Patriots Playbook 12/11: Cardinals Preview, Hot Topics

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:30):
Patriots Catch twenty two. Well, join Evan Lazar and Alex
Bart every Thursday as they take a deep dive into
the x of the o's trends and latest New England
Patriots roster moves.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
And I'm usually into the numbers, Okay, we do something.
I'm into the tangible numbers. There's there's tame here. Just
give me. There's the advantage. In fact, I haven't know
how to work it. I'm surprised an old man over here.
I thought maybe I'd have to show you like a
pictorial or something.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
How am I old man?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Search for Patriots Catch twenty two anywhere you get your podcast?

Speaker 4 (01:07):
Uno stovetro Moursies and John Voice of the Patriots. It's Patriots,

(01:33):
La La La. We're here for the playbook. Yes, we
are welcome in, John Rook. Evan Lazar is here for
first bit of the program. There are some news, well,
there is some news surrounding the New England Patriots that
I think we need to talk about. There is also
some reports in within the local media that we probably
need to talk about as well. And then obviously we're

(01:56):
going to get to the fact that there's actually a
football game to play here. Believe it or not, They're
going to be back out on the field again this
week against the Arizona Cardinals. Four games left from the
regular season, a chance to continue to, you know, work
toward the goal of being at least as good, if
not better than where they were a year ago. And
I know there are some people that say, well, wait, wait, wait,
they're in a good position on draft wise. You know,

(02:17):
right now they're third for the draft next to April.
I don't want them to win anymore because I don't
want to screw up that pick. Look, you've got to
look bigger picture on this, and I think we all
know that the Patriots needs are definitive. So we got
a ton of time to talk about that. But the
first thing I want to jump to today has to
do with sort of breaking news. And the breaking news

(02:40):
is that former Patriots coach Bill Belichick is reportedly going
to or has been offered, the head coaching job at
the University of North Carolina. I don't know how you
feel about that. I know, Evan, you've got some thoughts
on that I want you to share with us in
a moment. But my initial reaction is why why, simply

(03:03):
and it's just one word why. I was always of
the opinion based on what Bill had told me, had
told our media had set around the household to speak here,
and I'm not letting anybody in on any secrets where
this is concerned. That the Don Shuler record was important
to him.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
It's one of the reasons why he had to do
things his way because he felt like it was the
best way to get there. And look, anybody in this
business who's any good as an ego. You have to
have an ego to survive in this business. It's what
keeps you going to sleep at night. Otherwise you'd be
awake and you know you'd suffer for it. So the

(03:40):
ego is what drives you. So you can't tell me
that Bill doesn't care about the record. That's false. That's false. However,
I'm guessing that in the year now that he's been
away from football again. This is just a subposition based
on observation on knowing him when he was here, being
around him, and he was here being around this whole camp,
if you will, for twenty years that he was here.

(04:02):
This is just an observation overall. My opinion of that observation,
my guess is is that he decided he missed coaching
more than potentially the record, because you can't tell me
that at age seventy two, he's going to try to
go to North Carolina for a year or two to
prove himself again and find another job in the NFL.
That is not going to happen. He's too old. I

(04:25):
also think, and again this is just my opinion, I
also believe that you know, between him and his agent
and people that he knows, we all know Bill is
very well connected still in professional football circles, that it
didn't look good for anybody to step up and really
hire him because Bill wants total control. Nobody apparently right now,

(04:46):
nobody's willing to give that to him. I know there
was some thoughts maybe Jacksonville might I know that's what
was the hot rumor as of a week or two ago.
Maybe that's cooled, and so he wants still to show
that he can coach, and he desires to coach. And
that's why I loved his quote unquote manifesto that came
out last week about you know, college ball today isn't

(05:07):
really much different from the NFL. And you know what,
he's actually right about this because within il and money everything,
College football is a shorter, smaller, less moneyed version of
professional football. It is pro football now, Okay. And so
if you're telling me that you can hire a staff

(05:28):
that probably has a lot of NFL experience to come
in and you're gonna pay the players because they're going
to get nil in North Carolina being a huge school
and big backers, I'm sure they got a bag to
share with people, right, share with players? How are you
not going to be able to recruit? And I know
Tom Brady and Grunk and Julian Edelman all had some
funny things to say about Bill and potentially taking the

(05:50):
job in North Carolina. We'll play that for you in
a second here, but if you haven't heard it, it's
actually pretty good. So and I know that that's out there.
But at the same time, if you really want to coach,
and you feel like you can bring your operation, so
to speak, to the college ranks to recruit some of
the elite of the elite, if money is not an issue,

(06:10):
then you bring in these guys to be trained by professionals.
Are you telling me that the North Carolina Pro Game
Pro Day next year isn't going to be swarmed with scouts.
Of course it is. And if I'm a college football
player or I'm a recruit and I really want to
go to the NFL and I see this forming in
North Carolina, I'm telling you, hey, the tar Heels are
on my radar. If they weren't before, they are now.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah. I think there'll be certain guys that will be
like that. I think there are other guys that, probably frankly,
in today's climate, don't want to be coached as hard
as Bill Belichick is going to coach them. And I
think did that exists too. I personally have no concerns
or doubts that Bill Belichick will do a great job
coaching football. I think he's Bill Belichick. He's going to

(06:53):
be a great football coach. He's going to do a
good job down there. I think the more fascinating part
of the story to me is that he seems to
have been shut out by the NFL. And why the
greatest coach of all time, who hung six banners in
this stadium right down the hall, is unable to get
back in at the NFL level. And I think it's

(07:16):
two things. I think one, which is probably the most
important thing, is the politics of the organizational hierarchy that
you were just talking about. It's not just the fact
that he wants control of the football operations. Bill Belichick
wants control of the building. And there are organizations, uh,

(07:39):
the way that these organizations are made, there are there
is a hierarchy. There is coach, general manager, then usually
team president, and then usually owner. And I go down
to Atlanta because that's just the closest that Bill's gotten
so far getting back into the NFL, and the problem

(08:00):
down there was foughten. Note they had a general manager, McKay,
they had a team president, and then you get up
to Arthur Blank. And I believe that it was the
the guys in between the coach and Arthur Blank that
vetoed Belichick because they're looking at it and they're saying, well,
if we hire Bill Belichick, you know what's my job

(08:23):
going to look like in a year? You know, he's
gonna muscle me right out of here. The owner wants him,
Like clearly the owner wants him. So so you know,
if I'm if I'm Terry Fondo, they're a general manager.
If I'm McKay, Rich McKay, their their team president. I
believe he's a president, is his title there in Atlanta.
You don't necessarily want the tycoon, the power that is

(08:46):
Bill Belichick in that building because you want yours, You
want to get your beak wet and all of these things.
So I look at that as a big part of
it from a political standpoint. You look at a team
like the Chicago Bears who need a head coach. They're
going to have Ryan Poles their general manager, they're going
to have a team president, and then they're going to
have an owner, and it's like, you have to get

(09:07):
all these people to be willing to seed power to
Bill Belichick, and that's just very not going to happen.
It's very unlikely.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
And I think he learned that, yeah, which is why
he's decided to take this different route. I want you
to listen in because it's it's a little amusing, but
these guys know Bill Belichick as well as anybody. Take
it with a grain of salt for what it is,
because it's obviously gonna with for entertainment purposes, right, But
I want you to listen to what they're saying and
then consider putting Bill, let's say, in the living room

(09:37):
of an eighteen year old kid, and what's really going
to be said there? All right, so this is Tom Brady,
Julian Alman, Rob Gronkowski, and I believe it came from
Brady's instagram if I'm not mistaken, but it was for
them on Fox, I believe originally. All right, Yeah, so
here's what they said to sec. Pelcheck is actually interviewing
for college jobs.

Speaker 5 (09:56):
Can you imagine him coaching college?

Speaker 3 (09:57):
No?

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 6 (09:59):
I think there's a lot of things he can do,
and obviously he's tremendous and even showing his personality, but
getting out there on the recruiting trail and dealing with
all these college kids.

Speaker 5 (10:06):
Out there with nil could.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
You imagine couch recruiting an eighteen year really want to
come here?

Speaker 5 (10:14):
And we don't really want you anyway?

Speaker 6 (10:16):
I mean, I guess you could come. We'll figure out
if your parents.

Speaker 5 (10:19):
And use off the third party, you're gone, you're off.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
The team.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
Broke up here among these guys.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, So obviously they were sort of making fun of
the whole situation until today when Inside Carolina was the
first to report that he had been offered the job.
Now it hasn't been accepted officially yet. To my knowledge.
I'm looking at you know, breaking news as we can here,
but at least the job is out there from Carolina's purpose.

(10:48):
All right, Bill, here you go. You want the operation,
We're going to give you the operation because they are
in a position to regain they want relevancy again in
this modern era of intercollegiate athletics where money is a
part of it all, and they feel like, well, shoot,
if we have Bill, we're gonna get the elite of
the elite. Because these guys want to be trained up
to get to the league. Why else do you go

(11:09):
d one? Anyway, everybody in Division one thinks they can
play in the NFL. Whether or not that's a reality
or not, is it's you know, it's a crapshoot. Really,
it's like rolling dice on the table. But the fact
is they feel like they can attract the kid who's
serious now because they're going to be coached up by
Bill and who knows who he's going to bring in.
I imagine that he's going to bring in guys all

(11:30):
with NFL ties to be a part of the staff
at North Carolina. If this is true, and then you're
gonna go out and you're gonna say open the doors
and say, all right, here you go. I don't think
Bill will ever have to go to a couch to
visit with an eighteen year old. I'm not sure that'll
ever happen, and I don't think that's his intent. This
is what I have. You want to you want a
pathway to the NFL, come to Carolina. That's it.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, it's a good point. And you definitely hear him
on McAfee kind of pitch that he's gonna it's gonna
be an NFL program in college. So exactly, this is
a prep school essentially, now the NFL prep That's a
great way to put it. Yeah, that's a great way
to put it. North Carolina is going to be an
NFL prep school. Yeah, And that's if you want that,
that's where you go. Look. I I'd still come back

(12:16):
to the NFL side of it. I think that's the
more interesting part of the story. And I just I wonder,
I wonder what Bill is hearing through his back channels
about his candidacy at the NFL level. I find it
really hard to believe that he would pass up on
being an NFL coach again for the University of North Carolina.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Which tells me again the NFL avenue is closing shut.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, yeah, And it's interesting because it just sort of
speaks to the climate of the NFL coaching carousel, which
we'll hit again here in about a.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Month, and we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna hit black Black Monday,
and I mean, who knows.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, we're gonna hear about you know, we're gonna talk
a little bit about Greg Bdard's reporting and things like that.
So it's it's relevant to the Patriots and I think
a lot of what these teams are looking for. We
talked about this on Unfiltered the other day. It's it's
Ben Johnson, It's the next Sean mcvay', it's the next
Demico Ryans in Houston. It's not a seventy two year

(13:16):
old Bill Belichick. It is a forty two year old
wiz kid. Right, who is the next Bill Belichick?

Speaker 6 (13:22):
Like?

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Who was Bill Belichick of the eighties Giants? Right? Like,
who's that guy? And how do we find that person
to be our head coach?

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Giants thought they had him and Brian Dable.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, right, you know, the next the number one coaching
candidate on the market is going to be Ben Johnson
from the Detroit Lions. I am guarantee you that. And
Ben Johnson's an offensive guy. He's a younger dude, He's
an offensive whiz. Like that's that's what teams want. And
I don't think it's totally what's the word. I think

(13:54):
it's relevant that the way that things went with Mac
Jones here in New England, I believe is really really
relevant because if you're a team like the Chicago Bears
and you're trying to pair a head.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Coach with your quarterback, saw what happened in New England.
It's kind of like, nah, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, because I think what you worry about with Caleb,
first of all, is the fragileness of Caleb Williams, and
not to go down the whole road of him crying
and hugging his mom and all that kind of stuff.
He did do that, but that's not necessarily what I mean.
I just mean the way that you have to manage
the athlete of today a little bit differently than maybe

(14:33):
the athlete of twenty years ago. In Tom Brady's case.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
So in a sense, he's going to basically reverse the trend.
You know, he's been handed all these kids that you know,
for whatever reason, have had their hands out. Now he's
going to go to the where they come from and
try to change the thought process. At North Carolina, Son,
you want to play in the NFL, We're gonna do
it this way. You don't have to come here. You
can go anywhere else you want to and grab your

(14:57):
bag of money and try to get to the NFL.
But I can show you how to get to the NFL.
And I think it's I think it's a unique perspective. Look,
I'm not telling you it's gonna work. I'm not sure,
but I think it's interesting that North Carolina is apparently
at a point where they want desperately to be relevant
again in this modern day and age of intercollegiate athletics.

(15:19):
Since then, they're like, let's go right to the source.
You know, kids want to get to the pros and
they want to get paid. All right, well, we're gonna
pay you what we can pay you here at North Carolina.
We're even going to share some revenue with you, which
is coming up, as we all know. But at the
same time, they want to go to the pro So
let's get a guy from the pros to show them
how to get there. It's a unique arrangement.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
If it works, Yeah, it's interesting because you know, I
tie it even more to the Patriots with Drake May.
Drake May and his initial recruitment out of high school,
he was the number one quarterback recruit in North Carolina,
as you can imagine, rivals five star quarterback prospect like
all the dines. And he originally committed to Alabama to

(15:59):
go play for Nick Saban, right, and that was because
the North Carolina program was a disaster. It was an
absolute disaster. I'm blanking on who their coach was at
the time, but they had like a one win season
in there at some point when Drake was in high school,
and it just it was a joke of a program,
like to put it bluntly, it just wasn't in a
good spot. And so Drake, you know, his father went

(16:20):
to North Carolina, his brother went to North Carolina. He's
from North Carolina. He wanted to in his heart of hearts,
to be au tar Heel, but for his football career,
it just made no sense for him to go to
North Carolina with the state of the program. So he
was getting offers from Alabama, Ohio State, USC and considering
all these other schools, and then mac Brown gets the

(16:43):
job at North Carolina. They fired the coach and mac
Brown gets the job at North Carolina, and Drake flipped
his commitment from Alabama back to North Carolina because he
felt more that it was more solid to go where
mac Brown was. So that program has been trying to
chase being more relevant, I would say, in the college

(17:06):
football landscape for probably half a decade now, since they
brought back mac Brown. Although it's a basketball school and
although it's known for that side for sure, I do
think they look at the ACC and see, besides Clemson, like.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
We should be competing for a title every year, you know,
why not us?

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Right, And they've been trying to chase that to be
more relevant on the football side, And they've had some
really good NFL prospects lately. Sure they'll come through that obviously,
Drake is probably the best, but you know, Sam Howell
was a really good college quarterback, and you know Amarion Hampton,
they're running back right now, Bryce and Nesbit their tight end. Like,
these guys are NFL caliber prospects. So it's not a

(17:48):
complete It's not like he's going to, like, you know,
coach football at at Wesleyan, right, like he's going to
coach football at a at a school that's in the power.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
For NFL on CBS, just to tweet it out. North
Carolina is nearing a deal to make Bill Belichick to
be its next head football coach. According to sources, nothing
has been finalized, but there's a growing sentiment within UNC
the deal is close. So there you go.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, So Adam Schefter just tweeted something similar, So maybe
that's what that was from an aggregation. So this is
a Pete Thamil who's like that, that Adam Schefter.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Of college petem So Pete, it's a longtime friend.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
North Carolina is working to try to close a deal
with Bill Belichick to make the six time Super Bowl
champion the tar Heels coach, but so Us told ESPN
there are still issues that both sides need to work through.
I think, you know, we're talking a little bit about
this on Unfiltered up today right before we started here.
The issues to me is about who he wants to

(18:43):
bring ye with him and how much North Carolina is
going to afford compensation for those people. Do those people
need buyouts at other schools that there are other places
they're currently at, so that I would say you are
going to get for better or worse. If you're North Carolina,
probably the better you are going to get the Patriots

(19:04):
all Stars of staffs. I think that there's a chance
that you see him A McDaniels. I don't know if
it's going to be Josh or his brother, but A McDaniels, Matt, Patricia,
Joe Judge. Yeah, everybody's the band is getting.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
You think Burg would leave Bill O'Bryant.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
I do. I think the band's getting back together at
North Carolina. Wow. And I think that you're getting all
of them.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
I get think you're getting the whole lot. And Patricia's
going to run the defense Benner. Josh McDaniels is.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
About his son moving from Washington run the.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, Steve, Steve, Yeah, that could happen. Maybe Patricia's in
like a senior coaching role or something like that. Instead,
he'd be.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
An associate head coach, which they need. You need programs
now in college need associate head coach slash gms because
they have to deal with nil. They got to deal
with you know, uh, money, they're gonna have to deal with,
you know, paying out revenue, and they're gonna have to
make tough decisions like you know, hey, we're paying this
kid a bag here and he's not producing, so guess
what you're out. That's the downside to this. Scholarships are

(20:07):
not what they used to be. They're just not going
to be, which is why this is a very dangerous
time for athletes in college athletics because they don't have
contracts like they do in the pros. I think you
go year to year with your scholarship in college now.
So if you're going year to year with your scholarship, O,
but I got a scholarship, right, But the money that
you're getting on top of that scholarship may not be

(20:28):
there if you're not producing.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah. It's interesting the aspect of Patricia too, because his
role when he came back from to the Patriots after
he got fired by the Lions, they were trying to
transition him into more of a front office role here
in New England. And then when Josh McDaniels leaves, they
need an offensive coordinator and he takes the job. You know,

(20:51):
he starts calling plays and running the offense. But he
was transitioning into a front office role, you know, administrative
front office role, maybe combination of sort of like Ernie
Adams and like a general manager type responsibilities. And that
was the vision. And they had a lot of different

(21:12):
things that he was involved in one of them. And
I know this reporting is out there, so I'm not
like breaking news. Was the practice facility that is going
on down the street, that's the plans. The original plans
for that started with Matt Patricia and and Bill Belichick,
you know, coming up with the concept of what exactly
a standalone practice facility would look like. So it would

(21:35):
it would make a lot.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Of stuff pushed in an overdrive. When the NFLPA survey
cannot made it public and the Patriots are at the
bottom of the list.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
It would make a lot of sense for Patricia to
be in in that kind of role for North Carolina
because I have the offensive coordinator thing with Patricia happened
here by mistake like that.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Was not it the terrible, egregious error of judgment.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, that was not supposed to go down like that. No,
I don't think that they expected McDaniels to leave as
quickly as he did. When when he left and I
don't think they might not even have expected McDaniels to
leave at all.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Frankly, all right, so you think the band is potentially
getting back together, which maybe what they're working out right
now as we speak. I don't know how you feel
about this. Can you imagine George hallis leaving the Chicago
Bears to go to Alabama or to go to Missouri,
or to go to UCLA, or to go to Illinois, Illinois,

(22:27):
let's just stay regional with the whole thing. Could you
have foreseen something like that? Or don Shula to leave
Miami to go to Florida State or the University of Miami.
Could you have seen that?

Speaker 2 (22:36):
I know, and I couldn't see this happening with Bill
unless to me, like what shocks me about it so much?

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Tom Landry going back to his alma mater at Texas.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, yeah, No, I mean, I.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Just I'm just that's that's the significance of this move,
if it happens.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, what's shocking to me is two things. One, does
he need to coach that badly? That's what I'm asking.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Why can't you just roll off into the sunset and
still be thought of as potentially the greatest coach of
all time. Forget football, forget football. You're gonna put him
in the coaching pantheon with guys like Wooden. Okay, uh
and and name another couple, you know, a bunch of
other coaches that you know in any name of sport,
name a great coach. He belongs in that discussion. You

(23:20):
want to put him on the Mount Rushmore of coaches.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
He's on the mountain.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Bill is on Mount Rushmore. Yeah, all right, So I
don't know if this is just, you know, for his
own satiation, for his own ego. And we talked about
ego being a huge part of this, and this is driving.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Isn't it a shot at his ego? That it's North Carolina?
And like I don't mean to like, I'm sorry, and
I know the quarterback of the Patriots.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
It was from understand, I understand. Yeah, I understand where
you're going with it.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
It's not Alabama, it's not LSU.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
No, no, but I would tell you, and I'm going
to try to put myself in bill shoes. This will
the only time I probably ever do this, right. But
as I look at the collegiate landscape, I'm looking at
a state university with relatively unlimited income because it is
a state in region, it's not a private school. There's
a big difference here. Uh, they're getting ready to share
their share of twenty two million dollars of revenue with

(24:13):
the athletes because of the whole you know, court issue
that's still not yet finalized. So the players are It's good.
What you're doing is you've got pro football, but you've
got it on a very uh structured level. The players
can be played paid maybe a few thousand dollars more
depending on who they are and what they do and
this kind of thing. But there is no multi year

(24:34):
contract to negotiate like there is in the NFL. So
the money thing is going to actually take care of itself,
if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
All right, But what's like the what's what does he
have to gain?

Speaker 3 (24:45):
He has he wrote to gain other than personal satisfaction
to show the world haha, I can still coach, Okay.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
But that's the part that I'm just scratching my head
about with this is I just don't I don't know
what he has to gain because we were just talking
about this off the air a little bit. Best case
scenario for North Carolina is like they're they're Colorado, right,
like he's he brings Oh.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
He's doing what Dion Sanders.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Is doing in Colorado, right, and totally different personalities, don't
get me wrong, but it just in terms of Dion
went to Colorado and made Colorado a relevant program, right,
Like that was not a relevant football program and overnight
it became a relevant football program. Great, but but Colorado's
not sniffing the college football playoff and they have the

(25:34):
Heisman finalist front runner and maybe the number one overall
pick in the draft. Actually they have maybe two number
one overall picks in the draft of Shador you want
to put him in this conversation, and they're not sniffing
the college football playoff. North Carolina's best case scenario is
like a ten win season under Bill Belichick where maybe
they're in the a SEC Championship game against Clemson and

(25:56):
maybe on a good day they win that AEC Championship
game and they earn an automatic bit. But like that's
such a stretch. And like Drake was in the in
the AEC Championship game a couple of years ago when
he was a true sophomore. He got to the AEC
Championship game with North Carolina, and they got their doors
blown off of them by Clemson in the AEC Championship game.

(26:16):
So I just I'm not understanding where, like what even
if you do a good job down there, it's all
relevant relative. It's not like Nick Saban doing a good
job at Alabama and winning national championships. The downside is
that he completely falls flat on his face. I just
I don't know. The more I think about it, and
the more I'm just like, why even do this?

Speaker 3 (26:38):
You know, because there is a need for him to
prove to himself. I told you this is ego driven.
You have to have the ego to be in this business.
You got to have the ego to maintain a prominent
role in this business. That's that's the only other reason
I can come up with. Now, one final thing before
we wrap it up and we move on to current things.
If you're the Patriots as an organization here overall, and

(27:01):
you see Bill Belichick again, arguably greatest coach of all
time go to the college ranks, are you breathing a
sigh of relief?

Speaker 2 (27:08):
I am, And look, I'm not speaking on behalf of
the organization, so don't get me wrong that, but I
totally am because honestly, it's stunk watching Brady go to
Tampa Bay and win a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers.
I have more, you know, as a fan, I definitely
have more heartstrings pulled by Brady, I would say than

(27:28):
I do with Bill. And maybe that's safe.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
By the way, I agree with you one. Yeah, if
he's gonna go someplace, Look, I didn't Oh my god,
I can't think of something worse. If he had gone
to like Buffalo, stayed in the Division, that would have
been worse. Now going to Jacksonville, but having him break
Don Shula's record with another team, I think that would
have kind of always been just sort of a stick

(27:52):
in the crawl, if you will, so to speak. It
just would have It would have been like, you know,
having that marble in your shoe or that rock in
your shoe that you can't get rid of, you know,
and and it would have always been there. But if
he's going to the college ranks to do it, I
am breathing a little easier now because because a his legacy,
whatever it will end up being over time, is secure

(28:13):
with New England and his bust when he goes into
the Pro Football Hall of fame is definitely going to
be about New England and not about the team that
he broke Shula's record with. Yeah, does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah? I mean, look, every single time you hear about
Tom Brady, you have to call him a seven time
super Bowl champion in the seventh isn't here, And that stinks.
That's things that hits you right in the gut, right.
So I look at it with Bill the same way
that you don't. My fear with Bill it was that
he was going to go to Buffalo Dallas, Philly.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Dallas so much because they would have been entertaining to
see the you know, the clash between him and Jerry Jones.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
But you go to one of my point is you
go to one of these teams that has already made roster.
You're not you know, Jacksonville. I don't think is that close, right, Yeah.
So you go to a team, you know, let's say
the Eagles were to fire Siriani because they flame out
in the playoffs. You know, they were, They're one and
done in the playoffs, and then you hire Bill and
then all of a sudden, Bill takes a loaded team

(29:11):
that's was a couple bounces away from winning a super
Bowl already a couple of years ago, and then gets
them over the top. Like, to me, that would be
that would be a gut punch for as as the patriot, Uh,
you know, from a patriot perspective. But this, whether he
succeeds or fails at the college drinks at North Carolina

(29:31):
is irrelevant. Like it does. It's not the pros, it's
not the same thing. It really just doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
All right, We're gonna well, we're gonna flip the script
a little bit here. It's a great story, it's breaking news.
And again if you just tuned in a little bit late.
But uh, a report today by Inside Carolina of the
twenty four to seven Sports network says that Bill Belichick
is finalizing the deal to take over as head football
coach of the North Carolina tar Heels. We've been surmising

(29:58):
what he would do about his staff and things along
those lines. NFL on CBS is also reporting the same thing. Now.
Adam Schefter has come out and reported the same thing.
So they're trying to work on the nitty greedy details
of probably staff and coaches and how much they're gonna
pay and what's it gonna look like if we give you,
you know, the total control like he wanted in the
NFL and apparently could not get. What's it gonna look like?

(30:20):
How much money is that gonna cost us? So that's
where they are with that story. The other big story
that I know Unfielder talked about earlier today. You guys
have talked about it as well, had to do the
report in the Boston Sports Journal. And Greg Badard of
VSJ is going to join us at the bottom of
the hour. We're coming up on three o'clock Eastern time
right now. He's gonna join us at three thirty because

(30:41):
he was the author of this story. The fact of
the matter is, is that what he said. And I'm
gonna paraphrase here and we'll let Greg explain it a
little bit more based on his findings that gered Mayo
as well as a lot of the players, but gered
Mayo specifically is fighting for his job, coaching for his
job over these last four games. Now, I don't happen

(31:02):
to personally believe it. You and I have talked about
this on this show. You guys have talked about it,
not unfiltered, you've talked about it, and I'm sure on
catch twenty two, you know with Alex So, Yeah, I
believe that there's no way they're dumping on Gerard after
just one year. I just don't think that the Crafts
will do business like that. That being said, That being said,

(31:27):
I also understand that based on ILLOK, if this thing
goes south, and I think this is really the essence
of Greg's reporting on BSJ, if this thing goes south,
then these guys get the crap beat out of him
over the last four weeks. It's not competitive football, and
they end up three and fourteen, and they're gonna solidify
one of those, you know, top three draft picks in
the draft. I would tell you that I could see

(31:50):
some reevaluation. Yeah, that doesn't mean I think they're going
to fire him. I don't, because I think they want
to give him another year. They want to try to,
you know, maybe make a few tweaks on the coaching staff.
I'm not saying they're going to fire the coordinators. I
know that a lot of people feel like that should
probably happen. I don't think that's necessarily going to happen
here because I think they feel like if they give
Girod the time to do with it, and hopefully the

(32:13):
personnel to do with it. The coordinators deserve the same regard,
and I don't disagree with that philosophy. I'm not gonna
be a CEO that's going to come and hire someone
to necessarily be fired. I wanted to work and maybe
mister Craft again, we're supposing here, we don't know. Maybe
he's decided, well, you know my gut on hiring Girod.

(32:34):
The sport has changed, new information has changed, different things
have happened. I don't think you can say, well, identified
this guy five years ago to be our head coach.
I think that's oversimplifying. Things change so rapidly in the
business of professional sports today. Now. I just don't think
you can hang your hat on any one reason. You
have to basically hang your hat on the fact that
you need to be flexible and you need to adjust

(32:56):
to way the sport is actually dictating it to you.
You can't tell football how to act, but football can
tell the team how to act. And that's basically what's
happening with these Patriots, and so maybe they want to
just they want to. We talked about this two weeks ago,
we talked about this last week. This is a referendum

(33:17):
on the remainder. This is twenty twenty five starts now.
Twenty twenty five started last week and the bye week,
and so this is the first game as far as
I'm concerned of twenty twenty five this week against Arizona.
And that's why everybody, including Girard, is likely coaching for
their livelihood. I just wonder how you feel about that overall.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, I think the first thing that I'd say, in
my mind, everybody is always being judged, and that's exactly
what Girod said this morning, whether it's GM head coach,
offensive cordner, defensive coordinator, quarterback. And this is a business
where if you can upgrade at one of the at

(33:57):
any position like defensive tackle, if there's a better defensive
tackle and the guy that's on your roster, then you
are going to try to sign or trade or acquire
said defensive tackle. And I think that trickles all the
way up to the top with general manager and head coach.
And I don't think that Gerard right now is in

(34:17):
a position where he's necessarily coaching for his job. I
think that's a little bit strong. But there's only questions
that people that are truly inside the building. We are
like you know, it's like a core, right, Like there's layers,
Like we're not inside the inside layer. We're on the
periphery looking in. And you know, the the people that

(34:38):
are truly inside, they're the only ones that can answer.
Is the program running the way that a super Bowl
caliber program should be run? And what I'm talking about
is that is more like the day to day like
are these guys getting the coaching and getting the game
plans and getting you know it? Is it a well

(34:59):
oiled machine? Is everything working the way it's supposed to work?
Is it looking the way it's supposed to look? You know,
only only the Crafts can truly answer that question. And
they come from a background right through their ownership with
Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick and even Pete Carroll where
they know what it looks like when it's supposed to

(35:20):
look the way it's supposed to look. Right, they know
when it's good and uh, And I can't answer that
question for them. All I can tell you is about
the football aspects, and I I definitely believe that there
are things that he will have to learn from like
Girodd will have to prove that he has learned from
some of these bumps in the road through his rookie

(35:42):
year as a head coach. Now that would mean giving
him another year to show that he has learned that.
But it's hard for me to say, because I think
going back all the way to January, you knew that
you were getting into a situation where the head coach
was probably not one hundred percent ready to be the

(36:03):
head coach. And if that.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Was that I think has to be I'm sorry to tell,
but I'm just gonna say that has to be at
the core of this issue. If anything, and again I
won't speak for the Crabs, I don't pretend to speak
for the Crabs, but if anything, you know, there has
to have been the discovery at some point in time
this season that, you know what, I'm not sure he
was ready for this. This could have been and should

(36:27):
have been handled four or five years ago. They should
have sent you out on his own. Go be a
coordinator someplace, Go warn under somebody else, Go make contacts
in the business. And when the time comes for Bill
to leave, we want you to contact us first, or
if you get another job or a coaching job, come
to us first. And you know we don't want to
be able to, you know, to have you back. He

(36:48):
should have been able to do that because Bill is
such and this is what I think a lot of
people are missing the vote on. Bill is such a
controlling figure, you know, in the locker room, you know,
in the front office, everything else. I'm not sure how
much his assistants really get a chance to grow. His
own son went off to the University of Washington to
learn how to really be a coordinator. Part of the

(37:08):
reason why they didn't give him the job here Lockstock
and Barrel. Okay, so that had to have affected Gerard
at some point that if you really wanted Gerard as
a potential head coach, you needed to send him off
to learn, and the and the Crafts failed to do that,
And I think that's where all of this is kind
of stemming from.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, I don't know if he needed to leave. I
think that there probably would have been a world where
there was some sort of buffer period. And I I
just look at I look at it, and I can't
help but consider some of the options that might be
in the carousel this year and not wonder if those

(37:50):
guys are maybe better equipped to do the job and
like I just said about players. You know, if you
Mac Jones is not getting the job done at quarterback,
so they trade him and they draft a new quarterback.
And to me, it's it's the same with everybody on
the team, in the entire organization. And I just look

(38:11):
at this coaching carousel and I don't I don't know
if you know, necessarily they would attract like the Ben
Johnson's and like these new up and coming names of
the world. But I just wonder if maybe there was
another step here. Maybe it was what you're talking about.
I know Greg's talked about it too, you know, him
going out underneath Bill's thumb and you know, being a

(38:31):
coordinator elsewhere over the last couple of years before taking
over as the head coach this season. Maybe it was that,
you know, maybe it was hiring a head coach that
you really really like and making Dradmeyo the defensive coordinator
of the Patriots, and then if that head coach doesn't
work out, or if it, you know, whatever, whatever that

(38:51):
timeline is. You know, girod Is continues as training and
continues to get better and continues to grow so that
maybe in five years he's the head coach of the Patriots,
or three years he's the head coach of the Patriots.
I just I can't help but looking at some of
the other options that might be on the market and
comparing it, because that's that's just the reality of the business.

(39:13):
It's a results based business. And you do wonder if
you get to this a year from now and we're
in the same boat, like you and I are sitting
in these exact same chairs a year from now talking
about a three and ten football team, like we're gonna
just be doing this all over again about this situation.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Won't do no. Honestly, if this team is three intended
this time next year, heads would have already rolled, or
at least should have.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, I just I guess that's the point that I'm
trying to make, is like, if you're the Crafts and
you already know that something's off with what's going on
around here, and something's not right about the way the
football program is being run, then you then you're wasting time.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
You know. The one thing that I keep coming back
to is, you know, if the Crafts and there are
other businesses that they have, if they needed to hire
a new CEO to run the business, would they have
taken somebody with abstually no experience in that position.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
It's a fair point. But I look at it, and
I've made this comparison before. You know, I'm a big
hoops guy, big Celtics fan. Joe Misula was not ready
to be the Celtics head coach when they had to
appoint him as interim head coach and the whole email
a Duoka thing went down. But Joe Mizula inherent a

(40:30):
team that had just been to the NBA Finals, So
that gave him the leeway to learn on the job.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Right because the talent was there. The Patriots don't have
this right.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
So now it's this double whammy of like, you have
this green head coach who's learning on the job, and
you also have a roster that's not ready to carry him.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
Just I think Gerrodmeo could have sufficiently carried the Kansas
City Chiefs probably.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
True or or an equivalent of that exhibit.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Yeah, I think so, because he would have had enough
surrounding him and he could have been exactly what he
should have been at that time. Is just sort of
a CEO overseeing it all. Yeah, But here he's got
to do too much of a lot more of the
dirty work than he would ever have had done in
this situation. And it's a great analogy with Missoula and
the Celtics, because I agree, I think that's where he

(41:20):
would have had success had the roster been up to snuff.
But the problem is that, unfortunately for Bill Belichick, all
the greatness that we've talked about him already today, he
left the covered kind of bear yea. And the draft
the last few years was crappy. Yeah, And the free
agents were brought in not good, not the best in
the world, one or two hits here and there, mostly
misses so context here, and he's been put you know,

(41:47):
the thought process I think was fine. I'm okay with
that again, but you got to surround him with the
right people. They haven't done that. And I'm talking about
both from a coaching standpoint and a player standpoint.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, I would say the biggest criticism for me that
I have this season of girod Mayo, just to come
to his defense a little bit. The press conference stuff
does not bother me one way or another. If that's
your thing. To go over his press conferences with the
fine tooth comb and every word that he says that
you don't like becomes a topic on Felger and Mas

(42:17):
and like, fine.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
There's no better point than to use Bill Belichick for
that regard. Ycau Bill was not in it to win
the press conference. Yeah, so so what if Girod you know,
has to backtrack or you know, speaks out of turn,
or doesn't really seem sure of himself or you know whatever.
He's not in it to win the press conference. He's
in this to win football games. Now, could his indecisiveness

(42:40):
on the field and on the sideline be causing him
to not win football games? If you want to get
to the heart of the matter, that's the heart of
the matter. We've seen him look a little like you know,
even though well I don't know if he's looked like it,
but he's acted like a deer in headlights in some instances,
and he's made some poor choices when it comes to
decisions on the field. All right, that's fine. Maybe he's
playing analytics. Maybe he's doing that. And you know how

(43:02):
I feel about nerds already. Anyway, I don't have much
use for him. I'm okay with you as a NERD
if you need to be I'm alright with that. But
that's about as much Nerd as I can take here,
all right, So I would just tell you though that
we're going about this wrong, and so yeah, we need
to figure out if we can fix the surrounding part
around Girod. I think that's the more easily fixable thing here,

(43:24):
because of the cap space and the money that you
have and the free agents available and certainly the ability
to draft with really only give an elliot wolf and
I would tell you last year was not good outside
of Tray May Drake May. He needs an opportunity to
show he can handle his job. This is the year.
And if we are as you said a little earlier,

(43:44):
we are sitting here next year at three and ten
talking about the same stuff, heads should rightfully roll.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that is to go back to,
my biggest criticism is not gonna do with press conferences
or anything like that. My biggest criticism right now is
the state of the Patriots defense and how that has
completely backtracked, completely cratered analytically. To go Nerd on you
for a second, right now, the Patriots statistically have the

(44:13):
thirty second ranked defense in DV away. They are the worst,
said last defense in the NFL and then went from
what tenth last year ninth. So I look at Girodd
and I see a defensive minded coach. I see a
former linebacker turn defensive coordinator or co defensive coordinator or
whatever you want to call him with Steve over the

(44:34):
last couple of years. And I say, that's your This
is your side of the ball. And so when people say, oh,
you know, let's maybe he needs to hire a senior
defensive assistant like Ben McAdoo is on the offensive side
of the ball to help DeMarcus Covington. Gerrod is supposed
to help DeMarcus Covington. That is his side of the football.

(44:59):
He the senior defensive assistant on the Patriots coaching staff
should be Girod Meyo. So the fact that the defense
and when I watch their defense right now, and I
thought he said it this morning, and he was spot on.
They look like eleven guys on an island. They don't
look like eleven guys playing on a string. They don't
play defense together. They're not tied in tune together. So

(45:21):
the plays that they make on defense, it's individuals making
a splash here or there. Right, it's Christian Gonzalez jumping
acrossing route. It's Jilannie getting into a passing lane, it's
Keon White getting to the quarterback. But it's not a
cohesive unit.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
It doesn't play what the defense wants to do.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah, it's eleven guys flying around all on their own.
And that's not how you play good football. That's not
good fundamentally sound, technically defensive football. That's not how especially,
I would say, on that side of the ball. That's
not how it works.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
Nope.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
And the guy that is supposed to be quality controlling
that side of the ball and keeping those core fundamentals
that they had in the Belichick era with that defense
is jiroed So if he's not holding up the defensive
side of the ball anymore, and other people that aren't
me are critiquing him for sort of the CEO elements,

(46:21):
you know, the game management and the press conferences and
like all that kind of stuff, then I'm just struggling,
like I'm struggling to make a case. Yep, right, because
if he was, you know, there's a lot of great
coaches at coach defense. I think the best example, just
for Girrod, the best comp is Demiko Ryans in Houston,

(46:43):
just because two former linebackers, young guys head coaches in
the NFL. Demiko Ryans calls the Houston Texans defense. He
runs the Texans defense, Bobby Slowick runs the offense, and
Demiko Ryans runs the defense. So I can point and say,
this is Demiko Ryans's imprint on this team. Is how
they play defense, and how they they get after the quarterback,

(47:06):
number one pass rush in the NFL, and how you
know they have guys like you know that are emerging
on that side of the football. You know that's Demiko Ryans.
I said it from the beginning. I just wish that
Girod Mayo took more of that approach where you're not
an experienced coach to be having your hand in every

(47:27):
single pile.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
He's trying, ironically to be Bill when he's not Bill.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
No one's Bill. And so Bill could just pull from
fifty years of NFL coaching experience of defense, offense, special teams,
you know, personnel, right draft, like all these different elements
of what it goes into running a football team. Wanted
I never wanted Girod to be the CEO. I always

(47:53):
wanted him to be the defensive coordinator and then hire
an experienced offensive coordinator. And this is one thing I'll
push back a little bit on some of Paul's shows.
As we like to call him, Alex Van Pelt is
an experienced offensive coordinator. He's not an experienced play caller,
but he's an experienced offensive coordinator. He's been an offensive
coordinator in the league for a decade, right, you know,

(48:15):
he's got plenty of.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
And we should we should clarify here. There is a
difference between offensive coordinator and play caller, right, even though
everybody thinks, well, the offensive coordinator calls the place, not
all the time.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
So he hired, in my mind, a guy that's been
around the block on the offensive side of the ball,
both played in the league, played quarterback in the NFL,
has coached offense for about two decades, has been in
the offensive coordinator chair. I think that that higher has
more or less worked out, you know, Drake Mayson, I.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
Don't have I really honestly. Look, we can be very
critical and nitpick over all of this stuff. We used
to do this in our old nitpick Tuesday shows, right Marine,
when we were.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
You know, it would be nice to be doing that, right, now, yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
I know, well that's when the team was good. So
we're nitpicking all the little things. But I don't think,
you know, nitpicking Allen's van Pelt is really what we
should be doing, because he had to learn as a
play caller, and he also had to learn as he
had to adjust to the talent that he had, and
we can all admit the talent has been inconsistent at best.
Yeah this year, so let's let's let's look at the

(49:20):
entire picture. I don't think you can lay really the
blame for any lack of success on Alex van Pelt.
Can you argue with this thing or that thing? Of
course we all can this job. You're in this position
to be scrutinized, and you're going to be when you're
in the public eye like that, and I'm sure those
guys are big boys and they can take it. The
same thing goes with DeMarcus Cummington. I would tell you

(49:41):
that of late, DeMarcus and the defense have had the struggles,
whereas Alex Van Pelt on the offense have not had
as many struggles because he has Drake May to coach
up and to teach, and we can see that Drake
has the talent to do that. We don't have that
on the defensive side of the ball. We have Christian Gonzales,
but because of the position, the nature of the position
that he plays, he's not really in a position to

(50:03):
affect much of anything else when the quarterback affects everything
else on the offense.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Yeah, it just feels to me like the move for
Gerrod was. I'm really good at defense. That's my side
of the ball, that's my area of expertise. So what
I'm gonna do is I'm going to keep it rolling
on defense, Like we had a pretty good defense last year.
We're gonna get Gonzalez back. You know, we're gonna get

(50:28):
Marcus Jones. Not as good Christian Zalez, but we're gonna
get some guys back on the defense side of the
ball that were out for to injuries last year. And
I'm going to make sure that the ninth raded defense
in DVA in twenty twenty three is the ninth rated
defense again at least in twenty twenty four, if not better.
I mean, we were talking before the season national media.
You know, I don't think she'll mind me saying this,

(50:50):
Like Mina Kaimes thought that they were going to be
like a top five, top ten de bets in the NFL.
I was with her, like, we did not see this coming.
And they've had some injuries and you know, Juwan Bentley
goes down and far more missy, which is.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Why at the beginning of the year I thought five
or six wins was very realistic.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Yeahesay, but still they had injuries last year too, you know,
they lost guys last year. I just that has always
been the thing to me, is like, why did he
make the decision to try to go, uh the CEO
route instead of I'm gonna focus on my side of
the ball. I'm gonna make sure that we're still on
in line on defense.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Turn the offense over to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Turn the offense over to a alexavam Pelt or whoever
the hire was, and then all the head coaching stuff. Yeah,
like we'll worry about that in game stuff and we'll
have you know, and Evan Rothstein or something like that
to help me out with that. And now that's you know,
that's why the in game stuff gets over scrutinized because
like that's what he's doing on the sideline is to

(51:49):
turn you know, running the clock at the end of
the half, or when to call timeouts or when to
challenge plays, like when you're the CEO head coach, like,
that's that's what people are going to point to, is
your job, Like that's that's what you're supposed to be doing.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
So it's why it's why people in the stadium yelling
scream when they think you should challenge your play. Yeah,
you know, and it takes almost the crowd in Foxborough
to encourage him to do that, and it shouldn't be
that way.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, So I I just I never liked I didn't.
I never loved the setup, I guess, is what I'm
getting at to begin with. I never in that respect,
I never loved it, and now we're seeing it go through.
So again, like I said, only the crafts can answer
whether or not. Behind the scenes, it's it's it's moving
in the right direction. Like we can determine it based

(52:35):
off of the film and the wins and losses and
all that kind of stuff, but it's a vibe like
it's a thing that you just kind of have to
be there for that we are not privy to. So
they can only answer that question. But it's an interesting
conversation because I I do look at this coming up
coaching carousel. You're gonna have Mike Rabel Well, I think

(52:56):
is a really really strong candidate. Ben Johnson is is
I think we'll take a job this cycle. You know,
there's gonna be some options out there, and uh, you know,
as Bidard reported, as Greg reported, like you can't help but.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Kicking tires, you got to think about it because you
have a chance to better your organization. And I think
that was also the impetus for his story is largely, Hey,
the Patriots need to be considering these things that they're
really interested in getting back to where they were or
getting back close to where they were just a few
short years ago.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
And maybe the answers is that we like who we have,
you know, like maybe they determined that. And I would
also just say and Girodd's defense because I say both
sides of the story. Like the one thing I would
say for Gerrod is that there is a nice comp
and he's brought up the comp before, and that is
Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions. Dan Campbell was three

(53:51):
thirteen and one in his first season with the Detroit Lions.
They were not a good football team. They came here
and he went for it on fourth down six times,
and they went zero for six and got blown out
by Bailey Zappy in the Patriots like twenty nine to nothing. Yeah, okay,
so they were not a good football team. And Dan
Campbell's first season that seems like that was like a

(54:11):
decade ago, doesn't. Yeah, Aaron Glenn, they're defensive coordinator. Similarly
to DeMarcus Comington took on a lot of water early
on in his tenure as the defensive coordinator in Detroit. Now,
Dan Campbell's the darling of the NFL. The Detroit Lions
are the best team in football, right, Aaron Glenn's going

(54:32):
to be a head coaching candidate this carousel, along with
Ben Johnson, their other coordinator. Like they're they're gonna be
the number one seed in the NFC. Like all these
things have now come up Detroit. So if you're looking
for a path for girod Mayo to go from worse
to first type of thing, the Detroit Lions are staring
at you right like that that's a path that exists
out there. And to Dan Campbell's credit and to Aaron

(54:54):
Glenn's credit, like those guys got better on the job.
They learned on the job, and they improved and they
got better at it on the job. And and maybe
Gerrod is one of those guys too.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
Maybe then Campbell that three thirteen one season, didn't he
win like two of his last three or two his life? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (55:10):
They were three and three in their last in.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Their last six. Yeah, right, Okay, So that I think
was part of the impetus of the the article that
uh Bdard wrote on BSJ. Yeah, that the Patriots want
to see He's saying, the Patriots whoever, the Patriots are upstairs. Yeah, okay,
they want to see that kind of effort, if not
that kind of result, but the want to see hard
fought you know, stuff that matters football over these last

(55:35):
four games. Otherwise they actually might consider making a switch.
That's the crux of the story.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
It's a fair thing to expect, and we've talked about
it a lot, like the draft pick versus momentum and
trying to build through the future. I definitely fall on
the let's even if they're competitive losses to Buffalo, Like
if they lose, you know, they go up to Buffalo
next week, it's gonna be freezing cold. I can't wait,
and and and they lose it. Yeah right they Let's

(56:04):
say they lose a thirty to twenty seven game to
Buffalo where they they're Drake may is toe to toe
with Josh Allen, and maybe Josh Allen leads a game
winning drive as they and I would sit here and
say that's great. Like that showed me step in the
right direction, right, That showed me some some marbles. That
showed me some some uh you know the Hamidship Metal

(56:26):
the word is so yeah cohone. That showed me some.
That showed me that this team is headed in the
right direction. All right, So give me a couple of
those games. You know the Chargers here, that's gonna be
you know the Chargers. I the Chargers are better now,
Jim Harba. Let's see, the Chargers are a warm weather
dome football team that's gonna come here and play in

(56:48):
the freezing cold right in a couple of weeks. So
can you be the tougher, more disciplined, you know, better
prepared for the Elements football team than a Chargers team
that still has some warts. Like if you do those
types of things, I think you head into twenty twenty
five with some momentum, and if you have the eighth
overall pick instead of the third overall pick in this

(57:09):
draft in particular, I do not think that that's going
to matter. This is not a quarterback draft for the Patriots.
They're not a quarterback team. And it's not particularly one
of those drafts where you have like a you know,
a Miles Garrett or like a Von Miller, where it's like,
we have to come away with this guy. You know,
it's it's it's not a great draft at the top.
I'm just gonna be honest, I don't think it's a

(57:30):
great draft. And so the difference between the player you're
gonna get at three and the player that you're gonna
get eight, I don't much. I don't think it's gonna
be that.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Probably not much. I'm sitting here snickering to myself because
it's amazing that, you know, after all these years and
everything we've been through, we're now comparing ourselves to the
Detroit Lions.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah, it's what a time to be alive.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
Right, Well, it gets to my original point here is
that you need to learn to adjust to the game. Okay,
you've got to learn to adjust to the game. The
game doesn't adjust to you. You adjust to the game.
This is what the sport dictates. Teams rise and fall,
you know, like the drop of the mercury outside, you know,
for on a thermometer. Yeah, so if you don't learn
to adjust, you're gonna get trampled. And the Patriots right

(58:13):
now are trying to avoid being trampled. Yeah, that's kind
of where I'm looking at it.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah, And I do wonder, just to finish out the
Lions thing. I do wonder if some of the conservativeness
of his in game decisions, you know, fourth down, like
when to go for it, when not to go for it,
you know, playing for field goals before halftime, like those
types of things. I do wonder if some of this
reporting by Greg is made to light a fire under

(58:40):
their butts a little bit, to be a little bit
more aggressive and a little bit more pedal to the medal.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
And maybe somebody fed him some information in order to do.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
That, Because when you're an underdog and you go into
these games, you know, and you're you're a six and
a half point underdog on Sunday in Arizona, you're three
and ten. If it's a fourth and two from the
twelve yard line, Like what do you got to lose?

Speaker 3 (59:02):
Yeah? Right, like go go for the touchdowns? Right, Yeah,
I agree with that that point that I also want
to see that as well. A little more aggressive is year,
because you don't have anything to lose. And before I
let you go, we got to spend at least two
minutes on the Cardinal game. Yes, coming off the bye week,
the Cardinals are staggering a bit themselves. Yeah, and they're
still fighting mathematically for a playoff spot. So I find

(59:23):
this a little bit of intrigue. You're going to likely
get their best shot this week.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Yeah, you probably will. I think the other side of
it is, you know, they're lost last week to Seattle
for all intents and purposes, lost in the division, Like
they really have no path now to win the division
in the NFC West, and they have about I think
ESPN has them in an eight percent chance to make
the playoffs. So they're they're pretty much dead.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
They're hanging on the as we call it, the skin
of their teeth.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Yeah, they're they're they're teetering like they're pretty much dead.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
So are they ready to roll over and play?

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
We don't know which way they're gonna go and I
the Patriots that by the way, And I'm not the
biggest Jonathan Gannon guy either, to be honest with you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
So I don't know where that speaking about programs like,
I don't know where that program is headed right now either. Now,
they have more talent than you, there's no doubt about that.
They have more star power, I should say, than you.
You know, they Kyler Murray, Marvin Harrison Junior, James Connor,
Trey McBride, Buddha Baker on the defensive side of the ball.
Like these are household names. These are names people know.

(01:00:30):
These are names that people draft in fantasy football, right
like that. That's those types of things. So they have
that name recognition, that star power. But I look at
this as a winnable game, I do. I think offensively
for the Patriots, this is another team that's gonna play
a lot of zone coverage. They're gonna play a lot
of soft zone against Drake May. They're gonna bring pressure
from different places, you know, all these fire zones and

(01:00:52):
creepers and things like that the defensive coordinators run nowadays.
So he's gonna have to decipher through some of that
a little bit. But it's not all that different from
what he saw against the Colts the Rams. So they're
gonna play these soft zones. There's gonna be opportunities to
move the ball through the twenties. The biggest question for
the Patriots the fifth rank red zone defense in the

(01:01:12):
league in Arizona. So can you finish drives? And to
go back to our point about fourth down, you might
need four downs, right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
And hope that you get like, you know, two out
of four.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah, it's a really good red zone defense. You're not
a good red zone offense. The Patriots are thirtieth in
red zone offense. The car knows our fifth in red
zone defense strength against weakness, Right, So you might need
to go for it on fourth down. You might need
to be a little bit more aggressive inside the twenty.
I would love to see you have this guy that's
got a great arm, like when you get to the

(01:01:44):
fringe red zone, when you get to the twenty five,
like throw some into the end zone from you know,
from outside the red zone and skip the red zone
all together. You know, like those types of things I
think are in play this week. And I look at
the you know, the Cardinals offense. To me, the biggest
worry in this game on either side of the football
is the Cardinals run game against the Patriots run defense.

(01:02:07):
Because James Connor is a downhill runner. They are a
downhill run team. They are, You'll love it. They're a
gap team there. Let's pull a guard and let's get
them up on the linebacker. Yeah, and James Connor is
right down your throat, right like, that's what they're gonna do.
So are the Patriots going to be able to stand
up to that?

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Which is why I don't see this as a winnable game.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Yeah, it's a tough one. They don't run Kyler quite
as much as they used to, just to preserve him
as the franchise quarterback. But James Connor has had some
huge games this year, you know, two hundred plus rushing
games as a team. And you also do have to
worry about Kyler, you know, running as.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Well, and they haven't played him well in the past. Yeah,
they just haven't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Yeah, if you can get it to third down against Kyler.
The one sort of film slash analytics crossover with Kyler
is he doesn't handle blitz pressure well, so you can
bring the house against him. He wants to move around
back there. So you add guys into the rush, you
can kind of trap them, right, you can get multiple athletes,
you know, dB safeties.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
That worries me, though you can chase. That just worries
me because we you know, when you rush, our guys
have had a tendency long to overtrush. And you know
he steps into the pocket, then shoots up the middle
and in turns a sack into a thirty yard game.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
It's a fear. But you know, looking at the stats,
he is the worst quarterback in the league when teams
bring six or more rushers, dead last in the EPA
per drop back.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
And I'm bringing the house, So I would.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Be got to get him into those positions. Yeah, you
got to get him into third and long.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Well, that means you got to You've got to make
sure that you're you're you're taking care of Connor in
first and second down primarily.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Right exactly now you're speaking my language.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Okay, So there you go. All right, So that's what
we have to look forward to this week. I mean,
you know, opportunity, as you said, I just don't know
if the way that they run, with the personalities involved,
the athletes involved, I don't know that this is necessarily
I mean, I could be wrong if you don't shoot
yourself on the foot, you know, with a lot of
needless penalties. To that end, we might have some reinforcements

(01:04:05):
arrived this weekend on the offensive line.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Yeah, yeah, we'll see if Cold Strange where he fits in.
I'm not quite sure yet if he's going to play center,
because you know, I asked her Rod this morning about
the continuity with Ben Brown and Drake May and the
quarterback center exchange and how important that can be. I'm
wary of changing that, you know, you maybe you can
ask Greg about it, because I'm interested in his perspectively.

(01:04:27):
That's such a big deal, you know, the the snappis change,
the communication, like trusting your center is such a big part.
I feel of just getting the playoff, like it's getting
everybody pointed in the right direction and getting the snap
off and all that kind of stuff is big, and
for the most part it's been pretty clean with Ben Brown.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
I appreciate your willingness to stick around and talk all
these issues today. Anytime, you know, you'd think a three
to ten team with four games left in the season
has nothing to talk about. Talk about today Are you serious? Really,
these are the New England Patriots. Yeah, all right, there's
always something to talk about. Yes, thanksving anytime, yep, have
a good trip to Arizona. Thank you, all right, stay
warm if you can, right right. Patriots fans, If you

(01:05:07):
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(01:05:28):
the toll free telephone number. You know that eight five
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talk to you. You want to send us an email,
you can certainly do that. Podcasts at Patriots dot com.
You can also hit me up on x at JR
Broadcaster if you have a question you'd want to go
that way, or a comment to make, or a story
to share or whatever you like. I'm in tune on that.

(01:05:49):
I want to take some time now to bring in
the aforementioned Greg Badart, who of course owns operates covers
the Patriots for Boston Sports Journal. Greg, I really appreciate
your your taking just a few minutes today because you're
the one that kind of stirred a little bit of
a hornet's nest around here and getting us to consider, wow,
could they really let Jerrod Mao go? And so we

(01:06:11):
spent most of the first hour of the program talking
about the pros and cons of what you have to
what you had to report, and so I'm just curious
to note what you your where your approach is coming
from here. Do you really feel like letting him go
is a succinct possibility or is this all predicated on

(01:06:32):
how the Patriots play over the last four weeks before
they get into that process of determining he's he's you know,
easy enough to keep around.

Speaker 7 (01:06:41):
Yeah, John, thanks for having me. Of course, look at
this point, with with four games to play, I would
say that it's it's in the likely unlikely to highly
unlikely category as far as the prospect of letting Gerrod
Mayo go after a year. But I do think from

(01:07:05):
the people that I've talked to that there's a keen
interest in seeing how the team finishes the season, and
you know they are going up up against better competition.
I think they have the thirty first or thirty second
pass schedule as far as Dvoa to this point and
the rest of the year, I think it's either two
or number one, So they're taking a big step up

(01:07:27):
in the competition. Even with the Cardinals, we who have
lost three games in a row, They've still done a
lot of good things this season, and they're well coached
and they have some talent. But yes, do I think
it's a possibility. Yes, do I think it's going to happen. No,
I think that I think that the players are playing hard.

(01:07:50):
I think, you know, hopefully the coaches used the bye
week to correct a few things, and hopefully they are
very competitive down the stretch. She just you know, the
prospect of them possibly getting blown out in the final
four games. If that happens, then I do think all
options are on the table. But as we stand here

(01:08:11):
right now, I would say it's it's unlikely. I think
that gerrod Meo has done enough at least to get
another season, But again, that's why they play seventeen games
to see what happens.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
In the final month, sure, of course. And I, you know,
basically have kind of thought what you have reported all along.
You know, some of it public's most of it private.
That you know, Look, everybody is evaluated on a week
two week basis. You have to be in professional sports
because the sport changes so rapidly and if you're not
changing with it, then you're left behind and you're onto

(01:08:44):
the next. In this particular regard, though, I guess it
was just the starkness to see it in print. To
be honest with you, that you know, hey, four games
have to play. If they get blown out by four games,
everything's on the table. And I would tell you, yeah,
it should be on the table. Now. Do I think
that they're gonna make the pull the trigger? Nope, I don't.
I think they're gonna give him and Elliott Wolf both

(01:09:04):
another year to try to correct this. And if we're
still sitting here and Evan and I were just talking
about this, if we're still sitting here next year and
this team is three and ten, we're talking about the
same things, heads will roll, and they rightfully should, because
you've had two years now and you've made no gains.
In fact, you could arguably say you've taken a step
backwards in two years and that's not the direction this
team wants to go. Is it possible, Greg that maybe,

(01:09:26):
just maybe this is a way to light a fire
under these guys to left, let them know that, hey,
don't get too comfortable here.

Speaker 7 (01:09:33):
It could be. It wouldn't be the first time in
my uh uh long career, John where somebody has used
me to send a message to UH coaches or players.
So I mean, that's that's certainly possible. But I do
think they're I think there are a bunch of interesting
dynamics this time around, say just like a normal you know,

(01:09:54):
coaching hire. As far as girodmeyo about you know, the
succession plan, they didn't go through a full search. They
they passed on Mike Rabel last year. He's still out there.
Amazingly he could win to wind up with the Jets.
I also think they're there may be some dynamic with

(01:10:18):
the higher ups in this organization. As far as you know,
I think there was a sentiment there. There was a
sentiment among upper management with the Patriots to perhaps move
on from Bill Belichick after after the the Matt Patricia
year and Robert decided to stay the course and things

(01:10:40):
got worse. Do they look at that decision and say,
we can't make that mistake again? There's the whole Drake
may dynamic. You know, is this the right thing for
him right now? Do you know after getting a whole
look and again that's what this would be seventeen games,
you know, getting a whole look, a whole season at

(01:11:00):
girod Mayo? Do they think they do they think he
has it? Do they think he will grow into the role?
Do they have second thoughts about that? I think there
are a bunch of interesting dynamics at play, But I
think that Gerrod Mayo can make this a moot point
if he gets this team to play well in the
final four games, you know, against some stiff competition.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
Sure, you know. The Vabel issue is, do you feel
like that that this is going to come back and
present pressure in any form of fashion with him still
being out here and if he goes or if the
Jets start really getting serious and stiffing around about him
coming in to New York, could there be some sort
of you know, a move maybe to appeal to you know,

(01:11:44):
make the move in advance of the Jets making a move.
I mean, I can't think of anything more disastrous for
the Patriots right now than they have Mike Rabel go
coach in New York.

Speaker 7 (01:11:53):
I now the prospect, I think I think it does, John,
I think it does put a little bit more pressure
on the situation, especially if Mike, who you know, I
know ownership thinks very highly of and you know, not
only as a as a person and former player, but
his abilities as a coach, which are proven, And are
you going to let that pass twice and then possibly

(01:12:16):
see him twice a year, you know, for the next decade,
or do you say, you know, you know Girod just
it was going to take too long for him to
grow in this role. He was too much a neophyte
when we when when we coach him. We can't afford
to be late on this again like we were with Bill.

(01:12:37):
You know, we're going to press forward and we're gonna
we're going to make a change. I mean, I do
think I do think that's possible, and I think Rabel
does complicate things a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
If not Rabel, would there be any chance at all
getting in on one of the hot uh up and comers.
And I'm looking directly after Detroit Lions in this particular instance.
I don't know. Could that also be a factor here?

Speaker 7 (01:13:05):
I think, I think absolutely, And I think you know,
I you know, we all know that Robert's very sentimental.
Do we think that Jonathan is the same way. I
would say most people who know Jonathan would say he's
more analytical and a little bit more of a critical thinker.
And I it doesn't take a football genius to realize

(01:13:27):
that after this season, uh, the pay's job if it
was open with Drake Maysk as your franchise quarterback, no doubt,
one hundred and twenty million dollars in cap space, a
top three pick in all likelihood, and sort of a
clean slate, and plus ownership is really good. They're going

(01:13:48):
to build a new football only facility. I mean, to me,
compared to all the other potential openings, the Patriots are
by far would be the most enticing proposition for anybody.
So you know, if you're talking about you know, Ben
Johnson or Mike Rabel or who have you, I mean,
compared to some of the other you know, especially ownership

(01:14:11):
situations in different play places, team presidents and general managers
hanging over your head, this would be extremely tempting. And
I also think that factors into the crafts thinking when
everything is all said and done.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
Sure, and I'm wondering how much that NFLPA vote which
got the Patriots, you know, the fire under them to
build this football only facility, how much of a factor
really does that. It seems to me, Wow, they've done
this in a short amount of time. It's only been
a year, because it was a year ago where the
Patriots a thought of it to not be one of
the more attractive jobs in the NFL. Now we're talking

(01:14:47):
it's come this far, this long. Somebody has to be
given credit for that. Who gets the credit for that?

Speaker 7 (01:14:56):
Well, I mean, I guess I guess you would say
Bill Belichick in a way, because he completely drained the
cupboard and it didn't spend that much money and had
you know, has pushed for a football only facility for
a long time. But I think I think this is
more of a case of the Patriots just bottoming out
than anybody should get credit for that. But you know,

(01:15:18):
certainly ownership stepping forward and saying we're going to fix
these things doesn't hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
Yeah. Yeah, So they're just committing to some of them,
they probably knew they needed to commit to already anyway,
in an effort to help the new people and the
new kids on the block, so to speak.

Speaker 7 (01:15:32):
Right, yep, absolutely, all.

Speaker 3 (01:15:34):
Right, then very quickly about the game this week against Arizona.
You've got it's a kind of an interesting scenario here.
You've got a team that's hanging by the skin of
its teeth in the playoff run. As I mentioned a
couple of moments ago, it gets a team that needs
to win and put his best foot forward in order
potentially to save jobs around this place. So I wouldn't
normally think of a game somebody six and seven another

(01:15:57):
team three and ten as to be a big game,
but this one does have some intrigue to it.

Speaker 7 (01:16:03):
Yeah, no question. I mean, you know, the Cardinals I
have a lot of respect for, you know, they're they're
coaching out there. I think Gannon's excellent what he does
on the defensive side of the ball. Even last year
when they were really struggling, I thought they really played
hard and showed a lot. Drew Pittsick, the offensive coordinator,
does a really good a lot of good things. Kyler

(01:16:25):
Murray is struggling, you know, right now at this point.
But uh, you know, a guy like James Connors out there,
and and there's a lot of talent, and they have
a lot to play for and coming off a three
game losing streak, Uh, this is basically they have to
win this game to to have any hopes of the playoffs.
And I think they're they're going to sort of be

(01:16:46):
licking their chops to to get right in this game.
And it's on the Patriots coming off of buye getting
a little bit of rest, getting a mental rest. Uh,
it's on them to be ready to go, because I
do think the Cardinals are going to bring it on Sunday.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
Greg, I appreciate the time, Thanks for it today and
and good luck. Maybe we'll keep reading.

Speaker 7 (01:17:03):
Sounds good.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
Thanks bout you got it, Greg Bedard Greg at Greg
A Bedard b E D A R D on X
if you want to follow him there. Like I said,
he's the one that wrote the story on Boston Sports
Journal about the fact that this last four games could
easily be a referendum in the not only the history
but the future of Girodmeo here in New England. So

(01:17:25):
and it starts this week against against the Arizona Cardinals. Uh,
and and fair or not, that is the business of
pro football, So be that as it may. I just
I just I'm left here kind of scratching my head
a little bit because, as I said earlier with Evan,

(01:17:45):
I'm I don't see the Patriots giving up the ghost
on Jirad. I just find that to be distasteful, if
anything else. But then again, this business is full of
distasteful moves all the time. And if they're not going
the direction that they feel they need to go in
order to eventually be successful, or they can't arrive at

(01:18:07):
that conclusion that we don't think we're going in the
right direction, then yeah, they absolutely have the right, if
not the duty, to stop it and correct it. It's
their property, it's our property. The fans are the ones
that you know, pay the freight for the tickets and
everything else that goes on. And yeah, and the fans here,
certainly over a number of years have been spoiled with
the Super Bowls and all the championships and you winning,

(01:18:30):
and now it's going south again. And I would tell
you that this is just a byproduct of playing and
being a fan and being a part of the national
Football League. Everybody goes up and down, like you know,
like you know, the thermometer with the temperatures outside. You know,
there will come a point in time where, you know,
the Kansas City Chiefs, who are you know, without question
right now still up in the hierarchy of the NFL,

(01:18:52):
But the Detroit Lions now are charging hard, and you know,
and then we could see, you know, if they are
usurped in some form of fashion Kansas City by Detroit
or somebody else for the next two years, we'll probably
see that team, you know, remain competitive for three, four
or five years. It's just the way that the league
has set itself up and the way that you can

(01:19:12):
you know, re establish yourself and the way that you
can compensate yourself with free agency through the draft. You
still have to have individuals that have ability to recognize talent,
to recognize availability, to recognize value. That was one of
the things that Bill Belichick did so incredibly well as
he understood value. This is how the Patriots were able

(01:19:33):
to build in the first place. So if you really
want to remain where you were, get back to where
you were, if you're New England, then you have to
remember how this team was built, and that is on value.
Now maybe that value has changed, Maybe the way to
obtain or even determine that value has changed. I would

(01:19:56):
argue that it has just because free agency being is
as prevalent as it is, and you can literally change
your roster overnight if you're picking the right guys. And
that's kind of where the Patriots are in the middle
right now. They have not picked the right guys. Let's
all be honest here. They have not done that through
the draft. They certainly have not done that recently for
the most part, through free agency. It is on the

(01:20:18):
scouting staff and Elliott Wolf to do just that this year.
Otherwise all bets are off, All bets should be off,
and you probably need to reevaluate getting back to the
way you were. You probably have to figure out an
entirely new plan altogether. And that may be part of
the reason that we're juggling these things right now. Between

(01:20:39):
we know how we won before, can we do it again?
Or we need to just forget about that and move
on to a different direction in a different way to
do things. Russell Baxter's going to join us as he
always does, you know, for a look around the NFL
at some things. I believe the NFL announced today that
they're going to Berlin next year in twenty twenty five
for regular season games. We'll talk a little about that

(01:21:00):
and we'll get his thoughts on the Patriots in Arizona
coming up again in just a couple of moments. But
want to get to the phones as well, and thank
our guys for hanging on through the conversations here, Patty
and Aguam. You're still there, Patty?

Speaker 8 (01:21:13):
What is going on?

Speaker 9 (01:21:14):
John?

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
Hey? Baby? How you doing.

Speaker 9 (01:21:17):
Doing all right?

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
What do you think about all this noise today?

Speaker 9 (01:21:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:21:23):
I kind of.

Speaker 8 (01:21:23):
Agree with you, Like I just don't see how for
the good of your future franchise quarterback, which I mean,
Drake may looks like he has all the intangibles and
all the skills to be that guy. I mean, why
would you want to start shuffling your coaching staff around
after the first year.

Speaker 3 (01:21:40):
Yeah, I don't think you want to. I really don't,
and I find it to be a little far fetched.
But if this team lays an egg, and I'll just
leave it at that over these last four games and
they are non competitive, then they should take a look.
And this is where I will actually agree with Greg
Badard and his premise in the story that he wrote. Listen, listen,

(01:22:03):
if you're going to lay down and finish, you know,
three and fourteen, and you're not competitive, you need to
take a look at everything. You have to question you know,
why you brought in the people that you brought in
to begin with. If you're really interested in winning and
you are in a position to make big advances back
and get closer to where you were because of the
cap space that you have and the draft.

Speaker 8 (01:22:24):
That you have, Yeah, that's a fair point. My thing
is much Gerada has completely lost the room or like
all of all the guys that that are out there
that are starting, that are busting their butt, they tune
them out. I just I don't see it happening like
I think they regardless of whether they win or lose

(01:22:45):
any or all of these next four games, I think
they're going to be competitive in every single one of them,
especially the Buffalo games, because I mean that's five years
in a row. They're the kings of the division. I
expect them to come out and try and you know,
prove a point that like we're here, you know, we're
not going anywhere. We don't care if you beat us,

(01:23:06):
you know we're gonna we're gonna try and kick your
ass too at the same time, you know what I mean.
And I don't know, I'm I mean, I mean, I
just don't see a plane out that way. Just my opinion.
I could be one wrong. They could go out and
lay an egg and all these next these last four games,
but just it's just a gut feeling John like I think.

(01:23:29):
I think these guys like playing for Mao. Like, you know,
we saw how earlier in the season when he called
the team soft. How the media kind of took that
and ran with it and tried to make it make
it out to be kind of bigger than what it was.
But to them in I think everyone in the locker room,
especially the defense that week or after that week's game, said, yeah,

(01:23:51):
he was right. You know, we we played soft.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
Well. Yeah, And that's and that's the issue. If they
play soft and they get you know, thumped over these
last four weeks, then have they done enough to warrant
another opportunity, even with arguably improved personnel or coaching tweaks
or whatever. And I would tell you that, you know,
I'm not sure that the answer to that is yes,

(01:24:16):
regardless of oh, it's a bad look. No, it's about winning.
We've had this discussion before this season. This is about
winning and winning now. In the NFL, you don't get
a whole lot of grace period. You get a year,
you may maybe two, and if you're not competitive after
couple of years of laying down and trying to rebuild,
then you've got issues about the direction that you're following.

(01:24:37):
It's because the way that the sport is built and
the way the sport has established thing. They've done this
on purpose. They want parody p r i t y. Okay,
that's what the National Football League wants. They've got it.
Sometimes it's p r o d y. That's what we get.
And I think the Patriots are a p r o

(01:24:59):
d y of what they once were, but they're going
to have to use the pr it y to get
back to where they were. The question is are they
doing that to the best of their ability? And if
they fall flat and we don't see it from the
coaching staff this week or the next week, or the
week after that or the last week, then I would
argue nope, and it's time to think seriously. I'd agree

(01:25:21):
with Greg and this premise it is time to take
a good hard look at this. Do I think that
will happen? I still don't, but it should be on
the table, and that real, I think is the crux
of what Boston Sports General is reporting.

Speaker 8 (01:25:35):
Yeah, I gotcha, and one kind of crazy thing to John,
and I'll get off after this. I'll throw a quick
prediction out and I'll get off. This point is you know,
one of the things that coming into the year that
Gerrod Meo said like they wanted their identity to be
is they wanted to be a tough football team. They

(01:25:56):
wanted to run the ball, stop the running cover kicks,
and they I think that they've have not done a
good job and all of them. You know, I know
there's been injuries on defense. I know you're starting a
whole new offensive system with with zone blocking instead of
gap blocking. But in all three instances, I think, I
think you can't check any one of those. And I

(01:26:18):
think they're a team without an identity right now, you
know what I mean their identity And I'm not talking
about Drake May. Like Drake May's the face of the franchise,
He's not the Patriots overall identity they don't have one
right now, and they need to establish one, like you said,
before the end the next year or else. Yeah, I
think anything's on the table. I'm gonna say the Cardinals

(01:26:39):
are gonna win because it's you know, I think it's
gonna be competitive game. I would like to think that
with the week off, I just that the Patriots are
going to come out and have a good game plan.
But I think if they're planning on doing what they
what I think they're going to do, which is, you know,
start getting some of these younger guys you're you know,
you're Caden Wallace, your cold strange back into the mix

(01:27:03):
of things. Maybe Juvon Baker, you know, maybe maybe just
these final four games are a chance to like get
a little bit more aggressive on fourth down once you
got you and evermore talking about earlier too, like what
you got to lose At this point the season just started.

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):
You've got nothing to lose, and that's what we want
to see. And I think that's what maybe even ownership
wants to see. Again, I won't speak for them directly,
but I would just tell you, look, everybody wants to
see that. How competitive are you are you gonna take
chances here are you gonna try to learn? Look, let's
turn these games into a learning laboratory. You know, it's
better than practicing. Let's go out and play. Let's see

(01:27:39):
how we measure against a team that arguably is a
playoff caliber team and the Cardinals that's what you that's
what you have this week. Whether they make it or
not really is a moot point. They're closer to where
you know, the Patriots want to be than the Patriots are,
So let's go out and attack it. I think the
game on Sunday boils down to a couple of things,
and we talked a little about it earlier. Number One,
Patriots had to figure out a way to stand James

(01:27:59):
Connor up. That's the number one thing. Number Two, they've
got to make sure that, you know, Kyler Murray has
beaten them with his feet before. He can't beat them
with his feet this time. So it'll be interesting to
see how they handle that and whether or not, you know,
they can set the edge on the rush. You hear
that term all the time, but are they gonna be
able to set the edge and not let him get
out of the pocket? Are they going to bring you know,

(01:28:20):
six guys and make his life miserable, you know, and
obvious passing downs if they're able to you know, you know,
hold on first and second down, because again he's the
worst quarterback in league according to the metrics on third
down when you're rushing six or more guys. So are
the Patriots going to take advantage of that? And then
the other issue is on the other side of the coin.
All of a sudden, Arizona's pass rush is non existent,

(01:28:45):
especially over these three games that they've lost in a
row coming into this one. So I would tell you
last week in Seattle, I saw this number. Earlier today,
Gino Smith for Seattle was only pressured on like seventeen
percent of his dropbacks. That's part of the reason why
the Seahawks won the game. So if Drake may is
only pressured on seventeen percent of his dropbacks, I tell you,
I think the Patriots have at least a puncher's chance.

(01:29:06):
It's not a better puncher's chance, but they have to
do the other things. They got to hold James Connor
number one, they got to contain Kyder Murray number two.
And yeah, they can't shoot themselves in the foot with
false starts. And holdings. It seems like every time the
Patriots got a gain of fifteen yards last week, you know,
when they played two weeks ago, there was a hold somewhere.
It was bringing it back and putting them in second

(01:29:26):
and along. You know, it was so frustrating to watch,
and I know it was for everywhere. But that's the issue,
and that's that the crux of the whole, you know,
and I've used that word a lot crux today, but
that's the issue of canjerad meo coach because these guys
don't know how to not hold or how to get
away with it. I know there's holding on every play
in the NFL. You certainly can make that argument. They

(01:29:49):
don't know how to get away with it. Somebody needs
to teach them how to do that. That's the issue.
So they don't get all these big plays. When they
get big plays, they don't get them called back. There's
got to be more discipline involved. And if there isn't
more discipline, get the hell out, find a spot on
the bench, and I'm gonna put somebody else in who
will at least stand his ground. That's really it. And

(01:30:12):
there's not that kind of delineation. It doesn't seem like
there's any repercussion for you know, the the errors mental
or otherwise that are made out of the field, and
that goes to coaching. That goes to coaching.

Speaker 8 (01:30:27):
Yeah, that made me sick to my stomach when they
get first and goal the two and ended up first
and goal from the twenty.

Speaker 3 (01:30:32):
Two two later. Unbelievable, that, Johnny, unbelievable.

Speaker 8 (01:30:36):
I'll talk to you next week, buddy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:37):
All right, Patty, thanks for the time, Bud, appreciate you always.
Patty and agawam the one and only Eldred in North Carolina.

Speaker 9 (01:30:45):
Eldred, how you doing it, mister legions.

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):
It's all good. What do you think about Bill Belichick
being a tar heel?

Speaker 9 (01:30:55):
Well, if you come in be a tar hill, I'm
gonna go up there and open up a bottle of
see if you like Hennessy or whatever and just have
a little talk with him.

Speaker 3 (01:31:07):
I would love to be a fly on that wall.

Speaker 6 (01:31:12):
You know, it's it's.

Speaker 9 (01:31:13):
It's but that's but that's like putting screwed in Christmas
in Santa Claus.

Speaker 6 (01:31:19):
Tour Factory with all the kids.

Speaker 9 (01:31:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's gonna be a very addressing sight
to see.

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
Well, Uh, they're still apparently working on the deal last
I saw, So it's it's certainly a possibility within the
realm of possibility. They have to work out a lot
of different things, I think for it to happen. But
you know, that tells me that, you know, A, his
prospect for coaching in the NFL are waning, and B
he really wants to coach. I mean, you know, it's
not he's not doing this for Shootler's record, which I

(01:31:47):
find a little surprising, to be honest. He's doing it
because he feels like he still has something to offer.
That also could mean that his ego is completely you know,
off the hook and he needs this to feed his ego.
I don't know. I tell you you have to have
an ego to be in this game already anyway, So
I think, really that's kind of a moot point. You
just he's got the ego already anyway. So what's he

(01:32:09):
doing at four, age seventy two because he wants to
coach and he wants to, you know, perhaps kind of
help turn this thing around. We're already seeing college football change.
It's becoming literally a feeding program now for the NFL,
and he's trying to bring it from the NFL perspective.
Knowing what the NFL is looking for. He's going to
apply it at North care Carolina if he gets this job,

(01:32:31):
and then you got a pipeline. And I think that's
what college football at the major major, high major level
is going to become. It's going to become a minor league,
if you will, approving ground, a feeding ground for the NFL.
Forget the XFL or the UFL as they call it now.
It's going to be college football.

Speaker 6 (01:32:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:32:52):
I think so too, and I don't care. I'm gonna
disagree with him. You know, even though North Carolinia had
too many good drafts that come out just they have
been a thumb, you know, like Russell Wilson, he was
there for a little while then he left in Wisconsin.
But there's been a few, you know, besides that. But
these kids, they got some good pipeline down here. Matter

(01:33:14):
of fact, he didn't go to North Carolina, but he's
from North Carolina. That's like Gilmore and like Patterson Cordell.
They're all from around this area, not too far down
that Rocky Hill. And you know, but it's like I said,
it's a good little place a little spot, and I
hope he does well. But I just want to see
how you gonna coach That's what I want to know.

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
You already know how. You already know how he's gonna
coach you.

Speaker 9 (01:33:38):
I meant a drill sarget.

Speaker 3 (01:33:40):
Well, I know maybe and maybe, and are there gonna
be eighteen and nineteen year old kids that want to
come play for that? And I would tell you that, Gosh,
based on what I've seen out of an eighteen and
ninteen year olds hell like the ones that I teach
in college every day, I would tell you that I
don't know how many of those kids are left today.
Twenty years ago I would have said differently. But now,

(01:34:00):
in this in the in this day and age of entitlement,
I don't know how many are gonna be there. It'll
be interesting. It'll be an interesting experiment. I'll give it
to you that way.

Speaker 9 (01:34:10):
Yeah, it would be. And I don't, like I said,
I'm not a Taria fan. I got a bunch of
friends that are and Panther fans, and you know, and
they always pull me in wall y'all with us now,
like I want to hear at But you're right.

Speaker 3 (01:34:25):
Well, so will you will you go watch Guitar Hills
play if he's to coach.

Speaker 6 (01:34:29):
Yes, I watch them.

Speaker 9 (01:34:31):
I watch them, and just matter of fact, I want
to watch the first game. And if my boy, if
my boy Kendrick, if Kendrick get some tickets and if
I'm off on that Saturday, well no, I want to
take that Tharity off up there and killgate and watch
the game with him.

Speaker 3 (01:34:44):
Well see, that's not a tariet.

Speaker 9 (01:34:45):
I'm gonna Florida State there.

Speaker 3 (01:34:46):
I knew that. I knew that, I remember that, but
I was, you know, hell, you're in North Carolina, so
I'm wondering if the Lord of the draw, Bill Belichick,
would would bring you there.

Speaker 9 (01:34:55):
Yeah, I go see what, Like I said, I go
see one of the games and see how he does,
you know, And I don't wish no bad look on
you know. I'm I'm like, cute, he's seventy two, got money,
got property, you got all these TV shows, you got
a little young girlfriend. What else you got to prove?

Speaker 3 (01:35:12):
Bro?

Speaker 9 (01:35:14):
I mean really, well but.

Speaker 3 (01:35:16):
That Evan and I were talking about that too. I
mean it's kind of like, yeah, you're right, I mean, really,
why would you feel the need to go do.

Speaker 9 (01:35:22):
This yeah, what you know, I don't.

Speaker 6 (01:35:25):
I don't get it, you know, I don't.

Speaker 9 (01:35:26):
You ain't got prove nothing to nobody, Hey, elder, I.

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):
Just my cell phone here, just rang. I didn't recognize
the number, but it came from North Carolina. You think
you think? Do you think somebody's trying to tell me something?
It might I'm no word of a lie, No word
of a lie. Number I didn't recognize. And I look
below and it says North Carolina.

Speaker 9 (01:35:48):
So it might be. Again, I don't think it is.

Speaker 3 (01:35:52):
I don't know. Hey, just wanted to bring you up
to date on the negotiations.

Speaker 9 (01:35:58):
That'd be straight.

Speaker 3 (01:35:59):
Why not, baby, it's the playbook, Baby, that's exactly right.
What do you think about the last four games? What
do you think? What do you is? Should Gerard Male's
job be on the line or these last four games?

Speaker 6 (01:36:10):
No?

Speaker 9 (01:36:11):
Okay, no, I'm going to say no, not because the
gerwid mayo anybody if they brought Ben Johnson it from
last year, or if they bought Alan Aaron Iron Gunian
or whoever they brought. No, my my, my blame is
that Elliott and and build the talent. I don't care
how how close you talk competitive you be. But if

(01:36:33):
you ain't got the horses, you just ain't got the horses,
and we don't have the horse. You've been saying that
over the decades.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):
You've been saying that for forever, as long as I've
known you. On whatever.

Speaker 6 (01:36:41):
Ye yes, sir, yes, sir.

Speaker 9 (01:36:43):
You know you got to have some athletes and I don't.
I'm tired of people saying, well, when we was winning,
we didn't have, Yes, you did, and when we was losing,
you had him. Bill just didn't get him. I ain't
talking about just wide receive it. I'm to my pass rushers, linebackers, Uh,
the tackles tied ends he had a shot. You even

(01:37:04):
had a quarterback, and I don't tell anybody. Remember when
my boyfriend Baltimore was about to get was about to
get drafted, we had that pick thirty two. He traded
to Baltimore for it, and Brady teached him and said,
I'm looking for Lamar, I'm looking for it to show
you how and you're training with me because you know
they're gonna be a successor. But we traded to Baltimore,

(01:37:27):
you know, and then you that that would that would
have been in the assistant plane. But that's Bill and
everybody else, you know, And I don't think he's going
to get right. But if I was grawed after the
four games, I'm gonna get rid of tackle On Underwood
and whoever mother wide receiver coach is. And I'm gonna
try to get Sean Jefferson or somebody that's a little

(01:37:49):
little younger maybe better because he's not he's not did
not turn out. I know they ain't got most of
the talent, but something about them guys running routes. I mean,
you train them every day, you practicing with him, you
ain't got they can't run the right route yet, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:38:03):
It's it's fair to see some tweaks made in the
coaching staff. Yes, yes, that's fair.

Speaker 9 (01:38:09):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna do that. Covington defensive wise,
I'm like Evan should have been on that side, and
he should have been doing this thing, and Coven should
be assistant he assistant coach or whatever deces the coach,
you know, and then keep it going from there. But
my whole plane, it's the front off the GM. You know.

(01:38:32):
If I'm if I'm Gerrod this year, I'm pounding for
the best guy on On what on the on the
draft board, which everybody knows, Travis, this hunter gonna be him.
If you can't get him, I'm gonna get the next
best guy. And those tackles, I'm gonna try to get
that if I can get one of them, whatever. If
I can't, I want to get the next best guy

(01:38:52):
that helps me out on defensive offense. But maybe you
want to offense, you know, But I'm I'm I'm beating
the table for and in free agency, I'm gonna sort
my linebacker crew and my pass rusher on that. In
free agency, that's what I want to do. Is I'm
gonna throw money atm or whatever. But I don't, you know,
I'm just it's just a gym. And during excuse me

(01:39:17):
to pack away, you know, during that, I want to
say the other word, but I can't ready here, you know. Okay,
if if there's one hundred and one out there saying
this guy is the top receiver, and then you got
a couple more of that's down, you know, but you
got one down in the Lord Fife or we can
get him. He just like that, you need to have
your head exam.

Speaker 3 (01:39:37):
Yeah, gotta take the guy, Gotta take the guy.

Speaker 9 (01:39:40):
Yeah, you gotta take the guy. You gotta take. I've
been saying it for a year. You gotta take the guy. Yeah,
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:39:45):
And frankly, if they had taken the guy, I think
they wouldn't be in the position where they're in now.
And that's where I'll agree with you.

Speaker 9 (01:39:51):
Yeah, I'll tell you what to nineteen that took DK
that's your wide receiver to twenty if they if they
who's that guy? Walker? Walker? I think the guy for
the giant outside linebacks, defensive pass rusher could have got him,
or you could have got Big Duffie from Kansas City.

Speaker 3 (01:40:10):
Sure, but no, he.

Speaker 9 (01:40:12):
Went down and gone anywhere else. They was there And
if you didn't want them, yeah, he had a J
Brown demo, said Deebo Samuel, which was already here until
you tweeted it out. Then they didn't have nothing to
do with them. But you know, but like I said,
you have some talent.

Speaker 3 (01:40:27):
You had it.

Speaker 9 (01:40:28):
He just didn't draft six round and fourth round. It's
just as good as the first one. Now, was the
reason why you have first round suck a third and
a sixth and a seventh and unrestricted free agent. It's
the reason why you that right, you know, And I
admit some of them guys do do some of them
guys do better some of.

Speaker 6 (01:40:45):
The first round.

Speaker 9 (01:40:46):
But that's very rare, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:40:48):
Right. But well I figured you would. I figured you
would react the way that you did.

Speaker 6 (01:40:52):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:40:52):
You know, it's that it's more of a personal issue
than a male issue. And frankly, igend to agree, he
needs to have what I would call a full deck
of cards in order to play fifty two card pick up, Right,
he's got to have a full deck of cards. If
he's not playing with all the cards, it's not really
fair to judge him accordingly compared to others.

Speaker 9 (01:41:11):
It's right because because used playing with the kitty cards
and you ain't got nobody else, you know, old maids,
and you got to fit the two deck, you know
what I mean. And he's doing that. And then, like
I said, I'm going back to Elliott Woolf. I don't
care if last year was his first draft. No, it
wasn't a couple of years. He's been with Bill for
the last for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:41:29):
Yeah, yeah, no, it just it was his Uh, it
was his first year to basically, you know, call the
shots if you're he contributed on a lot of other ones,
which frankly doesn't help him much here, Biel, it doesn't
help him.

Speaker 9 (01:41:41):
Much because because I think he pushed the push in
the same guys and Beadles should get you know, do
no coach strange. Coach strange to me, remind me of
ty corn Underwood.

Speaker 6 (01:41:51):
He's a bus Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:41:53):
So having him come back and I wouldn't let him
take brown Spot for nothing, especially when they exchange and
uh and Drake May is comfortable with him. I wouldn't
do that, right, and we saw what he did and
left guard.

Speaker 3 (01:42:05):
Yeah he did it, Yeah for sure, So I trade him.

Speaker 9 (01:42:07):
I gotta get my team next year.

Speaker 7 (01:42:09):
I trade him.

Speaker 3 (01:42:10):
That was all right, Buddy. I appreciate you.

Speaker 9 (01:42:13):
As thank you. Have a good one, mister Laking. I
was good talking to you you too, Bud.

Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
Thank you. Be careful out there. Uh this reminder. Bridgestone
is the official tire of the New England Patriots and
proud to partner with Sullivan Tire, New England's headquarters for
quality Bridgestone tires. Visit Sullivan Tire Dot to find a
location near you and Patch Nation. The most nail biting
action film of the season, Carry On, starring tarn Edgerton,

(01:42:38):
Sophia Carson, and Jason Bateman touches Down on Netflix December thirteenth,
just in time for the holidays. It's just a couple
of days away. Only liquids allowed, Blood, sweat and tears.
Catch Carry on December thirteenth, only on Netflix.

Speaker 9 (01:42:55):
A real woman could stop you from drinking.

Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
Yeas a real big woman.

Speaker 5 (01:42:59):
It's time to go around the NFL with football guru
Russell Baxter.

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
Now on.

Speaker 5 (01:43:05):
The name is Flounder on Patriots Playbook hung.

Speaker 3 (01:43:11):
Nothing going on today, Nothing at all going on today. So, Russell,
you just picked a hell of a time to jump
in here.

Speaker 6 (01:43:18):
Well, I would say so. I would say so, And
it's gonna be a fascinating half hour. And listen. If
I were you, I'd save Elcher's recording. You don't even
have to do a show the entire sun.

Speaker 3 (01:43:30):
No, No, just put ELDERD on repeat. Yeah, that's basically.

Speaker 6 (01:43:33):
Already mapped out twenty five off season. Yep, and you're
all set. I'm gonna try and get picked. I'm going
to try and get his pick for weeks one and
week two next year.

Speaker 3 (01:43:45):
I know, Hey, just out of curiosity, what are your thoughts?
On the reports that the ball is in Bill Belichick's court,
so to speak. We're going to mix sports metaphors here
and uh, you know, potentially to be the new head
coach University of North Carolina. What are your thoughts.

Speaker 6 (01:44:04):
It kind of came out of the blue. And that
is not a North Carolina pun.

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
By the way, right, tar heel blow.

Speaker 6 (01:44:12):
But I understand it, and I listen, I've met Bill
Belichick once. I think it's pretty well known that he
is a student of the game and maybe the best
student ever that you know, his coaching style, which some
people have criticized in the latter years, but I will

(01:44:36):
hang on the fact that they were a playoff team
and you know, a couple of years ago. And listen,
you don't have runs like the Patriots have. All these
teams that have had great dynasties, they've then a lot
of them have had major drafts afterwards. Okay, especially when
you lose an ordinary player like Tom Brady. So I

(01:44:59):
hate hearing the quote unquote game has passed him by,
because I mean, he was the game for so long,
and you know, if you're young, and here's what I've
noticed over the last few years in the probs. I
can't speak for the college I've noticed and listeners always exceptions.

(01:45:20):
I've noticed a willingness for players wanting to play for
veteran coaches so they can learn the game better. Now,
I don't know. Bill might have picked up a few
things in his umpteenth years in the league. If I
remember right, he was that he goes back as far
as the mid seventies with the Broncos. I think is

(01:45:42):
a linebackers coach, if I remember right, I might be
watching that. But he's been in the league an awful
lot of time, so he can teach you a lot
of different things. And I always I've always insisted that
you know, Tom Brady's not Tom Brady without Bill Belichick
and vice versa, right of course. So it's a little
bit of a little bit of a curve ball, i'd say,

(01:46:04):
But you look around this league and you know, I
don't know what's more exciting now, college recruiting or free
agency in the NFL.

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
It's really recruiting. So to say that Bill Belichick, oh,
he wouldn't be able to handle, you know, sitting on
an eighteen year olds couch in the living room with
his parents. Well, it's a little more advanced than that
in the NFL. I mean, you're wining and dining. I
don't know the Bill is actually doing that winning and donning.
But it's still the same principle. You still have to
convince people that your program, whether it's the NFL or

(01:46:38):
the college ranks, your program is good enough for them
to consider an offer to come play. Right, It's still
the same principle.

Speaker 6 (01:46:46):
Right, And you look at listen, you have a twelve
team college playoff. You have some teams in there. And
I'm not the biggest college officient not in terms of
knowing the teams and stuff, but I'm sure most of
us or those who cover college football certainly had Indiana
and SMU.

Speaker 3 (01:47:08):
Yeah before the year started, right.

Speaker 6 (01:47:12):
Right, basketball tournament, but not the college football So that
game is changing as well in me, and perhaps he
looks at that as a whole new challenge. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:47:25):
Yeah, And you can't you can't argue the fact if
he wants a challenge for himself or for his career whatever.
I mean. You know, as I've said many times before,
this is an ego driven business. You have to have
an ego in order to be successful, because that's what
keeps you going when otherwise most normal people or most
let's just say regular people would look at this and say,
what the hell am I doing this for? I'm out,
you know, and if.

Speaker 6 (01:47:46):
I'm wrong, and it's a little different set of circumstances. Okay, Yeah,
Bill Walsh returned to college after he did retire from
the National Football Leager.

Speaker 3 (01:47:57):
He did, he did, and and and that's one thing
we failed to mention to. Hi'm glad you brought that up.

Speaker 6 (01:48:02):
Yeah, Bill wash I mean you know, I'm trying to
think how he Yeah, okay, never mind, Okay, that's right. Yeah,
you don't listen when.

Speaker 3 (01:48:11):
You wait, wait, didn't didn't Lou Holtz do the same
thing after he left the Jets?

Speaker 6 (01:48:16):
Oh of course he did.

Speaker 3 (01:48:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he had most of his
success in the college ranks. Definitely most of his success
in the college ranks.

Speaker 6 (01:48:22):
Listened. If you're I don't have to tell you that.
If you're a coach and you love the game and
you want to teach people to game, okay, you're going
to do you could wind up doing it on many levels. Okay,
So anybody knocking this, and we know the usual suspects are,
who are knocking this maybe because they didn't have the story. Okay,

(01:48:46):
that always happens as well. But it's gonna be interesting
to watch, you know. Oh, by the way, let me
think of something here. Let me give you a more
modern example of a guy coaching in college and then
coaching in the pros, and then coaching in college and
now coaching in the pros. How's Jim Harbaugh doing this?

Speaker 3 (01:49:07):
Y Yeah, there's one that we kind of scuffed over
to right.

Speaker 6 (01:49:12):
Well, because the people who scuff over them do it intentionally. Yeah, Okay,
you're not a scuffer.

Speaker 3 (01:49:20):
I'm not Okay, Okay, your credibility is something I hold
very dear. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:49:29):
Okay, But it's like, are you watching the total landscape
of the game of football. It's changed so much now.
Think about when Bill and again I think Bill goes
back to the seventies. Okay, when Bill was in the league.

(01:49:49):
I'll say, I'm just I'll probably check it afterwards. Let's
say he was in the league in nineteen seventy six. Okay,
his first year, there were twenty six teams in the league.
There were only four teams per conference that made the playoffs.
I'm sorry. They're twenty eight teams in the league and
seventy six the Buccaneers and the Seahawks joint. That was

(01:50:11):
their first year. Then we went to two years later
in seventeen seventy eight, we went to a sixteen game schedule.
Now we have seventeen games. Now we have fourteen playoff teams.
After going from eight to ten to twelve to fourteenth,
now we have thirty two teams. So so much. In fact,

(01:50:31):
when Bill was coaching in the mid seventies, there was
no professional team in Charlotte. Now there is, so I
don't know. Maybe maybe he's just gonna hang around with
the tar Heels and peeking on the Panthers every once
in a while. I don't know, so, which I don't
think is gonna happen, because I think Dave Canalis has
actually done a really good job the second half of

(01:50:53):
the season with that team.

Speaker 3 (01:50:56):
It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun to see
if you can actually put it together. I mean, I'd
personally be pulling for him, just because I've always had
such great respect for his you know, results and issues
and everything that he accomplished here over you know, a
period of time. I just I wonder if it's sustainable.
I wonder if this is going to be a snapshot
of of you know, what the future of you know,
college sports is gonna be if we already turned that corner.

(01:51:18):
I mean, there's a lot of different things going on here,
so at any rate, I just thought I wanted to
throw that out there to you simply because it's obviously
significant news today. The other piece that I wanted to
ask you about briefly before, where we jump into a
couple of games here, the fact that the NFL announced
that Berlin is going to host its first NFL regular
season game next year, and we know Germany is one

(01:51:39):
of those spots that down there, you know all you know,
keen to get into, and they're going to play the
first game in Berlin, Germany. What are your thoughts on
expanding a little bit further.

Speaker 6 (01:51:49):
I love it, and I have loved this international thing
for more than and I know I've talked to you
about this before. The reason I like these international games
is it's not about for me growing the product. Sure, Okay,
we're in an era now that you could live anywhere

(01:52:11):
watch an NFL game. Let's be on it. Okay, but
these young men who who knows how many of the
traveled the world. Hey we're going to Germany. Hey we're
going to London. I always thought that was like the
neatest thing is to be able to expand. And now

(01:52:31):
it's a little different, John, because it used to be
if you played in London, you were automatically off the
following week. And that doesn't necessarily hold up anymore. Okay,
if you look around the scheduling and so on, you
don't necessarily get the buye. Okay, hey we're going to London,

(01:52:53):
but why we stay a few extra days. Maybe I'll
bring my parents, Maybe I'll bring my family, Maybe I'll
bring my wife and kids. What a nice person. Listen.
When I was at ESPN, Okay, I got the opportunity
to go to the Pro Bowl a couple of times.
We would do weekly shows from Hawaii. Now Hawaii in

(01:53:16):
February is just as good as Hawaii in August. Okay,
Hawaii is Hawaii, And after the week was over, never
been to Hawaii the first time, obviously stayed a couple
of extra day. Take advantage of that, because a lot
of people don't get that advantage, and especially young people

(01:53:38):
like right out of college now in their professional gig,
and it's like, hey, we're going to play a game
in Mexico. We're going to play a game.

Speaker 9 (01:53:48):
And who knows.

Speaker 6 (01:53:49):
Listen, you'll remember they played in a preseason game and
nineteen ninety five, remember because it was Parrell Davis's rookie
year and he made it big. They played a preseason
game in Japan. Yeah, okay, what a great time and
a great opportunity for these men and women and families
and stuff like that to travel, do some traveling they

(01:54:12):
may not have been able to do or maybe not
even been able to afford sure, and learn about the
rest of the world.

Speaker 3 (01:54:21):
Well, it's an awesome time in that regard. I'm kind
of glad.

Speaker 6 (01:54:27):
Correct me if I'm wrong. Berlin had two top hits,
take My Breath Away and No More Words.

Speaker 3 (01:54:34):
I knew there's exactly no more Words, is the one
I remember? Mostly? Yeah, I knew there would be a
pop reference here, so that's that was pop culture reference.

Speaker 6 (01:54:44):
Listen, I'm a pop Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:54:45):
Okay, then, and that therefore you should deliver. That's right. Hey,
we've got h I got what I think I counted
today six games that has some that all have some
intrigue to them this weekend, which means of course that
the schedule makers have done the right thing in you know,
these late season matchups, which is great. But you got Dolphins, Texans,
Colts at Broncos, Bills, it Lions, which listen, I'm gonna

(01:55:07):
pay for because I I will watch because I'm hoping
that's the Super Bowl matchup. You got Steelers playing at
the Eagles, you got Buccaneers playing at the Chargers, and
you got Packers playing at Seahawks, with postseason clear implications
in every single matchup and maybe even some elimination matches
along the way. So that's a pretty good sunday of
football watching.

Speaker 6 (01:55:27):
Well, I would say so. And if you look at
the matchups, and obviously Indianapolis and Denver Denver's you know,
and the Chargers both are eight and five. Denver has
into a playoffs and they played in Super Bowl fifty.
By the way, Indianapolis is hanging around, you know, they're
obviously going to need some help, and so when they
get past those other clubs. But what I found intriguing

(01:55:51):
about the schedule, and you mentioned the three games that
I was that really caught my eye was not only
potential great games one of them and outside super Bowl
matchup yeah Bucking Needs Chargers.

Speaker 3 (01:56:11):
Yeah, well, I guess it could.

Speaker 6 (01:56:12):
Sure it could have a realistic Super Bowl matchup Lions Bill, Yeah, sure,
and a sleeper super Bowl matchup Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Right now,
I don't know how prophetic the schedule makers really were
because I didn't know if you noticed this, John Bucks, Chargers, Steelers, Eagles,

(01:56:36):
Lions Bills are all on at the same time for
twenty five Eastern.

Speaker 3 (01:56:41):
How about that. By the way, the Patriots are also
a four to twenty five kickoff, so you know, for
Patriots fans it'd be like, yeah, there'll be some serious
channel surfing going on.

Speaker 6 (01:56:50):
Well yeah, I mean there's a lot. I think there's
like six four six later games this week. Of course
back to within the final four weeks of the season.
There are no more by weeks, you know, so full
slate's the way you go. But Green Bay, Seattle, Seattle
has got in there active now. I was looking at
something that I found was with the Packers. Okay, the

(01:57:11):
Packers are nine and four, and obviously are you know,
one of the better teams.

Speaker 3 (01:57:17):
In the league.

Speaker 6 (01:57:18):
Do you realize who Green Bay has lost to this year, John.

Speaker 3 (01:57:21):
Uh right off the top of my head. No, they're
nine and four, so.

Speaker 6 (01:57:25):
Right, Philadelphia, yeah, Detroit twy Okay, in Minnesota.

Speaker 3 (01:57:31):
Well, there you go, all contenders.

Speaker 6 (01:57:32):
Those three teams alone are thirty four and five.

Speaker 3 (01:57:36):
There you go. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:57:39):
So yeah, but you never know what you're going to
get with Seattle, they've been you know, they're like Coney
Island the roller coaster.

Speaker 3 (01:57:46):
Very true, you're right.

Speaker 6 (01:57:47):
So, I mean they were three and oh and right
now they're three and oh and then in the middle
they were one and five. So but all those games
you brought up are absolutely outstanding, and they are going
to go a long way toward what we're going to
see down the stretch because they all have. Look at Tampa.
Tampa has rebounded from that four game losing street with

(01:58:10):
Mike Evans banged up and Chris god went out and
et cetera, et cetera. They're now in first place all
by themselves. Because Kirk Cousins. I don't know if he's
thinking of going to another team, but he is certainly
throwing the ball to another team on a consistent basis.
Zero touchdown passes in eight picks in the last four games.

Speaker 3 (01:58:32):
Wow. That's that's that's staggering even actually consider right.

Speaker 6 (01:58:37):
There are bookies that haven't had eight picks in the
last four game.

Speaker 3 (01:58:42):
But yeap, ye, yeah, of course did we lose.

Speaker 6 (01:58:51):
Him Buffalo by the way, Buffalo Detroit, just so you know, Yeah,
the two highest scoring.

Speaker 3 (01:58:57):
Teams in the Lake, right, which is why that that
stands to me to be, you know, maybe the most
entertaining game of the weekend, all things being.

Speaker 6 (01:59:04):
But it's got ten seven written all.

Speaker 3 (01:59:06):
Over, right, that's probably the way it'll end up is.

Speaker 6 (01:59:10):
Listen, we here's the number for you from people who
are into such things. Okay, the Bills have played four
teams from the NFC this year. They're three and one.
They lost their Rams last week.

Speaker 3 (01:59:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:59:25):
In their four games versus the NFC, they've scored one
hundred and forty.

Speaker 3 (01:59:30):
Two point wow in four games.

Speaker 6 (01:59:32):
Okay. Now, the Lions are four to zero against the AFCIX.
In their four games, they scored one hundred and fifty
four points.

Speaker 3 (01:59:42):
That's you know, yeah, listen, that's why I had to
bring it up. Man. I'm like I said, I'm more
interested in that game probably than any other else. And
that's including that's including hours.

Speaker 6 (01:59:52):
By the way, Yeah, and I think John, that's going
to be the game the country is really really going
to be fascinated with, because obviously the Lions have caught
everyone's attention. Okay they I mean, I forget, they haven't
loss since Week two, right, right, Okay, they're the militia.
Do you know they they've won ten or more games

(02:00:13):
two years in a row. Okay, this team's been around
since the thirties, right, They've never done that, never.

Speaker 3 (02:00:19):
Done it before. I know. That's why. That's why it's
such an easy route. I mean, you know, the route
for both of these teams, you know, to be there
to go against each other to finally one of the
teams is gonna win their first Super Bowl. I mean,
that's that's an easy one to root for. That's low
hanging fruit, is what that is.

Speaker 6 (02:00:35):
Absolutely And by the way, if the Lions win on Sunday,
franchise has never won thirteen games in a year.

Speaker 3 (02:00:40):
How about that?

Speaker 6 (02:00:42):
I mean, they are doing things that they and we
see this every once in a while where a team
just puts up unbelievable numbers and it just all clicks
for them, and so on. They're just it's funny because
they're just kind of like a higher scoring version of
the Chiefs. Okay, the Chiefs, who are in fact, there
are a really higher scoring version of the Chiefs. Okay,

(02:01:08):
they have scored one hundred and let me do the man,
it's okay, they've scored one hundred and nine more points
than the Chiefs this year, but they both have the
same record, and they've actually they've actually given up fewer
points than the Chiefs. May surprise a lot of.

Speaker 3 (02:01:27):
People, does it surprise? That's that's a no. No, that's
a good football team.

Speaker 6 (02:01:34):
You could see it coming last year. I mean, you know,
they won two plays They hadn't won playoff games since
ninety one. They won two playoff games. They you know,
they just this building of crescendo and and it's gonna
be interesting to see how it And now, let's put
this way, who would ever thought it? The Lions are

(02:01:56):
now having detractors calling them lucky.

Speaker 3 (02:02:01):
Just like Kansas City did, and just like the Patriots did.

Speaker 6 (02:02:05):
Right but the Lion Okay, the Lions, who haven't won
the title since nineteen fifty seven, right now, all of
a sudden, they're lucky and I'm sure I don't have
to tell you. Anybody in their right mind you must
have never watched football. They never saw a quarterback stumble
and fall on his knee and get off a handoff

(02:02:28):
and claim that man was down. That had to be
one of the most acid nine things I've heard thrown
out there from last Thursday night's game. Of course, the
play is alive, this is NFL. This is not your
down in college.

Speaker 3 (02:02:43):
So yeah, yep, it's not Where where are we going wrong?
John Russell? If I had the answer to that one,
I would have fixed it a long time ago.

Speaker 6 (02:02:56):
Well, Paul Eldridge, he knows.

Speaker 3 (02:02:57):
Come on, yeah, totally, Thank you buddy for the time today.

Speaker 6 (02:03:05):
Very welcome. We're gonna have a lot to talk about
next week. We got some teams that can wrap up
playoff further. Yeah, Vision titles and so on. And yet Detroit,
Minnesota and Green Bay are all winning. Do you imagine
Minnesota believe it did? Minnesota's eleven and two, they've won
six in row, and they can't be in in the ground.

Speaker 3 (02:03:27):
I know, that's right, that's right, He's gonna it's time
to push pedal to metal. That's it right there, especially
where their concerned. Thanks bout, I appreciate you as always.

Speaker 6 (02:03:38):
You got it, sir, talky next week.

Speaker 3 (02:03:40):
You got it. The one and only Russell Baxter Backs
football Guru on X we are out of time in
the program. My thanks to Russell, My thanks to Evan,
My thanks to Greg Bdard from Boston Sports Journal. My
thanks to you for listening. My thanks to Marine for
taking care of it all. Don't forget easy to drink,
easy to enjoy. Bud Light is the official beer sponsor

(02:04:01):
of the New England Patriots. So Patriots and Arizona Cardinals
at the four to twenty five Eastern time kickoff on Sunday.
Let's see what kind of effort is there? Is this competitive?
Are the Patriots just going through the motions? Which team
is going to show up on either side of the
field on Sunday? And then of course we'll talk about

(02:04:21):
it next week, same Pat's time, same patch channel. Next Wednesday,
we'll recap Arizona. We'll look ahead to Oh my gosh,
they finally get a chance to play Buffalo this late
in the year and they're playing the Bills for the
first time. That'll be on the agenda for next week
for sure. See you then.

Speaker 5 (02:04:39):
Thank you for downloading this podcast. Subscribe on Apple, Google Play,
and everywhere else you listen. Like the show, please rate
and review us. Listener comments and ratings help keep us
high on the podcast rankings so new listeners can find us.

Speaker 3 (02:04:52):
Be sure to.

Speaker 5 (02:04:53):
Check Patriots dot com for more news and more podcasts.

Speaker 1 (02:05:05):
Patriots Unfiltered the world's original podcast. Patriots Unfiltered brings you
inside Jillette Stadium for rousing conversations on everything new England, Patriots,
and NFL. Join host Fred Kersh alongside Patriots dot COM's
Paul Parillo, Mike Deso, Evan Lazar, Tamara Brown, and Alex
Francisco as they bring you in depth coverage of the team.

Speaker 2 (02:05:23):
He's a redshirt rookie at that point, so it's really
that's his work. He season essentially too, so now we're
really not talking about them, really know. Experience six.

Speaker 1 (02:05:32):
Search for Patriots Unfiltered anywhere you get your podcasts.

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