barmore to be his usual
wrecking self. So that leads us to the other big
injury one that is probably the story of the day
right now with the Patriots, and that's the status of
Christian Gonzalez. We will be out at practice alex in
a couple of hours here and we'll see whether or
not Christian Gonzalez is there with the rest of the team.

(01:04:01):
He was not out there on Monday. It's been over
a month now. July twenty eighth was the last time
he practiced for the Patriots. I know, there's your station
has a lot of tinfoil hat theories going on now
about why he hasn't been out there. You knows it.
Could it be contract related, all those types of things.
We can explain that here in a second. But overall,
where's your panic meter right now with Christian Gonzales.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
So I was saying I'd go from from lowercase W
to upper kasew worried if he wasn't out here today.
Vrabel kind of sounding less optimistic about it on Monday,
maybe accelerated that process. He's out here today. I'm not worried,
Like this is the first real they've been getting ready
for the Raiders for a couple weeks now, but this
is the first real you know, getting into it game

(01:04:46):
week like practice. So he's out there. It's not a
position where and I think we talked about this with
Carlton Davis during camp, It's not a position where in
the context of the defense, Okay, he needs to be
out there, and he needs to be immersed in the
scheme and this and that. Like Rabel has said, they're
gonna play a lot of man coverage. It's study your opponent,
pick up on his route tree, his tendencies, his nuances,

(01:05:07):
know what he's gonna do. It's more tell me, this
is unfair to say Evan Corner. At least the way
I think they're gonna have Gonzales play is more of
a film room preparation position than a practice field preparation position.
Would you agree with out on an island by right, So, like,
obviously there's being in physical shape and he has run
with the receiver in a month, that's you'd like him

(01:05:28):
to get out there to kind of get that going.
But if he's out there today, all right, like he's
out there for the full week, what's essentially the full
week of practice. He's very talented. I'm not super worried
about him missing time beyond basic conditioning stuff. It's not
out there today, I mean the and it's a new
coaching staff, so we'll see how they handle things, because
every staff's a little different and this is something we'll

(01:05:50):
kind of try to pick up on over the course
of the season. But generally across the league, when guys
don't practice on Wednesday, what's the rate of those guys
playing unless it's a designated rest day. I think the
percentage is relatively low. So you want to see him
back out there today, But we'll see.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Yeah, So it's one hundred percent to me a conditioning
thing and not a mental locked into the game plan thing.
Because for a guy like Christian Gonzalez, even against the Raiders,
who don't necessarily really have they don't have DeVante Adams anymore,
right that he has like a more key matchup per
se on the outside. But they're gonna say to Christian Gonzalez, like,

(01:06:28):
you have Jacobe Myers, right, or you have Dante Thoron,
or you have next week, you have Hill, you have
Tyreek Hill, and there that all his preparation, like you mentioned,
comes from watching cutups of those guys run routes like that.
That's what it is. It's film study, it's tendencies, it's
all that kind of thing. You are at corner. You're
really on an island, Like it really is not a

(01:06:49):
whole lot of you know, chemistry with other guys and play.
It's not really all that. Like there's corners that I
think ty Law used to be like famous for this.
Like he'd stand up in the defensive meeting, he'd like
kind of hit the desk a little and he said,
I got Eric Mold.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
What's the story, right, I'm tie I think I'm Tye Law.
I got Marvin Harrison and that's.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
The later I'll see you Sunday. Ty Law is so cool, right,
So like that that I think is where Gonzalez is
at second team All Pro. He's at that level. The
one question that comes up with Gonzales, Uh, now that
we've given that part of the take, this is your
station's fall your station.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
So I have a take on this, go ahead, but
I actually I have a legitimate question few on this.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
So Scott emailed in and he kind of set the
table on this question. Do we have any inkling from
a tinfoil hat perspective that this is contract related for
Christian Gonzales. So to answer Scott's direct question, he's not
extension eligible until next offseason, right, going into your fourth
year of your rookie contract. So he has to play

(01:07:54):
this year on the rookie deal.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
No matter what he can't get he can they cannot
pay him.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
Yet, right, CBA thing can't pay him. So in theory,
like this year could be a quote unquote contract year,
you could look at it that way for Christian Gonzales.
But to me, if I'm Christian Gonzales, in just in general,
with Christian Gonzales, the biggest thing that's holding him back
from getting an absolute bag is availability with it. There's

(01:08:21):
no question whatsoever about performance when he's on the field,
whether it was the first month his rookie season or
it was all last year. He is an all pro
caliber corner. So it's not going to come down to
whether or not he's worth the money. What it's going
to come down to is whether or not he's available
to the team. So to me, holding out or sitting out,
and I guess you could say, well, he comes back
too early and he tweaks the hamstring again. Now he's

(01:08:43):
missing games, YadA, YadA, YadA. But if he's not out
there today, he's missing games already. So I think the
biggest thing that Christian Gonzales can do to prove that
he is worth the money that he performance wise has
rightfully earned next off season is be available. Keeping himself
off the field is the opposite.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
I'm with you, like what hurts his value more if
he plays ten to twelve games but he plays them
at the level he played last year better, or he
plays sixteen or seventeen games but he's like eighty percent
of the player he was last year, which one hurts
him more contractually not being available right the fewer games.

(01:09:24):
So sauce Gardner was not very good last year, like relative,
he was not an all.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
That's the guy that Gains brought up, is that sauce Gardener.
Some people think that sauce Gardner made a business decision
to ease up a little bit last year, which also
doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
But it was his first year. He was an All
Pro the two years prior. He wasn't All Pro last year,
but he still got paid because he's out there and
it's on tape and I think last year's tape is
going to speak a ton now Gonzalz can't go out
there and suck right like, he's still got to be good.
But I think the availability is a bigger question than
the ability at this point. Now that's what we think.

(01:09:59):
Maybe him and his team see it differently. At the
end of the day, it only matters what he thinks
in that regard to the other.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
Side of it is is that if he comes back
too soon and he rushes back and then he tweaks
the hamstring worse in a game, then now he's missing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Well, so that's the other side of it. What's what's
you know? You weigh this. Let's even call two games,
right because in my if it's a hamstring thing in Miami,
it's hot, you can cramp up. You worry about that
he misses the first two games of the year, but
then he's available the rest of the season full go
one hundred percent. Or you rush him back for this
week or next week and he aggravates the hamstring and
now he misses six weeks. Right, I'd rather he miss

(01:10:34):
the two games. I'd rather he just miss less time.
They need him for more games. So I am okay
with them being cautious. If that's what this is. Obviously,
if he's not practicing because of his contract, like that's
not what you want, Well, I don't think that's what
it is. I think it's him being cautious. I also
think they're being cautious with their best player if he's
availed a problem with that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
If he's available for the majority of the season and
he plays like he did last year, he's gonna get paid.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
He's gonna get the biggest contract of cornerbacks ever gotten.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
He's gonna get the money. So I just I don't
think that there's enough incentive this early on. If this
was next offseason and he still hadn't signed an extension
yet and he was had a tweet tam String, that's
a totally different story. But to do that a year
at advance, I just I think that's that's a little
bit too you know, conspiracy theory. For me, we have

(01:11:25):
to take a break. But there's one last thing that
we had on our list and isn't going to be
quick because it's a special teams thing. Well, what's your
kickoffs thing? Go forward?

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Well, let's just see like they changed their rule. It's
a thirty five yard touchback. This is going to be
a bigger play then it's been in the past, and
how does that ultimately look. I think this play can
be a weapon for teams that are good at it.
You can steal seven points and the Patriots look good
at it in the preseason. So how much of the
preseason was teams testing things versus teams maybe not wanting

(01:11:52):
to show their full hand of what they're going to do.
We'll see, But can it seemed like Jeremy Springer and
that unit had a great camp. Can they make that
kickoff on both sides? Can they make that kickoff play
a weapon? Can they make it a weapon for the
offense and create short fields and put points on the board,
And can they make it a weapon for the defense
and create long fields for the opponent. I love that

(01:12:15):
they saved the kickoff instead of getting rid of it. Obviously, yes,
in a perfect world, the old format was great, but
that was just for a number of reasons, never going
to last. I think this new format, when you get
past how weird it looks initially, is a real true
football play and that's enjoyable to watch. I want to
see if the Patriots can take advantage of maybe seemingly

(01:12:36):
getting ahead of it a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
My quick take on this, I think they have multiple guys,
but they're probably going to start out with Henderson and
Antonio Gibson that are actually really well suited for big
returns in this new format. I think that's an advantage
for them. I think they actually have really good returners
you can throw and they haven't done this yet with
Marcus Jones, But Marcus Jones we know is a great
punt returner, and I don't think it would be I

(01:13:00):
think it would translate for him on kickoffs if they
wanted to go that direction as well. So they have
multiple guys that I feel like can be really good
at this and be factors to your point on it.
And because of the way the new rule is set up,
it's inviting returns like they want more returns. So if
you are forcing teams to put the ball in play
and the Patriots have two dynamic returners back there, then

(01:13:21):
that is an advantage, maybe more so than what it
has been in the past. So I look at it
and I think that this is going to be more
of a live play this year. I think this is
going to be more legitimate of a factor because if
you fly the ball into the end zone, it's the
thirty five yard line right as the touchback. Like that,
that's a big difference in field position. If you fly
the ball right out of the back of the end
zone and take the touch back, you only got to

(01:13:43):
go like it, that's sixty five yards for a touchdown.
But the way kickers can kick the ball now field
goal kickers, Like, how long are you really having to
go to get points on the ball?

Speaker 4 (01:13:52):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
It's not that much. So I think this is going
to be a big deal. I think there's gonna be
a lot more balls in play from a kickoff perspect
given the Patriots in the preseason, especially with Henderson, but
in general they have good returners, so this could be
an advantage for the team. That's maybe it was a
bigger deal now with the new rules than it has
been in the past, because I know a lot of
people roll their eyes at this kind of stuff when

(01:14:14):
we talk about special teams.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
But no, this is an important thing. This is you
and different now.

Speaker 3 (01:14:19):
I am wondering, though, really quickly, if this ends up
being too much of an impact on the game, Like
there's just big returns all over the place might be exciting,
but I don't necessarily think that's what the league had
in mind when they put his rule in. Is that
all of a sudden, the game is being decided on
kickoff returns. I don't think that that was the goal.
So if that's the case, then I wonder if it
becomes tweaked again next offseason. If all of a sudden, guys,

(01:14:42):
everybody looks like Corderyl Patterson and there's just returns left
and right, I don't know if that's exactly what they
had in mind. All Right, we have to take a
quick break and then we'll come right back and we'll
get onto the Raiders.

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let's open the show up. These guys have been waiting
on hold for a while. Patty is an ag on

(01:17:48):
what's up? Patty?

Speaker 9 (01:17:51):
Thanks good?

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
How are we doing?

Speaker 5 (01:17:54):
I am doing all Really, I just wanted to kind
of read earlier this preseason where I met you guys.
I do have a couple of questions, but I just
wanted to say, like Evan, I meant what I said
to you when I said you're the best stam analyst
in the league, Alex I approached you, you had to

(01:18:18):
look in your eye like, who the hell is this
weirdo coming towards me?

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
But I'm sorry about that. It always takes me.

Speaker 5 (01:18:24):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
You hear voices, but you don't see faces.

Speaker 5 (01:18:26):
So yeah, right, But you know, I was lucky enough
to take in two practices and it was awesome. It
was a great experience just all around. I got a
really good feeling about this team this year. But onto
the questions. The first one is, how do you guys
feel like they're going to defend brock Howers? Because to me,
I mean, Ashon Gent's a big unknown, but brock Bowers

(01:18:49):
is by far their best skilled player. You know, do
you do you think they cover them? Trying to cover
them one on one with Flame, which I think would
be a mistake. Do you think they pepper him with
Woodson or Hawkins and possibly Alex Austin in the slot
and just like take turns and see you as better.
And this is a little bit more question for Evan
because Alex, past two weeks I've thrown some questions at you.

(01:19:10):
And by the way, Nick Carver, I want that guy
that he should add two touchdowns. But do you think
the key to winning this game, Evan? It will both
of you, but Evan, you could probably go in a
little bit more detail is coming out and playing predominantly
in twenty one personnel and kind of taking the game
to the Raiders, the kind of game that the Raiders

(01:19:31):
want to play, because you know, Carol's gonna want to
establish the run. They're gonna want to ram the rookie
right down our throats. But just you know, take that,
take that and take it to them and sort of like,
you know, beat them at their own game and be
the more physical team. I'll take it off there, guys.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
Thanks Patty, I had two good questions. Let's talk a
little bit about Bowers now, and I'm sure we're gonna
do key matchups. I'm assuming he was on both of
our lists of how you're going to match up against
him anyway, so we can just get this out of
the way with Bowers. This is a really fun first
test because I don't think the Raiders roster talent outside

(01:20:08):
of their big names like Bowers and Max Crosby, is overwhelming.
But they have two guys and Bowers and Crosby, who
are two guys that just profile as players that could
give the Patriots problems. So in a vacuum, it's like
a good first matchup because it's one I think it
shows you who's capable of covering tight ends that are

(01:20:30):
as dynamic as Bowers on the roster. But it also
shows us the first game plan of the Mike Rabel era,
Right are they going to be bellichicking in and how
they game plan where they are going to have a
unique wrinkle for brock Bauers, especially in passing situations they're
down two minute whatever, or are they going to kind

(01:20:52):
of play their base coverages and play their defense and
just think that the system is going to be able
to hold up against the guy like Bowers. I tend
to think it's going to be the game plan thing,
and I'm really hoping it's going to be the game
plan thing, because I think the best teams do it
that way. So for Bowers, there's two options. You can
either bracket him out of the game, you can double them,

(01:21:15):
or you could put a corner on him, a true
corner like Alex Austin or Carlton Davis and just hope
that because he's a tight end and he's not really
a true wide receiver, that a corner is going to
have the man coverage skills to go up against Bowers
because he's not particularly big, like he's only six three,
two forty, He's not grounk. He's not a six foot seven,

(01:21:37):
two hundred and fifty sixty pound tight end. He's definitely
more in that Travis Kelcey build. So you could technically
put a corner on him and they could go man
to man and that matchup could make a little bit
of sense. How do you see them just overall? Do
you think they're going to be really game plan heavy
and then specifically on Bowers? How do you see them

(01:21:57):
taking care of Bowers?

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
I mean, I'd I'd like see him put a corner
on him. Now it's a little tougher if you don't
have Christian Gonzalez. I think either way, Carlton Davis is
the guy just a little more physical, little more play strength,
probably the guy you want on a on a tight
end guy. I've compared him to a keep to leave
and this is what they used to do with the
keep to leave back in the day. Put him on
Jimmy Graham, put him on Tony Gonzalez and have him
kind of try to wipe him out of the game.

(01:22:21):
Then the question, if you have Gonzales, it's easy to
me because it's it's Gonzalez Undra Kobe Myers, it's Carlton
Davis on Brock Bowers. I know Dante Thornton's kind of
had a nice camp for them, But between Alex Austin,
Marcus Jones, DJ James, I think if they beat you,
throw in a Dante Thornton.

Speaker 3 (01:22:38):
Dante Thoron is We've been there with.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Your cap to Gino Smith and Dante.

Speaker 3 (01:22:43):
Thornton is a training camp star, like he's the guy
that he's he's dayk metcalf in training camp. Let's see
what it looks like when.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
It right now, if they beat the Patriots throwing at
Dante Thorton, you tip your cap and you move on right.
But you know, if they don't have Gonzales, Kobe Myers
can get you. Like Jkobe Myers, you do have to
have a plan for two. Bowers is still the number
one option. But is it now? Do you want Davis

(01:23:10):
on Myers? Do you trust you know? Marcus Jones? There's
a little bit of seize mismatch there, Alex Austen, Where
is it? Do you trust him on Myers for a
full game? It gets a little more complicated. I'd still
probably try that and maybe bracket Myers and you just
hope Carlton Davis takes care of business against Brock Bowers.
But it's there's more ifs in that plan. So I

(01:23:34):
think with Gonzalez it's clear cut. Without Gonzalez a little
less so, but they still should be okay.

Speaker 3 (01:23:40):
So I normally I would say double Bowers and put
your best corner on Myers, Like that's normally the approach
that I would probably take.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
Which again, if you have Christian Zalez, I think that's
exactly what you do, right.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
But at the same time, specifically to Carlton Davis, I
guess more so the Raiders just don't have outside receivers
that scare me. I'm gonna have to see it from
Dante Thorton. Like Dante Thorton, I know he's at a
good camp. Like I just said to me, he's the
exact type of player that would have a good training.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
Just real quick to reset their wide receiver room. Jack
Betch a rookie who's a big slot, Amari Cooper who
signed what last week? Yeah, Jacobe Myers, Dante Thorton, and
they do have Trey Tucker who has some speech.

Speaker 3 (01:24:22):
So to me, their receiving corp is gonna be Thornton,
Myers and Tucker. I think those three guys are gonna
play just.

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
A second round pick.

Speaker 3 (01:24:30):
I know, but I don't know where. I haven't heard
anything about Jack Betch and training camp.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
Do you think they do that Patriots thing where they
just use essentially two slot guys and then it's Thornton
and Tucker on the outside.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
Tucker to me is more of like a Pop Douglas.
He's more of like a speed slot. So Tucker, I
think is obvious. Marcus Jones can take Tucker. That's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
Dante Thorton, I'm putting Alex Austin or DJ James out there,
probably Alex Austin and just living with it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
I would even if Tucker's not on the field, I
could even put Marcus Jones on Thornton. I know Thornton
is the hype, but Marcus Jones is worried about the hype.
But Marcus Jones is the foot speed to stay with him.
And is he somebody you really think is going to
go out there? Marcus Jones is physical. Is Thornton gonna
go out there and moss people? Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):
I think that's what he was doing in the preseason
winning at the catch point. I would put Alex Austen
on Thornton and then ideally you have Gonzo to cover
Jacobe Myers. Now, if Gonzo isn't there, then this whole
thing does get complicated, right, And this is where Gonzo's impact.
It's not necessarily that I think that they have like
a Jamar Chase level receiver that not having Gonzo for

(01:25:33):
is going to be problematic. It's just the trickle down
effect of if you want to use a corner on
brock Bauers, now you have to put Alex Austen on
Myers because he's the better player. So now you are
getting into a situation where Marcus Jones at DJ James
somebody like that is playing first of all a high
volume of outside cornerback snaps, but is also playing against

(01:25:54):
a guy like Dante Thornton that who does have size
and speed. So that's where it gets a little bit tricky.
But I'm with you. If Gino Smith beats you throwing
bombs to Dante Thorton, then you kind of tip the
cap and that's you live with that. So I think
Brot Bauers might be to the level already where it's
Carlon Davis and help. Like, I think you need to

(01:26:17):
have two eyes or two sets of eyes on Bowers
on third down. I don't think even Carlon Davis, who
is a good player, and I have confidence in Carlton Davis,
I don't even think that is just enough. Like this
guy is Bowers is a unique talent. He's an lead
elite player. So I think you on third down, especially,
you're gonna have to have two sets of eyes on

(01:26:38):
Bratt Bauers, even if it is a corner that's covering him.
So I would say that if it's no gonzo, Yeah,
Davis with safety help on Bratt Bawers in the middle
of the field, Alex Ausen on Jacobe Myers, and then
whoever the third receiver is is matchup based here, it's

(01:26:58):
DJ James maybe for a little bit more sizing though
he's not a big dude necessarily, but maybe a little
bit more size than Marcus Jones on Dante Thornton, or
it's just Marcus Jones on Tucker or Thornton. I think
Tucker is gonna play a lot on third down. He's
a sense He's a Pop Douglas type. He's a slot
speed slot, good separator, good field stretcher from the slot.

(01:27:22):
I would definitely think he would play a lot. I'm
interested to see what they do with Bowers. It's a
first real example that we're gonna have of how game
plan oriented are they gonna be? How are are they
a bracket team?

Speaker 6 (01:27:34):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
Are they gonna bracket guys? Are they gonna put two
true double teams on him? Based off they're a Tennessee
tape they have, They definitely have bracket calls within their coverage.
I watched a little bit of them against the Dolphins
just to get ahead for next week. And they were
doubling Wattle and Hill in that matchup in twenty twenty three.
So they definitely have those bracket calls that Belichick would have,

(01:27:55):
you know, a cone bracket where you're inside out or
over under bracket where there's a safety over the top
and a corner underneath. And then you'll have you know,
Cover seven, which is really a split safety coverage, but
the safeties are bracketing instead of playing zone. They're bracketing
receivers instead. So that's a Saban terminology that goes around
a lot. So you have that ability with Bowers. Now

(01:28:17):
you don't need to double Jacobe Myers. I don't think
I like Jacoby great player. I don't think he's double category.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
I think not with the corner talent that they have.

Speaker 3 (01:28:26):
Yeah, I would agree to Patty's second question. My guess
is is that we're going to see the Patriots come
out in heavy personnel on offense and try to establish
the line of scrimmage. That's just that's a season long thing,
like they're going to want to be the more physical
team for seventeen straight games. So I think dominating or

(01:28:47):
trying to establish and win the line of scrimmage as
much as that kind of stuff gets my my nerd senses,
you know, all out of whack that that, to me
is going to be just there.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
You're going to have to establish the run.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
Unfortunately, it's just how they want to play. It's how
Mike Raba wants to play, and it's not about oh,
are they gonna be you know, Derrick Henry Titan's era,
and they're just gonna run the ball And no, I
think they're still going to pass the ball and be
aggressive throwing the football. But I definitely think that from
a just setting a tone standpoint, I do think that

(01:29:20):
they're gonna come out in the opening drive with Jack
Westover in the backfield as a lead full back, and
they're gonna want to run it down Vegas' throats. Running
the football is also a nice way, even though he's
a really good run player as well, when you run
it at pass rushers, they don't like it so much. Right,
So if you can throw a bunch of different angles

(01:29:43):
at Max Crosby, you know, pull at him, lead the
full back at him, wham him, I do a bunch
of different pitches, so I change up your pitches of
how you're attacking him. You can start to get him
on his heels a little bit and start forcing him
to think and process the game and often can slow
down how good he is as a pass rusher. And

(01:30:03):
if he's getting ear hold and he's getting guards are
pulling towards him and he's got to hold up like that,
he doesn't want to do that. He wants to fly
up the field and get the ball right, That's what
Max Crosby wants to do. So if you can come
out and you can frankly punch him in the mouth
a little bit, that often helps with a lot of
these pass rushers. Now, Crosby is a different animal. He's

(01:30:25):
a great player against the run and the pass. So
this isn't necessarily one of those guys. It's like a
finesse player that can be taken out of the game
that way. But I still think it can be an advantage.
So I expect both those things to happen. Let's take Garrett,
is that po Florida fl what's up, Garrett? Garrett? All right, Garrett,

(01:30:50):
call us back. We had to do on hold for
a little bit. Let's get to Ben and Philly. What's
up Ben?

Speaker 8 (01:30:56):
Hey, Yeah, I just had a question about how you
feel Mike Frable handles media differently than in the past.
So with the Forgit in Foxborough series, it just seems
like there's a high level of media access that we
get to see as fans, which is great. How do
you guys think that's going to impact the team and
will just continue going forward?

Speaker 3 (01:31:18):
Yeah, Ben, thanks for the call. So to be clear,
fortune of Foxborough is being produced in house, so maybe
this is a little bit but inside baseball. But yeah,
not to like say Ben was wrong, but I wouldn't
consider that media right.

Speaker 1 (01:31:31):
Yeah, that's different than like the Beat reporters. That's yes, like, yeah,
that's a Patriots production.

Speaker 3 (01:31:39):
Correct, it's a Craft sports production. That's an internal thing. Now,
I will give Mike Frabel. I will thank Mike Frabel
for last couple of practices that we got to see.
Those were not required practices to be open to the media,
and he allowed the media as a whole, Beat writers
everybody to watch two more additional practices when they got

(01:32:02):
back from New York from the final preseason game. So
we got maybe a little a few more practices than
we would normally get from Mike Vrabel from a training
camp standpoint, But I would say it's pretty consistent, like
this is all stuff and it's it's guidelines. It's not
necessarily required, but this is all stuff that the Pro
Football Writers Association in the league have an agreement on

(01:32:23):
of like how much access we're going to get in
terms of media availability, press conferences, practice availability. Like a
lot of this stuff is already kind of outlined ahead
of time of how that's all going to work. And
then with Forge, we'll see you stay tuned on Forge.
Have you watched episode three yet?

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
I've watched like half of it. I need to catch
up on it. This was my drop right before college
football Saturday, so it's like.

Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
This is that this is my favorite episode of the three,
not that I thought any all of them were great,
but this episode in particular I really enjoyed because this
is this is the best time for the behind the
scenes access with training camp, where you have of the
Afton Chisholm storyline and the Elijah Ponders storylines, of the
undrafted guys trying to make the team. We have the

(01:33:06):
team coming together. You have practiced footage, live practice footage,
my frable, you know, jumping into the pile like you
have all these different things, whereas once we get into
the season, it becomes a little bit more formulaic and
there's not those underdog stories necessarily. And this is why
hard Docks is great is because of this time of
year in training camp. So I felt the same way

(01:33:27):
about Forge. So Forge three is out now, stay tuned
about Forged four and beyond. That's a way above my
pay grade to make those decisions of when these things happen.
So we'll see about that. But that's let's talk a
little college football. Le's talk a little college football. Always,
we have a college football question, and this is something
that I've been wondering Alex, and I know what I

(01:33:49):
think your answer is going to be, but I'm curious.
So this is from Aiden in California, and he said
he loves the show, Thanks Sadan, And he was watching
some college football this past weekend. So was I. I
watched a decent amount of college football.

Speaker 1 (01:34:04):
Did you enjoy it?

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
I somewhat enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:06):
Sure, yeah you did.

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
No, I have some gripes, but it's fine. I think
that just quickly get this off my chest. College quarterbacks
drive me crazy. The next college quarterback to recognize that
the slot is blitzing it will be the first like
how it can't be.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
This part what makes it fun. It's chaotic. I'm telling
you this hard.

Speaker 3 (01:34:25):
You're hot to the field, bro, You're hot, like throw
the ball.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
So I think that's part of what makes it fun.
It's like because you can see it and they can't.
You don't enjoy that.

Speaker 4 (01:34:34):
A lot of good.

Speaker 3 (01:34:36):
That's bad football.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
The So I think this year's class as a whole
is kind of overrated. There's some guys I like, but
I think people are too high on it. The next
couple of classes, so you're going to have next year
is DJ Lagway next year, I'm trying to remember who
else is in it, like arch Manning. We saw arch

(01:35:00):
Manning on Sunday. This is my point, DJ Lagway Julian
saying the kid from TCU is probably going to stay
another year. Hooever, he was good. And then I'll say
that some of the true freshmen. So first of all,
Bryce under I don't know, you probably didn't watch any
of Michigan. They were playing New Mexico, and granted it
was against New Mexico. Bryce Underwood looked and look, he's

(01:35:23):
a number one back recruit in the country. He should
look really good. He looks unbelievable. Also, Maryland has a
true freshman quarterback in the Lakue Washington was kind of nice. Again,
it was against a lesser opponent. But this year's quarterback
class is fine. It's definitely better than last year. I
think more guys are going to fall than rise as
we go through the process the next two years. I'm
very excited for last year's true freshman and then this

(01:35:47):
year's true freshman. I think is a strong class.

Speaker 3 (01:35:49):
I was overall pretty disappointed by what I saw from
this quarterback class because I do think there is some
hype around this quarterback.

Speaker 1 (01:35:56):
There is, and look, I think club Nick is another
guy that's maybe even propped up by the system and
Clemson my ten years ago Garret or fifte years ago
Garrett Usmiers a first round pick. Now, I wonder if
maybe his athleticism puts a ceiling on things. But there's
individual traits there, you like. I don't know that he's
ultimately going to prove.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):
He seemed to have to be that first round profile
from a reading the defense like pre snat right, but
that only takes you so.

Speaker 1 (01:36:23):
Far as right. Now, Feranana Mendoza didn't really play anybody,
Sam Levinton, Planny Boy, Jordan Tyson though goes for one
hundred and twenty seven yards. Been telling you about story.
It was against Northern Arizona, So we'll wait and see.
The one guy I came away really impressed with from
this upcoming class was Leonora Sellers. Took him a little
bit to get going in that game, but once he
got going fourth quarter, once he and that's not uncommon

(01:36:44):
for week one in college and the NFL, So we'll
see again. He's got to do more. But a lot
of these guys just kind of trudged along all game.
His ability to adjust within the game I thought was impressive,
and he was the one guy I thought more us
lived up to expectations.

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):
So to go back to the email or the question
here from Aiden is about Caleb Downs. So who I
know is one of your favorite players in college?

Speaker 1 (01:37:09):
Yeah, I want to know what you thought watching Caleb
Down That's what I'm curious about.

Speaker 3 (01:37:13):
I have to admit I think Caleb Downs is a
great player. I mean you could see it all on
the tape last year, you know, from their national championship run.
Those that don't know he's a safety Ohio State. Caleb
Downs some people I don't necessarily see, Like, I don't
know exactly who I would compare him to yet.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
So did you see Tom you so hot?

Speaker 3 (01:37:36):
Take? I don't. I don't see Ed re.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
Stylistically, he's not the same guy, but he plays a
weird comp But just to throw that out there, he.

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
Plays way more closer to the line of scrimmage than
Ed Reid did.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
He's he's kind of everywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:37:48):
Yeah, So the question from Aiden is would Caleb Downs
be a possible pick for the Patriots next year? On
just to like keep it one hundred, Caleb Downs might
be the best non quarterback player in the entire draft.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
He might be the best player in the entire draft.

Speaker 3 (01:38:05):
Sure, best player in the entire draft. But taking the
he's not going to go number one overall, They're not.
They're not taking a safety number one.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
Over probably not. If one was going to go number one,
he's the profile, but probably not.

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):
You're right, he's not going to So the two questions
with Caleb Downs. I know that this is kind of annoying,
but it is what it is, the fact that he's
a safety is going to come into play the positional
value of drafting a safety in the top five or
the top ten is going to come into play. It
just doesn't happen very often, and Caleb Downs being an

(01:38:38):
exceptional player might just be the the exception to that.
It reminds me a little bit of Kyle Hamilton coming out. Now,
Kyle Hamilton bombed the combine right a bad workout and
not pushed him down the board. But I don't think
it's totally out of the realm of possibility that because
he plays safety, because you're going to have potentially three
or four quarterbacks that are going to go early. Although

(01:39:01):
he played poorly, I think Caden Proctor and Spencer Finell
are still going to go pretty early at tackle. And
then you also have Peter Woods who and the Clemson
defensers who are more pass rusher.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
And did you watch any of Miami Notre Dames a
little bit? Number four on defense for Miami Rubin Bain, Yeah,
so all those guys.

Speaker 3 (01:39:20):
He's our premium position players, So is it I don't
think it's totally crazy to say that if the Patriots
have a better but not great season, Let's say they
win six to eight games, and they're picking in the
early teams of the draft, Caleb Downs. I don't think
it's totally out of the realm of possibility that Caleb

(01:39:42):
Downs could be on the board for them.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
And he'd be a great fit for this defense. I'll
just say this. Hamilton went fourteenth. Kyle Hamilton was obviously
a great safety prospect. Yes, Caleb Downs is better Caleb Downs.
I think he is in another tier.

Speaker 3 (01:39:54):
And I think I don't think Caleb Downs is going
to have athletic testing issues. But that's what put Kyle Hamilton.

Speaker 1 (01:39:59):
So there's there's two guys in this draft. The other
thing I think, and I don't know if it's going
to help hurt Caleb Downs. You're getting much more. And
this is we hear this all the time. The college
game is ten years ahead of the NFL. The innovations
that we're seeing in college usually get to the NFL
a decade later. That's why guys like Tamon Austin and
the guy from Florida. Why am I branking up blanking

(01:40:19):
on his name? Darius Tony no earlier Florida. Yeah, the
speedster Jeff Demps, No same team he played Percy Arvin,
Oh Percy. That's why these guys like didn't hit in
the NFL. You put Percy Harvin in the NFL. Now
he's a stud, but teams just didn't know how to
use that guy.

Speaker 4 (01:40:36):
Yet.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
You're seeing a lot more positionless football in college right
now defensively, and Caleb Downs is a safety, but he's
also not just a safety. He can play linebacker. He
can play slot corner. And it's not like, Okay, a
safety who can He's not like a box safety who
you calling a linebacker because he's lining up in the box.
He can play linebacker, can rush the passer, he can

(01:40:58):
fit the run. Another guy I look at and I
got some questions about him on Twitter this weekend. I'm
a big fan is Harold Perkins. So if you watch
at LSU game number seven on defense, where he's listed
as a linebacker, he kind of plays more like a
safety and he has some coverage responsibilities. You know, he'll
rush the pass or he does a little bit of everything.

(01:41:19):
And our NFL team's ready for that guy. Yet that
you don't really have a position, you can kind of
do everything. It's either you create a role in the
defense for that guy that's hard to match up with,
or you use him as a matchup player differently week
to week. I don't think Caleb Down's role is going
to be the same next week, and I don't think
it'll be the same the week after that. I think

(01:41:41):
Matt Patricia's gonna kind of use him as a fixer
as a stopper, depending on what the other team does well.
Harold Perkins is more of a true linebacker, but I
think you'll see some of the same with him. You'll
see him in coverage more some weeks, you see him
rushing the pass or more some weeks. There have been
some Micah Parsons ish comps with him. Now he's coming
off with torn acls, so he's got to show the
leticism can stay up. At the point being like, I

(01:42:03):
wonder if Caleb Downs he might fall because of the
positional value. He might just be so good that if
you get the right defensive coordinator looking at it and saying,
this guy can do everything I want him to do,
that kind of nullifies it because that's the way college
teams are using their best players right now. Some of
the best defensive players in college football, they don't have
a position. They just kind of do whatever's asked of them,

(01:42:25):
and that's coming to the NFL. Maybe not this year,
maybe not with this class, but it's coming in this class.
Between Downs and Perkins would be a good place to start.

Speaker 3 (01:42:35):
So Caleb Downs, I want to say that I think
the Patriots are going to be better, and I hope
the Patriots are going to be too good to draft
Caleb Downs. But when you cut Jabrill Peppers and definitely
seems like Kyle Duggar is not part of the long
term plans here with the Patriots and Mike Rabel. If
the Patriots have a better but not great season, like

(01:42:56):
I said earlier, and they only win seven or eight
games and they're picking in the early teams, I think
Caleb Downs would be a slam dunk like home run
type of fit for them to fill safety and have
an impact safety like Caleb.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
Downs is a I don't care what your needs are.
Your needs are run up the card, pick them play
so the But.

Speaker 3 (01:43:16):
It also it's going to be in need, like it
is gonna be a need.

Speaker 1 (01:43:18):
But I don't, I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
I know people people have gotten a combination of people.

Speaker 1 (01:43:22):
Have gotten on this show, maybe me in particular for
harping on the need part of the draft too much.
If Caleb Downs is realistically and play for the Patriots,
that you're not going to hear that take from the
show to site clip it if you want. I'd be
very surprised if I change course on that unless he
gets hurt. H Derwin James Buddha Baker might be two
comps for Caleb Down, but there is there isn't really

(01:43:42):
a player in the NFL better than Dwin, but not
Durwin's you know, thick as Darwin.

Speaker 3 (01:43:50):
All right, well guy, we'll work on that. Let's get
back to the phones. Mark is in Connecticut. What's up, Mark?

Speaker 5 (01:43:56):
What's going on?

Speaker 10 (01:43:57):
My brother? They the Oh, Pepper's totally shocked at that.
I mean, just a veteran presence in the room at
that in a again, a Mike Vrabel kind of guy
I always thought, so I'm shocked at that. I'm also
shocked at the Stefan Diggs that he's not a captain
because I was there a lot of training camp and
the guy's a vocal leader. Seems like he's going to

(01:44:17):
be a good fit for the wide receivers for the youngins.
And then my last thing is, uh number eighty seven, Now,
who's gonna wear number eighty seven if Jack Westover is
now taking over thirteen Crons number.

Speaker 3 (01:44:30):
Yeah, thanks for the call mark number eighty seven. Maybe nobody,
I don't know, just throwing it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:35):
Out there, say he's going to retire. By the way,
Durwin six fifteen, Caleb Down six foot two o five
So not Durren's bigger, Durwin's taller, but ten pounds two
inches like that's that's a lot of size, all right,
that matters. If he didn't know, Downs might be bulky er.
I'm saying, more compact, more compact. Yeah, muscle hamster.

Speaker 3 (01:45:00):
Sam is in Virginia. What's up?

Speaker 6 (01:45:02):
Sam?

Speaker 5 (01:45:03):
Hey you guys, can you hear me?

Speaker 6 (01:45:04):
Yes?

Speaker 9 (01:45:05):
Yeah, great, appreciate you taking my call. So just two
quick questions on the old line. So it looks like
Jared Wilson's going to start the year at left sward
is the McDaniel's offense, which is generally the more valuable
air for important position left guard or center. I just
want to better understand his long term value. And second

(01:45:25):
is about Josh Simmons. It looks like he's going to
start week one for the Chiefs, knowing in the pre
draft process he was considered maybe the top left tackle prospect,
do you think, knowing what we know now, that the
Patriots might have considered him over Campbell or ranked him
over Campbell if they knew he'd be healthy for Week one.

(01:45:46):
I'm curious about that, but appreciate you taking my call.
Take it off line.

Speaker 3 (01:45:49):
Hey, thanks Sam.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
No, I don't think so, but you didn't know. I mean, yeah,
hindsight's fifty to fifty. Is that twenty it's twenty twenty. Yeah,
hindsight's twenty twenty. No, I you don't think with the
Raiders knowing what they know now, go back and draft
Calvin Johnson over JaMarcus But.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
Like, don't, Yeah, I know, don't pick on the caller
too much.

Speaker 1 (01:46:10):
I'm not picking on the call. But I've seen this
a few times.

Speaker 3 (01:46:12):
It's a question that we knew was coming, Alex, like
you and I have been steadfast on this about Josh
Simmons during the draft process, that we would not have
taken the risk on Josh Simmons. And if Josh Simmons
goes on and is a franchise tackle for the Chiefs,
we'll never live it down. But that's the business one.

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):
He didn't know and you couldn't know you looked at
the medicals. I don't think the Patriots were the only
team that were afraid of the medicals. Because he fell
all the way to thirty sevens.

Speaker 3 (01:46:35):
There was no way they were drafting Josh Simmons at
four over. I also much different conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:46:39):
I don't know. People say, well, you know he was
the top rank tackle on the Patriot where was he
the top Will Campbell's top rank tackle everywhere?

Speaker 3 (01:46:46):
But he was probably considered the best pass protector left
tackle in the draft, like the pure blind side protector thing.
But my whole thing with Josh Simmons was not just
the injury. It was also the fact that he had
such a small sample size of really good performance. His
tape from twenty three from to twenty four improved significantly

(01:47:07):
over that time, and he really only did it against
Scrubs in twenty twenty four because he got hurt halfway
through the Oregon game and didn't play the rest of
the season, so you never actually saw him against NFL
caliber competition. He dominated Michigan State and like that level
of competition, but how is he going to look in
a full game against Oregon and the college Football Playoff
like those types of matchups you never would have known.

(01:47:30):
And as a team like the Patriots, that the most
important thing for the Patriots right now when it comes
to drafting is getting on base, like they need to
hit on these picks. And there's just a lot of
inherent risk that was coming with Josh Simmons both was
it going to translate and was it? Was it actually
real what we saw at the beginning before he got
hurt and injury history, that they are just not in

(01:47:54):
a position to take risks on players like that. The
Kansas City Chiefs are exactly in the position to take a.

Speaker 1 (01:48:00):
Well, we talked that Patriots took. My comp for him was,
who is the defensive lineman from Florida? Why can't I
do names today? The defensive tackle who had the torn
a cl from Florida?

Speaker 3 (01:48:11):
Yeah, Dominique Easley.

Speaker 1 (01:48:13):
Yeah, they do because the Patriots could take that risk.
Dominique Easley was a top ten talent who had bad
knees and the didn't know if he'd stay healthy. And
just one more thing, he made it to Week one
knowing he'd be healthy. Do you think they would have
drafted him? Not for over It's also it's not like
these are mostly non contact practices. He now has to
stay healthy over the course of this season and the next.

(01:48:33):
And then like there was too much risk. There was
too much risk with that injury. Yeah, there's way too
much risk with that injury.

Speaker 3 (01:48:40):
Injury and performance and the and would go hand in hand. Yeah,
but like it just didn't make sense for this team.
The Eagles, the the Chiefs, the Bills, the Lions, like
those are teams that can take on those kinds of risks.
The Patriots are just not in that spot. It's not
exactly uh apples to apples, but it's not that different

(01:49:02):
than being in on Micah Parsons right, Like, it's just
they're just not ready for that type of stuff yet.
If they're good, yeah, and they get into the second
round next year, and they won ten games this year
and you want to talk me into them drafting a
guy that has an injury history, then okay, then that's
a different conversation. Dominique Easley, right, Sony Michelle, like those guys, like,
that's a different conversation To the first point, what was

(01:49:23):
his first question?

Speaker 1 (01:49:25):
What's more important in the McDaniels offense, left guard or center?

Speaker 3 (01:49:29):
I would probably say left guard because the quarterback handles
so much of the pre snap responsibilities that's typically on
the center in a offense. I just think guard is
inherently more valuable than center to begin with, because you
have a lot more one on one pass protection opportunities
versus that center, But even more so in a scheme
like this where the quarterback is the one calling the

(01:49:51):
protections and not the center, I think it even devalues
the center, maybe even a little bit more than what
it would in other systems. Sorry, David Andrews, don't any
disrespect to him or any guys that have played center here.
That's just how I personally feel about it. But I
could see Jared Wilson being good either spot, And we'll see.

(01:50:12):
Before we wrap up with the show here, Alex, I
do want to give kind of a couple more takes
on this game. On Sunday, there's a game that the
Patriots are playing. We normally do key matchups. I don't
know if we have time to do all the key
we did one with and Crosby we kind of covered
that as well. But what's just your general feelings going
into this game? Because for me, I think the more,

(01:50:34):
the most fascinating aspect of this game is coaching for
both teams. It's two brand new coaching staffs, Pete Carroll,
two overall rosters. Chip Kelly has not coached at this
level in a decade, so we have really no idea.
We could obviously go back and watch Ohio State, but
it's just really not the same thing at all. So

(01:50:54):
we have no real idea exactly of what an NFL
offense for Chip Kelly looks like the modern times here.
It's not gonna be Oregon in Philadelphia. I can tell
you that it's gonna be different. It's probably gonna be
less pace and slow down a little bit more. But
I think this game is gonna be one and loss.
And this is why I gave a slight edge to
the Patriots by in game adjustments, which once the game

(01:51:17):
declares and both sides and both sidelines sort of get
a feel for how the new staffs are coaching it
and how their base, you know, schemes and all that
good stuff. Once they have a good feel for that,
who blinks first right, who has the ability to adjust,
who has the ability to attack weaknesses, and all that

(01:51:38):
good stuff, I think is ultimately going to decide this game,
and I just have a little bit more faith from
that standpoint. And Vrabel and McDaniels because I've seen them
do it before and I think they're two of the
best at it on their respective sides of the ball.
Whereas Pete Carroll, Chip Kelly, I think those guys are
kind of do what you do sort of coaches, like.
They have their systems, they have their schemes, especially Carol

(01:52:01):
on defense. I don't view him as like a game
plan coach very much. So this is a really big
Week ones always an unknown, it's always a mystery box
of what exactly you're going to get. But what these
rosters being so different from the past, these coaching staffs
are completely new. This is the uh, this is Week

(01:52:22):
one on steroids, Like this is a complete mystery box
of what exactly that they're going to get. I have
faith in McDaniels, especially that he's going to be able
to adjust, though.

Speaker 1 (01:52:30):
I think it's probably gonna be messy. It's probably gonna
be sloppy in Week one is the most unpredictable game
of the season. I think that the Raiders are probably
going to come right out and look I'm not saying
they won't throw to Bowers. But if I'm the Raiders,
I look at the Patriots up front, I test it,
and you know, you just use the top ten pick
on a running back. Oh, they're going to run the
I make them stop the run before I go to

(01:52:51):
anything else. That's what I do if I'm the Raiders.
So I think we're going to see a good amount
of ash and genty early. I think how the Patriots
handle that dictate the rest of the game. On the
other side of the ball, Like you said earlier, I
think we see the Patriots try to establish the run.
I think they ease Drake May into it. I think
they get him a couple of those layups before they
maybe start taking some shots down the field. I also

(01:53:12):
want to be surprised as they feature digs early and
get digs in rhythm. And you hear guys talk about
coming off a torn acl or any major injury, really
any significant missed amount of time, just how much it
helps to get into the rhythm right away and get
the ball right away, and get hit a couple times
right away, and just shake the cobwebs off and get
back in that familiar mindset, so you know, runs early

(01:53:34):
quick stuff to Diggs. I would love to see some RPOs.
You can mix the tulos in together. We'll see how
much we see that. One other thing I wonder about McDaniels,
I'm curious your thoughts on this. So just looking at
some of the colleges he visited last year, and we
ultimately don't know how much he took from everybody. But
one thing you're seeing more in college football now. That

(01:53:57):
is another thing I think is coming to the NFL
at some point when I think this is probably less
impactful in the NFL than it is in college because
the players are smarter. But well, you see college teams
do now it's not hurry up in the sense that
get to line, snap the ball quick, but teams will
no huddle. But then you get to the line and
you kind of all right, you make your checks, you
call to play at the line, so you still have

(01:54:19):
the signs on the sideline, right, Well, you're not gonna
have that in the NFL, but or college really in yeah,
they don't really have that anymorecause the headsets. But the
idea is like you don't just the headsets, you don't
huddle Yeah, so that the defense can't huddle and it
makes it harder for them to substitute or whatever. But
you're not rushing, You're still snapping the ball fifteen twenty
seconds left on the play clock. Drake May did some
of that at North Carolina. Yeah, and I feel like

(01:54:40):
with the offense they have and to help kind of
Drake May stay ahead of things and simplify things. You
force the defense to kind of declare a look and
stay in it. I wonder if we see some of
that from McDaniels, if not in this game, at some
point this season.

Speaker 3 (01:54:53):
That's what I'm most looking forward to seeing from McDaniels
is he's so good at getting you trapped in personnel
on field that they like matchups against you. So like
let's say they put like three safety nickel out there,
and so Jeremy Chin is covering Pop Douglas in the slot.
What McDaniels will do is he'll go hurry up, he'll
go no huddle, and he won't allow you to substitute
because they just love the personnel that you have on

(01:55:15):
the field. And then the other things that he likes
to do is win with formations, like we're gonna put
a running back out wide, We're gonna put a full
back out wide, right, and we're able to figure out
man's own and then also find those matchups in the
middle of the field. So it's an exciting all around
time for you for the Patriots. But we got to
wrap up because Unfiltered is up next here at noon.

(01:55:37):
But before we get going, let's hear it for the team.
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(01:55:57):
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and easy to Drink is to enjoy but Light the
official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots. Got all

(01:56:18):
the reads in, We're done for the show this week.
We'll be back next Wednesday to break down the Patriots
verus the Raiders preview the Dolphins. PEU is up next
here at noon. We'll see you guys soon. Hey, this
is Evan. Thanks for tuning in to the show.

Speaker 11 (01:56:33):
If you really want to help us, make sure to
like us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get
your podcasts. Also make sure to fall on the New
England Patriots YouTube channel see this show and everything else
we do here at the Patriots.

Speaker 3 (01:56:46):
Thanks a lot

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