Patriots Playbook: Previewing the Raiders, State of the Patriots, NFL Week 6 Predictions

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Patriots Playbook. The legend. This is Patriots Playbook.
The legend Patriots may have an advantage of the injury department.
He tried to say, that's a term and I don't
think i've heard since college pork. Christian Gonzalez's outlook on

(00:27):
the rest of the season was probably gone, That's what
I said. Oh, well, pork pains me to say that.
Mike McCarthy pants to them, out coached him. Yeah, like
pant stuff. I absolutely want to trout. What you need
to do is take that eighteen wheel years and just
back up over those bastards. Here I come.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Now, here's your host of Patriots Playbook, John Rook.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Anybody else feeling pork? Today seemed to be the word
of the day. Where's Eric Scalavino when we need him?
Today's word of the day is porked?

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Well, I did say, John, that if they couldn't block anybody,
then they were going to be poor.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
And you were of all ages? Yeah, right, exactly. We
need to Oh my goodness, gracious, welcome into the playbook. Uh.
We appreciate your your time, we appreciate your your listening,
we appreciate your interest. I kind of begin today, I

(01:30):
had to give this a little bit of thought. I
usually just kind of just open up the microphone and
we start talking. We talked football, and we talk about
the opponent that's, you know, coming up next. We talk
about what the you know, foreseeable future looks like, you know,
the schedule. You know, maybe if they get out of run,
you know, two or three weeks and maybe they get
to Yeah. I did not give that one bit of
thought for this week. Now. I did pay attention to

(01:54):
the Raiders. I watched the Raiders game the other night.
Ye uh, Jason Horowitz, who's the play by play voice
for the Las Vegas Raiders. He's going to join us
here on the programming just a little bit because we
are going to talk some football. We have to. That's
what this show does, That's what the playbook is supposed
to do. We talk x's o's, we talk you know, strategy,
we talk all that stuff here. But I can admit
I felt like it was necessary to put just a

(02:16):
at least a twinge of perspective on what we've had
to go through here the first five weeks. Because what
we've witnessed here and I'm gonna repeat it, even though
I know you guys have talked about it, not only
only on PU, but I'm sure you're gonna catch twenty
two and fans are talking about it all over the
country because we can see that by the trending on
X and all that stuff that's going on right now.

(02:40):
I saw earlier today and I don't even remember which
power poll it was because I don't really believe in
the NFL power poles. I think those are a joke.
You got thirty two teams. You know, they're all Pro
football teams, so you know, you want to talk real power,
then let's relegate somebody to the SEC or something. After that.
Pro football is different, beast. It's a small, confined world.

(03:04):
But I saw something today that I thought I would
never see again. New England was ranked thirty second out
of thirty two.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, Mike Florio, I think right well.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Floria was one, this was another, one, oh go, And
I think everybody's just piling on the Patriots and this
is you know, you remember how when you were a kid,
and you know, you were playing football in the backyard
and somebody recovers the loose ball and everybody says dog
pilon Johnny, Okay, Well, guess what. We're dog pilot on
the Patriots, right, yeah, that's exactly what's going on now.

(03:38):
And so everybody's flying in from everywhere. You know, I'm
the poor save that fell on the football, and all
the neighbor kids are all just flying at me to
take it off, and I'm buried under the sea of
you know, humanity, you know, a bunch of thirteen year olds.
Oh man, I'll never forget it, you know, especially when
I'm laying on top of the sprinkler. Oh my god,

(03:59):
that would painful at any rate.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, yeah, right, that's why we waited until it snowed.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
To you guys, did see. But this was year round
stuff for us growing up in Texas, you know, where
you know, famously there's only two sports, football and spring football. Yeah,
you know, we're playing football year round, year round, and
even in the winter time. It's kind of you want
to throw the ball around, you know, or we're working
on plays for you know, the neighborhood games. We used
to have neighborhood games in Texas, you know, which is Yeah,

(04:25):
it was kind of fun. My mom believed or not.
When I was small, she was the all time quarterback.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
I like that. Yeah, right, she got a good armed
she did.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Surprisingly, she was really good at winging it out to
the you know, to the U to the running back
and on the on.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
The wheel route.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah yeah, she could do that absolutely. Like how we
digressed already already. It's because I don't want to talk
about this, but I have to. It's really it's it's
the job here at any rate, getting Bay to the powerpole,
seeing the Patriots down at the bottom of something that
I thought that I would never see again. You know,
I've covered this team for you know, I've been privileged
to cover this team for a long time. I've been

(05:01):
privileged to work for this organization for half of its existence.
This is year sixty four for the New England Patriots,
starting in nineteen sixty, right, so this is season sixty
four for the Patriots. I've been here for exactly half
of them, thirty two.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, it's cool. I'm also old, but you know, it's cool,
and I feel like I'm qualified, at least to a
certain extent to offer some perspective. First and foremost, we
are so incredibly lucky to have been where we have been,
and we are so incredibly spoiled to have gone through

(05:41):
what we've gone through in the last twenty years. In fact,
we may be the most spoiled fandom that exists in
professional sports short of the Yankees and Yankee fans really,
at least in this country, largely because of the success
that this franchise has spun upon itself. And mister Craft
is right at the helm of all of that. You know,
he's told many many stories worries throughout his his time,

(06:02):
you know, as ownership. Now about how you know he
came from being a season ticket holder and he sat
in those frozen aluminum stands in old you know, Shaver Stadium,
and uh, you know he went through one in fifteen. Hell,
I know all about one in fifteen. I've told you
and I've told many of our listeners before. Nobody wanted
to do Rod Russ Coach's show the year that he

(06:22):
was head coach here. So I did it, and I
was working in Providence at the time, and the team
went one in fifteen. Now, you tell me how we
generated you know, interest week to week. And the answer
to that was is we did the best job we could.
We put blinders on and you just go after it
and you do it. And I have to admit after
Sunday's game this week, it's the first time I ever
thought about pulling out those blinders again. Yeah, I was flabbergasted.

(06:49):
Is that a good word? Flummoxed, flabbergasted, you know, and.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
I'm reading out of adjectives at this point.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Driving I'm you know, Miss Robin and I were talking
about it of the drive home out of the parking lot,
you know, and it was we were just like, never
thought we'd see this. Yeah, And so then after you
come to the slow realization that you know, party times over, fellas,

(07:15):
how do you fix this? How do you correct it?
And there's so many different ways and approaches and so
many different reasons. I think they're all feeding in to
what is basically pile on the Patriots right now, dog
pile on the Patriots, and the entire NFL is doing it.
I'm looking at NFL memes out the wazoo over never
thought i'd see the Patriots last of the NFL again. Whoo.

(07:37):
You know everybody's having a blast with this, right well?

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's where that's where I think,
you know, I'm really careful, not only just because of
like who my bosses are. See, that's I'm I'm really
careful about trying not to be too knee jerk about reactions, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
That's important.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
After I will fully admit that I was walking to
my car on Sunday night after publishing game observations and
watching that debacle against the Saints fire. Everybody fire, Everybody.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Had a tendency to be just a smidge negative, right Like.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
It's like I was like, I want to wake up
Monday morning and I want to see the press release
that that everybody's fighting on, right and at the same time.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
We're gonna hire Jermaine Wiggins and the entire Brocton High
School staff to take over.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
So I've I've looked at it. I've tried to look
at it, you know, rationally since then, because that obviously
wasn't very rational. I tried to look at it rationally
since then, and I think that what the conclusion that
I've come to is that it's a mischaracterization of the
situation to say that this is a two week collapse. Yeah,

(08:55):
and that's and that's why you're starting to talk about
on all of our shows, even the job status of
the head coach of the team is because this really
began in twenty twenty and it's been a slow burn

(09:15):
towards being ranked thirty second in the Power Ranking in
week five of an NFL season. But it wasn't overnight
that this team no got to this point.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
That is correct, and so now you know, and so
you should we shouldn't really be surprised, even though we are,
but we shouldn't be surprised that, you know, hashtag fire
bill has been trending.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, so the biggest thing is and we're talking about
this a little bit on PU at the end, it's
two different conversations to me of are they losing because
they're just that bad in terms of the personnel on
the team or are they not very good in terms
of the talent on the team. And now they're losing

(10:00):
like this because they've let go of the rope and
if they've let.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Go of there's a little bit of both thereof.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
If they've let go of the rope, then that's more
than anything. I think it's gonna be one in fifteen,
like they're not gonna be any better than this.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
It could be. I mean, I think we'll get a
step closer Loan knowing that this week, because you've already
pointed out, as you know, I'm doing, you know, some
of my due diligence on the Raiders. This is actually
a really good matchup for just a crappy Patriots offense
right now.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's not a very good outside of
Max Crosby. I keep saying the same thing.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
They got one guy. Yeah. Bill Belichick's expertise has been
let's take let's take their best player out of it
and move around on the offensive side. Certainly defensively, the
same case goes. I mean, I thought they actually did
a pretty good job of, or at least we've seen
teams do a pretty good job of, you know, going
to guys like Michael Parsons and whatever in the past
and somewhat neutralizing him and other guys have made plays

(10:54):
and beaten them, and I think that can be done
here against the Raiders. However, we just don't know what
kind of We don't know if the guys have left
let go of the rope, as you put it, We
don't know yet, and we're gonna we're gonna learn that
more and more. If they let go of the rope
and this is all over, who needs to be held
responsible for it. And and to me, we're going right

(11:17):
back to hashtag fire Bill and I can't but to me,
that's heresy. Okay. I'm always of the opinion that Bill
Belichick has forgotten more football than I'll ever know, all right,
And I think that's why he'll still, in my estimation,
go down as the greatest who have ever coached this game.
He's got the championships to back it up. Now, there
are a lot of people who believe this, and this

(11:38):
is a pet peeve of mine as well. There are
a lot of people who believe that, you know, Tom
Brady made Bill Belichick, not the other way around. I
don't subscribe to that. I'm glad to go on record
to say that because it, of course it does every
great coach in history. Thank you for saying that, because

(11:58):
every great coach and history has had a what Evan.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, they've had a Hall of Fame quarterback er.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
But I had also just say it to say ignore
is the history of how Brady got his start in
the league. In two thousand and one, the Patriots won
the Super Bowl, and it wasn't because of Tom Brady.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
It was because Brady happened to me. He caught lightning
at a bottle. He was in the right place at
the right time when Drew Bledsoe got hurt. And then
Bill Belichick saw something in Tom when Drew was ready
to come back. He saw something in Tom, especially in
the way that the locker room reacted around Brady. He
saw something in that and said, you know what, I

(12:38):
think I'm gonna let this ride. Somebody had to make
that decision. So to say that Brady made Belichick is
factually incorrect. It is incorrect. Now, did Tom lead him
to great successes as a coach, There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
If you wanted to, like start and you know, I
don't know if this isn't the most important thing right now,
but like if you wanted to and say, like Tom
Brady's career began in like two thousand and seven, then
you could sit there and say that it was all
Brady right, like from two thousand and seven on.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, you could make you get the case.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
But I would make the case that Brady was pulling
the real harder than anybody else.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Okay, but that's not what happened, right, That's my point.
There was two thousand and one, two thousand and.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Three, four and even all the success in even between
not making and winning the Super Bowl. You know, it's
the championship games, for sure. You know other things, so
for sure, you know it just I just think what
it comes back down to with Belichick is that if
you've lost the buy in of the locker room, I
think that that's always the final nail.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
And any coaches, I agree, job, And that's why we're
I'm having such a hard time, you know, trying to
put perspective behind this. I feel like that's my job.
That's what this show's job has been for twenty two
seasons here on Patriots dot Com Radio, Patriots Playbook is
being here not only to talk a little Elexano, to
talk about the opponent the game coming up, to also
allow fans to vent from the previous game, but also

(14:01):
to provide perspective in a historical, you know way, based
on how this franchise has, you know, progressed. Yeah, and
we've taken a huge step backward. And the only person
within reason that you can point to is Bill. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
I always I've made this analogy the other day, and
like I don't mean to repeat myself. I just feel
like this is really what it comes down to to
me blaming the players on the current team, like blaming
mac Jones, blaming the guys like that is if like
a Fortune five hundred company is going bankrupt and they
put at pointed the finger at middle management, right like,

(14:39):
and they were like, yeah, they're like, oh the managers
in no when a company.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Manager for our shipping department needs to be fired, Yeah,
we're going bankrupt, but the shipping department is off base, right,
We're going to clean a house from the shipping department.
It's the same principle. I agree with that. That's that's wrong.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
When the company goes bankrupt, it's because somebody in the
executive suite or someboddies is doing something wrong.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Have made big decisions and they haven't gone the way
that they haven't been in the company's best interest. Yeah,
that's the that's the thing that I struggle with the
most because Bill has always said I'm only doing what
is in the best what I think is in the
best interest of the football team. When do we call
him out on that and say you are no longer
operating in the best interests of the football team.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, I mean, now I think that when he got
with the mac Jones question, like, we can sit here
and I can tell you what my take on what
mac Jones is doing wrong that has led to him
playing poorly the last couple of weeks, and we can
do that. But I think what the bottom line is
is that when they drafted mac Jones in twenty twenty

(15:43):
one as a good coach, good scouting department, good organization,
which I think this is like, obviously I wouldn't work here.
I didn't think it was. Of course none of us would.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
Be that.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
You have to recognize what you drafted. And if you
think that you drafted a quarterback that was going to
elevate the system and elevate the personnel around him, then
you drafted the wrong quarterback. Like that's not what mac
Jones ever was. Mac Jones is a high floor system QB.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
He is. I was just gonna say he's very much
a system QB. Tom Brady was not. Yeah, and Tom
proved that over time, especially from two thousand and seven on. Right,
He's gonna be good. You will go down as literally
the greatest of all time, and he should because he's
got the championships that can also back up the numbers
and the longevity and everything else that goes along with him.
Tom is a unicorn. There may never be another one

(16:38):
like him. As far as mac Jones is concerned, he
very much is a system quarterback. Yeah, and where to me,
the big problem it lies.

Speaker 5 (16:48):
Is that.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
They haven't treated him as such.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Now the system has broken down, Yes, the found the
system around the system quarterback is not system.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
No, it's not systematically right, So they've got him trying
to do something then he's not.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah, So if you're we can look at it from
a coaching angle, and obviously you know the coaching disaster
that was last season and that led it all off.
But I think most importantly it's it's now coming down
to personnel around him. And if you thought that you
were gonna throw out this group of receivers in this
offensive line with mac Jones as your quarterback and be

(17:26):
a good offense, then that's a miscalculation on the roster building.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Like you had who was in charge of roster building.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
You had to look at him in twenty twenty one
and say, okay, if he is playing you know, to
you to simplify it, if he's just playing a game
of Madden on Xbox, and all he's got to do
is hit the right button when the receiver comes open.
Then this guy can do that. But if he's got to,
you know, do every everything perfectly and run around and

(17:57):
make plays and use his arm and do all this
different stuf, and this is gonna fall apart. So instead
of recognizing that fact about the quarterback and getting him
receivers and getting him protection on the offensive line, and
getting him a running game, and getting him a third
down running back, and getting him a slot receiver that

(18:18):
can get open quickly so he can get the ball
out of his hands, instead of doing all that, they've
gotten the total opposite direction. And so now they in
my mind, was Mac Jones ever going to be an elite,
elite MVP caliber, Like, let's take Brady out of it,
because nobody's Brady. But was he ever gonna be Joe Burrow?
Was he ever gonna be Josh Allen?

Speaker 1 (18:39):
No?

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Probably not no, But could he have had some of
the same success.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Smart football people, by the way, knew that he was
not going to be those people, right, But he came
from Alabama and he was surrounded by tremendous talent at Alabama,
and of course, obviously the word of Nick Saban and
sure everybody's gonna buy that. Yeah, everybody's gonna buy that.
Why wouldn't you speaks loudly.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
At the same time, I don't want this to be
taken as like Mac apologists, Mac excuse making or anything
like that, but I still wholeheartedly believe it. The Patriots
and Bill Belichick have ruined Mac Jones. They have ruined
the quarterback. This is a playbook that we used to

(19:22):
make fun of, yea from other organizations. Oh you're gonna
saddle him with a coach that doesn't know what he's doing.
Oh you're gonna put him in an offense that has
all sorts of issues with the weapons and you know,
makes it tough to play quarterback on a guy that
can't be tough to play quarterback for. They have broken
this guy. They've ruined him. They've ruined him, and at

(19:44):
this point, based off the last couple of weeks, even
based off of like you know, I came in in
Week one and I was telling you all that I
didn't love what I saw from Mac Jones on film,
even when he was thrown for three hundred yards against
the Eagles, because there were little signs of footwear mechanics
in the pocket, you know, distrust in the whole thing
that I was seeing that I was like, if this

(20:06):
continues in this direction, this thing's gonna fall apart. And
I'm not like saying that to like toot my own horn.
I just it was there for you to see, and.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
You always hope what you see is different from what
really is.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, And he was already in my mind teetering as
early as week one, and it has completely fallen off
the rails for him, and I I will stay true
to this. The only like, the biggest person to blame
in all of that is Bill Beilijel, not Mac Jones.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
No, I agree with that. I agree with that, And
of course you can take it further, you know. I
mean Mac has got a case of happy feet, as
you put it, because he has no confidence on the
line in front of him. Yeah, and nor should he.
That's given him no reason to be confident. Yeah, and
otherwise otherwise otherwise he could be decapitated out there.

Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah. It's troubling when so Mac in his first two seasons,
for all of his faults in twenty one, in twenty two,
even with Matt Patricia last year. Mac is always been
a really decent clean pocket passer. Like if you protect
him and you keep him up right and you let
him step into throws and let him navigate the pocket, Yeah,
he's been pretty good at that. This year, he's been

(21:11):
awful even when he gets kept clean, even when there
is no pressure.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
He's overthrown guys, he's under the thrown guys. He's throwing
pick sixes.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Because he's seeing ghosts. Yes, he's seeing ghosts.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
He's Sam Darnold.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, he's seeing ghosts. So even when there isn't any pressure,
he's bracing for pressure, or he's sensing pressure, or his
feet are all over the place because he thinks that
there is going to be pressure.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
He's got a case of the putters' yips. Yeah, as
the quarterback.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
And I don't I gotta be honest with you, I
don't know if he's talented enough to pull himself out
of it.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
I don't know either. I have to admit I'm trying.
We're trying to put perspective on this. This is our
job here, yeah, and this is kind of how I
look at it. So let's just assume Mac is broken,
as you said, Yeah, let's just assume, all right, you
know again, time will tell. We'll know more in another month,
certainly whether or not that's the case, if he's even
standing upright, or if he hadn't been benched, or if

(22:04):
they haven't gone and gotten Colt McCoy or somebody like
that to come in as a short term replacement. I
don't know. We don't know what's gonna happen over the
next few weeks. Yeah, but let's just assume Mac is broken, yep, Okay,
how do you fix and if you if your answer
to that is is you can't, who's held responsible? And

(22:27):
how do you hold this person responsible when he holds
the keys to every freaking door in the place.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah. So, if Mac is truly broken, which I believe
he is, I think there's no coming back for him.
Is there a world where he comes back this week
against the Raiders, for example, which is a worse defense
and a worse pass rush, and it's and it looks
like it did maybe, you know, maybe in spurts.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I kind of doubt it, but maybe maybe I'll just
I'll allow for a slim possibility here, right.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Is there a world where he's I would say what
he was the first two and a half games, not
the second half against the Jets started already started to
come up fully apart. But let's say like the first
two and a half games, which was I would say functional.
That's not saying that he was good. That's not saying
he was great, So don't come at me with that.

(23:17):
I'm saying that he was a functioning NFL quarterback at
that point in time. Okay, is there a world where
he could get back to that point this season? I
would say yes, and mostly that's because I trust Billy
Oh to try to get him out of this. But
is there a world where he's gonna be a good quarterback?

Speaker 1 (23:34):
That's now, that's the next issue, because if Bill Belichick
is ultimately responsible, he should also be responsible for Bill O'Brien.
And Bill O'Brien was brought here for a specific reason,
and that is, of course to put some shall we say,
professional caliber offense on the field, you know, for the
New England Patriots, which is led by Mac Jones. Now,

(23:55):
Bill came in here to try to clean up a
lot of stuff and integrate a you know, a real
proof whatever it may be. And this team, I read
this number the other day. This team is the fifth
lowest scoring team through five weeks in sixty four years
of Patriots football. Yeah, there only been five teams worse

(24:17):
or four teams worse than what New England has done,
which is eleven points per game right now. Yeah, okay,
so somebody has to own that.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
And if you want to say, well it's Bill and
his decision making and bringing in personal that's fine. But
you brought Bill O'Brien in here to fix things, and
not only has he not fixed them, they've gotten worse
than what they were last year under Matty p.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
There's some critiques of O'Brien obviously, and that I could
throw out there. I think the main one to me
is the running game. The running game has gone completely vanilla,
and they don't really do much to get the running
game going.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
And I think a lot of that is because the
offensive linemen are having an extraordinarily difficult time understand, not
only understanding, but performing their tasks.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, so I think that that's part of it. Is like,
you can't get more complex on the ground, Nope, until
you can.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Until you can fix what you got. Yeah, you gotta
be able to fix what's in front of you, and
they can't seem to do that.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
So they're just like running gap like they're running duo,
just like right up the middle.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Teams you're stacking for that and you're not getting any room.
Remandre looks like he's running into a brick wall.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, So they they're running game from day one. I
was I was like, ugh, like this is the all
of you know, all for all of his faults too,
like Josh McDaniels is a great schemer in the run game.
And then don't even think about like turning on like
Miami film or San Francisco film and see all of
like eleven moving parts that a Shanahan Tree offense does

(25:47):
to attack in the ground. This run game is like
when people like joke like, oh, why do they just
hand it up the middle and like three yards in
the cloud. That's that's what they're doing. Like they're literally
turning around. It's man on man blocking and it's just
power forward and it's three yards at best, right, And

(26:08):
so the running game is where I would like immediately
go with O'Brien. I would also mention like I was,
you know, you know me, John, I'm a big RPO guy.
I love RPOs. I think they're sexy, all right. I
love RPOs and they've been a terrible, terrible RPO offense. Horrible,
like absolutely terrible at it correct. They don't throw the

(26:31):
ball down the field off RPOs, which is what I
was hoping they were gonna do, you know, slants like
things like that where you got receivers moving down the
field and then throw it off the run action. They
throw a bunch of bubble screens off of them. They
don't have bubble screen playmakers to run with the football
after the catch. They got Juju Smith Schuster out there
catching bubble screens. That's not working. So O'Brien has faults.

(26:55):
I do think when you watch them on film, you
see a like I think a lot of people have
come at me, are brought up to me like spacing,
and I don't see those issues as much as other
people do.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Honestly, all I see is executing what's in front of Yeah,
that's a really all either A don't know how, can't comprehend,
or be they're not talented enough to do it.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, I don't see like in the passing game, like
I mentioned, the run game, schematic stuff that I hate
like that I think is crap okay, But I think
the passing offense is well schemed in sound. I think
the spacing is sound. I think how they get to
things or is creative in sound. But they don't win

(27:37):
one on one. They can't get off at man coverage.
They do hit plays against zone because O'Brien will scheme
them open against zone, but it's not consistent because they
don't have good players and they can't get off man.
That that's the bottom line. The coach told me once
that coaches win against zone coverage, players win against man coverage.

(28:01):
If you're a good offensive coach and other teams are
playing zone against you, you you need to be You
got to figure out ways to get guys open against zone.
If you're getting a lot of man to man, that's
that's on DeVante Parker, that's on Kendrick Bourne, that's on
Hunter Henry to get open.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
And they're not doing it, yeah, and they're having trouble
doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
And it's uh, it's a lot. It's a lot of
different things that that are going wrong. You know, the
offensive line we've talked about at nauseum, and I think
you know you uh, I give you credit because on
PU I try to bring up the offensive line and
sometimes they don't want, you know, but tie for that.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
It's the blocking. The entire the entire struggle of the
offense is centered around the underperformance or non performance on
the offensive front. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. It
starts with the quarterback. It starts with the running game.
It even, you know, assists with the receivers being able
to run their roots. If they can't block, what have

(29:01):
you got?

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, now the offensive line has been abysmal, and you know,
you start to look at it. Okay, let's let's do it.
Let's point some fingers at some people. That my finger,
my two fingers, if I have. Right now, one of
them is pointed at Adrian Klemm, What the hell are
you doing? What are you doing? Because right now I

(29:21):
see no improvement. I see no development of younger players.
I see the same mistakes getting opening over and I
see poor fundamentals, poor pad level, poor hand placement, poor footwork.
I see a guy like Antonio'maffi, who I think has talent,
I think he has ability. I think he has a

(29:42):
chance in this league to be lost, to be a
good player. He completely does not know how to pick
up a stunt.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
He's overwhelmed.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
He doesn't know how to pick up a stunt.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
I'm thinking way too much. He's not playing this simple
tn E. Like, you know how we fixed guys who
got confused too much. He said, We're gonna just run
behind you, big fella. Yeah, knocked the guy in front
of you, knock the snot out of him. Yes, and
that's how we fix the problem. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
I like Antonio Maffi's talent. I like his ability. I
think he's got potential in this league. Like I said,
to be a starting guard in the NFL. He has
not improved. He has not shown any signs of improvement.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Cole Strange has regressed.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Cole Strange is like just I can't even get started
on that right now.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Cole Strange is a disappointment. A lot of that is
injury related. Yeah, but he's not performing either when he's
out there.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, these guys are not getting any better. I don't
think the fundamental coaching I don't think is very good.
Like I was mentioning pad level, hand placement things like that.
So I'm pointing a big finger at Adrian clem to
at this point, right tackle, At this point, I look
at Adrian Clem and I think that they'll excuse it
because of injuries and things like that. If there's somebody

(30:52):
that can come in to help him.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
They need to find him, whether it's you know, could
this team benefit from having don Take come back for
I don't know, a month, just to sort of consult.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Possibly. I think that, you know, I don't want to like,
I think that Dante's more involved still than people necessarily realize. Yeah,
I you know, he he knows a lot more about
this roster and about this team and about the individual

(31:25):
players for me to believe that he has no involvement whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, well, this is not a problem we're going to fix,
you know, immediately. No, it's not a good luck to him.
Not a problem we're gonna fix. Maybe even long term,
it is going to be a good luck situation. We'll
see how it continues to play out. As I'm looking
right now on X you know, Bill Belichick is trending.
It's not Fireabil anymore. It's just Bill Belichick. But Yeah, nevertheless,

(31:49):
I think that'll continue to be a subject and another
two or three weeks if this team continues to lose.
All bets are off the table, and something that we
thought would never ever happen. I don't know how mister
kraf would have another choice.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, I mean the in season firings on the offensive
staff and obviously with the head coach are on the table.
The last one I just didn't get a chance to
give my rant on Troy Brown.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, that's another one besides Adrian Clem.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Because Adrian Klement reas. At least you can look at
Adrian Clem and say, you just got here. You're handed
kind of a pile of garbage, Franklin, and you're trying
to make you know, water out of wine or wine
out of water, whatever can sell. Yeah, that's a better one.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Troy.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
This is multiple years now with Troy Brown, that receivers
are not running the right routes, aren't getting open, aren't developing.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
We're too jaded with Troy Brown because of his you know,
time as a player here.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
We got to start looking at the receivers and the
coach that's coaching the receivers because the lack of development,
the lack of sync, the lack of timing with the routes,
the lack of spacing, the lack of detail. All this
stuff is his job.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, that is absolutely his job. F Thanks, we got
we can do a ton more, which we will, but
appreciate it today. Thank you Patriots fans. If you want
to see Toyota's best offers, including those not seen on TV,
go to buy at Toyota dot com. It's Toyota's official
website for deals from the official vehicle of the New
England Patriots, Toyota Let's Go places. Evan Lazar at easy

(33:22):
Lazar on x Evan, of course, is the primary writer
on Patriots dot com and obviously host the Catch twenty
two podcast here on Patriots dot Com Radio. Also coming
up here in just a couple of seconds, Jason Horowitz
is the play by play voice of the Vegas Raiders,
will join us. Andy Hart from Wei and Weei dot

(33:42):
com and former member of Patriots Unfiltered will join us.
Russell Baxter, the pro football guru himself, will go around
NFL Week six here in just a few minutes. So
I did mention, of course, that we do need to
figure out a way to talk a little bit of
football rather than what if. Today. Jason Horowitz, again the
radio voice of the Vegas Raiders kind enough to join
us and Jason John Rokire in Foxborough. Thanks a lot

(34:04):
for taking the time today.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
You think you think.

Speaker 6 (34:07):
I talked football.

Speaker 5 (34:10):
I want to go back. I want to go back
to having the conversation about what's trending for you, because
for me it's Dave Franklin and then and then world events.
So so so I think we have different not that
that should be surprising. And then the other thing is
just listening to you guys. Are we positive with the
receivers that it's just not that they're not good? No,

(34:32):
because there's always.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
That that, well, we know that we have a sneaky
feeling here that they're just not very good. I you know,
kind of knew that when they drafted Taekwon Thornton a
couple of years ago. And and you know, for all
the speed that the young man has, he reminds me
of a phrase that my basketball coach once told me
years ago. Young Man, when you turn sideways, you disappear.

(34:55):
He's just he's just too thin and too fragile to
play the game. And if you can't get open and
you're thin and you're fragile, do you really have a
future in this business. I say, no, sir, you don't,
and I think I think it starts with that. And
then you know, DeVante Parker he doesn't have what he
once had. You know, he's been relegated to just a

(35:18):
jump ball type of receiver and they can't even get
a jump ball to him anymore. The only thing that
really seems to be working in New England's you know,
pass Arsenal right now is scheming the tight ends open.
You know, because both Hunter Henry and Mike Gausiki could
catch the ball fro Brown. Hell, he scored the last
Patriots touchdown two weeks ago, so so I mean whatever

(35:39):
it was, yes, exactly, it's kind of like, who the
hell's that that's running down the field. I've never seen
him before in my life and he just scored a touchdown,
you know. So I listen, there are a lot of
problems here. They're certainly not the Raiders issue, because the Raiders,
I know as well as you know, have their own issues.
And the first one I got to throw it out
to you here, Jason, is how safe is Josh McDaniels

(36:03):
right about now? Because obviously he's near and sort of dear,
I think to people around here because of the time
and the effort and the good teams that he helped
coach here in New Windland in the past. But they're
so heavy a New England and Las Vegas connection here
because of the coaches, the scouts, the players, even on
your roster. So how is that being you know, received

(36:26):
right about now through a two and three start.

Speaker 5 (36:28):
Well, i'd say, you know, anyone who watched the videos
that were going viral against the Chargers, you know, saw
how fans feel about it with regards to you know,
Mark Davis, the owner and Josh McDaniels and Mark Davis's
response to that, And certainly there were comments before the
start of the season that they said, hey, they're not

(36:49):
going to measure this year by wins and losses, which
is hard for a fan based here. Yeah, after a
six and eleven season where you know, thirteen games were
one score games and fifteen games were decided in the
final two or three minute of the game. So six
and eleven was very close to being ten and seven
or eleven and six, and so that's very hard for
a fan base to hear. And he turned things over

(37:09):
to Jimmy Garoppolo, who in his career is you know,
I know he hasn't necessarily had the same level of
national approval or all of those things, but one of
the things he has done very well is take care
of the football, and that has not been the case
in the four games that he's played this year. So
you've got all those things going on right now. And
you know, with regards to Josh McDaniels, he's always been

(37:29):
thought of of a guy that's is so much ability
to coach offense and get the most out of an offense.
But the Raiders at this moment are the only team
in the NFL that has yet to score twenty points. Yea,
So now I would say I'm the positive of that
since twenty ten. The other four teams who haven't scored
twenty points to the first five.

Speaker 7 (37:49):
Games of the year where they were all all in five.

Speaker 6 (37:51):
So the fact that the Raiders.

Speaker 5 (37:52):
Are two and three really speaks to the fact of
how much Max Crosby has deserves the attention of maybe
being the best defensive player the NFL. And then also
the fact that this group that has been talked about
as Max Crosby and a bunch of other guys might
just be better than that.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Well, I get. You know, I watched the Green Bay
game the other night, like I'm sure a lot of
people did. And I know obviously you were. Yeah, I
know you watched it too. You were right there front center,
and so I actually thought, this doesn't look like a
bad football team to make. That was the first and
the overwhel impression, the over impression I got. And it
looks to me like Josh and maybe I'm just oversimplifying it,

(38:34):
but I'd like for you to provide a little perspective here.
It looks like Josh is simply trying. He's planted seeds
and he's waiting for the product to grow. I guess
the question and the analogy that I'll utilize here is
how's the fertilizer he's using?

Speaker 5 (38:49):
Yeh, I think the fertilizer is better than it looked.
It's better than its smell. The waft that's coming off
from the it is not quite as good as it
should be.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (39:01):
You know, I think when you put an offense out there,
and I know DeVante Adam has got a shoulder injury
that happened in Chargers, but he's fought through it and
he's gonna keep playing. When you put an offense out
there that's got DeVante Adams, Josh Jacobs, Jacoby Myers, who
has looked great. I'm sure all Patriots fans would love
to have him back.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Oh my god, we want hey, would you would you
take him back for a sack of potatoes and a
a in a wad of bubble gum? I mean, because
that's about all we got number one and number two
he there are paper, there are Patriots fans here. I'm
glad you brought that up, Jason, because that's the other
major mistake that seemed to be trending on local you
know X around here as well. Almost said Twitter, I'm

(39:40):
trying to, you know, be a good Elon Musk, you know,
supporter here, even though I probably shouldn't be. No, not really, no,
I'm not really no, I don't really want to be that.
But you know, I'm just trying to play along here.
I'm just trying to get along with everybody, right, That's
the other misstep that the Patriots have taken. They were like,
we should never have gotten rid of Jacoby Myers because

(40:01):
he was mac Jones's binky and and and well that's
what that's what he was.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
Right, We call them Stuffi's and and and love. He's
in our house.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Stuff he's in Love's right, the thing that makes you
feel good exactly. Yeah, what you need.

Speaker 5 (40:19):
We have three little kids. It's what you need when
you uh, when you when you need something to.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Hold, Yes, sir, yes, sir, need my banking.

Speaker 5 (40:26):
And you know, Jacobe's been such a good teammate already,
and and the guys love him, and you know, you
get all that stuff. And I can't speak to what
he was in New England. And you know from my
only experience with him, we all remember what happened at
the end of the game in December last year.

Speaker 7 (40:42):
The League stadium.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Yeah, he was the one that instigated it, all right, Yeah,
so that's right.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
Yeah, he's the one that threw it to Chandler Jones.
But but but you know, but you're back to your
point about how how is the talent Josh Jacobs last year?
And frankly like he doesn't go down with the first person.
The difference of last year for some reason. You know,
he was getting a yard and a half two yards

(41:09):
before he was touched this year. I haven't looked at
it after week five, but after week four, you know,
he was being hit zero point one yards after the
line of scrimmas. You know, like the offensive line is
not blocking well enough to get the push. And it's
not just on them, you know. Link Kennedy, my analyst,
is obviously a former Pro Bowl right tackle, so he

(41:31):
focused on this. But like you know, he has consistently
pointed out the tight ends and the wide receivers inability
to dig out the safety to get that block. You know,
he pointed to Jacoby Myers the other night, who Jimmy
Garoppolos sent him in motion. They ran to play to
the left. Uh and and instead of Jacoby stopping at
the line to block the safety and I'm Blancandela was

(41:52):
because Darnold Savage had gotten hurt, but he kept going
in motion beyond and there was no one to block
the safety. Yeah, And and I think that something within
that is what's missing, because if they give Josh any space,
and even if they don't give a ton but any,
he's gonna get five six yards to carry and then
he's gonna break on for forty.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Right. I think you just hit on I think you
just hit on Jason. The absolute reason why the Patriots
decided to offer Juju Smith Schuster over Jacoby Myers because
one of the problems that one of the yes, one
of the problems Jacoby had was blocking and recognizing who
to block, and they didn't know if it was his

(42:31):
recognition or if he was just shying away from it
or whatever he was doing. But they just decided, look,
let's just take the guy who we think has more
talent overall. And that may very well be the case,
but the problem is the talent that they brought in
is broken. Yeah, he's broken. Juju doesn't have it anymore.
He's got zero left. And that's why the Patriots, the

(42:53):
Patriots and Bill Belichick part of the reason why they're
being exhoriated by the public right now because of the
decision they made when it came to Smith Schuster versus
Jacoby Myers.

Speaker 5 (43:02):
Yeah. Well, and look, you know, the the offensive line.
You guys have had a ton of injuries here early
in the season, you know, losing Matt Judon and what
he brings to the table, and Christian Gonzalez, who looked
like he was going to be a you know, a
really good rookie season. Yet those two.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Yeah, those two hurt, Yeah, they hurt a lot.

Speaker 5 (43:22):
Right, yeah. And you know both of all the Joneses
you have in the in the defensive backfield, two are
out right.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Correct, Only half the Jones boys are available.

Speaker 5 (43:33):
Yep, yeah, yeah, So you got all that going on too.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
There's a lot going on. And and and so for
the Patriots, I think to put up, you know, an
honest effort against the Raiders.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
You know this Sunday will require not only the Patriots
probably you know, not shooting themselves on the foot, which
they have done quite well over the first five weeks
of the season, but also the Raiders to come back
to the pack a little bit. Because I'm I'm looking
at your roster up and down, and not only am
I am I seeing, especially in your depth chart here,
not only am I seeing names that I certainly know

(44:06):
and recognize, but I'm thinking, hey, that guy's pretty good. Hey,
that guy's pretty good. Hey, guys pretty good. So why
is this team two and three as opposed to not
being a little bit better?

Speaker 5 (44:16):
Oh that's simple. Two and three because of turnovers and
because of inopportune penalty.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Okay, sounds just like the Patriots.

Speaker 5 (44:25):
Yeah, and and but the difference is is with the
exception of Buffalo. You know, we had the Raiders very
rarely in the last two years in my time with
the organization. That's blown out and you could point to that,
you know, in any close game. Hey, if we did
this differently, if we do that differently. You know, the
Chargers game is a good example if you old.

Speaker 6 (44:45):
Justin Herbert too.

Speaker 5 (44:46):
One hundred and sixty yards passing, and forty of those
came on the last throw that was a third Knight
that they converged to end the game. Yeah, you're thinking
you're going to win.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
That football game, Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (44:56):
But opening drive, Max Crosby gets a sack fumble to
force the Chargers to kick a forty six yard field goal.
I don't know if they make it or not, but
instead David Long lines up off side. It gives the
Chargers a first down, so instead of kicking for three,
they get seven. Later in the game, Jerry Tillery gets
gives the Chargers an easy fifteen yards on a late

(45:16):
late hit out of bound. He gets ejected from the game.
Chargers got out in score. Trayvon Merrick drops an interception
in the end zone. Now, and I'll fairness the Trayvon
he's playing with a club on his hand, and I
don't know that he can make that without with one hand.
But if he does come down with that interception, which
he probably should have, that's no points. Instead the Chargers
get three. So now that's seven points right there on

(45:38):
two plays and they lose by seven, not to mention
the eight and O'Connell you know, sacks six times by
one guy. Yeah right, and so you know, you throw penalties,
you throw turnovers into the conversation, and the offensive line
play hasn't good. See, those three things are, without a question,
the reason why the Raiders are two and three and
not three and two or four one.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Right, I'm gonna look at flip over to the on
the defensive side of the ball, because I know that's
where there's a you know, some some things lacking, especially statistically,
kind of like what you know has happened in New England.
And mentioned to you first and foremost that one of
my favorite players because of his name, is in the
middle of that defense in Divine Diablo. First of all,

(46:19):
I love his name. Second of all, it looks like
he can play.

Speaker 5 (46:22):
He can, he can, and you know Devine got hurt
last year. I don't Jacksonville I think was game six,
seven or eight. But at the time that Divine got hurt,
he was seventh or eighth in the NFL, and tackles
and he might have been number one in the NFL
and tackles per game are up there, and so he
was having a really good second season playing next to
Denzel Paraman got hurt and then he was out for

(46:45):
the rest of the year. He was given more responsibility
in the offseason and put next to Roberts Blaine, who
they brought in from Pittsburgh who you know, until the
end of last year and never been really a starter
in this league. And Roberts a guy that is a thumper,
downhill player. But the difference is that Robert the questions
about him in past.

Speaker 7 (47:02):
Coverage, well those were fair.

Speaker 5 (47:04):
But he also then had two interceptions on Monday Night
against the Packers. One was, you know, a great play
where he dropped into coverage and Jordan they've never saw him.
And the other was a deflected ball for Marcus Peters
that he was in the right place, right time. But
you got to make those plays, and he did Divine
Diablo the week one against Denver and then Week three
against Pittsburgh too. He was great in coverage, particularly near

(47:25):
the line of scrimmage, covering backs out of the backfield.
So you know, we still struggle with tight end. You
talked about tight end in the beginning, about what might
work with Hunter Henry and Mikah Sticky, and maybe that
plays the role coming up on Sunday afternoon. But yes,
there's no question that goes back to our defense as
a whole, and it's what we said earlier. I think
the national perception of the Raiders defense, which has not

(47:45):
been very good for the past fifteen twenty years, is
that it's Max Crosby, who everybody knows at this point
because he's highlighted all the time and deservedly so, and
then a whole bunch of other guys. But I think
the collection of those whole bunch of other guys have
earned the right to win football games. They are not
the reason the Raiders are losing this year, whereas the

(48:08):
last year you would not have said.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
That, yeah, all right, so how much then ultimately, how
much more rope does Josh McDaniels have to work with here?
Before you know, Mark Davis is forced to say, all right,
maybe this isn't working out. The way of playing, because
I know that Robert Kraft just think of the same
thing right now, the unthinkable, uh, the the unimaginable, the
unconscionable thought that you know, here's a guy, for all

(48:32):
that he's meant to the game of pro football, especially
in New England, is not performing up to that level.
And Mark Davis has brought in Josh McDaniel's given him
a lot of money, giving him what we thought would
be plenty of time, and yet it's kind of sputtering
to the start here. So how much more rope does
he have left to work with?

Speaker 5 (48:51):
I think I think a good amount. I mean, I'm
obviously not privy to any of that, yeah, but but
but I think I think I think a good amount.
You know, the the there's a couple of caveats to that.
You know, there was a lot of optimism about this
year's draft class. You know, people really think Tyree Wilson
is going to be really good. And you know, I

(49:12):
don't know that it's fair to judgeyet because he had
the foot surgery, didn't even suit up until the end
of August, but his impact on the field was going
to be magnified when the Chandler Jones situation happened, and
it just hasn't hasn't manifested itself yet, and you know
you need that out of your seventh overall pick. Michael Mayer,
who a lot of people assumed was going to be
a first round tight end and the Raiders almost traded up.

(49:33):
Reports are that they were going to draft him in
the first round, but they ended up trading up early
in the second round. There hasn't been now there's a
lot of development, and they featured him early against the Packers,
but it hasn't been a ton there either. And Trey Tucker,
who they surprised by taking the third round when they've
given him.

Speaker 6 (49:49):
The football, has made a big time place.

Speaker 7 (49:52):
He got thirty four yard and run a buffalo the
other day. He was an end around. He had like
a sixteen yard run on a first end. But they
haven't been able to get him the football enough, and
so you start throwing all those things together. They had
another third round picking Byron Young, who they're trying to
bring along. So you put all that together with.

Speaker 5 (50:09):
Some struggles on the offensive line and the close aspect
of this, plus the offense that you know was inconsistent
last year, but certainly not bottom of the pack in
the NFL. And you say, okay, well that has to change,
and I think that's true. But the good thing is
you look at this team at two and three, is that, hey,

(50:30):
the defense is playing well enough to win if the
offense shows any sign of improvement over the next four
or five weeks against the Patriots, the Bears in Detroit
Monday night football might be a tough one, but you know,
then come home for the Giants and the Jets and
back to back weeks before going to Miami, and like,
if there's a sign of improvement from this offense the
way that the defense is playing, this is going to

(50:52):
be a team that you're not going to be saying
is is you know three and six? This team you're
gonna be saying is five and three?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, or whatever it might be. Absolutely And you mentioned,
you know, the play of the defense. Crossley was named
AFC Defensive Player of the Week that yet, right, So
I mean you know you're stepping in the right direction. Uh,
The defense basically you know, sealed the Packers off this
week and and won that game at the end. So
I mean looks to.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
Me like one touchdown in the last six quarter. There
you go, and and and and and the other. You
know the other. If you go back to the first
half against the Chargers, they gave up an opening drive
touchdown because of that penalty. But the other touchdown they
gave up against the Chargers was because of a sack
fumble where you know, La was started. I think it's
the thirty three yard line of the Raiders. So I

(51:36):
generally speaking, the defense has played well the last two
three weeks.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Yeah, played very well. And that's a that's a real
challenge for a Patriots offense that is struggling to put
any kind of semblance of a professional unit on the
field right now. Jason Horowitz, who calls the games for
the Las Vegas Ragers Raiders, joining us here inside the playbook. Jason,
thank you for a little bit of time this afternoon.
It is greatly appreciated. Happy to hear the things are

(51:59):
going one well. You and I have kind of been
ships that have passed in the night through our association
previously with Westwood One. Uh and I still do a
podcast for Westwood one every now and then when it
comes to basketball season. But I'm happy to hear that
you're you're doing extraordinarily well. And hang in there, brother,
see if you can get see if you can get
yourself a win.

Speaker 5 (52:20):
I appreciate that, and I wish you best and and
and here's to a very friendly environment when George Sunn
comes to Providence.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
And the friars right, Oh my god, I'm gonna wear
a helmet that day.

Speaker 5 (52:36):
Hey again, outsider perspective, Providence should one thousand percent be
very very very very excited to see it. Coolly understand
that it's frustrating.

Speaker 7 (52:46):
That he left.

Speaker 5 (52:47):
But what that man did for the dunk or whatever
it's called now, mm hmm, is it should never be forgotten.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Oh no, I know, I absolutely agree with that one.
I mean, you know the problem is is that you know,
he would have had a statue right in front of
the workout facility along with Dave Gavitt and Joe Mulaney
had he not left the way he did, his statue
would have been right there next to him. But that's
what most people are upset about.

Speaker 7 (53:09):
Who statue.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
I mean, come on, listen, when you're old like me,
you want a statue because that way, you know, the
only thing that can bother you is the pigeon when
it craps on it.

Speaker 5 (53:20):
I mean, I feel old and I just turned forty.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Oh dude, I got socks that are forty. Do they
have a maxi' pair or no? No, they match. They
both got holes in them, but they match. Do I
still wear them? Yep? I do whenever I wear socks,
of course. And I don't like wearing socks, you know,
I try to be hip, you know, I don't like
to wear socks. And I realized that's that's the thing
to do nowadays. But I you know, sometimes you know,

(53:45):
when you're slogging around on the snow here, that gets
a little rough.

Speaker 6 (53:47):
So fair, fair point.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Thanks Jason, really appreciate the time.

Speaker 5 (53:51):
Good to visit with you.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
You got it. You too. Jason Horwitz, who calls the
play by play a local radio for the Las Vegas Raiders.
I slipped a couple times. Almost said Oakland. I did.
I almost said Oakland. It's just habit, right, I mean,
when you go hey, when you go back to the
old AFL days like I do. Chie many Christmas. We
were talking about perspective earlier with with Evan, and I'm
just like, wow, half, you know, I have to think

(54:15):
about it again. I've been here for half of the
Patriots existence, and it was the Oakland Raiders and then
the Los Angeles Raiders, and then the Oakland Raiders and
then the Vegas Raiders. And I'm just like, we almost
had the Saint Louis Raiders or the Arizona Raiders at
one time or I don't anyway, Jason one of the
good young announcers in the game Today's vot. You know,

(54:36):
Jason has done a lot of college basketball in college
football in Westwood One. Still does a little bit, I
think for the network, but that's where our paths have
kind of crossed and intersected over the last decade or so.
And very talented young announcers. So I'm glad he's landed
and landed well. And you know, hey, it's got to
be exciting, right It's Las Vegas, for goodness sakes. I

(54:57):
know there are a ton of Patriots fans that are
going out for at least I I from what I've
heard and read social media and everything this week that
there are a lot of fans that have, you know, decided, hey,
they want to make the trip to Vegas this week
for the game. Make it a vacation. What have you.
I know there'll be a huge New England presence in
Las Vegas. Of course, I don't think you could have
picked a more expensive place in the NFL to go

(55:17):
to than in Vegas right now. Vegas, by the way,
has the number one price ticket in the league, the
overall number one average in terms of like a ticket
or an average ticket price or a family of four
and all that kind of Vegas is at the top
of the list. They're the most expensive out there. I
don't know if that's by I don't know if that's because,

(55:40):
you know, Mark Davis has dictated that, or if it's
just a byproduct of the demand, or if it's just
because Las Vegas, Nevada is just an expensive place to be.
And again, you know, I my experience with Vegas is
not tremendous. I've been there half a dozen times. I
was there three four years ago, is right before the pandemic,

(56:03):
so it would have been in twenty nine teams. Last
time I was in Vegas, Miss Robin and I went
out and stayed in Vegas because we had never been
down inside the Grand Canyon, and so you know, flown
over the Grand Canyon thousands of times, wanted to go
into it, so we did, and you know, but we
stayed in Vegas and then took our track you know,
out there and had a great time. But Vegas you

(56:24):
got to learn that, you know, unless you you know,
never been there before, you really kind of want to
stay away from the strip. I mean, unless you're a
big gambler and you like going to the shows, which
I do. I like going to some shows. I like
the concerts, you know, that's fine, that's all good. And
then of course I love the sports book like anybody else.
I like going and just sitting at the you know,
you know, in the crowd there and watching all of

(56:45):
the games because they got every game on imaginable so
it's it's pretty unbelievable. But at the same time, man,
it's expensive. I guess I just didn't need enough of
those buffets, huh. On playing the slots or playing blackjack,
or you know, to in a world the poker table,
or you know whatever it may be, right, I don't know.
Eight fight five Pats five hundred. Eight five five pats

(57:07):
five hundred is the toll free televille number. It's open
and available to you. Andy Heart will join us here. Momentarily.
Russell Baxter will join us at the bottom of our
number two as we go week six around the NFL.
Bridgestone is the official tire of the New England Patriots
and is proud to partner with Sullivan Tire, New England's
headquarters for quality Bridgestone tires. Visit Sullivantire dot com to

(57:31):
find a location near you. I you know, I really
came into this day gang thinking about how to put
all of this into into some kind of reasonable expectant perspective.
Everybody wants to yell and scream at Bill. Everybody wants

(57:51):
to yell and scream, maybe even at Robert Kraft. Everybody
wants to yell and scream at Mac Jones. Everybody wants
to yell and scream at the coaches. Everybody wants to
yell and agreement the players because they're not performing or
they're not you know, doing what they're supposed to be doing.
I think everybody wants to just yell and screen. Because
the Patriots are one and four, it's then, you know,
I don't know what would have been a reasonable two

(58:13):
and three right now? Yeah, probably maybe three and two
if you were really lucky and you're one and four,
and it's because we're used to something different. The current
head coach, general manager, ownership, you know, group has put

(58:35):
us in this position where we are now upset, where
we are now angry, while where we now expect more.
It's their own damn fault because this is how we compete.
Everybody competes to win, Everybody competes to be better than
the other guys. Everybody competes for a chance to win
a Lombardi Trophy, and the Patriots have won six of those. Nobody.

(58:58):
No other franchise is won more, at least not yet,
and it may be a while before we see another
one around here at the present rate. So I think
it's I think it's proper to keep always keep in
mind where you've come from, and my career here in
New England has now come full circle. Holy crap. When

(59:21):
I started covering this team in nineteen eighty nine, no,
it was actually fall of eighty eight, Fall of eighty eight.
It was the first year that I covered the New
England Patriots, after covering the Houston Oilers and the Dallas
Cowboys Prior to that, you know, Patriots were middling. Nineteen

(59:42):
ninety is when it bottomed out, you know, Rod rushed
all that stuff, and then things started to slowly turn around.
When Bill Parterslls, you know, came on board, the mindset
changed and I saw people acted and reacted differently, and

(01:00:05):
then he decided, well, I need to have a little
more control, or at least I want to have the
control that I was originally promised. And I think mister Craft,
and this is my own personal opinion speaking here, I
think he probably realized that, you know what, you know,
maybe he does, but mister Gravolson went out and got
what was you know what he was owed, and you know,

(01:00:26):
the Jets had to give him compensation for hiring them away.
So all of that took place. You go out and
you get Pete Carroll. And Pete Carroll wasn't a horrible coach.
Certainly he's got longevity in this league. Isn't that a
bad job anywhere he's been. He did a do a
bad job here.

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
But.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
There was an aspiration for more and it kind of
leveled off and it didn't look like it was getting
any better. And I will tell you at the time,
based upon my recollection at the time, I'm not sure
that there was locker room, buy into what Pete Carroll
was doing, and so you make the fundamental change going
the route that you really want wanted to go. When

(01:01:01):
you lost Bill Parcells or let Shaw, I say he
took off, and you hire Bill Belichick. And obviously that
decision is proven to be brilliant in many different ways.
You've got, you know, super Bowl appearances, you've got six
Lombardi Trophies, you put a region on the map, You've

(01:01:22):
made people feel better about themselves, You've you've created Hall
of Fame football careers. I mean, it's it's phenomenal and
I will be as well as I think all Patriots
fans should be grateful for what we've seen. So that's
why I feel a little reluctant to call somebody on
the carpet for doing a bad job. I mean, I'm

(01:01:45):
one of those that feels like, hell, they need to
put a statue of the guy up out front. If
you want a statue to you know, a pigeon to
crap on your head, fine, that's what a statue is
good for. But I also know that this is a business,
and I also know you're in the business of winning,
and when you stop winning, no matter what you've done before.

(01:02:07):
In sports, it's always been what have you done for
me lately? Not what you did for me a year ago,
not what you did for me ten years ago, what
are you doing for me now? And many good people
in sports, and I just used the blanket umbrella sports
because I want to speak both professionally and even collegiately.
That's been my experience as someone who has covered sports

(01:02:31):
at a professional level and as at a collegiate level
for forty five years. And you know, damn I'm old.
So here's the thing. There's a common thread through it all. Win.
It's I will borrow the phrase. It's trite, it's cliche,

(01:02:53):
it's ridiculous, but I will borrow the phrase from the
late Great Raiders owner and coach Al Davis. Just win, baby,
and all of the rest takes care of itself. And
so that's where we are with these New England Patriots.
And right now it's not only can they not win,
they can't even score a point. I mean sixty nine

(01:03:18):
unanswered points that this team is allowed. And again I
realize you just lost your two best defensive players and
the offense has well, we know what the offense has
its fungus growing between his toes. It's got something, all right.
Bring in the one and only Jumbo Andy Hart, formerly
a Patriots unfieldered now of course covering the Patriots and
other items for Wi Wei dot com. Big head, what's happening, dude?

Speaker 6 (01:03:43):
So what I took from that is you're old.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Well that's why I had to preface that by saying, yeah,
I just called my own butt out right here on
the carpet. But you know what I feel like, you know, Okay,
maybe I am a little bit older than than some
people's proper taste. But what I can and provide us
a little bit of perspective because I've been here through
all of it, I've seen it. I know what the
attitude is like. I know what the prevailing feeling is

(01:04:08):
like within you know, the public and the media and
all of the above. And I you know, even though
I think we all are sort of in agreement, now,
something's got to get done here. But how do you
pull the trigger on unprecedented Hall of Fame, all world
caliber success and say thanks, we've seen enough. I don't

(01:04:31):
know how you do that.

Speaker 6 (01:04:33):
Well, my feeling is that through the season, Bill control
that I just can't envision a world where Robert Kraft
fires Bill Belichick mid season.

Speaker 5 (01:04:42):
I don't.

Speaker 6 (01:04:43):
I mean, hey, I don't think it's gonna get much
worse than it's gotten in the last couple of weeks
where you get beat seventy two to three. I mean,
in all likelihood, things are going to look a little
bit better, marginally better in the coming weeks. Now. Have
I reached the point where I think there's a chance
Bill Belichick is on the way out? Yeah, Like I've
reached the point where I think I would be surprised

(01:05:04):
if he's the head coach of this football team next year.
And you know, it's strange to see because we're just
such creatures of habit. I don't like change. And that's
you know, he's so great and it's what we know
as the Patriots. But Tom Brady moved on, Bill Belichick
will too. It's this, you know you're talking about historically,
this is the natural course of events in a lot

(01:05:25):
of ways. You know, the Hall of Fame quarterback moves
on the Hall of Fame coach doesn't look quite as great,
and eventually he moves on or the team moves on
from him. Whether your name is Noel or Landry or Shula, whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
It may be, and it happened to all of them, Mandy,
And again, I'm glad you brought that up, because every
great coach name one left ugly.

Speaker 6 (01:05:49):
Right, And that's just part of me wants to stay
unfortunate reality. But it's just life, you know. It's sort
of like the normal course we all go through when
we get old and you realize I can't do things
I used to, and you know, you just you have limitations.
And that's why I don't think it's necessarily mean or
personal to say, yeah, maybe Bill's lost his fastball, maybe

(01:06:12):
the game has changed and he has not evolved with it,
whatever it may be. Like, I don't think there's any
shame in him stinking at seventy one as a head
coach or seventy two, And it doesn't mean he wasn't
the greatest of all time when he was sixty two, right, Like,
those are two separate time periods in his career with
different events and circumstances, but it is in the midst

(01:06:35):
of it, it's weird to live. And the other thing is,
once it ends, whether he retires or Robert fires him
or he gets traded or whatever the various exit strategies
may be. In a couple of years, he just goes
back to being the greatest Patriots coach of all time,
the guy who won six Super Bowls, the guy who
will get a statue next to Sombrady's and whatever the

(01:06:59):
ring road, it'll be named after him, like we will
remember the greatness, not however it ended, that will fade
very quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
I think, yeah, and I would tend to agree with that,
But I think there's a part of the reason why
some and I'll include myself in this circle, okay, there's
a part of the reason why some are feeling a
little more rotten than maybe we really should trying to
keep this in perspective, because we see him so close
to immortality. And I'm of the opinion, like you, I'll

(01:07:26):
be surprised if he's here next year, and I'd be
doubly surprised if he beats Youula's record. Now and I
would say, a month ago, ah, he's going to get
the record, and a month ago, ah, He'll be here
as long as he wants to be here. That's how
quickly things have changed, and it's it's startling.

Speaker 6 (01:07:45):
It is and I would say it's equally as startling
with the quarterback. And obviously that's tied into Bill Belichick
because I can remember after the opener, and I know
they lost and it was moral victory Monday and all that. Yeah, right,
But in the second quarter against the Eagles, I thought
it was as well as Mac Jones that ever played
in a Patriots uniform. And then a month later in Dallas,

(01:08:07):
I thought it was as poorly as he's ever played
in the second quarter against the Cowboys, when he's throwing
pick sixes and fumbling, and it's like, how did we
get here? How did it change so quickly? How did
and the bottom fell out? He melted down, and in
doing so, that alters everything. If Mac were a franchise
quarterback like I think Robert Kraft hoped and Bill Belichick hoped,

(01:08:29):
then Bill Belichick has legs and longevity and he's pursuing
a record and all of those things. But it's hard
if Mac is not the guy, and I think most
people have decided Mac is not the guy. Well, it's
hard to say you're going to give your soon to
be seventy two year old head coach and GM the
chance to pick a new guy to rebuild. Is this

(01:08:49):
a three year plan a five year plan? It just
the timeline doesn't marry up to where Bill's at in
his career. And I think those that's that's the reality.
Mac's downfall is Belichick's downfall.

Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
Two.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
Yeah, And Evan just mentioned a little bit earlier on
the show before you joined is Andy that you know,
if you're really gonna, you know, lay blame on someone's feet,
Bill Belichick and his coaches have have ruined Mac Jones.
He doesn't He doesn't really see that Max's got a
chance to recover here, maybe even ever. And I'm like, wow,
that's that's stepping out. But it's hard to argue against

(01:09:24):
that right now because he doesn't appear to be the
same quarterback anywhere near the same quarterback that he was
even two years ago as a rookie.

Speaker 6 (01:09:30):
Nope, he's broken. And I actually record.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
That's the exact that's the phrase he used. He said,
Mac is broken.

Speaker 6 (01:09:36):
Absolutely, And I recorded a podcast today with Paul Perrillo,
and I used to believe worst case scenario for Mac
was he could have a twelve to fifteen year career
as a journeyman backup, even if he doesn't make it
as a starter now, the way things have bottomed out,
the way he's looked the last two weeks, I don't
think he's stable enough to be that Brian Hoyer twelve

(01:09:59):
year back up. And it's miraculous that the floor on
him has fallen through to the level it has. I
thought he was a high floor, low stealing kind of
guy when he entered the league, and now the bottom
has fallen out for him. And you know, some of
that has to be coaching and three offensive coordinators in
three years, the middle one not even being an offensive coordinator.

(01:10:21):
And you know, we all know the story and everything
that's gone into it, and that again is part of
They're connected. You can't separate the two. The end of
Belichick and the end of Jones go hand in hand
because if Jones was better than I think Belichick would
have a longer tenure playing out here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Yeah, all right, so I guess, you know, it's one
thing to try to, you know, make some sense out
of this this craziness that's going on. But at the
same time, you know, hey, as we said, there are
still well you've played five games. That means you've got
twelve more left to play. And you know, do you
make chicken salaut of chicken feathers? Do you do?

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
You?

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
You know, just sit here and wallow in the muck
and mud? What do you do? And it has to
start this week against a Raider team that you know certainly.
I mean, they look pretty good defensively on Monday Night
against the Packers, but we know they've had their issues
thus far. Is it time to pick on an old
friend and Josh McDaniels and see if you can figure
out a way to at least get incrementally better.

Speaker 6 (01:11:20):
That's the hope, right, I mean, I thought last week
you were facing a team in the Saints that was
sort of in that similar middle of the road pack
of the NFL. Yep, you know, they were facing their
own questions in New Orleans? Is Pete Carmichael not a
good play caller? Should he be fired?

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Like?

Speaker 6 (01:11:37):
Why isn't the offense better? There's all? And they got
right against you?

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:11:41):
You suddenly became that team where people circle you and say, oh,
that's the get right game. Let's go play the Patriots.
We'll feel better about ourselves. And yeah, for you, I
think you are hoping that the Raiders a mediocre team
that now they turned the ball over. As you said,
Jordan Love was giving them the ball. Max been giving
everybody the ball. Maybe that's bad. Combo and Max Crosby

(01:12:02):
can make any offensive line look bad, never mind their
Darien Lowe or whoever. So you know this, there are
no cakewalks, There are no penciled in victories anymore for
where this team is. But I think you can sell
yourself on are they capable of going to Las Vegas
and beating the Raiders? Absolutely? The Raiders are not a
great football team right now. But the first thing starts

(01:12:23):
with it's almost regardless of the opponent. Are you going
to give the other team the ball? Are you going
to dig a hole? Are you gonna start sporting the
Patriots as much as anybody else? Forget the opponent, it's
the old Belichick. I just posted a column like, how
many times has Belichick told us before you can win,
you have to not lose. Well, they haven't gotten past
that step.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
No, they're not past and not losing yet. No, they
haven't figured that part out yet. And that's to me,
that's almost Andy, That's almost at the top of the
issues here when it comes to considering Bill has lost
his fastball because in all honesty, we know what it
was like the previous twenty years here. He was a
stickler for tail and you know, if you fumble the ball,

(01:13:03):
your butt was benched. We've even seen that earlier this year.
And then now they can't afford you know, they keep
shooting themselves in the foot and they don't have anybody
else to put in the game. So he's got no
choice but to play some of those guys who don't
belong in the game. And it seems like they've backtracked
on the previous thought process of hey, we're not going

(01:13:24):
to beat ourselves here. You do wrong, you come out,
you sit, You're in my dog outs until you figure
it out.

Speaker 6 (01:13:30):
Yeah, I think, and I think some of that. I
think they've been a desperate football team quite frankly over
the last year plus because they lack talent. They're not
an overly talented team, so they, out of desperation, have
had to invest and stick with certain guys like to me,
Trent Brown is the poster child. I would have cut
him this summer whenever he wasn't on the field, because

(01:13:52):
I think he is He's always upset.

Speaker 7 (01:13:54):
About something.

Speaker 6 (01:13:57):
Best Sometimes is he talented when he's of course, he's
one of the best linemen in football, probably when he
wants to be. The problem is he rarely wants to be.
But they needed him because he's their best lineman and
they don't have right tackles, never mind left tackles, and
they gave him a little k pump. And you know
when you roll around with dogs, you get fleees kind
of thing. Well, they get a lot of fleas now

(01:14:19):
throughout this roster. And you're right, they can't afford to
stick to their mantras and morals and foundational tenants because well,
if you got a little bit of talent, I got
to get you on the field. We don't really have
a lot of guys with talent right now. Yeah, And
that's just the way it's played out, and it has
not played out.

Speaker 7 (01:14:36):
Well for them.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
And you can't figure out the talent part until you
come back around again to the next offseason when you've
got a chance to figure it out. And I know that.
You know, the Patriots have more cap space than anybody
else next year, and the ceiling is going to rise
on the salary cap, and so the Patriots are in
position at the very least to make gains in that regard,
much like they did a couple of years ago. But
who right now is confident that they can make the

(01:14:58):
right decisions based on what they've done the last couple
of years in making decisions?

Speaker 6 (01:15:03):
Yeah, can they make the right ones? Who's making it?
Because that goes in hand in hand with our belichick
you know, question if he's gone, is it Matt grow
and girodmeo? Is it clean house? And you bring in
some hot shot GM you like and he hires a coach.
I mean, those are the big picture questions we're on.
But I know, just from a here and now perspective,

(01:15:25):
reading my social media, taking calls on our post game
show on Wei and all that, not a lot of
fans have a lot of faith of Yeah, if you
give Bill a top five pick and one hundred million dollars,
he'll turn this around. You know, you get a lot
of pot shot jokes, Oh he'll trade down and get
three guards in the third round and blah blah like
some of that stuff, And it's warranted because the personnel

(01:15:48):
got bad under his leadership. Like there's been mistakes in
free agency. There's been mistakes in the draft. Now where
Matt grow fits into that, how much this collaborative we've
been sold in recent years includes matc Grow And how
much praise in or blame does he deserve. I don't know.
But Bill Belichick is the guy who you know, sits

(01:16:09):
atop the depth chart in terms of the football operation
in Foxborough and the way they've drafted and spent money.
Maybe it's improved in some areas, but there's still a
lot of swings and misses. And you're right, I don't
know that you have a lot of faith that they
can properly spend one hundred million dollars in cap space
and a top five pick.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Yeah, that's that's really that's kind of at the root
of the problem right now. I mean, you know, the
current malaise on the field is one thing, but when
you realize that, you know, it's systemic because of what
led into this through some of the you know, the
poor choices that were made and poor decisions that were
made in creating this roster to begin with. It's just

(01:16:48):
it's just it's mind boggling. I mean, it's it's almost
overwhelming to really even consider. And so now you're left
with the right how do you clean up the mess?
And you know you probably heard you know, mister Craft
and Johnathan have to even say this before that, you know,
Bill is going to be here as long as Bill
wants to be here. They've said that privately, they've said
that public they have said that everywhere whenever the subject
has come up. They just haven't said anything lately because

(01:17:09):
I don't blame them. Why would they? And and now
privately they've got to be thinking, whoa, this is a
business matter, this is a business decision. We got a
business to run here. This is the second, uh, you know,
most valuable NFL franchise. This is one of the top

(01:17:30):
five actually I think now top three valuable franchises on
the planet on the planet, you know, and and so
uh and we're counting you know, European soccer as well.
So you know, here's the thing. When you have that
kind of an asset, aren't you going to protect it?
Aren't you going to see that it doesn't lose money.

(01:17:51):
Aren't you going to see that it doesn't lose stature.
Aren't you going to see that it continues to grow
rather than regress and lose money? And whatever stock fund
you're you're seeing get into of course you are if
you're a businessman like the Crafts whose own worth. I mean, well,
let's remember, you know, the bottom line number is when
they bought this team, and they bought the property, and

(01:18:11):
they bought you know, old you know, Sulliwyn Stadium and
all that kind of Foxborough Stadium when it was here. Okay,
they paid roughly one hundred and thirty million okay for
it back in nineteen ninety two ish Okay. It's now
worth over seven billion on the latest Forbes evaluation. So
these guys know what to do to build a business.

(01:18:32):
They did it with their paper company, and they've done
it with all the other things that they do. They've
certainly done it in pro football, and that alone is why,
you know, mister Crafts. You know, not being in the
Hall of Fame is a puzzler to me. But that's
another story, another argument for another day. They're going to
protect their assets based on the history of them being

(01:18:54):
business owners and fans.

Speaker 6 (01:18:57):
Would I would roll that in there. I know some
people like to sort of take, you know, make fun
of mister Kraft when he talks about sitting on the
metal benches at Foxborough Stadium. But when you blend together
a guy who I truly believe is a passionate fan
of the Patriots with a guy who I truly believe
is a I don't know if cutthroat is the right word,

(01:19:18):
but a very smart, aggressive businessman. And he sees his
team that is both his dream asset and his business
baiting that's going to motivate him to make tough decisions
or to do aggressive things. And you know he has
to sit in Jerry Jones Stadium, who's kind of his
frenemy competition in the NFL, watch his team get whooped.

(01:19:40):
Then he comes home faces a lesser team, watches this
team get whooped, watches fans leaving early. And I would argue,
I always do the jersey test, John, If you're going
to buy a jersey of a New England Patriot player
right now, who you buying? I can really think of
one Christian Denzalas.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Right, Okay, that's fair.

Speaker 6 (01:20:01):
Other than that, I mean, if you like Jude On,
you have him, but he's getting a little older and
he probably won't be here long. Mac Jones probably gone
like And to me, that's sort of the symbol of
a hot current team. Like I look at Bears games
for so long, you know what, you'd see Mike's singletary
and Walter Payton from the crowd. They were living off

(01:20:23):
history because they never really kept developing stars and success.
And that's where the Patriots are. I think they have
a little bit of a marketing slash support problem right
now because you know, I did a career day at
a middle school and talking to probably thirty kids, eighth graders.

(01:20:43):
I think I said, who watched the Patriots game in Dallas?
Two hands raised?

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
Wow?

Speaker 6 (01:20:47):
Two hands in a middle school classroom. And these are
kids that are interested in sports journalism. That's why they
signed up for my little chat. Wow, they didn't watch
the game. And I to me, that's alarming because that's
your next couple of generations of fans and people that
are spending money on your product, your gains, your merchandise.
So it's an interesting time period, not only on the field,

(01:21:10):
but from a where is the business going? Where is
the support going? And you know, you can only market
a really big television screen and a really big lighthouse
for so long. You've got to have you got to
have some Bronks and Brady's and Edelman's and star players
out there, and that's as important as anything. Get some
Everybody says, you know, Caleb Williams, you need a quarterback.

(01:21:33):
You do on the field. I think you also need
a star to drive some attendance, to drive some support
for the seed, to get people excited again.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
Yeah you do. By the way, I think the tower
and the and the big scoreboard are cool, but you know,
but they really are. I mean, it's a tremendous amenity
for anybody that comes out to the stadium. But are
people going to spend And I was making the remark
to uh to miss Robin on the way out of
the parking lot on Sunday. I'm thinking, you know, these
people their discretionary income is to come out here and

(01:22:04):
do what they do. When others might take a European vacation,
or they might you know, go to like Winnipesaukei for
the summer, or are they you know, gonna you know,
spend you know, traveling across country whatever they're gonna do.
These people spend their discretionary income on football and the
experience of coming to Gillette, you know, eight to ten
times a year, and all of the trimmings that go

(01:22:27):
with it, and when the attractiveness of that starts to dissipate,
they're gonna start to think, Like most smart people will think,
where is my money better spent? Yep, And I'm just
I'm like, wow, does this franchise really want to go?
I mean, the football fortunes we all know before you

(01:22:48):
can really build back. And it's the it's the it's
the nature of professional sports that you when you get
to be at a certain level with you've got the
salary cap era you know in place. Now, it's the
nature of pro sports. Once you get up on top,
you cannot sustain it for very long. You are hamstrung
by the rules and regulations to which everybody has to

(01:23:09):
live by because most of the leagues, with one notable exception,
you know, largely exist to make things as even as
possible for everyone, so we don't have to worry so
much about market size and you know, major markets and
things like that. Okay, So if that's the case, then
everybody has to expect to fall, and you know, before

(01:23:29):
too long, because you just can't afford to pay these salaries,
you know, for very long, and you're on the books
for all of it, and so you can't buy your
way into a championship. Well, here's the thing. The Patriots
are remarkable to me in the way that they maintained
a sense of competitiveness over a twenty plus year period
that may be unmatched in NFL history. And that's with

(01:23:51):
all due respect to the current Kansas City Chiefs or
even the coming San Francisco forty nine ers, because they
look pretty good to me too the other night. But
you know, the pay just the fact what they've done
is for that long they never sunk to rock bottom.
We don't we don't even we don't know what rock
bottom looks like. And I'm thinking that this might be

(01:24:12):
it because the last two or three years, Andy, you know,
they've just sort of like they just kind of pushed
it forward and pushed it forward and pushed it forward
without really sinking. I think that we finally found rock bottom.
And the question is now, who is qualified best at
this stage of the game to rebuild.

Speaker 6 (01:24:30):
Right, And I do think the longevity. Actually, people say
Patriots fans are spoiled because of the winning, and that's true. Absolutely,
you were spoiled with Belichick and Brady and nine Super Bowls,
but you were also spoiled that you never had any
down years in between. You didn't have the occasional something happened,
and all of a sudden, you know, you only win

(01:24:51):
six games. You never bought them down, and people told
them this isn't sustainable, and yet for twenty years they
sustained it. And I find I think that eight people, Well,
you've been telling me for twenty years it's not sustainable,
so clearly you were wrong. It is sustainable, sure, And
now it's like, oh, this is what you were talking
about that should have happened, Yeah, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen

(01:25:12):
years ago, right, And I laughed at you every time
because they kept winning. Well, now it has caught up
to them, and now you are looking like you're headed
towards some sort of whatever the bottoming out is going
to be wherever they And again it may be the
best thing. They may need it. You know, everybody talks
about it than the NBA. If you're in that middle
where you're not at the top of the lottery but

(01:25:34):
you're not in the playoffs, you can just be in
a washing machine. You get tumbled over year after year
of mediocre draft, mediocre draft picks, mediocre talent, you can't
get your star. And I think that's where the Patriots
have been spinning their wheels up a little bit the
last couple of years. And I think it's fair to say, well,
if you get a top five pick, could that be
the springboard toward turning in a row?

Speaker 4 (01:25:55):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
Yes, I think that's why most people usually have to
sink to the bottom, because then they're the ones that
pick at the top. They have the first crack at,
you know, the younger guys that you can find, and
you've got to make sure that when you go after
the younger guy. And this is also you know, good
for free agency as well. You got to make sure
that you hit you know, you got a bat one
thousand or at least back you know, seven fifty. I

(01:26:16):
would think get you know, two or three out of four,
because that's the only way you can pull yourself out
of the morass down on the bottom. And the Patriots,
when they've been able to pick you know, middling, have failed,
They've missed.

Speaker 6 (01:26:30):
That's why I go back to Richard Seymour. You know,
everybody says Tom Brady was the greatest draft pick the
Patriot's ever made. I say, no, I say, you got
a little lucky. He's the greatest player, he was the
most important figure. But the greatest draft pick for me
was Richard Seymour. You're coming off five and eleven, you
get the six stick in the draft. You have to
hit that, and he hit it out of the park.

(01:26:51):
He drafted a Hall of Fame foundational defensive lineman. Correct,
that's you can't miss on that. And if this keeps
trending towards where it's trend whoever the person making the
pick is has to hit on it. You can't blow
the fourth, fifth, sixth pick in the draft, especially for
a team like this who hasn't had a lot of those.
That needs to be the foundation of the next era

(01:27:13):
of Patriot whether it's a quarterback or not, it needs
to be the foundation of the next era of Patriot football.
And you know, maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. Maybe
they get a five game winning streak coming in. Maybe
we're going to look back and say, wow, they're six
and four and they're right back in this.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
Hey, Andy, but Andy.

Speaker 6 (01:27:29):
Weird to be talking about it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:31):
Andy, Hey, maybe pigs will fly too.

Speaker 6 (01:27:35):
Hey, I'm being optimistic, you know, me always the.

Speaker 1 (01:27:37):
Option Oh my god, the world's going to come to
an end. Hey, I really appreciate the chat, buddy, Thank you.
It's really good to sit here and just you know,
top philosophically as well as a little football with you.
So it's greatly appreciated. Look forward to seeing your stuff
again soon.

Speaker 6 (01:27:53):
Thanks man. Anytime, anytime, give me a call.

Speaker 1 (01:27:55):
You got it, We'll do It's Andy Hart. Of course,
Andy cut his teeth right here on Patriots dot com
Patriots Unfielded, Patriots Football Weekly before that, and now doing
his thing for Wee I and weei dot com. All right,
eight five five Pats five hundred. I realize that, you know,
we've sort of dominated the conversation today, and I apologize

(01:28:15):
for that. I've got to get to a couple of
emails and then we're going to also bring Russell in here.
But you know, frankly, I think that you know, there's
I don't sense that too many people feel differently. If
you do, I'd love to hear from you. I mean,
what should the Patriots do with Bill? And I realize
I'm asking a kind of a loaded question here, and

(01:28:38):
we got what about thirty minutes left of the show today,
So I don't want to drive you know, Marine nuts
here over the last half hour of the show when
we you know, go around the league with Russell. But
at the same time, I'm just curious what you would do.
I mean, you really got to give this some thought.
I think it's too easy to say he's out, he's
got to go, the game has passed him by. It's
too easy to say that. You're not really attacking the

(01:29:00):
root problem because if you if you say he's no good,
he's got to go. Who you're replacing him with? Drod Mail? Look,
I think Drod's an outstanding football coach, but you still
have to match Grod with someone who's likely got to
make the call on who you're picking and who you're
taking and who you're drafted and who you're coaching. Can

(01:29:22):
you do that? And then you might be saying, well, no,
you can't do that, so let's just clean house. I
would understand that too. I get that point of view,
but you still haven't answer the question who you're replacing
him with. So you got to have that in first
and foremost. You got to have that in mind before
you ever go he's out. You got to have a

(01:29:42):
replacement in mind. And if you're like, well, let's just
open it up and we'll interview people elevenor no, you
it doesn't work that way anymore. You can't. First of all,
there'll be teams that will tell you, nope, get the
hell you're get your hands off of our guy. No,
you don't have permission. And then, of course the longer
you wait, the longer you wait, the longer you wait,

(01:30:03):
the more other teams pass you by even further. Now,
you need to have a pretty good idea who you
want to go after. You need have done your homework.
You need to have, you know, some recognition of who
and what is performing well in your business. You know,
the in the financial world, in the business world. Okay,

(01:30:24):
I've always heard the old adage that you know, I
hear in a lot of different areas, but you know,
keep your friends close, but keep your enemies and competitors
closer one hundred percent. One hundred percent. Because I'm trying
to whip the guy that's you know, staring me across
the you know, the table, or you know it's staring
at me across the boardroom or you know, the stock

(01:30:46):
exchange or whatever. I'm trying to whip him Hey, you
got some of that's working. Guess what, I'm gonna try it.
I'm gonna try it, unless, of course it's proprietary, then
to be stealing. But no, that's not the way it
is in the real world. It's not the way it is.
People borrow from each other good ideas all the time,
all the time. We don't reinvent the wheel. Hey, it's

(01:31:08):
working for you. I bet I can make it work
for me. Done. So you got to be observant who's working,
who's working, who's getting it done? Right now, where's a
good combination. I think it's a little dangerous now, and
I think we've learned the hard way here. I think
it's a little dangerous now to have a coach and
GM be one person. I'm not saying it can't be done,

(01:31:34):
With all due respect to Coach Belichick, I'm not saying
it can't be done. I'm saying, right now it's not successful.
How do we fix this? And if you fix it
by bringing somebody else in, is it someone that Bill
will listen to, Is someone that Bill will trust? Is
it someone that Bill can get along with? If he's
going to remain coach for a few more years? Or

(01:31:54):
because I think that's what a lot of people see
right now. Okay, who are you gonna find? You gotta
have an idea before you pull the trigger. In the meantime,
there's football to play in the meantime, you know, is
there any hope for anybody on this roster right now?
That's that's really part of the issue with these New

(01:32:16):
England Patriots. You know, can they week to week make
chicken salad out of chicken bleep?

Speaker 7 (01:32:23):
A real woman could stop you from drinking.

Speaker 1 (01:32:26):
Yeah, it's a real big.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
It's time to go around the NFL with football guru
Russell Baxter.

Speaker 1 (01:32:32):
Now you name it Flounder on Patriots playbook. Russell Baxter,
how are you today, my friend?

Speaker 7 (01:32:42):
Well, I'm good. You know, it's kind of ironic about
my opening here because the real flounder right now happens
to be in New England.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
Oh, no doubt about that, No doubt about that. It's
I gotta admit I you know, I've spent the whole
show today largely just kind of like trying to talk
myself into jumping off the brag of bridge down the road.
You know, it's just kind of like, wow, I mean,
it's not that desperate, of course, but I'm just you know,
no one is used to this around here, and so

(01:33:10):
nobody really knows how to act or react to what
we've seen, and we've seen really bad football, especially over
the last two weeks. Hasn't gotten any better. It's regressed.
Why has it regressed? And a lot of it gets
pointed back to the coach and to the personnel decisions
and any other number of reasons, and there's no quick

(01:33:35):
fix to this. I think you can kind of, you know,
apply a tourniquet and stop some of the bleeding, but
I think there have to be long term considerations here
now to the direction of this team and of this franchise,
which will need to start to be being made now
in hopes that when this is over twelve weeks from now,

(01:33:59):
the Patriots are ready to make a move and go forward.
Whether Bill is included or not, that may be determined
over these next twelve weeks, and it certainly could happen.
I mean, I'll I'll throw anything out there. I'll be
up for any possibility, but it's clear the present cannot
existing longer. Otherwise. A Patriots ownership group that has seen

(01:34:20):
one hundred and thirty million dollar investment grow into worth
a worth of seven billion dollars over the last thirty years.
Is going against every foundation of business, business principles, and
that is protecting your investment.

Speaker 7 (01:34:36):
Well, I don't think you could say any better than that.
I mean, you know this, this went from a team
that you know for a two decade span, became a brand, and.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
It is a brand. It has been a brand for
a long time. But the brand, the brand is now
being made fun of again, just like it did back
in the hey day, when you know, pat Patriot, I
remember couple of brands. You know, I'm gonna be politically
incorrect here, but I remember seeing logo the old pat
Patriot with a noose around his neck, you know, you know,
and or with his tongue hanging out, you know, with

(01:35:09):
a hammer on his head and things like that. I've
seen all kinds of things like that. And I saw
some NFL memes, you know, on X this week, you know,
with people making fun of the Patriots, and you know what,
I'm applauding them because it's been a long time, says
they've had a chance to make fun of New England
being the worst team in football. But they got it now.

Speaker 7 (01:35:26):
Yeah. And when I say a brand, I mean that
in the positive sense. I mean, obviously the Patriot's been
around for a long time, but there was, you know,
that lack of success and also some other negative connotations
regarding the franchise with certain things that had happened and
so on, but that all turned around two decades ago. Sure, yeah,

(01:35:48):
you know, I can't get seventy two to three out
of my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
Shot Listen, sixty nine of those points of those seventy
two unanswered Russell. Yes, yeah, I mean you know you
get I mean sixty nine to nothing, even though it
covers a couple of games. You stink, you stink.

Speaker 7 (01:36:07):
There's a lifeless net list now to the team the
last two weeks, and you know it's it's it's hard
to put a finger on. I know there is for
some people. The answers are obvious. But I'm going to
jump on something you talked about a few minutes ago,
and that's that coach GM thing.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
Yep.

Speaker 7 (01:36:27):
And I've been a big person, you know, and listen
in my coaching resume and my GM resume are well
known because they don't exist. But I think it is
extremely difficult to do both jobs in this day and age.
Now I'm going to jump back to two men who

(01:36:47):
were in the pro Fooboal Hall of Fame who did
this awfully well. Bill Walsh yep obviously in nineteen eighty
six orchestrated one of the great drafts of NFL history
without a first round back, and Jimmy Johnson with the
Dallas Cowboys. And I'm pointing out those two men because
they were able to do both jobs successfully.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
I'd give more. I'd give more of the credit there
Russell to wallsh over Johnson because Johnson always had, you know,
Jerry Jones breathing down his neck, and that's the reason
why Johnson left.

Speaker 7 (01:37:21):
Yes, yes, but Jimmy, you know, I contended that Jimmy's
eye for talent might have been even better than his
coaching prowess, which is saying a lot. But my point
here is when Bill Walsh did what he did and
Jimmy Johnson did what he did with the Dallas Cowboys,
there was free agency in Jimmy's first year, in Jimmy's

(01:37:44):
final yearneten ninety three Johns. But one thing neither men
had to deal with was a salary cap. And that
changes everything. And then Jimmy, of course, in nineteen ninety
six took over to Miami Dolphins and inherited a monster
salary cap that the Dolphins had rung up in nineteen
ninety five because they were desperately trying to bring in

(01:38:04):
veterans and trying to get Dan Marino a ring, and
it blew up in their faith, and Don Shula wound
up retiring in a salary cap era where you have
to make both won the field decisions, drafting decisions and
financial decisions. That's a lung for one person. And you know,

(01:38:27):
the Patriots have not had a great eye for drafting
the last I would say decade or so. They've hit
on some people. They've been more successful getting free agents
than they have necessarily drafting players. So it's all kind
of caught up with them right now. And you know,

(01:38:47):
we're seeing a lot of a number of franchises story
franchises struggle in this day and age of like the
modern football and so on, a salary cap era and
a free agents the era where you can turn things
around in one season. The difference is having staying tower

(01:39:08):
and a lot of these one year turnarounds don't last
very long, which is again why you give credit to
New England what they did.

Speaker 4 (01:39:16):
First.

Speaker 7 (01:39:17):
Listen this week's upon you can tell you something about
falling about hard times. You know, the Raiders have been
pretty much disastrous for more than two decades now. They
haven't won a playoff game since they beat the Titans
in the two thousand and two AFC title game. That
should tell you something.

Speaker 1 (01:39:36):
Yeah, that's true, you're right, a long time. It has
been a long time.

Speaker 7 (01:39:40):
Well, here's something that might frighten you a little more though.
I just talked about how how much the Raiders have
struggled since, you know, for twenty something years. Okay, let's
go get let's just do this century John twenty twenty.
The Raiders are made, want to playoffs, tears and lost,

(01:40:03):
and they own a twenty six and twenty nine regular
season record. Okay, that sounds familiar.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
Twenty six and twenty nine. Yeah, that's what that's the
Patriots record, right.

Speaker 7 (01:40:15):
And the Patriots also made the playoffs once and lost
as well.

Speaker 5 (01:40:19):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:40:20):
Isn't that kind of ironic? Considering we're going to see
Bill Belichick and Josh mcdameseels against each other this week?

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
Sure? Sure?

Speaker 7 (01:40:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:40:28):
And you can also look up and down. And I
mentioned this to Jason Harrowitz the Raiders Radio earlier in
the program Rustle, that you know, there's way, there's these
two teams are really intertwined. I mean, you've got like
nine players, you got like uh six or seven coaches,
you got five scouts, you got you know that all
worked in New England, either with Josh or or for

(01:40:50):
Bill at one point in time. Now currently on the
Vegas you know, you know, you know team website. So
I mean it's kind of like, wow, these two teams,
these two guys, these these organizations have a lot in common,
a lot in common, which is kind of some of
the intrigue for you know, a one in four team
against the two and three team.

Speaker 7 (01:41:11):
Well, this is here's another common analygy. Almost. You know,
the Patriots lost to the Eagles twenty five to twenty
in Week one. They haven't reached the twenty point mark
in any game.

Speaker 6 (01:41:22):
Since, right, Okay, yep.

Speaker 7 (01:41:24):
Now, by the way, the Raiders haven't reached the twenty
point mark in any game.

Speaker 1 (01:41:29):
At at all, right, correct? Correct?

Speaker 7 (01:41:33):
So that tells me we're looking at like forty five
forty two on Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
That would be. That would be a perfect fit, you know,
right here, just to see something like that happen, because
it just defies logic.

Speaker 7 (01:41:45):
Here's what we know on Sunday, Jacoby Myers won't be
throwing the ball backwards to Chandler John.

Speaker 1 (01:41:51):
That's also true. That's also true, you know. So, I mean, wow,
return to the scene of the absolute crime that you know,
kind of started these Patriots on this current spend that
they have not been able to pull themselves out of.
And that's really sort of the ironic thing about, you know,
going back out to Vegas again this year. All right,
So let's let's let's take a look at, at least

(01:42:12):
before we come back to this one, a couple of
games that I need to mention here. You've got the
winless Carolina Panthers going to the division leading AFC East
Division leading Miami Dolphins. But notice that Devon Aichen has
been put on IR today by the Dolphins. And since
he's been put on IR and he's had a tremendous
start in the offensive backfield for Miami. And I think

(01:42:35):
Patriots fans saw that a couple of weeks ago when
he was here. Guy is fast. He's really fast, the
entire Miami team unbelievable speed. But his IR designation means
he won't be available to play against New England a
couple of weeks. That hurts them in the long term
or at least a medium term. But I don't know
if that hurts them enough to make them lose at
home to a winless Panther team. Does it?

Speaker 7 (01:42:56):
No, because even though they don't have him, they still
have Rahem most hurt. And you know, he's had a
decent start himself this year. Yeah, by a couple of
years weeks ago. That also scored four touchdowns in the game.
You know, I would I was actually uh, full disclosure,
just looking at what the two of them had done,

(01:43:18):
you know, five games into the season, and it was
starting to stare my mind a little about you know,
when was the last time a team had two thousand
yard issuers in the same season?

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (01:43:31):
When was that?

Speaker 7 (01:43:33):
Well? The last well it was recently, uh with with
the Ravens.

Speaker 5 (01:43:39):
Okay, with Mark Ingram and.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
Lamar Jackson Jackson. Okay, I was about to say, so Jackson,
that had to be the year he did that.

Speaker 7 (01:43:45):
Yeah, but it's actually happened. It's actually happened. That happened
seven times, and I know you'll remember the first time because.

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
It was the Miami Dolphins kick yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:43:57):
Right, no, no, no, Dons.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
And Morris and Sammy Moore, No not Sammy Mercury, Mercury,
thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:44:05):
Yeah, And I remember I think Mercury had a thousand
on the on the had a fourteen game season, you know,
the perfect season in nineteen seventy two, which I believe,
How how funny is this? I believe that's the last
time the Dolphins led the NFL and rushing in which
they are doing currently.

Speaker 1 (01:44:27):
Yep, at least they won't, you know question.

Speaker 7 (01:44:30):
To answer your question, I think Carolina could be in
for a long day considering the way they played defense,
and uh, you know, we saw what Detroit did to
them last week, which Seattle did to him a couple
of weeks ago, and so on, and uh, you.

Speaker 6 (01:44:43):
Know, they're they're they're having.

Speaker 7 (01:44:45):
They're certainly having their issues. You know, Brace Young you
know said, you know Randy Dalton first, I think one
game defensively, they just don't have the people right now,
so you know, and they gave up a lot to
give get grace down.

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):
Sure, yeah, they did so we'll see what.

Speaker 7 (01:45:03):
Direction they've gone on the Panthers. It's it's listen if
it's an organization, it's very odd they opposed to Jacksonville.
Jacksonville's never been the Super Bowl. Caroline has been there twice.
They both came in the league in nineteen ninety five. John,
do you know that the Panthers have still never had

(01:45:24):
back to back winning season.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
No, I wasn't aware of that. That's incredible. See, it
just goes to show your rustle, no matter how bad
you bet, it, matter how bad you have it. Yeah,
somebody's got it worse somewhere. That's very true. Eagles playing
at the Jets. So you got the unbeaten Eagles, you know,
testing the Jets, and you know, Jets don't look like
a two and three team. Zack Wilson hasn't played like

(01:45:48):
Zach Wilson we saw a few weeks ago. I don't know.
Can the Jets do that at home?

Speaker 7 (01:45:53):
Well, if they managed to knock off the Eagles, they
would actually make a little history because they they've never
beaten the Eagles.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
What wait, what never?

Speaker 7 (01:46:03):
They've never beaten the Philadelphie Eagles in the regular season.

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
I obviously did not know that.

Speaker 7 (01:46:10):
Yeah you're saying, you know, you begin to sound like
Chris Meyers.

Speaker 1 (01:46:16):
I did not know that.

Speaker 7 (01:46:18):
But yeah, I mean as strange as it sounds. And
it's not like they played each.

Speaker 5 (01:46:22):
Other a lot, Okay, I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:46:25):
You know, they've played each other twelve times in the
regular season. This is actually will be the third time
in five years they played each other. Yeah, but the
Eagles are twelve and zero against the Jets. Lights up.

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
Wow, Wow?

Speaker 7 (01:46:36):
What does that mean this week? I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
It may not mean a damn thing. I know the
Eagles are a seven point road favorite in that one.
I also want to point at the Giants at the Bills.

Speaker 4 (01:46:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:46:47):
You know, Buffalo struggled last week. Buffalo looked mortal last week,
and the Giants again, they're one of those teams that
are down there, kind of mired in the muck with
the Patriots. No matter how you bad you got it,
somebody else has it as bad or word than you
two you do. And I'm just because this is a
state thing, I don't know if it really means anything
or not, but you know, this could either be a

(01:47:08):
real get healthy opportunity for the Bills, and health being
the keyword there, or it could be a get straight
game for the Giants.

Speaker 7 (01:47:16):
Well, you know, Miami, uh got rolled by the Bills
a couple of weeks ago, and then they played the
Giants last week and got awful, awful healthy. The Keyson's
buffalo who has been very erratic. You know, they're three
and two when they hold onto the ball, they're pretty
good shape. But Jacksonville moved the ball up and down
in them last week, you know, well over four hundred yards.

(01:47:40):
And that was with Trevor Lawrence throwing a couple of reception.

Speaker 1 (01:47:43):
You mean you mean you mean London, London? Yeah, yeah,
the London Jaguars, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:47:48):
The London that's right. This week it's the London Ravens
and the and the London Titan, right right. Here's here's
ominous news for the Giants. Last week in the lost
to Miami, they finally scored a first half touchdown in
there in this season in five games.

Speaker 1 (01:48:08):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (01:48:09):
The bad news was it was one hundred and two
yard interception return. So more offense has yet to score
a touchdown in the first half in five games. I said,
ball told, the Giants have been out scored in the
first half ninety four to nineteen.

Speaker 1 (01:48:29):
Again, I will repeat, no matter how bad you got it,
holy crap, we don't have to go too far and
really find somebody. Who else is kind of struggling with
the football right now?

Speaker 7 (01:48:41):
Well, now, well listen, it's kind of ram up in
a round the league. Okay, we listen to me. San
Francisco is kind of a notch above everybody. Okay, I
would say Philadelphia is one A. But we you know,
we've got a lot of money list with you know,
with the three and two's, and you know what's it's funny.
You make a great case that the Detroit Lions are

(01:49:05):
playing in you know, just about as good football as
anyone but other than San Francisco, because San Francisco was
on a different wavelength the offense defensively and defensively agree.
I mean, they've scored at least thirty points in every game. Okay,
they've given up. They're scoring differential this season. John is

(01:49:26):
already plus ninety nine after five weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:49:30):
That means you're beating teams by twenty points a week.

Speaker 7 (01:49:33):
Yeah, exactly. I said, they have really taken no prisoners,
and I know the Rams got within seven I mean,
but they pummeled the Steelers, and they pummeled the Giants,
and they pummeled the Cardinals, and they really humbled the
Cowboys last week, and in a big way. They run
the ball, they throw the ball, they played good defense.

(01:49:55):
I mean, they were a really, really complete teams. And
you go back to last year now one fifteen regular
season games, Okay, you know that's nothing to sneeze that,
and they've done a couple of different quarterbacks. You know,
they for the most part, won those games handily.

Speaker 4 (01:50:13):
Crazy if you if you in fact, if you include
the playoffs.

Speaker 7 (01:50:18):
They're seventeen and one in their last eighteen games, the
only losses of the NFC title game to Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (01:50:25):
Already got hurt, right exactly. Yeah, they're they're head and
shoulders above just about everybody. But I can admit it's
going to be a real easy route for me this year.
I'm pulling for the Lions because they've never done nothing.

Speaker 7 (01:50:41):
Well the last time that the last time the Lions
won a NFL championship was nineteen fifty seven. So old
even I.

Speaker 1 (01:50:49):
Wasn't correct me either, me either, And I've already I've
already stressed how old I am in this program today
and I managed to come up with an old joke
on myself every week on the show, it seems like.
But no, I wouldn't even a lie from the Lions
last one. So I will. I will gladly follow the
Lions with great interest this year. And I think you know,
push comes to shove. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna wear my Detroit blue

(01:51:10):
and silver.

Speaker 7 (01:51:12):
There you go. Well, listen, they have don't want to
playoff games since ninety one. They haven't won a division
title in thirty years since it was the NFC Central.

Speaker 1 (01:51:21):
Okay, roar, Lions, Roar, let's.

Speaker 7 (01:51:23):
Go the streaks go on and on and on.

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
The yeah, don't think, and it's gonna.

Speaker 7 (01:51:30):
I want to jump back to the Niners game this
week because they pretty clean it yep on Sunday yep,
which I would find to be very intrigued. Now, I'm
not sure who the Browns quarterback is going to be.
It sounds like Watson is still dealing with a rotator
cup injury and so on. They might actually a third
different new starting quarterback this year, but it's hard to
ignore the fact that the Browns have given up only

(01:51:53):
five offensive touchdowns in four games. That is a very
fierce pass rush that they have in their own way,
right with Moles Garrett and sa Darius Smith and Shelby
Harris and Tomlinson. You know, Jimmy Schwartz pretty pretty good.
Maybe not the greatest offense I mean, head coach, but
a quality defensive coordinator. Remember he helped the Eagles win

(01:52:16):
a Super Bowl a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:52:17):
Yeah, yeah, right.

Speaker 7 (01:52:19):
The fact to me is a very very intriguing matchup
in a week where we have a lot of inner
conference games this week.

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
All right, well it's not interconference, but at the same time,
the Patriots playing in Vegas for a second straight year
after the the bizarre throwback from you know, Jacoby Myers,
you know last year cost the Patriots a potential win
on the road, and the only saving grace here is
that Jacoby can't do that to the Patriots this year.

(01:52:47):
But you could certainly throw it back to somebody in
his team for a touchdown, I suppose if they get
him the ball enough. And a lot of parallels between
these two teams, it seems like the Patriots actually kind
of match up a little bit against a Raider defense
that is had statistically some issues, but they certainly seem
to overcome a few of those against Green Bay this
past Monday night. I mean, if you if you're gonna

(01:53:07):
get well, it's good to get well on the road, especially.
I just don't know if the timing is right here
for the Patriots anywhere they go into this year.

Speaker 7 (01:53:18):
Yeah. I will say this though, Jimmy Garoppolo, who has
not started a new game this year, okay, m hm.
And you know, aid No Kumano had to come in
when they played the Chargers because he was in percussion protocol.
But when Garoo has played, he's been less than stellar. Okay,
and uh, you know he has had trouble gaming onto

(01:53:41):
the ball. Okay. So there's a reason this team can't
get out of its own First off, they can't run.

Speaker 5 (01:53:48):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:53:49):
You know, you've got the NFL's rushing champion from the
year ago, Josh Jacobs, on a team that is dead last.

Speaker 1 (01:53:58):
And rushing, which is nuts.

Speaker 6 (01:53:59):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:54:00):
Yeah, the the Raiders are twenty ninth and total defense
a total went yep. So they're I mean, they're just
not generating much whatsoever. And I know England's new England
having its own offensive problems, but you look at what
Garoppolo has done. A high completion percentage, I get that,

(01:54:21):
but he has thrown seven picks in four games. Yeah,
and you know all it takes, which is for you know, Listen,
the Patriots have seeing new share of turnovers and turned
our touchdowns the last couple of weeks. Okay, they could
certainly switch here, There's no doubt about it. So I mean,

(01:54:42):
this is this is a point flip game as far
as I'm concerned, because of the way both teams are playing,
and neither of it is very good.

Speaker 1 (01:54:50):
Yeah, Vegas is a three point home favorite, which is
basically what you get when you have home field advantage
is three points.

Speaker 7 (01:54:57):
Oh, I see, I misunderstood that. I thought three was
the over.

Speaker 1 (01:55:03):
Might be. I mean, would it surprise anybody if it
was a three to nothing final? No? I don't think
it would.

Speaker 7 (01:55:10):
No, No, no, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:55:14):
The over under, by the way on the Patriots Raiders,
as I presently have it in front of me, is
forty one and a half. I'm hitting that puppy like
a big dog.

Speaker 7 (01:55:29):
So it's just so you know, it's funny you're not
surprised about the Raiders because they have really been dismal
for a long I mean again, they haven't won a
playoff game since two thousand and two. They've only made
the playoffs a couple of times since two thousand and three. Yeah,
so that organization has gone through a lot of quarterbacks,

(01:55:51):
an awful lot of head coaches, and you know, they've
really hit the skids. I mean, this is one of
the proud franchises in the league since the merger, and
you know, they're slowly just tumbling right down the wind
loss standings in terms of most wins since the merger.
But the Patriots is shocking. And I understand them being

(01:56:13):
mediocre the last couple of years, but to see some
of the eggs that have been laid by them in
the last two weeks again, I can't get seventy two
to three out of my mind. It's just not something.
It's strange to see a team lose, any team lose
by that, but the Patriots, I mean, you know, you know,

(01:56:36):
I see Bill Belichick. You're around the organization obviously far
more than I am, because I'm not at all And
I see him in press conference, and for the lack
of a better word, he just looks defeated.

Speaker 1 (01:56:51):
I think that's I think that's a pretty good characterization.

Speaker 7 (01:56:54):
He looks defeated. And as weird as this may sound,
you know, we talked to change and you know what
could be coming and all that stuff. I have. This
is just my personal opinion based on seeing his reaction
in the last couple of weeks. He seems like too proud.

Speaker 5 (01:57:13):
Of a man to be fired.

Speaker 1 (01:57:15):
I agree, I agree, I don't think. I don't think
an end season firing. Whatever happened, I'm I'm definitely, I'm
definitely right there with everybody that said that. I do
think though, that you could see a mutual parting of
the ways happen after the year is over, or you
could see if if if that doesn't happen, you could
see him bringing in someone to help with you know,

(01:57:38):
shall we say general manager duties. I could see that
definitely happen. But something has to happen, because if it doesn't,
you know, it's kind of like when the Patriots, you know,
they win the coin flip every game and they differ, okay,
and clearly that doesn't work anymore because you're not a
talented enough team to be able to do the double
score at the end of the first half. It's been

(01:57:58):
a pet peeve of mine for years and to my
listener's ear, they understand all that, but he keeps doing it.
And I'm wondering, you know, this team has had such
a hard time playing from behind, why wouldn't you try
to take the ball one time to see if you're
going to get the lead and play with the lead.
But no, we're not gonna do that because we're stuck
in our ways of doing things. And when you keep

(01:58:21):
doing the same thing over and over and over again
expecting it to be different and it doesn't change, that's insanity.
It's insanity.

Speaker 7 (01:58:32):
Yeah, and it's going to be This will be an
interesting afternoon because if they are not competitive against this team,
there's going to be either's. The microscope is going to
grow and you know it's already hot. And I will

(01:58:53):
say this, I think Bill Belichick is also in a
tough spot here in this sense because the he by
chance made the decision to leave, and I'm not saying
he would. There's going to be a faction of people
who say, well, you make a mess and now you're
going to quit on it, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:59:09):
Right, and that's yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 7 (01:59:14):
We know this because of their success for the last
twenty years. There are people ready to pounce.

Speaker 1 (01:59:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:59:22):
Oh, and not appreciate because that's that's what I've read
all week. Boy, more than ever now we know it
was all Tom Brady.

Speaker 1 (01:59:30):
Yeah, and which could be further from the truth. But
I mean that's yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:59:35):
Because Tom Brady isn't Tom Brady without Bill Belichick's health.

Speaker 4 (01:59:38):
Absolutely some reason, we have people who watch football, even
people in our medium, who continue to insist this is
all about one person, regardless of who the team is.

Speaker 1 (01:59:50):
It's never about one person. It never has been and
never will be about one person every I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:59:55):
That's like saying you do a radio show and you
produce it as well.

Speaker 1 (01:59:58):
No, no, I leave that to the marine. He's the expert.

Speaker 7 (02:00:02):
I didn't mean you specifically, Russell.

Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
I love you, brother, talk to you soon.

Speaker 7 (02:00:09):
I will, Yes you will, all right, Yes you will,
and hopefully more pleasant conversation next one.

Speaker 1 (02:00:15):
Yes, sir, that's what we'll plan on. Thank you. The
one and only. Russell S. Baxter at Backs Football Guru
on x H Patriot Fans If you want to see
Toyota's best offers, including those na seen on TV, go
to buy at toyota dot com. It's Toyota's official website
for deals from the official vehicle of the New England Patriots,
Toyota Let's Go Places. I'm going to end the program

(02:00:37):
with the final words here from two emails that I've
gotten earlier in the show, because I didn't really give
you guys a chance to have a ton of feedback today,
so I want to take the time here, Chad and
the atl The way you fix this John isn't something
that can happen in the middle of a season. It
seems like Bill has been so hesitant to press the
reset button fully after Brady left, and I think it's
obviously because he wants to beat that Shoela record. I've

(02:00:59):
said as much would agree with you. I really believe
this team could be good given time. The only issue
is Bill doesn't have time. It feels like he's continuing
to try and correct this team with short term fixes,
not long term fixes. If he's wanting to beat that record,
then maybe he should go elsewhere to a team that
already has all of the pieces stop preventing the Patriots
team from properly rebuilding and developing. The hybrid rebuild experiment failed.

(02:01:25):
Some excellent points there, Chad greg from Shrewsbury, John, what
do you think is the possibility of releasing Bill Belichick
after this year and pursuing Jim Harbaugh as the new coach? No?
Is that s sinct enough for you?

Speaker 5 (02:01:42):
Hardball?

Speaker 1 (02:01:43):
Nah? Is it impossible? No, God, everybody's on deck. I
would have to admit, Look, I do what it takes
right now. If I had to say this organization had
a coach opening, all right, with all due respect to Jerrod,
respect to Bill O'Brien, who I think you know obviously
he's been a head coach and could be a head

(02:02:03):
coach again in this league. I don't know if this
is the right place based on what I think this
team needs. This team needs new different thinking. I'd go
right after Mike Shanahan, go right to the damn top.
Sam Francisco's forty nine ers right now are the best
team in pro football. I'd also take a look at

(02:02:24):
my arch rival down in South Florida, Mike McDaniel. I
get that young punk up here. I have to think
hard and long about that one. But I'd certainly say
he's worth to talk to based on what he's got
going thus far. Just two names i'd throw out there,
and that's just me, my own personal opinion. I don't

(02:02:44):
know that that's gonna happen. But if you're really gonna
move on from a Hall of Famer, if you're really
gonna move on from you know, if you're trying to
move on from the greatest quarterback of all time, and
you're gonna move on from the greatest coach of all time,
don't you want to go to the top. Don't you
want to get the guys who are hot now and
see if they can sustain that, for lack of a
better phrase, hotness, Right, Okay, score big with Bob's unbeatable

(02:03:11):
savings on power reclining furniture, perfect for game de viewing.
With features like hidden drop down tables for snacks and
BEVs and convenient USB ports, you'll never have to get
up and miss a play, but only when you shop
at Bob's, the official furniture store of the New England
Patriots Marine Thank you for your help today. Our thanks
to Jason Horowitz of the Vegas Raiders. Andy Hart from Wei,

(02:03:32):
Evan Lazar and you Russell Baxter as well, same patch time,
same patch channel next Wednesday, two pm Eastern Time, right
here on patriots dot com Radio in the playbook. Maybe
we have some different results to talk about next week.
Won't that be nice for a change. But if not, hey,
we'll break it down, we'll cover it down, and we'll

(02:03:54):
roll it forward. See you then, Thank you for downloading
this podcast asked.

Speaker 2 (02:04:00):
Subscribe on Apple, Google Play, and everywhere else you listen.
Like the show, please rate and review us. Listener comments
and ratings help keep us high on the podcast rankings
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