Patriots Playbook 2/15: Charting an Offseason Plan for New England

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Patriots Playbook. The legend the season was such
a roller coaster, you know, the ups and the downs.
It seems like there were a way roller coast and
it was like a crash. It's like getting the wheels
turning right. You see it. Stall on him now more
than you used to. He need to be going downhill
so you can get a momentum, just like I gotta
do when I get about a bed. I need to
be going downhill. It ain't happening downhill. It ain't happened

(00:28):
because we didn't have the Google machine, right. I actually
had to go to look through you know, reams of microfilm,
Undergraduate library and the owers give Texas between two am
and six am, research and all this stuff, because that's
the only time I had. Good morning, Boomer. Yeah, I
don't even know what a library is. Now here's your
host of Patriots Playbook, John Rook. Get off from Loan

(00:50):
damn kids, Get off mulan. Oh goodness, gracious man of
all days, of all days, to make me feel old. Hey,
guess what We're gonna talk a little football today. Welcome
into the Patriots Playbook. It is our first official offseason
edition of the playbook. Here on Patriots dot Com Radio.

(01:11):
I'm John Rook. We're here usually on Thursdays during the season.
But we've had the last oh god, how many weeks
have we had off now, Evan H four three four
three or four at least really since the since the season,
as we both said, kind of crashed and burned at
any rate. The super Bowl is just over. We figured
this would be a good opportunity to sort of recap

(01:33):
where we've been and maybe point the direction arrow to
where we need to head over the course of the
next few weeks. Because you've got the Combine coming up
next week, right, Yes, in ten days or so, will
you be there? I will? Okay, See, so we got
that to talk about what to anticipate as well. You'll
have you know, draft stuff coming up the end of April.

(01:53):
We'll have OTAs. Before you know it, we'll start to
have some kind of of a sense of what kind
of a team. But we've already made news the last
month since we actually you know, finished everything off with
some coaching additions, uh, you know, some playing thoughts. Guys
that might come, that might go, that might get resigned,
that might go to other places. We don't know yet.

(02:14):
But still all worth I think talking about. So it's
a good opportunity now just to kind of catch up
on some things and like I said, maybe get our
attentions focused in a particular direction. So Evan Lazarre is
here as he is kind enough to do with us
during the course of the regular season, you know, and
for those of you that I haven't listened to Evans
podcast here during the season as well, that he does
with um Alex Palis Barr, thank you from ninety eight

(02:36):
five Sports. No. I love Alex's work. I actually love it.
I love reading it all the time. I just drew
a blank because I'm old. I still don't know what
a library is. By the way, what's that a library?
What's that? It's library? Not library? See see, I don't
even know how to say. We have the oldest library

(02:56):
in America in Franklin, Massachusetts, is literally ten minuts down
the road. And we got nothing. Got nothing. Crickets, yeah,
crickets exactly. I'm very happy though, today that we can
be joined by a special guest, and he is coming
to us from well overseas. Okay, well overseas, but um
thanas Blazos did I did I pronounce it correct on us, Yes,

(03:21):
these visions of my name. Yes, so Greek names then
to have many many different intonations. So the full name
is Thanasios. The sort of the name is but okay, Thanasis,
I like that, actually has that actually has quite a
bit of of character to it. Thanasios. I like that.

(03:42):
But we'll call you Thanasis if that's okay. Yes, yes,
that works all right, very good. Now. The reason that
Thanasis is joining us, by the way, Thanasis Uh he won,
as we promised. The winner of our Patriots Playbook fantasy
football league from the regular season was Thanasis blasiosus, I
should say, and his team name was Greek You were

(04:06):
wait we wait, Greek Pat's nation, right, okay, Greek Pat's nation.
That's what I thought. I thought I was going to say.
It's something wrong there for a second, but I'm trying
to remember all this stuff all at once. As was
so ensconced by fantasy football. It's my first real fat
into fantasy football, and I'm still probably not going to
join the league next year, but I'll be happy to
be the commercial sponsor for it at any rate. So

(04:27):
what I have to find out, though, Thanasios is are
you going to come back and defend your championship next year, Yes, yes,
if you love me, okay, oh absolutely. But as the
winner of the Fantasy League, you are here today to
co host with Evan and myself here on the show.
So I know you've got your own set of questions,
and I also want you to feel free to jump
into the conversation whenever it so moves you based on
what we're talking about here today. And I have to

(04:49):
admit this is a radio first in Patriots dot Com history. Today.
I want thanasis you are a part of a radio
first because we have never ever had a phone guest.
In twenty two years of doing Patriots dot Com Radio,
we've never had a gas from guess from Luxembourg where
you were broadcasting from, And that is correct, Luxembourg is

(05:12):
where you're in right now. Indeed, indeed I have been
here for seven years now from Greece back in two
thousand fifteen. So yeah, what what got you to move
from Greece to Luxembourg? Uh? Yeah, the financial crisis in Greece. Basically,
I think it's my Bottler's de gand there was nothing
for me to do this, Okay, yea Luxemburg's financial center

(05:34):
and it basically has finance and goods nothing more. All Right, Parthenon,
you know, burned down, and so there's not the left here.
So I'm gonna go to Luxembourg. I okay, that's fine.
I get that that works for me. Um, But we
had a hard time. I gotta admit we had a
hard time finding Luxembourg on the map. We have a

(05:54):
map in here in our studio. I'll see if I
can describe it. It's a it's a global world like
Atlas time style map. And over the twenty two plus
years now that we've been doing this, every time we
get a new emailer or a new caller from a
place that we have not previously heard from, we put
a stickpin into the location on the global map and

(06:15):
the map Evan conceived over there's under one of the
monitors in here in the studio. Um, it's got a
lot of pins in it, right, sure does all over
the globe, literally an all seven continents on the planet. Right,
this is the first stickpin in Luxembourg, and we couldn't
even find your damn country. I think that I have
to take assault, even though you has left, because I

(06:38):
have emailed in the Boston so they suit come speaking.
I know that this was eddis dumb so well, now
that I have to do that, I know that it
was Anie. Well I'm thinking my son. Yeah, I mean,
like I can be sure. We we We actually had
to consult Alexa. Alexa where Luxembourg and then she basically

(07:02):
told us the Luxembourg is between for those that are
somewhat geographically challenged. I actually knew it, but I couldn't
find it on the map. So we asked Alexe, Alexeim
I in the right spot here, A Luxembourg is sort
of situated between France and Brussels in Germany. Did I
get that right? Belgium, Belgium, Yeah, Belgium, not Brussels. Brussels

(07:22):
is in Belgium, Belgium, Germany and France. Indeed, this is
absolutely okay, all right, So that's where it is. So
we stuck a pin in the general direction of France
and Germany and Belgium, and and there we go, and
there you are. And so now you know the Nazzo's you.
You're You're represented on the world map and patriots dot
com history. So I want you to know that you

(07:43):
made a little bit of history here today, could ask
you if you could speak one so that we have
that covered. I will always speak will of Greece. One
of my one of my bucket list items is to
visit the parth and on and to get to the
Acropolis and see the ruins and and I that's on
my list of things to do in places to go.
And once I get to retirement age, and I think

(08:05):
I'm probably getting there closer by the minute. I'm on
the show today. Uh, that's where we're headed, you know,
Miss Robin and I are definitely heading that direction. We
want to do that, so we'll make sure that we
stay in touch and that way you can maybe you
can give us the guided tour. Absolutely absolutely, all right,
good cool, Thank you for jumping in today. It's greatly appreciated.
And congratulations on your your victory and the fantasy football league. Yeah,

(08:29):
you know, because it's such a crapshoot when you play fantasy.
Do you ever play fantasy football? Oh? Yeah? Do you? Yes? Yeah?
And how well do you do? Usually? Pretty well? No kidding,
I mean I know that I should. I cover football
for a living, so I know the league inside and out,
so I would hope so so let me ask you
a question that obviously there's a lot of luck involved. Well,

(08:50):
I was just going to ask that. So, when it
comes to putting your teams together, how much do you
actually like rely on analytical information or do you just okay, okay,
that's yeah, I just go So. I have two rules
when it comes to fantasy football, really, one rule, one
golden rule, and that is I want to draft players

(09:10):
that are in good situations. I hate drafting players in
fantasy that are yeah, maybe on paper, this guy's a
number one receiver, but he's getting passes thround to him
by a crappy quarterback that's not going to work right,
you know. So he might get to a thousand yards
just based off of volume, but is he going to
be a great fantasy receiver. Not so much. So I

(09:32):
try to stick to the good teams with the good
quarterbacks and the good passing games. And I think the
one advantage that maybe knowing the league like we do
gives you is the rookies, the breakout players like guys
like that that are coming into the league. Like maybe
you get a rookie late late in the draft, and
you just know who he is because you're a nerd

(09:54):
like we are and know this stuff inside it out,
whereas like a casual fan or a fantasy f ball
player that you know is not as in tune with
the league might not know the you know, third string
running back currently on the Chiefs who ends up being
Isaiah Pacheco and has a great rookie year. You know,
those are the types of guys that I think maybe
you have a little bit of a leg up on,

(10:14):
but for the most part, fancy the luck. Like if
if your guys get hurt, if your guy has a
down year, if you know you whatever, I mean that
you gotta be. It's a war of attrition. At the
same time with fantasy So do do you find sometimes
in thanasis. I'd be interested in getting your point of
view as to how you came about putting your team
together in order to win the league, because, in all honesty,

(10:37):
it seems to me that this is a sport, fantasy
football if you call it a sport, but it's an
activity where you really rely on your heart, maybe more
than your head, and that sometimes can get you into trouble.
Am I am I riding that assumption. I think Ben's
so you and uh works for me. He's the more

(11:01):
drafts you ender, the easier it is to see what's
gonna work. And but not so I participated in nine leagues.
I think that it's the final in three of them,
and they want two of them. But then, as Evan said,
you have a down game on the finals. For example,
mat La Penda, I won against Uh he had I

(11:23):
think that he had your cousins, and uh, why did
you save it from Minnesota that I'm missing now? Justin
jeff Jefferson, right, yes, and he had Jefferson and they
had an awful game in the final. And that's what
gets you sometimes, no kidding, right, yeah, how many of
them say that? Again? How many of them did you win? Evan? Well,

(11:46):
I only do one league now because I used to
do a bunch, and then now that you know I
work on the beat, it's just too much. I don't
have time for it, thank you. I would want to
do it because I'm so competitive. If I'm going to
get involved in it, yeah, I want to make sure
that I can get involved into the point where I
got a chance to win, because I don't want to
be somebody else's cannon fodder. Right. So I used to do.

(12:10):
I think the most I ever did was like five
or six leagues, and I got to the point where
one I had so many like players. I had players
on one team, and then I was going up against
that player in another league, and so it's like which
team do I root for? Right? Because if I have
Justin Jefferson in one league and then I'm facing Justin
Jefferson in another league, then you know, what do I

(12:32):
want to happen? So that got a little bit annoying.
And then secondly to that, I just I don't have
the time during football season with our jobs to keep
up with it. And then like pre game, you know,
somebody would be inactive and I would be covering the
Patriots and I wouldn't see that someone on the Cardinals
was inactive, and I'd miss it and end up starting

(12:54):
a guy that's not playing or something like that, right,
starting a guy that you know his leg three weeks ago,
you know, And I'm like, I hadn't I just it
fell through the cracks. Yeah, So you really have to
stay up on the day to day thing, I think
in order to really have I think a legitimate shot
at competing in your league. I don't think like injuries
like that is the biggest thing. It's like that. It's

(13:15):
the game day scratches. That's really tough because you find
out an hour and thirty minutes before during an act playing.
How shouldn't you set your your your your your lineup
before a game? Anyway? Usually I set my lineup on well,
you have Thursday night football now, so you know, got
to be up on that. But usually I said it

(13:36):
on Saturday night and then Sunday morning. If there there
is a guy that's on the fence, I might pay
attention to that guy being on the fence. But yeah,
I narrowed it down to one league. Last year, I
lost in the championship game. This year, I made the
playoffs and lost in the semifinals, so I haven't haven't
gotten the trophy yet, which is a little bit annoying.

(13:57):
How many teams in your league. There's ten teams in
the league. My girlfriend's actually the commissioner of the league.
It's her league. She couldn't like give you any favors journey,
so we actually last year wait, wait, that didn't turn out.
That didn't turn out. Will two years ago or whatever
you want to call out the twenty twenty one season,
we actually played each other in the championship and she

(14:19):
beat me really in the championship, smart man, but smart
may we you know, it stayed in house, which was
the most important thing, so you know it was cool.
But you taught her what she knows? Right, Yeah? No,
nofinitely not. She's she's really knows what all on her own,
no kidding. Oh yeah, absolutely. When we first met, I

(14:40):
I will fully admit hand up, probably man explained a
little too much to her about football. Turns out that
she knows everything about football and doesn't need my help.
We need to get her on the show. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know if she's ever done shows like this before,
but yeah, she's she's h she knows plenty about football.
I don't to teach or anything. What's her name, giver

(15:01):
shut out, jess Ess. Yes, the listeners, I talk about
her a little, do you on your on your pod? Yes? Yes, so, yeah,
she's she knows plenty about football. She's just as good
at fantasy as I am. All right, well, Jesse, if
you're listening, or even if you're not listening, but we're
gonna have to work on this for next season for sure.
So Thana. Maybe you could give us a bit of
an idea how you shut your lineups and what you

(15:22):
thought the key to winning the Playbook League was this
year because we had what do we have? We had
twelve teams in the league this year. Yeah, I think
that I said that. I said so the time difference
is important because here the games have played at seven
seven pm. Yeah, so we're able to follow the day's

(15:44):
craft is as Evan mentioned, way easier because we're already
up and we're taking our our leagues. I think that
what did it for me was the pickups. So the
draft was edible, to be honest, and I was able
to hit on two jams in the draft together with
Austin Nickler, which was the best brand backing in fantasies.

(16:07):
So other than that, the other Sift and Amon rasper
Brown where they deciding factors. And then I was able
to pick up Evan Ingram on the wire and some
other players. And then the league, to be fair, was
not very very active. There were some trades and some
other things that were happening, so it was easy to
pick up to pick up players. And then the changes

(16:30):
happened also in Carolina with j DJ more and he
started contributing, and that that got me over the line.
So honestly, it was luck. And yeah, the fact that
the league was not very very active, because in other
leagues that I'm playing, it's not as easy. And I
have my other fantasy fantasy leagues listening in today. So

(16:52):
if you see a lot of traffic from usins, all
of them listening in, and they would probably make fun
of me because I lost in least playing together. Oh
did you so this this is the only league you won? You?
You failed miserably in the others. Then I went another
one and that wasn't the finally the third one not bad,
that's very respectable. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, that's great. I'm impressed. Boy,

(17:15):
that that's good. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
He's right about the pickups though. That's a big part
of it too, because the season, at maybe two or
three weeks into the season, things start to declare, right, like,
this guy is gonna be maybe a bigger factor than
you initially thought. That. It's a rush to the waiver
wire and that whole thing. But if you can get
that waiver wire pickup. For instance, I picked up Gino

(17:36):
Smith oh, as my quarterback was probably early on a
good late season pickup mid season. I I it was
pretty early, and I picked up Gino Smith. And I
had originally drafted Derek Carr because I drafted Davante Adams
in the first round, so I wanted Car and Adams together,
But Derek Carr had a terrible year other than throwing
to Davantae Adams. So I ended up benching Derek Carr

(17:57):
and starting Gino Smith the rest of the way. And
that's how I'm at the playoffs. That sounds just so bizarre.
Yeah you say that, so that that's that can be
a game changer for sure in fantasy if you if
you can get your hands on the one of the
hot waiver wire pickups early in the season and and
get ahead of it, then you end up going a
long way. Don Who is your who is your top competition?

(18:17):
Do you feel like in the in the Playbook League
this year? What what team did you think was put
together real well? Whether they finished in second place or not.
But who did you like going up against? Uh? The
commissioner for sure, Sot Morvele, and they both had very
very good teams. I thought that it was a very
specious state that went on during the middle of the season.

(18:38):
But other than that, everything everything went well. And yeah,
I mean we're here now, so good. Well he's not
he's not listening right now because he's on the phone
with somebody and he's in a heated passion. He's putting
out fires. Yeah, I think he's putting up you know,
all kinds of fires. God only knows what kind of
a fire we have to put out. And we hired
everybody that we need to hire by now. No, no, no,
he seems very he's animated. Yes, I know. If we yeah,

(19:03):
if we, if we give it a couple of seconds
here as I'm watching him, we might get the Evan
Lazarre vein bulge on the forehead. It's possible. It's possible,
all right, So we're gonna spend some time anyway thanasis.
Thank you for being with us, Congratulations on your victory
in the Fantasy the Playbook Fantasy League this year, and

(19:24):
we're glad to have you today. And we're glad to
be able to go live in in living color into
a Luxembourg, which is pretty cool for me actually, because
like I said, I couldn't even find it on the map,
I stuck a pin between Germany and uh in Belgium
and France and just said, okay, that's Luxembourg. Yes, okay,
one more team before we go on with the program.

(19:47):
Luxembourg is only two and a half hours away from Frankfurt.
And so you're gonna go. We're gonna ask I was
gonna ask you that. That was the first question I
had out of the bag. Are you gonna plan on
seeing the Patriots? Yes? Absolutely. I signed up for all
the possible ways to to get a ticket. Uh and uh, well,
hopefully I will be able to make it. If not

(20:09):
the secondary market, it is what it is. I mean,
I teled all the way to New York, so I
was in the Icy Ghosts game, uh, towards Blady and
the rest of the team, and uh yeah, I will
be there for sure. In Flank. We gotta make this happen. Yeah,
you gotta come. I don't want to. I'm not certain
on this, but I believe we're gonna have some sort

(20:30):
of a what uh you know, meet and great sort
of thing. Uh. Once we get to Germany, um for
Patriots dot Com and just for the there will be
a pub that that will be at and stuff like that.
So Tanasas you have to come through. If you can
come come early for the game, then I think that
we'll we'll be thrown down somewhere in Frankfurt. Absolutely, We're

(20:52):
gonna make that happen. I will be there for sure. Okay,
perfect Well that kind of leads me then into and
really where I wanted to start, because we know that
well the you know, we know the opponents. We don't
have dates yet, we won't have those until we get
closer to the draft in April, but we do know
that the Patriots will have the nine home games, but

(21:13):
one of those has been designated for Germany next year,
which is exciting, especially for those that are going to
make the trip, and especially I know for our European
Patriot fans who can sign up and go for the
tickets and be there as a part of that. What
do you feel like is the overall benefit Evan for
doing something like this. I think we know we can
see it from a league white point of view. Where
does this really help the New England Patriots in terms of,

(21:36):
you know, simply increasing the brand awareness. Yeah, I think
that's definitely true. I think from a football perspective, it's
it's probably not not the the greatest thing to have
to go over, let's be honest. I mean, I think
the football coaches are a creature of habit. Yeah, and
the players are very much creatures of habit. And so

(21:57):
when you do something like this and you take it
over he's like that for what in an end up
probably being close to a two week period anyway, because
I know they'll try to balance it out around you know,
a Thursday game or a Monday game or something, so
that way they don't have a short work week coming back,
especially from Europe. Yeah, hey, this is gonna be it's different,
and it will be it'll be a shock to the system.

(22:19):
Not that it won't be worth it in the long haul,
but in the short term. Yeah, that's a little bit
out of character. Yeah, I think it's just always different.
I know, learning this year when we went out to
Arizona for the Cardinals and the Raiders back to back,
and we stayed out there in Arizona for the week
just talking to some of the players. Their routines get
thrown off, you know, they have routines, they have a

(22:42):
people that they work with, trainers, massage, therapists whatever during
the week that might not be in the facility or
in the traveling party, and they have to find a
different way to go about their process. And I think
one of the big things about that week was try
your best to to keep it the same, right, trying

(23:04):
the best to do the things that you do normally.
So we were talking to Dietrich Wise about it, I remember,
and he just said, if you take a nap after
meetings on Tuesday's, take a napp, right, Like if you
go here on Wednesdays, do that, Like, try to actually
stay in your routine, right, right. Just because we're not
at home doesn't mean you can't attempt to at least

(23:27):
stay in your routine. I think it's great. It's great
for growing the game. It's great for showing you know,
fans like the Nazis who wouldn't necessarily be able to
go to a game, they now get to go to
a game. And I know that the Patriots, especially in Germany,
have grown a very strong fandom over there, so I
expect that game to be a lot of Patriots fans

(23:49):
in the building. I expected to be pretty pro Patriot crowd,
and I thought the atmosphere last year with the Bucks.
In the Seahawks game was absolutely spectacular. I think Brady
said as much after the game that was as good
of an atmosphere as you're ever going to hear. So
I think that's really cool too, is that this is
a even more so than maybe a primetime game like

(24:09):
this is like almost like a playoff game or something
like that, because these fans are so jacked up to
see an NFL team and see an NFL game that
they don't get to see every single week like we
do here on this side of the pond. So there's
so many benefits from it from a global growing the business,
growing the brand, all that kind of stuff, and I

(24:30):
think that makes it worth it for these organizations, regardless
of what maybe in the short term it does to
the football team. Fanascias, have you ever have you had
a chance to get to an NFL game before in
your life? Yeah? It wasn't in the game where some
donald through the inter sessions, Okay, so yeah, it was

(24:50):
incredibly enjoyable, Like especially when you beat the dates. Everybody
knows I escape the dates. And in relation to the
business side, that would like to say that um one
of the leagues that I was part of was a
German league, and four of the of the ten teams
that were there, they were they had Budd's names, right,
So you can tell that the support is is very

(25:14):
very people support the Bad in Germany. And one more
thing that I wanted to add sure, which might not
be as in guarding maybe, is the fact that nothing
is equivalent to Tazna in the west side of Germany.
So the stadium may not be as amazing as alianz
Arena was, but I'm sure I will have an amazing

(25:35):
experience regardless. You know, have they decided which stadium they're
going to play in, so Frankfurt is the is the
favorite host? Favorite to host it? I was, I'm gonna
be asked. I was a little disappointed that we weren't
going back to Munich because I Byron is like that,
that's got to be an absolutely fantastic atmosphere in stadium.

(25:56):
But like the NASA said, I'm sure it will still
be great. But I don't know Tanazas he probably know
better than me about the stadiums that are in Frankfort.
But I know that Byron, you know, it's it's kind
of like, you know, any great uh, soccer, as football,
whatever you want to call it. Stadium like fire Munich
is obviously a pinnacle type of place. Yeah, I would

(26:18):
say that nothing compars. Maybe what would have been exciting
just because of the stadium and the heat would be
if the game was held in Dorton. But right, yeah,
has an amazing stadium and yeah, and i'mzing, oh yeah,
but I mean I cannot complain thanks to these two
twenty half hours away. I mean it's it's amazing. Yeah,

(26:39):
that's close. I've actually been to Frankfort before, but I'm
trying to remember the stadiums that I went by and saw,
and I don't remember what the largest one was. Of course,
this has been a number of years ago, so I'm
sure much has changed much as in large, probably brand
new stadiums as well, because it's I would have been
over thirty years I think since I've actually been to Frankfort.
But I do remember the countryside. It was gorgeous. So uh,
I'd be excited to go too if that we're gonna happen,

(27:01):
but I'm probably not gonna happen. Yeah, or we'll be going,
I know, I know I'll be going. Uh me and
Fred will Kursh will be going for sure. I don't
know how many of us outside of the two of
us we him and me and Fred always go to
the road games. I've taken all. I don't know if
the rest of the gang is coming or not yet. Oh,

(27:21):
but I just didn't give mister Kraf. It's tough because
a life fight with Bold would be would be amazing.
So yeah, it's tough with the space on the plane
when they do these things because you have to bring
the entire equipment staff. You have to because if they
do have a hold of practice out there, then you

(27:42):
have to bring the entire support staff with you. It's
not just the game day staff now, it becomes the
people that are here and help with out with practice
and all that kind of stuff. So it ends up
being a lot of people. Like when we travel for
for training camp, like for joint practices and things like that,
it is a true you know, there's not a single
empty seat on that plane. So I'm sure it'll be

(28:04):
the same thing when we go to Germany. Yeah, a
couple of planes worth of travel, all right, So there's
we'll have a lot of time to discuss that. Imagine
we'll probably do you guys will probably do some life
programming from there when we get to that point in
time during the season. We just got to figure out
when all it's going to take place. I wanted to
at least start off after you know, talking about you know,
Germany in particular here considering the nature of where our

(28:27):
guest is located today, but really just to kind of
recap where we've come from the last couple of weeks.
I mean, I know that the Super Bowl has already
probably been talked to death, certainly in the lead up
to it and in the aftermath of it. I thought
the game overall was a pretty good game. I mean,
never really had any problem with it. I didn't have
what I would call a real rooting interest in it,

(28:48):
other than to say, well, I was kind of pulling
for Kansas City because it's an AFC team, and I
consider myself more of an AFC guy. Used to be
an NFC guy when I was a kid growing up
because of my fandom for the Cowboys, but that changed
a long time ago. It follows my paycheck, actually, so
I figured, well, you know, you got a chance to
play Kansas City, you can play Kansas City somewhere on
down the line, and it's always good to have that. Now,

(29:09):
there are Patriots fans I know who are disgusted with
that because they don't want the Chiefs or anybody else
to challenge their precious Patriot dynasty. And really, we got
to get a grip on that people. We need to
we need to get a grip on that. We need
to come to the realization that you know, look, Kansas
City is really good. Okay, they're good. That's their second

(29:30):
Super Bowl win in four years now, right, So we're
working on it. But the Patriots did three and four
and three and five twice, right, Okay, so Kansas City
did two and four once. They have work to do
before they reached the stature of your beloved Patriots. And
again I'm not saying that to be detrimental towards Kansas

(29:53):
City at all. They got it going on right now.
They are the clear one team in the National Football
League that can challenge that kind of supremacy that New
England had for the better part of two decades. So
I give them credit for that, especially in the offseason
when they go and they lose some of the offensive
talent that they had on the changer that they had
and for them to come back and still do what

(30:15):
they did. And Patrick Mahomes look, Okay, is he the
best to play quarterback in the game today? You'd have
to say, when you combined everything together, you'd be hard
pressed to find someone who's clearly above him. You can
find a lot that are good like him. I don't
know if you can find the exact qualities that you're
looking for here when you combine the athleticism with the leadership,

(30:36):
with the innate ability to win that Patrick Mahomes has.
And this is something he developed because, as you know, Ev,
when he was in college, and I know because I
watched him play a lot in college at Texas Tech.
You know, Texas Tech were't not good. They were competitive,
but he didn't put that team on his shoulders like
he kind of did in the second half. I thought

(30:57):
against the Eagles, what do you think? Yeah, I mean,
he's he's the best quarterback in the league. I didn't
need that game to tell me that. But he's been
the best quarterback in the league since the minute he
started playing as a starter for Kansas City. Really, he's
been the best quarterback in the league. So I think
with him, but has impressed me so much, and this
was always something that impressed me about Brady as well,

(31:20):
is that they evolve, right and Patrick Mahomes loses Tyreek
Hill and he evolves. He evolves to becoming a more
efficient passer, to be working more of this short and
intermediate game, to really vocalizing some of the different areas
of the field. It's no longer a deep passing offense
that they had with Tyreek Hill. When you look at

(31:42):
his average air yards and all, you know, temp yards
per tempted all, it was down a little bit because
he doesn't throw bombs anymore because he doesn't have Tyreek Hill.
But he's still found a way to be ultra efficient
and productive and win a Super Bowl and win an
MVP and all those types of things. So I think
his ability to evolve, and I think this is something

(32:02):
that Brady deserves him more credit for because early on
in his career, they were one thing, and then they
got the two tight ends and they well, they got
Moss and then they became another thing, and then they
get the two tight ends to become another thing. And
he even though it was the same offense in terms
of structure, for the most part, he always evolved to
the personnel that he had with him to Okay, now

(32:25):
I have an outside the numbers deep threat and Randy Moss,
so I gotta be that. And then when Randy Moss leaves,
now Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman are my guys or
Wes Welker and I have to really live in the
middle of the field. And he was able to evolve.
And I think Patrick Mahomes's ability to evolve away from
Tyree Hill made him a better quarterback. It made him
a more efficient and more complete passer where he wasn't

(32:49):
just running around holding the football, holding the football, holding
the football, and then chucking it. He's actually going through
progressions and really reading the field and seeing who's the
open man and distributing the ball to four or five
six guys in a game. And I think that made
them even harder to defend in some ways. So I
just give him a ton of credit for that. I've
always known that he was I always have thought that

(33:11):
he's the best physically the best quarterback in the league
for probably three or four years now at least, But
in terms of the mental side of it and that
ability to adapt this year that's really really impressive. I
think that puts it over the top for him. I
would also just mention that I'm also extremely impressed in
the same vein with Andy Reid and his ability to

(33:33):
evolve with the times and adapt with the times, because
if you look at Andy Reid's offense with the Eagles
that the Patriots went up against in the Super Bowl
all those years ago, that's a very different offense from
what the Chiefs are running right now in Kansas City.
And his ability, at sixty four years old, to stay
ahead of the curve and continue to evolve on his

(33:54):
side of the football with the enemy has been awesome. Okay,
I'm just I'm gonna get back to that and to second.
But Thenastas, I wanted you to give me your thoughts
on Patrick Mahomes, what you like about him and maybe
what you don't like about him as a quarterback. Yeah,
I mean he can make every every throw right as
the as the clip says, you can ignore that guy.
Um yeah, I mean he can do everything in the field,

(34:18):
and he can scramble around to gain yards after everything
has broken down, after the play has broken down. So yeah,
almost like a mistake, right, you know. He just kind
of accidentally, you know, turns into a twelve year game
when he could have been sacked for six right, yeah,
exactly exactly, And there are not many quarters that quarterbacks
that can do that. I think what is more impressive
is what Evan mentioned, the fact that he was able

(34:41):
to evolve this year without ty healing, without these bombs
away offense that they had before. And you know, you
would expect them to take at least longer to score,
but they actually do it as fast without tacking the
ball down down the field. So yeah, I mean he's
absolutely impressive. I would the Eagles do to be able

(35:01):
to actually make them bump more than once due to
be honest, Yeah, but it is what it needs. I
would have been on the Eagles before the Super Bowl. Uh,
the super Bowl be gone, but yeah, I mean I
would have been their own Yeah right, all right. I
want to get back to the you brought up Barrick
b enemy offensive coordinator. Why is he not getting more

(35:24):
run as potential head coach based especially on what we
just saw Kansas City perform on the Super Bowl. That's
a that's a sticky question. I think that there's some
stuff in his background from Colorado his college University of
Colorado days. That has sort of been uncovered. I don't
want to speculate as to exactly what it is, but

(35:44):
there are some things in his past that at first
were detriment to him maybe getting some looks as a
head coach. But now at this point, it feels like
that's been talked about and been covered and was years ago,
to the point where maybe I'm not now I'm not

(36:05):
honestly sure because he's had so many interviews and I
think the one thing that Andy Reid said that was
interesting this week after the super Bowl was he kind
of hopes that the enemy goes someplace else and runs
the show on offense himself without Andy Reid over his shoulder,
prove once and for all that he's capable of right

(36:27):
that it's him. I think the last thing that you
hear a little bit about is his interviewing that he's
not the best interviewer. And maybe there's something because he
said about that, but I do think it's crazy because
when you look at all these other coaches that that
have gotten these opportunities, I just look at the Eagles,
you know, with Serenia, I mean, he didn't call plays,

(36:49):
and he didn't have that power as much because he
was he was under the guys that called plays on
his staffs, you know, Frank Reich and things like that,
and he still got a head job. Right, So I'd
be remissd to not mention that there might be some
racial issues with it as well, because it's part of
the conversation and it absolutely is with him, and it's disappointing.

(37:13):
It absolutely is. I think that there's gotta be he's
gotta he has taken enough of the credit. He deserves
enough of the credit to be in better consideration for
head coaching jobs, and he's been in and unfortunately, it
might take him moving away from Andy Reid and Patrick
Mahomes and going someplace else and fixing an offense elsewhere

(37:35):
for him to be able to say, hey, you know,
I'm really really good at this. Isn't that really the
way it works though? With assistant coaches, I mean they
you know, if you get going in a good spot
for a while and then somebody takes a shot at
you and then it doesn't work out well. I use
Josh McDaniels as a perfect example. Right, Let's use Bill
Belichick as the best example of that because he took

(37:55):
his shot with Cleveland right and then it didn't work
out in Cleveland. He had to back a little bit
before he could take another step forward, and it obviously
worked out. Bill obviously has kind of broken the mold,
I think on that one. But it seems to me
though that that's where a lot of coaches find themselves.
If they get the opportunity and it doesn't go well,
they forget that maybe taking a step back is the
better part of valor here in order to take a

(38:17):
step forward later on down the line. And the reason
I bring that up is because I think the Patriots
have a couple of guys like that who were much
maligned this last year, and not for improper reasons or
improper reasons, it's just it was not a good year
all the way around. But when you look at you know,
two former head coaches who came to New England this
past year, Patrician Judge. In case you're wondering, of course,

(38:39):
that's what we're talking about here. Maybe they need to
go to someplace else in order to really do something
about their careers forthcoming. And that's that would be my advice.
That would be my advice to anybody who's trying to
get out of the run of their current career, take
a step back, look at the picture a little bit,
and be willing to move and go some heselves so

(39:00):
that way you can shake yourself if any negativity that
came from the former place of employ Yeah, it's just
I think with the Nimy, it's crazy because he doesn't
have any negativity. He's he's only been good at his job.
You know, he's had a hand in developing Patrick Mahomes.
He has one of the most innovative offenses in football.
They evolve there, they're innovative, their new age, they're all

(39:21):
those types of things. And yet he he can't sniff
ahead job. I mean, there was what I think six
openings this this offseason, I think is the number, and
only one of the even interviewed the guy, right, the
other five teams didn't even interview him. Would it be
that the Chiefs are actually doing what we thought the
Pads are doing in the past, like preparing him to

(39:43):
be the successful to like also before the Super Bowl,
he said that if he would come back, I think
there's a chance that they might be grooming him for
that role. But Andy Reid. I don't know if Andy
Reid's going anywhere anytime soon. He's sixty four years old.
I get that he's a bigger guy, and there are
some concerns about his health long term and things like that.
But I when you have Patrick Mahomes as your quarterback, like,

(40:06):
you're not going to just give up years with Patrick
Mahomes as a as a competitor. So I don't know
if any reads necessarily going anywhere in the next three
to five years. And I think with the enemy you
kind of have to cash in off this wave right now.
I don't know. It's it's really disappointing. I think that
that he's not been considered more as a head coach.

(40:29):
It's it stinks to me that he has to now
go and basically take a lateral move as from offensive
coordinator to offensive coordinator of another team just to then
maybe move up to head coach. It shouldn't be that way.
I mean, you look at the just look at the
Eagles staff. You know, Sirianni was the offensive coordinator under

(40:50):
Frank Reich, never called plays. Frank Reich was the play
caller in Indianapolis. He gets a head job, stighten or whatever.
The offensive coordinator, Skyching whatever his name is, Like, Yeah,
he goes and he gets a head job with Sirianni
being an offensive head coach, his OC still gets a
head job. And then Gannon, their defensive coordinator, gets a
head job. So all these guys are getting head coaching gigs.

(41:15):
B enemy is not even getting interviews for head coaching gigs.
So either, like I said earlier, either what's what happened
at Colorado is really really really bad to the point
where you just can't overlook it as an owner and
hire that guy, or he's a bad interviewer. It's not

(41:38):
the Andy Reid thing. I just can't believe that because
all these other coaches, like why would a why would
Matt Patricia and Brian Flores get head coaching jobs if
everybody was terrified of what is Belichick? And what is
those guys right, like, if they if they really felt
like that, then they would know belichick assistant would ever
get a head coaching job, and they all get head

(41:59):
coaching jobs. So something is off there with with the Enemy,
And I don't know, maybe the best thing for him
is to just go out and and maybe own it
or someplace else. Turn it someplace else or maybe own
the skeleton, like if it's if it's something that's well,
that's going on in his past. We've seen in this country.
We've seen in this country that works politically. Maybe you

(42:20):
go out and you do some you know, interview with
with Aaron Andrews or something like that, and and put
yourself out there and say that was a long time ago,
and I've grown as a person. This is what I've
done since then to be a better person into society
and things like that. And and maybe that that alleviates
some of the pressure from an owner to hire him

(42:42):
as a head coach. But clearly he's a great football coach. Yeah,
and they had unbelievable success and and uh, you know,
it's just it's one of the great you know, conundrums,
I guess in the NFL. Now, how a guy like
that keeps getting passed over, if not for interviews, for
jobs especially, And it looks like that's that guy's probably
is deserved as any. Now that being said, with the

(43:02):
Patriots own camp right now, are you at all surprised
with the way any of the coaching moves have begun
to play themselves? Sells out with the shuffle. I mean,
we think Gerard Mayo is in line for some kind
of a higher up position, even though it has yet
to really be determined what it will be. Namewise, we
know that Bill O'Brien is back, we know ostensibly as

(43:25):
the offensive coorded or slash quarterbacks coach. We know that
there's a new tight ends coach. It's coming because Nick
Kaylee has gone. So I'm just kind of curious what
your take is, at least at this stage and when
it comes to coaching what needs to be done next
for the Patriots. I'm not surprised at all by the
guys that they've hired. Maybe I know it's just reported
right now, the team hasn't officially announced Adrian Clem. Maybe

(43:47):
Adrian Clem with someone that came a little bit out
of nowhere, obviously a former player of the Patriots, not
completely out of nowhere, but let's be honest. He was
a first round or the second round, right, and he
was mediocre at best as a player. Some would even
call him a bust. But he never lived up I
don't think, at least to his pre draft standing. Yeah,

(44:12):
but from everything that I've read up on him since
his name first started getting bandied about as a potential
replacement on the Patriots offensive staff. Here is the fact
that in the collegiate ranks, one of the reasons why
he was able to ascend to a job that he
had at Oregon in the past year is because he
the players love him, number one. The players love him

(44:32):
that he spits fire and brimstone out on the field,
which is something that you need, I think, in this
day and age, to really connect with some of the
guys that are out there, and that may be exactly
what this Patriot's offensive line needs. Yeah, great developer of talent,
a great leader of younger players especially, And I would
also mention that Oregon's offensive line last year very few

(44:54):
mental errors, like very few mistakes, whether it was penalties
or as SIAM issues or whatever. They were a very
clean operation. And you hear that number, I think it's
it was like five sacks in eleven or twelve games
last year and how many times were good through the
football game. Now, some of that was quick release stuff,
urpo stuff like there's something like built in scheme. Maybe

(45:16):
that's what Maybe that's part of the project here in
New England. Yeah, you might get back to more of
that with the quick release, because I always wondered, why
the hell are they having these passing problems if they're
putting him back in the shotgun or they're putting him
under center and they're not giving him an opportunity to
quick release. And of course that goes back to well
because we know who's calling the plays and it just
didn't compute, and it's a whole other different mess, but
it makes logical sense to go this route. Yeah, So

(45:40):
I think that there's a lot to be said for
how clean of an operation he ran at Oregon from
all those types of thing. I mean, how many how
much of an issue last year with the offensive line
or penalties you know, pre snap, false starts, you know,
all that kind of stuff like that, that was a
major issue that had never really been an issue. So
I think along with Bill O'Brien, Adrian Clem comes in,

(46:03):
and I think the operation as a whole is going
to be much cleaner. It's going to be a much
more efficient, much crisper, a much more a professional look
to things. But I don't think that that is. That's
great and all, and they need that sort of guidance
right now, but it can't stop there, right, Like that
can't be the only thing that this new offensive regime

(46:25):
brings to the table. And I look at the Super Bowl,
I look at how some of these offenses have evolved
across the league, and the Patriots are dinosaurs. They are
They're an old school offense. And I'm not just talking
about like full back power eye like, I'm not just
talking about that. It's more about how they dress up plays.
I mean, I've been talking about this all season. This

(46:46):
is not a new take from me. A motion RPO
play action like all these different bells and whistles that
you see Kansas City and Philadelphia and San Francisco and
the Bills and like all these other teams that were
the lastman's standing in the in the playoffs this past year,
all of these offenses have evolved to being a lot

(47:07):
more There's just a lot more going on. There's a
lot more window dressing, there's a lot more moving parts
pre snap, at the snap, all that kind of stuff.
And the Patriots have just been stale in that regard.
And be that as it may. I mean, the fact
of the meta is that what the pictures do and
they didn't execut you very well either, yeah. Yeah, I mean,
let's let's call it one because I think what they're
doing and what they did here for many years is

(47:30):
a Jimmy's and Joe's thing, Like you have to have
great players, and they didn't have the same person that. Right,
if you're gonna play an offense where you are stagnant
at the at the line of scrimmage and you just
kind of do what you do, then you just have
to be really really good at that, and they just
weren't really really good at it. When they had Brady

(47:51):
and Gronk and Edelman and all these other guys, they
were great at it and they were able to just
do that, you know. I always go back to what
Bill Belichick would say about the Colts in the early
two thousands with Peyton manning, they were an eleven personnel team.
They lined up in three wide receiver with Marvin Harrison
and Reggie Wayne and Stokely in the slot and Dallas
Clark and Edrin James and Peyton, and Peyton would control

(48:14):
it all out the line of scrimmage and he'd get
them into the right play. But they wouldn't change formations,
they wouldn't motion, they wouldn't shift, they wouldn't do any
of that stuff. They would just line up and play
you straight up. And they were just so good at
it that it didn't matter. Well, the Patriots are not
so good at it that it doesn't matter. So I
think offensive creativity, innovation, whatever you want to call it,

(48:35):
that has to happen now. I think when people look
at Bill O'Brien, they often say, well, it's a retread higher, right,
because he was here before. But Bill O'Brien hasn't been
here in ten years, right. He hasn't been here since
the twenty twelve, twenty eleven, twenty twelve season. So he's
somebody that has now been at the collegiate level. Ben
at Houston with the more new age quarterback into Shaun Watson.

(48:57):
But I really look at his experience at Alabama over
the last two years in Penn State even and say, okay,
well he's he was learning the trickle up schemes like
the RPO packages and the motion plays and things like that.
That's going to make him a better coordinator. I would
hope that that would liven up the offense a little bit.
I do think so, And I think what you've seen
across the league now is that we can no longer

(49:19):
sit here and say, I'll just use the RPO as
an example that the RPO is a college football play.
We can't say that anymore because the two teams that
we're playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday, we're spamming
RPOs for four straight quarters. Well because they both have
they both have extraordinarily mobile quarterbacks. But I don't think
that mobility is the only thing that you like. You

(49:40):
can run an RPO that's a pass a run option
to the running back without having right So you can't
say that these things are like gimmicky or college or whatever. Like.
You can't use that anymore because all these teams are
using them at a high level except you. So I
think that you really need to have evolve in that regard.

(50:01):
And that's what I hope that with Clem and with
Bill O'Brien spending the last year in the college game,
and Clem was at Oregon with Dan Lanning and that staff,
and they were they took their coordinator from Texas Tech,
and they were a very new age offense, like an
air raid with all sorts of motion and pre snap

(50:22):
stuff going on and all sorts of bells and whistles
on that offense. So he comes from a background now
with a year in a system that has a lot
of that as well. So I would just like to
hope that, you know, maybe those things trickle into the
Patriots scheme coming next year. One needs, guys, what needs
to happen next? Now that we've gotten a couple of

(50:43):
coaches in place here, we assume that a couple of
more were going to fall into place. I know there
needs to be some definition there is I alluded to
with Droid Mayo perhaps in particular, what needs to happen
next as far as Patriots coaching and coaching philosophies concerned
at this stage of the game, where do they need
to go next? What needs to happen now before you
really start thinking free agents, which is coming right around

(51:05):
the corner. Yeah, I think right now the biggest thing
is what I just said is just updating this scheme,
bringing the system that the Charlie is Josh McDaniels system.
Does that also include potentially more new names from We're
new faces into the mix in terms of position, coaches assigning,
reassigning duties. Uh, saying goodbye to Mat Pajusha, Joe Judge

(51:26):
and bringing somebody else. I mean, I'm asking what do
you think is going to make this a better team
as far as the organization, the football organization is concerned,
and by loan on that, how much better than does
it take us? Right? How many wins does not add
on the total? Like how much better can we be
in That's a good question. Happen in the playoffs afterwards,

(51:47):
because you're gonna have to face my homes and Alan
and border, right, yeah, we're not away from that, and
we have to score points. So yeah, that's a good question.
I mean, and I think it's hard to answer the
question of how many wins it's going to be until
we see who they acquire personnel was right, until we
get through free agency in the draft. I how much
does Bill Brian bring on his own? I don't, well,

(52:09):
what tools does he have to work with and what
does he do with that those tools? I think is
kind of a wait and see thing. I think what
happens next on the coaching staff, Joe Judge is going
to be reassigned. We know that. I don't think that
he is going to necessarily be responsible for a specific position.
I think he's going to be sort of that floater

(52:30):
coach that Matt Patricia was that football advisor role something
along those lines. You know what Michael Embardi was, special
projects like whatever you want to call it. I think
that they won't give him a specific position group because
if they give him, and I know, Will Lawing is
here who came with Bill O'Brien and his followed Bill
O'Brien around from all of his stops, and he's a

(52:51):
tight ends coach by trade. So he's the most likely
candidate to take over for Nick Kayley as a tight
ends coach. But let's just say for our him in
say the Patriots make Joe Judge the tight ends coach,
and then and then Hunter Henry and John who Smith
have awful seasons. Now, all they're gonna here is it's
Joe Judge's fault, right Like Joe Judge is the reason

(53:12):
why they were terrible. So I think that there's a
better way of doing it, and that's probably making Joe
Judge some sort of quality control coach or some sort
of a floater coach there. Maybe he's dipping his toes
a little bit on offense. Maybe he's helping out a
little bit on special teams, which I think what most
people in the fan base would like to see. And

(53:33):
he's moving around and kind of doing things that he can.
As far as Matt Patricia, I don't even know if
he's here next year. And I don't think that that's
just a patriot driven thing. I think it speaks to
what you were talking about. Johnna earlier might have recognized
the need to move on some world. Yeah, I think
that he could benefit a lot from a career reset.

(53:57):
I would honestly say that he might benefit a lot
from sitting out a year from coaching. Now. Obviously, if
the opportunity presents itself to jump to another staff and
you take it, I don't think you passed those up
in his position. But I don't think that it's the
worst thing in the world from Matt Patricia to also
maybe take a year off. I think what's interesting about
Matt Patricia is that when they brought him back from

(54:20):
the Lions, they were really grooming him in more of
that Ernie Adams role, and he was setting up shop
in that role. You know, he was hiring Evan Rostein,
and he hires a little bit of his staff and
they are they were building out things and coming up
with ideas and things like that of how to continue
post Ernie with the advanced analytics and the advanced scouting

(54:42):
department and things like that, and then they pull him
down from upstairs to come coach and be the offensive
play caller last year. So I don't think that that
was necessarily one hundred and ten percent what Matt Patricia
even wanted. So I think at this point him moving
on to a different that maybe he goes, you know,
he's a linebacker's defensive line coach by trade before he

(55:04):
became the Patriots defensive coordinator. Maybe he goes in is
a linebackers coach on somebody's staff. Maybe he goes and
sits out, sit out, sits out a year from coaching altogether.
I think that would be probably what would benefit him
the most. But I am really surprised that he gave
up on that trajectory of being that next Ernie Adams

(55:27):
quote unquote uh so quickly, easily or whatever, because I
think that that was a role that maybe he would
have fit in better. It may have been that case,
but I get the sense that he still aspires to
be a coach of not a head coach somewhere in
the NFL, which is probably the reason why he decided
not to go that route. I don't know, that's a
tough sell. I listen, I'm not, of course it is,
but I'm just saying that's my thought. If that makes

(55:50):
perfect sense him becoming the quote unquote guru to the guru, right,
if he's gonna have any chance of being a head
coach again in the league, I think he's gonna have
to go back to coaching defense and try to rise
through the ranks again position coach, whether it's linebackers, a
defensive line and a defensive coordinator, and go back on
that that track. But I don't think Matt Patricia is

(56:14):
ever going to be a head coach in the league again.
I don't really kind of see it either. I guess
then from this point forward, now, while the coaching staff
is still in somewhat a state of flux, is it
difficult to proceed with personnel issues. I mean, they're gonna
have to start thinking about free agency and not too
far distant future they've got obviously with the combine coming up,

(56:37):
as you said, just another week to ten days or so,
and you're going to start looking at rookie prospects so
you can start ranking them and deciding if there's somebody
there that might be worth a shot that maybe you
don't already know about. This is the time when you're
college scouting has to come to the fort and say,
these are the guys we want. And let's face it,
last year, I thought that the Patriots college scouting draft

(56:58):
in scouting was did an actually representable job for some
of the guys that they picked up ended up performing.
It was a shame that some of them got into
some situations where they weren't available late in the year.
But I think, you know, the main criticism of the
Patriots draft a year ago was all those guys could
have been available later, but when they were on the field,
they were performing and they were achieving, they were okay.

(57:19):
But I mean, again, you don't truly know anything about
a rookie class until you're in your at least your
second or third year. At least I thought the rookie
class is underwhelming. Besides Marcus Jones. Marcus Jones was the
one sometime right. We said the same last year for
the for the rookie class, and then we had to
revise songs, the themes we said, So I don't agree

(57:42):
with don't we have to give them some time see
what they do and who knows, like maybe take when
he's actually good receiving, utilize right, absolutely, And couldn't you
also make the case though, that maybe they were underwhelming
to you because they just didn't have the best oversight. Sure,
I look, I'm I'm not trying to bury any of them.
I'm more than willing to give them some slack based

(58:03):
off of the coaches that they were working with. But
I didn't like to draft all that much at the time,
and I don't really see my opinion changing all that much. Like, look,
I I gotta be honest with you, cole Strange. I
didn't like to pick at the time. I don't like
to pick now. It's I think against cole Strange. I
just thought picking a guard there, with where the team
was as an organization and as they're standing in the

(58:27):
in the pantheon of the NFL, to pick a position,
a low level position like guard that's not a primary
or it's sort of a premier position on your roster
was a was a big miss. It was a big
miss of a first round pick. They needed somebody, just
like they do this year. They need to pick guys
that are going to be the next guys of this team,

(58:50):
Like they need to pick the need to pick guys
that are gonna be the next guys, right, Dante high Towers,
Devin mccordy's, you know, uh, those types of pillars of
your franchise. You know guys that ten years from now
we're talking about Patriot Hall of Fame, right, Like, those
are the types of guys that this team is missing.
They got a bunch of Cole Strangers and Tae Kwon

(59:12):
Thornton's and those types of players, Like, they have plenty
of depth. I don't think depth is the issue with
the Patriots roster. I think top end talent is the
issue with the Patriots roster. And that's where the draft
last year I thought missed the mark was that they
got a lot of really good contributors, but they get
the top end talent, they don't need contributors, right, Well,

(59:33):
that was my whole point. They got guys who could contribute,
but we're still missing that up echelon. And so in
order to get that up relationalon, do we have to
wait for the coaching situation to play itself out or
is this process something that I don't think continuing situation
is that uncertain. Like I think the coaching is pretty
much is where it is, like wherever Matt Patricia and
Joe Judge and end up. I think at this point

(59:54):
it's sort of an afterthought, like Bill Briant's your offensive coordinator,
assuming everything goes through cont Actually with Adrian Clem that's
your offensive line coach. Troy Brown will coach the receivers
with Ross Douglas if any will coach since Sarry we'll
coach the running backs. Like this is all we saw
it pretty much at the Shrine Bowl, just with Bill
O'Brien as the as the head guy on that side
of the football. So I don't think that any of

(01:00:16):
that is really uncertain or what you know, uncertain at
this point in time. I think that that's what it's
going to be. And I don't where Matt Patricia and
Joe Judge fill in if they feel in at all
is an afterthought at this How did you feel it
when the whole Shrine Bowl, you know, divvying up of
duties went for the Patriot coaching stuff that was there.
It was interesting. I thought that at first, you know,

(01:00:39):
very first day, we got out there and Bill O'Brien
was front and center, hands on coaching guys up, like
getting right into the middle of drills and participating in practice,
and then we didn't. We only saw him on that
first day. But I thought that the one the couple
coaches that I thought really stood out for them were

(01:01:00):
and Sarah, I actually thought did a really good job
with the offensive line. I know Billy Yates pitched in
as well with the offensive line, but some of the
people that I had talked to at the Shrine Bullhead
said that the offensive line prospects that the Patriots are
working with weren't exactly top one hundred fifty, top fifty
type of talents in this draft. They were mostly working

(01:01:20):
with guys that are going to be Day three, maybe
even UDFA type of players. And I thought the offensive
line looked pretty good in terms of assignments and that
sort of thing. But the guys that really stood out,
I thought were the two defensive coaches. Brian Belichick has
really actually impressed me. I think that he gets a
bad rap because he's the coach's son, and that's always

(01:01:42):
going to be something he's gonna have to carry with
like Steve, but I really thought that he came off
as a very personable, you know, relatable guy to some
of the younger players that were out there. He's a
younger guy, you know, he's not somebody. He's not his dad,
he's not seventy years old. So I think having some
of that youth and energy and him and Mike Pellegrino

(01:02:02):
on the defense side of the football, I think got
a lot of praise, and rightfully so, it got a
lot out of those kids too. I would agree with
you about Brian Belichick. The few interactions that I've had
with him, I think he's been great. Yeah, he really
seems like he's on the ball. He's very personable, easy
to talk to. I mean, I was like, Wow, I'm
impressed with him. Yeah. Not not to say that Steve's
not you know, right is different person He's just a

(01:02:23):
different personality. I think Steve is a lot more like
his father, and I think Brian is a little bit
more of a guy that you can approach and have
a conversation with um. So I've been really impressed with
him just observing him, getting to know him, and I
like to put that out there, because I think both
him and Steve get a bad rap, but because they

(01:02:45):
are Bill's sons and they're, oh, the only reason why
they're on the staff is because they're they're Bill's sons.
And I just think that that's really unfair to both
of them because just look around the league, like Kyle Shanahan,
like his is He's got his job because of his
father too, you know, so I think that it's unfair
to put that all on them, and I think Brian

(01:03:07):
as well, if you look the whole thanks Dad mentality. Right. Yeah.
I forget which, um, which highlight it was, or which
super Bowl it was, but I was watching something recently.
I think it might have been one of the early
two thousand Super Bowls and they had just just one
and oh no, no, no, no, it was the Seattle

(01:03:28):
Super Bowls all the Malcolm Butler stuff, because there was
I think that was like an anniversary or something of
the Malcolm Butler play. And they were showing Belichick celebrating
on the sideline and Brian and Steve were both with
him on the sideline and Brian was actually holding a
clipboard and from what I understand, he used to take

(01:03:50):
notes during games and practices, and his dad would come
up to him and say, you know, they would go
over the notes together, and I'm sure this was probably
something that Bill did with his dad, right, And that
was sort of Brian, I think from a very young
age was always somebody that I was very into it, right,
Like he was very into coaching and into the intricacies

(01:04:12):
of football and learning the game and things like that.
So well, see, yeah, that was a big takeaway from
me from the Shrine Bowl for sure. All right, let's
reset it here for just a moment. It is, of course,
this is our room first offseason edition of Patriots Playbook
here on Patriots dot Com Radio. Well, traditionally March, April, May, June, July,

(01:04:33):
August for the next six months, will come to you
on the final Wednesday of every month, just so you
can kind of have a little bit of an idea.
Wind will be too with you either the final Wednesday
or the next to final Wednesday. A lot of it
depends on vacation and scheduling and draft and all that
kind of stuff that's coming up over the next few months.
Our time has shifted during the regular season. Our program

(01:04:53):
is normally on Thursdays from two to four pm Eastern
for the live version. Of course, if you're listening on
the podcast, it doesn't matter. Ust to us whenever you want,
But during the off season we bump it up a
bit to noon to two. Hey, it's easier on the
on Matt here because he you know, can get rid
of me earlier and be on Wednesdays. We kind of
balance out the offseason programming that way, so it works
out good for everybody, works out better for all the

(01:05:15):
schedules concerns. So a little bit of a change, but
shouldn't be too hard to follow along. The phone lines
are open, just like they always are during the regular season.
If you hear something that we're talking about, you have
a question, you have a comment, a criticism, whatever it
is that you know, floats your boat. Eight five five
Pats five hundred toll free telephone number doesn't change, eight

(01:05:38):
five five Pats five hundred. You can also hit us
up via email, web radio at Patriots dot com. That
doesn't change. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.
The Twitter handle is at JR Broadcaster. Happy to talk
football with you if you want to send a questions
and to know what have you, or you can post
on my Facebook page as well, and we can go

(01:06:00):
that direction. Just to tell you that coming up in
about twenty five minutes, Russell Baxter, who's kind enough to
join us throughout the course of the regular season. We
call him the pro Football Guru. His Twitter handle at
backs football Guru. We'll join us to go sort of
through what happened the regular season and what he's anticipating

(01:06:20):
might be worried to talk about as we get ready
to launch into the twenty twenty three year, because, believe
it or not, before we know it, it's gonna be
here with the first OTAs, and you've got the combine
that launches in another couple of weeks, and then you're
gonna have the draft to talk about, and we're gonna
get into more of the nitty gritty on that one
as well. I know, Evan, we'll be dealing with that

(01:06:40):
probably pretty quickly. Right the draft already in it, you're
already jumping into already have mock draft one point er up.
I have a wide receiver, our best fits ranking going
into the combine, and I'll probably do a couple more
positions of that, you know, tackle, corner, some of the
bigger needs and go from there. Yeah. Right, so let's
let's let's jump on that that one right away. So
let me uh start with the Nazis on this one,

(01:07:03):
because in all honesty, I want to know from your
point of view what you feel like the Nazis is
the number one need for New England going in the
twenty twenty three. As a player, I would say tackles
like maybe I'm a mac apologist or whatnot, but I
would say that the offensive line was was stable. The schemes,

(01:07:23):
as I Evan said, we're not amazing, and in Europe
we get also all twenty two, so we can we
can take that as well. Yeah with the NFL pass
and uh yeah, I would say that the tackle it
cannot be overstated. And I still do not understand the
move to change the two tackles, to be honest. Uh,
it does not make sense to me that they sweet

(01:07:45):
browning wing. Uh. But yeah, I mean obviously there are
needs at corner. I would say that if we resigned
a good miles, I can live with the wide receivers
we have as long as they're able to do something
different with them. And uh yeah, like like they like
like get them open. I guess that would probably also

(01:08:06):
work too. I don't know, ev you know, I know
that you can probably going back and forth on this
one based on our conversations during the course of the
regular season over what you feel like might be, you know,
um mission one really in terms of getting new players
in here, let me let me start out by asking
do you feel like getting what you think is necessary
easier through free agency or through the draft. I think

(01:08:30):
that the biggest need I have on the board right
now for the Patriots is tackle. Okay, simply because they
just don't have any tackles, Like it's it's really that well,
they don't have any tackles that performed up to the capability.
Brown is literally the only tackle that they have under
on the on the roster right. Yeah, So Isaiah Wynn,
Marcus Cannon, Yadney could just Connor McDermott all free agents.

(01:08:52):
So everybody that played right tackle for them last year,
which was their evolving door, all of which was not
great to begin with in terms of production on the field,
all of that is a free agent. So Trent Brown
is the older guy that they have under contract for
next year that has play tackle for them before and

(01:09:13):
I just think that that more than anything, their right
tackle play last year was way, way, way below the line. Like,
I understand that we can talk about wide receiver and
needing top end wide receiver talent, and I'll get I
will talk about that a lot, and I agree. I'm
not disagreeing with that point. But they just simply need tackles,

(01:09:35):
and they also need tackles that are reliable and can
be a productive player. So I say tackles number one
biggest need. I look at tackle as some of the
other needs too of recent past. Like as much as
it hate, I hated them taking a guard in the
first round last year after they moved Shack Mason and
didn't sign they needed a guard, right, that was just

(01:09:56):
a need. They needed a guard, so they went out
and got cold strained. So I think tackles a similar one.
I still believe in both offense and defense, the number
one corner and the number one wide receiver, Like, I
still think that that's something that they really need to
address or try to address. I would say that the
best way for the team is probably not necessarily free agency,

(01:10:18):
but the trade market at wide receiver, I think it's
gonna be juicy I think that there's gonna be some
options there, whether it's Te Higgins, Jerry Judy, DeAndre Hopkins,
Mike Evans maybe, Like I think that there's going to
be some guys out there, and certainly every year there's
always somebody that we are not talking about, a J Brown,
Tyreek Hill that ends up moving. So I think that

(01:10:40):
that's going to be the more the easier one for
them to go. But just because we know about their
draft record at the position, and as much as it
would be the best thing for them to do to
find one of them in the draft and pluck one
of these great draft talents and have them under a
rookie contract and do that whole thing, I just have
no faith that they are going to be able to

(01:11:02):
evaluate that position and develop that position in the draft
at the top of the draft and the number one corner,
you know, I do still think in Belichick system, although
they become a little bit more zone, a little bit
more split safety, kind of creeping towards that a little
bit more and more every year, I still think at
the route they want to play man coverage when the
cards are on the table and they need to make

(01:11:23):
a play on defense, I still think that they want
to play man coverage, and if you're gonna be that
type of defense, then you need that number one guy
to go out there and take Jamar Chase or take
you know, the number one receiver on the opposite Stefon Diggs.
If you don't have that guy, then it's very difficult
to play a lot of man, especially in those critical situations.
How confident are you that this team will be able

(01:11:45):
to address the immediate needs that you've identified as being priority.
They have the assets to do it. I mean, the
fourteenth overall pick is a good pick in the draft.
We hate how we got there, but the fourteenth overall
pick is draft a starter? Can they they do a
plug and play here? Like yeah, kind of cold, strange
would be and he ended up being that way and

(01:12:06):
you can sort of argue whether or not you know
it was effective, But they do need another plug and
play guy right there. Oh yeah, I think that one
of the top three tackles I do believe will be there,
whether it's Paris Johnson, Broderick Jones, or Scronsky from Northwestern?
How much does a tackle move the needle though? At fourteen?
And should they go that high with a tackle. Oh yeah, absolutely,
that's a premium position. Like that's when you have a

(01:12:28):
quarterback too, like Mac Jones that is not a mobile quarterback.
You need to protect him, like he's not Mac Jones.
That we saw it last year under pressure the numbers
are terrible. They're better his rookie season because there's under
pressure less, right, Like, So, if he's really going to
bring that game to the next level, I think it's
the same as what they had for years with Brady,

(01:12:49):
you know, having a stable offensive line and being good
up front. That's they need that, especially if this is
going to be the quarterback. That's a bottom line thing
that they absolutely need. I think what number one wide
receiver would move the needle more. And the problem is
is that they don't really have in this draft. I
don't think that at four I think at fourteen that

(01:13:11):
you're too early on the receivers in this draft. There's
no DeVante Smid, Jamar Chase, Jalen Waddle like that. That
guy doesn't exist in this draft. The sweet spot in
the draft for receiver is going to be like twenty
through forty, right, So this is a lot like I
know they got the wrong guy, but it's a lot
like the twenty nineteen draft when it comes to receivers

(01:13:31):
where A Debo and A J. Brown and Terry McLaurin
and all those guys went out early Day two. Right Like,
that's I think where the sweet spot's going to be
with wide receiver again in this draft, so I tackle.
I think at fourteens in play. There are a few
corners in the draft that I think would be intriguing
to them, but they haven't been a team that's taking
corners high very often. Isn't the free agent market for

(01:13:55):
defensive backs decent this year? It's all right, I don't
love the free agent class overall. I think, you know,
you could get a tackle like a McGlinchey or Orlando Brown.
I wouldn't overpay Orlando Brown personally, but maybe a McGlinchey
to play right tackle. But I think in the draft
this year, um, there's a lot of really good tackles,
and I don't know if that's necessarily the best allocation

(01:14:17):
of your resources to overpay in free agency. He could,
Yeah he's a left tackle, but he could play right tackle.
I just don't know if paying Orlando Brown, you know,
five for a hundred is the best way to use
your cap space when a guy like Scronsky or Roderick
Jones and the draft is going to be on a
rookie deal and you can play him at tackle and

(01:14:37):
he's going to be a really good player for you.
So I'm not sure if I would go that direction anymore,
just after reviewing a lot of the tackles, you know,
right tackle. You have guys like Dwan Jones and Darnell
right from Tennessee. Who are these big, you know, six
foot eight, three eighty type of right tackle prospects that
I think are going to be good players in the league.
And maybe you don't need to pay mcglinchy a bunch

(01:14:59):
of money to sure up that position. So I still
go back to wide receiver in the veteran market, whether
it's you know, it's not gonna happen in free agency.
I can tell you that because Jacoby Myers is probably
the best free aid and wide receiver on the market
this year. Do you resund Jacoby? Do you put a
priority on that at all, or do you give that
your full attention or do you maybe let him play

(01:15:19):
the market and see what's out there. Yeah, I'm more
of a play in the market with Jacob. I love
Jacobe consummate pro, very reliable player. I think if your
offense is going to be built as it has been
for years, through that slot receiver, if that's how you're
gonna build your offense, I think that slot receiver needs

(01:15:40):
to be a little bit more dynamic with the football
than Jacoby Myers is. You have to get somebody like
a Wes Welker, like a Julian Edelman, like Troy Brown
that can really take the football right. You know, like
when you give him a five yard pass, it can't
be five yards, it's got to be eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve yards sometimes because he's picking up yards after the catch.

(01:16:01):
I don't know if Jacobe Meyers ever going to be
that kind of guy for you, So I'm not totally
shipping him out of town. I just don't necessarily think
that it's a priority. Um like some people might to
bring him back. And I love this draft. If you're
going to draft a receiver, I love the slot. You know,
jitterbug options in this draft, Guys like Zay Flowers, like

(01:16:24):
Jackson Smith and Jig but Jordan Addison from USC Jordan Dad,
Josh Downs from unc like there's that players out there
in this draft. There's gonna be like ten to fifteen
guys that fit that mold in this draft on Day two,
in Day three, So I think you could definitely get
that Jacoby Myers replacement in the draft. It's that number
one guy, right, Like, can you get that guy? I

(01:16:45):
would love for them to hit it on it in
the draft. I just don't know if they have the
track record for me to trust them to be able
to do that. What about free agency? Right? Free agency?
Maybe they get through that route. Jacoby is the best
free agent wide receiver on the market, all right, So
free agency is not going to happen. It's it's either
going to be via trade or it's gonna be via
the draft. Like those are the two pass to get

(01:17:07):
that number one guy? Yeah, go ahead. If they getting
Pocula on the first round, as we would like them
to goosele right, and they acquired a wide receiver via today,
do you think that there's gonna be a seat big
corner on the second round or like lay their own
because I think you said that you don't expect them
to draft the corner on the second round, right, So

(01:17:29):
when do we get a corner and how do we
how do we address them? So I only expected in
the draft to corner in the first because they don't
normally do that. Like Devin McCarry is the last corner
and then he ended up being a safety that they
drafted in the first round. It's not really a position
they usually target. That's always a second round position for them.
I know it hasn't necessarily been the best track record
of them drafting second round corners, but that's definitely been

(01:17:51):
more of a second round this draft. If there's two
things that this well three things if you want to
count tackle, but just going off of corner and receiver,
there's two things that are really good about this draft
for the Patriots. Number One at receiver, Like I mentioned,
there's a ton of slot receivers in this draft. There's
not a lot of outside guys, but there's a ton
of inside guys that can play. The other thing I

(01:18:12):
would say at corner is a ton of big corners,
Like a ton of them, you know, right in the
first round. Christian Gonzalez, Joey Porter Junior, Joey Porter juniors,
like six four, Like he's just a massive dude. There's
a ton of those guys, I think on day two
there are there's plenty of options because they're this class.
Every single time I do a corner in this class
and do some research on one of those guys, I'm

(01:18:33):
writing down six one, six two sixty three. Like, all
these guys are big. So this is not a class
of corners that has a ton of little, you know,
slot Marcus Jones types of corners. This is much more
of a bigger corner draft. I really liked the guy
Um from Maryland. I'm blanking on his name right now.
He's like six foot two. My guy's always been Julius

(01:18:53):
Brands from Kansas State, six foot three, two oh five.
I really have liked his tape and liked what I
saw out of him at the Senior Bowl. So I
think there's gonna be a lot of corners in that
mold and day two that they could pick up. I
would also just mention with corner as much as I
think that number one guy is something that they could prioritize,
and there's not a ton of it, Like I don't

(01:19:15):
know if there's necessarily one in the free agent market,
but I feel like, you know, someone comes available via trade.
I could see it maybe happening to like a Jalen
Ramsey or something like that, like like how they made
the splash Ustefan Gilmour right, Like, I could see that
that sort of thing happening again. But I would also
mention that you know, their depth chart at corner is

(01:19:35):
not as dire as their depth chart at tackle because
they're bringing back the rookie Joneses and Jalen Mills, and
I think they're going to get something done with Jonathan
Jones too to bring him back too. So I think
that they're gonna look at it and say, we have
four guys that basically started for us at various points
of the year last year, all coming back at that position.

(01:19:58):
So as much as it would help the t maybe
to get one of those number one guys, I don't
know if they're going to look at it and say
we need somebody right like where they might look at
it at tackle. So at corner, I think chasing that
certain body type is exactly what they're going to end
up doing, and they're going to go out and draft

(01:20:18):
another six foot two, six foot three corner to offset
all of the smaller guys that they have in the room.
So I would look more about the body type at
corner than necessarily the asset, right, Like, in terms of
using the fourteenth pick at the corner go ahead to
move to safety, who's that? Uh? I think he's the

(01:20:42):
best guy to do it if they're going to move
somebody to safety from it. And would they only do
that if Devin mccordy decides to retire. Yeah, I think
that that would only be a move that they would
make if if McCarthy retires. I still think that their
ideal role for Jalen Mills was to move them around
a little bit more than they've been able to be
that sort of jack of all trades that he wasn't
phil Alphia towards the end, versus being just a primary

(01:21:02):
outside corner. They played him at outside corner out of necessity.
Let's face it, like that they played him there because
they had to. I think they would like to move
him around a little bit more. And if that's the case,
then yeah, I could see him moving and playing a
little bit more deep safety or back into the defense
type of role. But I think ultimately that's going to
be a position that one way or another they're gonna

(01:21:24):
have to use something on. Whether it's moving Jalen Mills
back to safety, or it's drafting a safety or whatever.
They're going to have to address that position in some way,
shape or form this offseason. There are a couple of
safeties in free agency. If you want to look at
a position where there is some options, I would say
safety is one of them. Jesse Bates from Cincinnati. I

(01:21:45):
don't know if they're going to resign him. They franchised
him last year. I don't think that they've made any
sort of headway on a long term deal. One Thornhill
from Kansas City is a guy that I really liked
coming out in someone that I think can play as
a true center fielder, you know, somebody that can really
play in that middle of the field role that Devin
mccorty played for years. So he's another guy that I

(01:22:07):
think is going to be a free agent. I know
he's going to be free agent. I think it's going
to be a fit and could be someone that could
come in here and fill Devin mccorty's role. So I
think that there's going to be some options at safety,
and I would also say that there are some options
at off ball, linebacker, inside linebacker and free agency that
interests me that I think maybe could interest them. So

(01:22:27):
how much does the decision as to who would be
the play caller or the defensive coordinator, how much of
that decision would go into predicating the style or the
type of athletes that you'd wanted these particular positions that
are key to fill for this next year. Well, I
think defensively, I've always been in the school that it's
Bill Like, at the end of the day, it's going
to be what Bill wants. I think what's an interesting

(01:22:49):
question to sort of transition that though, is what direction
are they going in defensively, because the league as a
whole is moving in a direction now where they are
not three four two gaping. We've seen this for a
number of years, ye right, right, and now it's just everywhere. Yeah.
So a team like Philadelphia, for example, who branched off

(01:23:13):
the Fangio, the vic Fangio tree, that tree has now
like half the league plays the Fangio defense, right, and
the other half of the league plays this like you know,
hybrid Seattle three defense that's playing a lot more too
high safety than it was when it was the Legion
of the Boom and in Pee Carroll's system back in Seattle.
So now everything is too high, everything's lighter, everything's faster.

(01:23:37):
So are the Patriots going to evolve with that? Right? Like,
that's I think a really big question a lot of
teams nowadays, Like it's not just in the back end,
like the back ends a lot more too high safety.
Even the Patriots have played more too high safety in
the last two seasons. It's not just that they're not
like totally stuck in the way, is what I'm trying
to say. But up front, I also think that it

(01:24:00):
plays a role as well, because the Patriots are still
typically more of like a gap control front, like they
believe in that right like, this is your gap, you
don't get outside your gap, and that's the way that
they play. But a lot of these other defenses have
simplified to one gap systems. A lot of them are
more even front systems where they are getting up the

(01:24:21):
field and that's the primary goal is to get up
the field and create havoc behind the line of scrimmage.
A lot of that is because they're playing zone in
the back end, and if you don't have a pass
rush with a zone, we know what it looks like, right,
So they are trying to get after quarterbacks and things
like that. So I wonder if the Patriots are going
to evolve that way and if that could transition their

(01:24:43):
approach in the front seven a little bit differently. And
if that is the case, you know, I think there's
there's some names out there that come from that sort
of tree. And the one guy that I've always been
infatuated with for the Patriots is Tremaine Edmunds from Buffalo
who happens to be a free agent and I think
fits a little bit like that's the Fund Gilmour thing, right,
where Like he was a high Buffalo draft pick and

(01:25:03):
he's an absolute cyborg. He's like six four, two hundred
and fifty pounds, like they don't grow on trees like that,
and a guy that can really move, is extremely explosive
sideline to sideline, a great coverage player at the linebacker
position that nods really how to how to to to
defense that Buffalo offense. Right, Just a guy that we've
all been wanting, right, but he's still has height in

(01:25:27):
length and size to kind of do the Belichick thing
with him a little bit still. Also, I think, like
you know, Jamie Collins is like sort of what he
would be like in the Patriots defense. And I think
that's somebody that they could easily pay a bag to
in free agency on day one a free agency when
the tampering period opens. That's a big thing for me,

(01:25:48):
which is which I love, by the way, the tap
the legal tampering period. Yeah, that's that's sort of a
that's a crazy way to put it. The big thing
for me in free agency, I think is learning um
from what they did in twenty twenty one when they
spend all that money and some of the things that
they spent money on were out of necessity, like they
needed tight ends. So they went out and they paid

(01:26:08):
Hunter Henry and Johnny Smith. Hunter Henry has been good.
I think he's been better than maybe you know, some
people say they've got nothing out of those type. I
don't think Hunter Henry has been fine. Johnny Smith has
not been. No, that was an overpay, Okay, Nelson Aglore,
that was an overpay. So instead of by the way,
it just killed me this last week thinking about the

(01:26:29):
Patriots and the Eagles in the Super Bowl, right, and
Agilore was the one that torched him. Yeah, they didn't
have a slot corner because Malcolm Butler is sitting on
this I know, so I'm just that's why I was
sitting there, just was agonizing over that. I'm like, and
we got this version of Nelson Agilore. What the yeah?
So I think that you look at some of these things, though,
I think what you can learn from is that maybe

(01:26:53):
off ball linebacker isn't like the biggest need on the
board right now for the Patriots. But Tremaine Edmonds is
a heck of a ball player. So I would just
rather pay Tremaine Edmunds than go pay overpay a tackle
that isn't necessarily as good as you're paying him to be, right,
like Orlando Brown. So I would just rather them do that.

(01:27:15):
Like I look at Tremaine Edmunds, I look at Jesse Bates,
and I say, those are two awesome football players. So
even if Devin mccordy comes back, maybe safety isn't necessarily
a huge need for people. But Jesse Bates is the
best player on the market in their mind, so just
go sign the best player on the market, right, And
like you figure it out in terms of how what
basketball teams doing free agency, don't they really, they literally

(01:27:39):
think about signing the best athlete and they figure up
position later, right. I just think that they got caught
up in that twenty one class a little bit too
much in filling holes on the depth chart, right, and
not as much on who are just the best players
in this free agent class. I think the one guy
that they went out and said, this is the best
player in the free agency class that we want is
Jude On And look at how he's been the best

(01:28:01):
one out of the bunch by a wide margin. Stick
with that philosophy. It worked for you a couple of
years ago, right, whether you know it's a Stefan Gilmore thing,
Like they went out and they and they had just
a brown the same amount of cap space when they
assigned Gilmore that off season as they have this offseason.
So they have like one big swing. And if they
want to approach it that way, like they can pay

(01:28:22):
one player that like premium top of market salary. So
I would just make sure that you're not doing it
just because you have a whole somewhere and you need
to plug it all. Right, before we kind of move
on and Russell joins the program and we'll talk more
about things that are in a generic interval sense. I
want to ask you guys each a couple of real quick,
sort of on topic but off topic questions having to
do with the Patriots. Fair enough, sure, right, all right?

(01:28:45):
The first thing I want to ask and try to
give me a succinct an answer as you can. All right,
Durrell Reevas was a part of the Hall of Fame
class for twenty twenty three. Can the Patriots? Should the
Patriots rightfully claim him as their own? No? No, I
mean you get like, you know, you give him some
some kudos, you say, you know, good for you, thanks,

(01:29:06):
you know whatever, But no, he's not. He's not a
patriot like he's he's a he was a mercenary for
the Patriots. But that's just what do you think I
would as well? I think that he was. He was
a bottle of the Yeah, that's all right, So he's
sort of theirs. But it will kind of lay a
little bit of acclaim, but it's kind of like pat
him on the back and send him on and let

(01:29:28):
him go. He's a gang green and that's the way
it is, right, Yeah, yeah, all right, okay, all right,
fair enough? Does Tom Brady stay retired? And shooting yes,
yes and yes yeah. I think he's retired. I don't
think he's coming back. What I'm fascinated to see And
we talked about it after right after his retirement on
on Unfiltered how does he candle the Patriots? Right? Like, like,

(01:29:52):
what's his what's his story his post playing career story
in New England? Like is it does he come back?
How does he come back? Is does he come back often?
Does he come back one time for some sort of
send off and that's it? Or is he a part
of the Patriot lower in his post playing career? Is
he around? Uh? That sort of thing? You know, I'm
very interested to see how that whole approach. I think

(01:30:14):
when Belichick went on the Let's Go podcast and Robert Kraft,
mister Kraft coming out and saying some of the things
he said, like I think they're trying to mend that
bridge so that Brady is a part of it. That
was kind of leading me into the next thing I
was going to ask you, in all honesty, I mean,
should there be some kind of a big to do
for TB twelve once you know, you know he's decided
that he's he's already submitted his paperwork and he's in.

(01:30:36):
Should they do the ceremonial one day contract so he
retires technically as a Patriot? Does that mean anything to anybody?
And would Patriot fans want that? Yes? The nice Just
what do you think I would like speak also as
a Patriot's fun a blow that the one day contract
honestly doesn't mean anything to me, but a big celebration

(01:30:58):
has been discussing. Must absolute happened. And I think that
other than the fact that he will come for sentimental reasons,
he's a good businessman and he will know that it's
a good investment. Like he's a big area and right,
the wealthy area, right, he will have the business in there.
That's a good point. Let's see, do we put him

(01:31:20):
in the Patriot's Hall of Fame right away and wave
the five years? Oh? Yeah? That that that's a that's
definitely gonna happen if if it was up to me,
and I don't make these decisions here clearly, but it
was up to me, I would have a Tom Brady event.
I would bring him back, correct, I bring him back separate,
not not during a game, because I think at halftime

(01:31:42):
during a game you have eight minutes, right, eight minutes
and you can't give him just eight minutes. No, So
what I would do, I would host a Tom Brady
Night at the stadium. I guess you can make it
a paid ticket event so that they can clean up
on it. Fine, I'd host the event. Wait, let right
this down. I would bring back. I would bring back

(01:32:02):
as many teammates as you possibly can from the dynasty.
I would potentially go out and bring in some rivals
to like a Peyton Manning maybe comes and does that
whole thing. And I would honor him. I would make
some announcements about how you're going to continue to honor him,
whether it's putting him in the Patriots Hall of Fame,
retiring his jersey, building a statue, like all those types

(01:32:24):
of things that I think are going to happen. And
I would make it Tom Brady Night. What I would
do a lot like what they do with the Patriots
Hall of Fame, John, which I know you're very involved
in during training camp, right, So it's during the buzz
of the seasons in the summer, So you would do
it in the summertime before the season, yes, because I
would do it during training camp in the summer, because
nobody wants to go out there in the middle of

(01:32:44):
February right now in Foxborough. So I would go and
do it in the summertime, maybe have it as at
the very beginning of training camp as sort of a
kickoff to the twenty twenty three season, and I would
make all these announcements about Atreot Hall of Fame, all
that kind of stuff at this event, and I would
just blow the whole thing out because I think that

(01:33:05):
that to me, what I, as a Patriot fan miss
from Tom Brady is closure. I don't feel like the
Patriots fandom got closure because he left in free agency.
He left in free agency during COVID, so there was
no opportunity for anybody to say goodbye or to host
any sort of going end, to do anything. So he

(01:33:26):
leaves in free agency via Instagram post and then is gone. Right,
It's just gone, And I don't think that there was
any And after the game against the Titans, that was
not the moment for a send off because they lost, right,
So it just didn't have that storybook ending. And I
think that that would be a way to get everybody closure,
to allow fans to thank him and to have some

(01:33:47):
sort of ending storybook ending to his Patriot career that
he deserves. So that's what I would do. What do
you think? And in all honesty, what Whatevan just said,
he is probably being worked on as we speak. Okay,
I'll just I'll just throw that out there. What are
your thoughts on what he said there? Yeah, it makes
it makes absolute sense. And uh, I mean he's the

(01:34:10):
god what he has given to to the team. Uh,
he's invaluable and we want to make sure that he
stays in Patrick's history forever. So there's no no better
way to do it than an event and whatever makes
makes absolute sense. Uh, honestly, if if if you're broadcasting,
that would tune into towards it. Awesome, guys, thank you

(01:34:33):
for for being here today. Tanasi's congratulations on your Fantasy
football league victory. Congratulations on your your first ever for
the country of Luxembourg here on Patriots dot com Radio.
Who would fly the flag in here if we knew
what the hell it looked like. It's like the dust flag,
only the the bottom, the bottom blue is a bit brighter. Okay,

(01:34:56):
send us, send us a copy. We'll put it up
somewhere because I think you should you know, we should
represent in here. This is a big day. It's a
big day. Absolutely, I'll see it in Frankfort. Yeah, and
we will see you in Frankfort and we will be
in touch before then. All right, yes, absolutely, all right,
let's thank you, let's do this. Let's take a quick
little break. Then we bring on Russell Baxter coming up
here in the playbook. Verizon, the network America relies on

(01:35:19):
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(01:36:03):
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(01:36:25):
could stop people from drinking. That's a bit real big woman.
It's time to go around the NFL with football Guru
Russell Baxters now On. The name is Flounder on Patriots Playbook.
Welcome into the playbook once again for the first time
here in the off season for twenty twenty three, just
a few days removed from Super Bowl fifty seven, the

(01:36:47):
one and only Backs football Guru himself, Russell Baxter. Russell,
we we had a first today in twenty two years
of Patriots dot Com Radio, welcoming in our first guest
and our guest host from the country of Luxembourg. That's impressive.
Don't you think that is impressive? But it shows you, um,
you know, the worldwide appeal of the Patriots right, very

(01:37:12):
much like the Dallas Cowboys and and honestly, John is
one of the reasons we have games out of overseas,
uh being the Mexico City U the pop that, you know,
even though it turned out to be somewhat of a
failed experiment, the World Football League, the World I should say,

(01:37:34):
the World League of American Football NFL, You're showed us plenty.
Wait I missed the last part. Was that a joke? No,
I'm being being very very serious. I think what NFL
Europe did, um and eventually turned into a developmental league.

(01:37:56):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, but
it showed you the appeal. I remember, um, was it
the Olympics that were in Spain? Uh the one year
and someone being over there and I might be a
tim or what the event was. I think it was
the the Olympic um and talking about how many Barcelona

(01:38:19):
Dragons T shirts there were in the span I liked
their logo, their their Spanish dragon logo. Was was one
of the cooler logos with the spitting fire out and
all that stuff. I liked that logo, Wasn't it wasn't
that Tom Coughlin's team. Yes, it was yeah. Wait wait
wait no, wait was it who? No, I'm wrong, No

(01:38:41):
it was not it was not No, that was um
oh crap, Jack Bicknols team, Jack vicknew yes, bology, yes
it was Bicknols team the Barcelona Dragons, right yeah, ok, right,
Boston College right correct, right, correct. Yeah. I'm I'm sick
that I knew that. I actually I actually met him

(01:39:07):
when I was out at Steeler's training camp one year,
and you know, he was looking at players. He was
a guest parlor. I had probably like a half hour
conversation with him. Fascinating man. Yeah, very cool. All right,
So I'm just I'm kind of curious in a in
a big picture since Russell, what your thoughts were at

(01:39:27):
the conclusion of the season. I thought we had a
pretty good game, all all being said, I did not
mind the call, as we all know at the end
of the game, the defensive holding that led to Kansas
City getting closer to kick the game winning field goal,
because that game was not one, nor was it lost
on that call. And I think most people who you

(01:39:48):
know can understand the game of football probably realize that.
Be that as it may, I'm not sure that if
you know if I were looking at it from an
officiating point of view, that that would have been the
right call to make at that time, because I think
you have to consider the tone, the tenor of the game, YadA, YadA.
But look, if you're the back judge making that play
and you see a guy grab a fist full of jersey,

(01:40:09):
the flag's coming out, no matter how innocuous it might be.
And it's hard for me to argue either way. And
I've heard a lot of the arguments this week saying, well,
he should, she should know better, he should let the
players decide the game of the end. I totally agree
with that. But when you see it and it doesn't
go away and you can't change it, don't you have

(01:40:29):
to kind of call it? Oh? Absolutely? And it's so
ironic John that you used the term they should let
the players decide it. Yeah, Well they did, they did,
They did it. And not only that, James Bradberry said
after the game it was a hole, yes, and I
did he decided to hold him hoping it wouldn't get called. Yes, okay, yes,

(01:40:55):
And that's that's what every holding call is in the
entire pro football world. I'm gonna hold this dude, because
I don't want him debat me. And if I get called, well,
I get called, but I'm hoping I don't. Right, And
what that called did is it changed the complexion of
the end of the game because it enabled Kansas City

(01:41:16):
to hold onto the ball and longer it did and
avoid Jalen Hurts and the Eagles from coming down having
a chance to do it get setting the game into overtime. Right,
And for the Eagles fans, for the Eagles fans, though
they're all butt hurt over this this week, and again,
I get it because I can't say that I wouldn't
be if I were an Eagles fan. But you had
your opportunities before that in the game, namely the fumble

(01:41:39):
that was returned for a touchdown. Listen, I can understand
the frustration of the Eagles fans when I throw out
these kinds of numbers. Okay, you went through the postseason
then scored thirty eight, thirty one, and thirty five points
and didn't win the Super Bowl. Yeah right, okay, right,
went into the Super Bowl with a combined fact in

(01:42:04):
nineteen games and did not fack Patrick Mahomes, not once. Okay,
you played three playoff games and only turned over the
football once and that was the Hurts bumble that was
returned for a touchdown. And as history tells you, in
the Super Bowl, if you turn over the football, you're

(01:42:28):
in deep. What is the technical turn do? Yes? Okay,
this is one of my favorite numbers. John. We now
have fifty seven Super Bowl champions. Those champions have combined
for only sixty four turnovers in those fifty seven wins.
And by the way, seven of those in Super Bowl five. Wow. Okay, right,

(01:42:54):
believe me, I remember that because I cried like a baby.
So now fifty seven games, ye, fifty seven super Bowl loser.
Now convenient one hundred and sixty four turnovers in fifty
seven losses. There you go, There you go? Should should

(01:43:14):
should say a lot right there, shouldn't it? Well? Yeah,
and here's something else I'd like to point out which
shows you and I know, I know Bradi and Patrick
for Holmes probably get get the credit for this, but
obviously this is a team game. But you'll know where
I'm going here. The nature of the game now with

(01:43:34):
the with so much passing and spreading the field, it
enables teams to do things in turn that we did
not see in the Super Bowl for an awfully long time. Okay, right,
So to me, this is the standing. In four of

(01:43:55):
the last nine Super Bowls, a team has come back
from a double digit deficit to win. The Patriots did
it against the Seahawk. Yeah, the Patriots did it against
the Fountains. Well, double it's an understatement. Yeah, okay, okay, um,
the Chiefs did it against the forty nine ers, and

(01:44:16):
the Chiefs did it against Philadelphia. Now I bring up,
so almost half of the last nine Super Bowls a
team staged a double digit come back to win. John,
That only happened twice in the first forty eight Super Bowls,
And I think that leads us to where the game
is today, Russell, because the way the game has evolved

(01:44:37):
becoming more offensive, becoming more open, where there's less reliance
on you know, let's let's stop them right on the
tracks type of defense. It's more like, let's weather the
storm and get the ball back to our offense type
of defense. And that's really the way the game has evolved,
which is why we've seen these numbers skew that direction
over the last you know, a few years. Well, one, listen,

(01:45:00):
Philadelphia is and then I've heard all this stuff about walls.
The Eagles defense is overrated because you know, they didn't
play this, and they didn't play that, and they played
a week schedule, and please stop that, just you know it.
Here's the thing about the Philadelphia Oh, this is a
statistical fact. It is hard to stack the quarterback when

(01:45:23):
the running back had the football. Okay. And in the
second half of that game the Chiefs, which I thought
was the way that Philadelphia could lose. I think Philadelphia,
but this was the way I thought they could lose.
And that was Kansas City when the look the ball. Listen,
Paspra Homes threw for less than two hundred yards, much

(01:45:45):
less three hundred yards. But I believe, I believe Kansas
City finished with one hundred and fifty eight yards on
the ground. Okay, And I say that because you look
at Philadelphia. Stephen gave up the second fewest total yards
in the league, gave up the fewest pressing yards in
the league, because as you know, backyards are deducted from

(01:46:10):
passing yards and that's how you get that number. But
one of my favorite things to say when I was
at ESPN, why fly when you can drive the Eagles
were tied for eighteenth in the league in rushing deepense well,
and they showed that if they have an achilles heal,
that's where it was right and listened. There was nothing

(01:46:33):
more with any of the Chiefs running backs Achilles, especially
in the second half. And but you know, I will
also say this, I thought the tone even though Philadelphia
got out to the ten point league, I thought the
tone of the game changed John on the Jalen Who bumble,

(01:46:54):
because Philadelphia was dominating and they were up fourteen seven
and they were marching your way down the field again
and Kansas City really had no answers. And as we
found out, you know, the Kansas City gave up four
hundred and seventeen yards and total offense, they outgained Philadephia
game the Chiefs okay, And also which I thought was

(01:47:17):
showed you a little something about Philadelphia and how for
Jalen Hurts and that offensive team is down thirty twenty
seven with all the momentum going to Kansas City, they
went right down the field and not only scored the
touchdown but got the two point conversion as well. So

(01:47:37):
the piece a couple of weeks ago, the top I
might have to rethink one at least one and wedge
Super Bowl fifty seven in there, because that had just
about everything you'd want in a football game. Yeah, it
definitely did. I mean it was a you know, I
thought the game was entertaining. It had big plays on

(01:47:58):
both sides of the ball, It had turnovers, had had mistakes,
it had brain farts, had had a lot of you know,
things that you go into the entertainment factor of the game.
So I wasn't disappointed in that at all. I have
to admit. Rookster Damas picked the Chiefs. Rookster Damas told
me before the game, the Chiefs are gonna win this game.
I mean, now for your free reading. So you know,

(01:48:18):
I'm not surprised that the Chiefs won the game, and
me myself and I I kind of rooted for the
Chiefs anyway, just because I become more of an AFC
guy in my later years in life, and partially because
an AFC team signs one of my paychecks and sources
on the internet and I'm just making this up. Well,
be you also had the NFC in the Pro Bowl.

(01:48:40):
Oh that's right, they played a Pro Bowl game. Yeah,
can I can I get your honors to goodness, thoughts
on what you thought of the whole Pro Bowl. You know,
skills challenge weekend with the Pro Bowl has been they
should have just left it alone about fifteen years ago. Yeah, okay,
And I say that for this reason, for lack of

(01:49:03):
a better word, wasn't hurting anybody. No, but I think
we all realized that Russell, that none of the players,
the players have evolved to the point now where they're
not willing to sacrifice anything on their bodies for no. No, no,
I'm not talking listening. I'm not even talking about the
game so much. Okay, I'm told about you know. I

(01:49:25):
was able to attend the Pro Bowl a couple of
times when it was in Hawaii. Okay, Yeah, it was
a boom for business for Hawaii. Um, A lot of players,
as you know, after the season is over, go to
Hawaii to rest their bodies and uh you know, just listen,
literally lay in the ocean and heal their legs and

(01:49:47):
heal everything else that's hurting it. And it was always
such a brand experience to go over there. And you know,
if you went through the oceans game, but you're right there,
nobody's willing to take that chance and we listen, we've
had some of this tapped at the Pro Bowl, yeah yeah,
and in volleyball game yeah, basically so on. So I

(01:50:12):
definitely see both points of it. But the problem with
the Pro Bowl now is every two or three years
they changed what it's going to be. And you know,
you know why, why why would you know what? You know,
it would be fun to bring back UM, and maybe
you can maybe just do it with the you know,
the playoff teams and then the twelve playoff teams. Remember

(01:50:34):
the Superstars Yeah, Superstars competition, sure, yeah. And it used
to be was what I think it was, the baseball champion,
the football champion, UM, and they had like different things.
They had to tug a war, they had the obstacle corps,
you know, stuff like that, and so on. I mean, listen,

(01:50:55):
get named to the Pro Bowl still a big deal.
It's a part of contract. Getting all pro is even
more of a big deal. And I understand all that stuff.
But once they started tweaking it is when everything I
think went wrong. They kind of tweaked it right out
of existence, or right out let's put it this way.
They tweaked it right out of relevancy. Yes they did.

(01:51:17):
Now it's become like a one liner. Yeah I just
did with you and stuff. It's become and that. Yeah,
you know, yeah, there's so much that it could have
been positive out of that. And you know, listen, and
there are positively with the NFL experience and having the
fans and do all the different things that's doing and

(01:51:38):
so on um and interacting you know with players. But
I think they should have just let it be and
start listen. But you know how it is. You know,
Brett Farve doesn't get the football and overtime against the
Saints and we got to change the rule, okay, yeah sure.
And then and then the Chiefs don't get the ball
in overtime against the Patriots and we got to change

(01:52:01):
their rules, right And Josh Allen and the Bills don't
get the football against the Chiefs and we got to
change the rules. Right. Yeah, you know, just stop. You know,
as every penry has said to their child, you get
what you get and you don't get upset. Yeah that's
exactly right, and you like it all right, So our

(01:52:22):
teams now, in your opinion, if they haven't already done this,
and you might be able to offer an opinion on
this having watched the Chiefs over the last few years
since they won their last Super Bowl championship. But do
you think that there's going to be a continued push
or even a rush? Dare I say to more teams
in the league trying to emulate what Kansas City has
done because there were so many teams when the Patriots

(01:52:44):
were dynastic, they tried to copy some what what the
Patriots are doing, and then the Chiefs found an unbelievable
you know, quarterback and wide receiver and maybe even running
back combo and it was singular talent that set the
Chiefs apart. Now, are more team's gonna go looking to
try to emulate what the Chiefs have been to try
to become that themselves. I think it's harder to emulate

(01:53:06):
what Kansas City has done. John for the very reason
mut Boca. Patrick Mahomes is a unique talent. Okay, that's
not saying he's the best quarterback ever. Okay, there's some
guy out there who thinks he's right by calling him
the greatest quarterback of all time. You know, after only
five years as a starter. Okay, what the Patriots done

(01:53:31):
was stressed more but team aspect, I'm not saying the
Chiefs don't do that. In fact, this off season they
really did, you know, doing with the Tyree Hill trade
and getting as many picks as they got for him. Okay,
showed you long maybe kind of a long range, long
arranged plan and so on. I mean, listen, the Chiefs

(01:53:52):
made the bold move in two seventeen to move up
in the draft and get Patricks. They have played this
almost perfectly. They've been in the AFC title game every
year then. SE's been a starter. What's even more astounding
over the stretch. Okay, and let's keep something in mind
before you throw out the word dynasty. You know, they

(01:54:15):
they've bone won two Super Bowls, they haven't won back
to back, and they lost the Super Bowl. Okay, so
I'm not ready to give the d word yet. Um,
but what's the stunding is the only playoff game that
the Chiefs had played away from home in these last
five years were all in Super Bowls at neutral sights. Yeah,

(01:54:39):
they haven't played a real playoff game. That's right. That's
that's main bottling. That's right. That's boy. Now, come to
think of it, you're right. I just hadn't. I don't.
I didn't. That just dawned on me. Yeah no, And
then you go back to when the Patriots did their thing,
the three super Bowls in four years. They won two
AFC Championship games at Pittsburgh. Yep. Okay, you know they

(01:55:01):
beat the Colson note three when they went to Super
Bowl thirty eight. So they're totally different, you know. But listen,
you got a nineteen straight winning seasons. Um, you know
all those AFO again, what Kansas City has done and
what Eady Reid has done since going to Kansas City,

(01:55:21):
I mean, they have not had a losing season under him.
They've been to playoffs nine times in ten years. Um,
it's been like a rebirth for him. And how I
ronest was it that? You know, he gets the Super
Bowl win by beating the team that fired him about
a decade ago, right, which I thought was a kind
of a neat way to sort of you know, complete

(01:55:42):
the wrapping of the bowl around the package. Here for
the Chiefs to be honest with you, well, do you
know talk about a funny stat Okay, so this Andy Reid,
the Chiefs and the Equals have only played each other
ten line since the merger. Up until the Texans came
in the league John in two thousand and two, no,

(01:56:03):
two teams in the league had played each other a
few times in Kansas City and Philadelphia. Okay, what's funny
about that is Andy Reid has been a part of
seven of those ten games. And I read was three
and ozero against the chief when he was the Eagles

(01:56:25):
head coach, and now he is four against the Eagles
as the Chief's head coach. Wow. Yeah, Well, hey, let's
you know, what is it easy got to root for?
He really is. He's an easy got to root for.
I think everybody. I think he has earned his respect
for a while. I'm not sure he was going to

(01:56:45):
be that kind of a coach, but I think now
that you can, you can consider Andy Reid certainly in
that same classification. Is as the Bill Belichicks of the
world and the Mike Tomlins of the world. And he's
got the respect I think of most every coach and moach,
every fan around the National Football League. Well, what's funny
is he is actually the longest tenured head coach in

(01:57:05):
the league. Okay, Bill Belichick is the longest tenured head coach,
but afy Reid's first years and his coach was nineteen
ninety nine with Philadelphia and he's been a head coach
ever since. I got a chance to spend some time
with him at the Pro ironically enough, at the Pro
Bowl quite some time ago. Um. I think there's that

(01:57:28):
wild fifty four fifty two games. UM, and got to
talk to him a little and so on. And no,
you think about what he's achieved as a coach, some
of the personal issues he's had to deal with, UM,
you know, family wise and so on, and been able
to overcome them or you know, do his best to

(01:57:50):
rectify those situations, some of them obviously very very unpleasant
and so on. But what they have done, and again
it's two earlst early for the dynasty words, okay repeat first. Now,
if they're able to do something next year, which hasn't
been done since the three and four Patriots, when it's
time to start taking a closer look. But as you know,

(01:58:13):
in this day and age of free agency, UM, and
even probably before free agency, every team is different year
from year. UM. You know, again, the Chiefs have proven
their medal. There's there's no question about it. Uh. You know,
Patrick Mahomes and their ability. What's amazing is a lot

(01:58:36):
of these playoff games. Well, when they won the Super
Bowl in twenty nineteen, John, they came from behind double
digit deficit in every one of their playoff games. Remember
they were losing to the Texans at home twenty four
to nothing. Okay, yea, the rally to beat Tennessee. They
had the rally to beat the forty nine ers, so

(01:58:59):
they kind of got this comeback thing down. Pat. I'm
sure they would prefer to do it an easier right, right, sure,
you know, offensively, this is still an offensively gear team.
Chris Jones had a month or year at defensive tackle.
But you know, let's not forget in every one of

(01:59:20):
these postseason games that's the Chiefs won, they gave up
at least twenty points. I mean, the Eagles scored the
most points ever by it teams to lose the Super Bowl,
right for thirty five? Yeah, absolutely, Russell, thank you for
helping us put a bow on the season a little bit.
You know, your contributions during the course of the year,
you know in our show, as we mentioned our our

(01:59:40):
last regular season show last month, are invaluable and it's
gonna be fun to you know, catch up periodically. Hopefully
we can plug in with you from time to time
between now and next September and kind of get your
temperature on the way things are are headed that way.
I mean, we'll have the combine coming up soon, and
then you'll have free agency, and then you'll have the draft,
and then you'll have OTAs and then you'll have rookie

(02:00:02):
camp and you know, it's all right around the corner.
And it's all part of the process as we complete
the annualization of pro football, because this isn't just a
seasonal game anymore. It seems. Oh, no, free agency changed
that thirty years ago, nineteen ninety three. And it's funny
you bring up free agency because exactly four weeks from today,
March fifteenth, at four pm is the start of the

(02:00:25):
new fiscal year. And uh, you know, as we know,
they'll be what what what what do they call us? Um?
You know, the early uh negotiation that goes on tampering,
the the legal tampering, legal tampering. Yeah, right, legal tampering.
It's like jumbo shrimp, legal tampering. We'll have that for

(02:00:46):
a couple of days and then we'll find out and everything.
But but I will throw just last note, throw this
out there and thank you as always for the kind words.
I love coming on here with the you, uh you know,
knowing you and and and working with you. Just a second,
I apologize, all right, John, I John, you were more

(02:01:06):
the radio en than TDN at the at ESPN. And
I'm sure you've heard the news that you know, one
of the biggest parts of ESPN obviously was Sports Center,
and one of the biggest parts of Sports Center was
a gentleman named Barry Sack, right, I know he just
tragically passed away from a heart attack this past week. Yeah,

(02:01:27):
and uh, you know, for those of us you know
who worked with him. And I didn't spend a lot
of time working with Barry because I did not do
Sports Center. I did the football, the NFL shows and
so on. But he was a constant presence after many
of us left the company. Uh, you know, Barry was
always there for support. And you know he taught some

(02:01:48):
classes to Quinnipiac right around the corner for ar and
so on. Still shocking to find out he's not going
to bigger than life. Man with a lot of passion
for his family, for his friends, and for his craft. Right,
well said, and I'm glad you brought him up, my friend.
Thank you very much. And let's let's make a plan
on catching up soon, shall we. You know I'm not

(02:02:10):
busy at three o'clock. If you want to. I love it,
I absolutely love it. We'll continue reading your good work
as well, my man. Thank you so much. You got it, John,
take care of yourself. Russell Baxter at Backs football Guru
on Twitter. I'm gonna I'm gonna goof on my good
friend here, all right. Not only is he invaluable as

(02:02:33):
a walking, talking, encyclopedic wealth of National Football League Pro
football knowledge For those that really aren't aware with Russell,
but I will repeat the story if you hadn't heard it.
We started together at ESPN in ninety nine, I think
is actually when we started. So I've known him for
what twenty three twenty four years now, and he has

(02:02:54):
a tendency. This is the one criticism I remember that
we had, or at least a couple of people in
the radio side ESPN had of Russell when we first
started utilizing him as an expert. And why wouldn't you
use a guy like this is an expert? Because of
all the things that he knows. You didn't have to
have a computer in front of you. If you had
Russell next to you, you'd win every barroom argument you
ever had about pro football. Russell has sometimes a tendency

(02:03:18):
to rely on crutches, and by that, I mean have
you noticed his pension when he's in the middle of
an explanation for saying, Okay, we're gonna have to invent
a Russell Baxter drinking game. We will be faced, we'll
get loaded. I want you to go back through this, Matt.

(02:03:44):
This is what you need to do. Okay, you need
to go back through this show once we get it
up on the podcast here a little bit. And I
want you to put together all of the okays from Russell.
All right, and let's just see how many of them
there were. I bet through at least six to eight.
And that may be kind Russell okay montage written down? Yes, okay, right,

(02:04:04):
all right, and and well maybe maybe we include that
one of the next times that we bring Russell onto
the show and we're gonna explain to him that we're
gonna have a rustle back to drinking game, and we'll
do it live right here on the ear. I don't care.
We'll just do it. Let's just do it. And I
was the next open Okay, okay, okay, okay, we just
have a rustle back to drinking game. And we do

(02:04:26):
love him. That's why I'm goofing on him because I
think he's fabulous. He's absolutely one pent fabulous and I
can't imagine doing this show without his presence because he's
just so knowledgeable and not just about things that are
all Patriot, which is what our primary goal is here,
but about the entire NFL that affects the New England Patriots.
And so he's a very cool dude. He's a very

(02:04:47):
smart guy, and I love having fun with him. So
we'll have to work on that for a future show.
All right, thanks to Russell obviously thanks to uh Thanasis.
Let me see if I can pronounce his last name again? Odd? Okay,
so it's Blazzos, right, believe yeah, Thanasis Blazzos all right
from Luxembourg. Okay, all right, but he was Greek Pat's

(02:05:11):
nation on the Patriots Playbook Fantasy football league this year
who won it, and so we very much appreciate his
time coming from how many hours ahead is Luxemburg? And
what we are thought about six five or six? Are
they in the time? Are they in the same time? Okay,
so they're six hours ahead of us. So he actually

(02:05:31):
got to spend the early part of his evening with
us here on the show, which is hopefully fairly convenient
for him. But thank you, Thanis. So you did a
great job. And obviously Evan Lazar, who is just all
becoming our own Walkee talking local version of Russell Baxter
here inside the playbook for all the knowledge that he has,
and Matt, thank you as well for allowing us the
opportunity to do this once a month. When are we
gonna do it again? March twenty ninth. Okay, Wednesday, March

(02:05:54):
twenty ninth, So again it's a weekly or excuse me,
a monthly schedule in the off season. So this was
our February show. The March show will come on Wednesday,
March twenty nine, and that'll be after free agency has
sort of come and gone, and we'll have a lot
of new things to talk about and probably new personnel
on this football team to talk about, and scattered throughout
the entire NFL, so that will really give us some

(02:06:18):
jews to our conversation. On the twenty nine, so we'll
be back again at that time for another edition of
Patriots Playbook. 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 in the podcast rankings so new listeners

(02:06:40):
can find us. Be sure to checkpatriots dot com for
more news and more podcasts.

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