Patriots Catch-22 1/5: Bills Preview, Damar Hamlin, Mac Jones' Performance Against the Dolphins

little bit angry with me. That's okay. That was that. I knew that was coming, and I do want to mention right off the top, Evan Lazar, Alex Barth with you as always excuse me. It does seem a little trivial right now talking about football. Yeah, it does. And we're very well aware that Alex is going to read off an update. Was it from the Bills? So we got we got two updates. I'll just get right into it here. So first off, it's probably about five maybe

ten minutes ago. Kairie Elam, who's a corner yes for the Bills, a rookie corner tweeted, our boy is doing better, awake and showing more signs of improvement. Thank you God, keep the prayers coming. All of three and then that was three being Damar Hamlin's number, right, And then that was followed by an update from the Bills this literally

as we as the open was playing. Per the physicians caring for Damarrow Hamlin at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Damar has shown remarkable improvement over the past twenty four hours. While still critically ill, he's demonstrated that he appears to be neurologically intact, his lungs continue to heal, and he is making steady progress. We are grateful for all the

love and support we have received. So fantastic news right, not sounds like maybe not out of the woods yet, but certainly I think this is the first big update we were all waiting for and certainly could be a lot worse. Right, So, it sounds like things are trending into I'm not a medical professional, but it sounds like things are trending in the right direction, which I think is all you can pretty much ask for at this point. Right.

And Adam Schefter this morning also tweeted that Damar Hamlin's father actually addressed the team and gave an updated I think it was actually last night that they gave that yea, but that the general feeling and the building from the team standpoint was that they heard a lot of encouraging things that made them feel better about moving forward and made them feel better about the situation as much as

you possibly can. So we have to talk about it because we can't talk about football without that being in our minds to a degree. And it's just it's hard because we all love the game. We all love covering the game, Alex and I and watching it as fans, and this is always the fear, right Like, there's always that fear that somebody's gonna get hit in a football game and he's not going to get back up. And

we haven't really seen this in our lifetime. I know it's it's happened, you know, at some point in the history of the NFL. But in today's day and age, where there's a million ESPN cameras, there's social media, there's all these different things, this thing, obviously is is tough

to see. And I hope that the Bills are given the leeway from the NFL that if they decide as a team that they're just not ready to play this game on Sunday from a mental health standpoint in which not to obviously Damar Hamlin's health is the number one thing that we have to think about, but number two to that, I would also just mention the mental health of the players and his teammates, right and the players on the bank side of things too, that just witnessed

what happened on Monday night, and that's important too. So I think there's a lot of those angles. Obviously, our our thoughts and prayers are with Damar Hamlin, and uh it's glad. I'm so glad to hear that he's starting to pull out of this and hopefully doesn't have any long term damage from all this. With that being said, we are going to talk about football because that's what

we do and that's what we're gonna do. I have to move here, we go, Okay, all right, there, we got the video here today we are going to talk about football. And I'm going to admit before we move on here from the Damar Hamlin stuff. Getting fired up about this is gonna is feel silly to me at this point. It does, but that's what we do, and that's what we're gonna do. So you can call in and join the show here at five five PATS five hundred, web radio at Patriots dot Com is the email as

you all probably we know at this point. And uh, I want to start with the quarterback, because that's where we always start. I want to start with the offense, though as a whole, in the quarterback as a secondary to that obviously, because that's what we do. We get fired up about people that that can that that are I mean the clip in the open set it all right, right, And I don't want to I don't want to go on that whole rant again, but I still go back to it. When it comes to Mac Jones, can someone

offer a real critique of his game? Like? Can we can we talk about a real critique you're talking about the specifically the performance on Sunday? Sure, yeah, the performance on Sunday in particular, because that's what's the newest information we have. But can can we talk about a real critique of the film of his of his game? Because everything that I hear or tend to hear, I guess I should say about Mac Jones is related to his body language. How he looks. Oh he's whiny baby, Oh

he's he has he's a noodle. Army has no zip on his throws. He's missing open receipt. Like I don't hear I hear all these absolutes, right, like all these dramatic the Patriots offense sticks. We know the Patriots offense isn't good. We know they don't score points. Do you know who also doesn't have a good offense? The Chicago Bears. Do I hear any of these things about Justin Fields? Right? Everybody loves Justin Fields, and I love Justin Fields. I

love watching Justin Fields. But Justin Fields flat out looks better playing football. He's got a big arm, he's athletic, he runs right, he does all these other things that

add to just playing quarterback. And the Bears offense is the Patriots are twenty sixth and DV away, the Bears are twenty seven Like they're both right there in the basement, right, So all this other stuff, And I know he went on your rival station, Alex Boomer assiasin like coming out and saying, I don't remember the exact word that he used off the top of my head. Maybe you do.

About Mac Jones on I think it was Monday talks about the aesthetic and look, I think there's something to that if you go so when you have all the team pictures, I don't know about you. Yeah, when I'm posting a article on ninety five sports ub dot com, right, and I need to find a picture to use, Yeah, go on getty dot com and I type in mac Jones and it just gives me a bunch of pictures

in mac Jones. He doesn't photographed well on a football field like that, just doesn't doesn't look when he and when it goes bad for him, it looks even worse, right, like when when he's not playing well. And I would even say when he throws the ball, like he kind of makes weird face. And he's not the first quarterback to do that. You know who else doesn't like Justin Herbert? Yeah, go look at pictures of Justin Herbert and look at his face when he's throwing the football. Um that that

impacts the way people think about him. It's stupid, absolutely, but um yeah, it's just it's it's like it almost kind of reminds me of and you're gonna hate this, but I don't care. Remember it was earlier this year somebody flipped the video of Tua, so we saw what he looked like during righty, and everybody's like, wow, he

looks like completely different quarterback right right. It's just the aesthetic of it, right, And I think that that's what why I get so triggered by it is because I don't give a crap, right Like, I know, are not a guy for aesthetics, You are not. I don't care what he looks like. I don't care about his mannerisms. I don't care about the sideline. I don't care about how he runs off the field after they don't convert another third down, because we've seen that a ton this year.

I do not care. What does the film tell us. Is he making the right decisions with the football? Is he accurate with the football? Is he getting the ball into tight windows down the field? Is he making those down the field throws? Is he a trigger shy or is he willing to push it down the field? Like all these things, I care so much more about his body language, the way he carries himself, the way he

looks and when he makes a throw. I just this type of stuff to me bugs me because it's it's not it's not that's not actually football, right, Like it's not football. This is just I don't like the guy. And if you don't like the guy, and I've been saying this for weeks now because I feel like this has been brewing for a while. If you don't like the guy, I can't convince you to like him, like I can't convince you to want to to like his aesthetic or like his swagger or lack thereof, or like

his playing style, like I can't convince you otherwise. But what I want to get into is what actually he is putting on tape, the actual football of it, not all the other body language doctor krap so he I want to give a legitimate critique because I think people think that I'm you know, I'm a mac apologist and whatever. Okay, I don't care, but I want to give a legitimate I'm proud you've gotten this far by the way, Yeah, we went from not wanting to take him until like

the third round too. Now, maybe being more of a macapologist I might have been. I might have been writing my initial instinct on this one. Uh. I want to give all a gym make critique. So if I told you, Alex. I looked this up the other day, and I was looking it up for the Buffalo Bills, and what I found out was actually astonishing, so astonishing to me that I looked it up again. I ran the Pro Football Reference search again to make sure that it wasn't like

a bug or something like that in the system. The number one team in the league and producing what explosive plays, right, plays with twenty plus yards the Kansas City Chiefs. Sure not a surprise. Patrick Mahomes will do that. He They by far and away lead the league. They have forty nine of them. It's eight more than second place. I

guess who's in second place, The Patriots. The Patriots. So when I saw that, and I'm not sitting here saying, oh, well, the Patriots actually have a secretly great offense because they produced twenty plus yard plays. But when I saw that, I did a devil taken. I was like, I would not have guessed that. I would not have guessed that. And I think what we've gotten to the point with this offense with the quarterback, which I'll get to in a second as well, is that they have the ability

to create chunk plays. They have the ability to throw the ball down the field, and they have the ability to have these moments where you're like, wow, that was a good play, right. You know, Kendrick Bourne and Mac Jones in the second half in Cincinnati, the opening drive, they hit Taekwon Thorton down the sideline, he hits Hunter Henry on third down. Right, they have the ability to have these flashes, to have these moments, to have these high level downfield throws, and they rank near the top

of the league in explosive plays. They rank near the top of the league. Mac Jones does in PFF's big time throw rate, which I know people got on me and they hate that stat. I don't care. So they have these moments of flash where they do have these big plays. But the problem is is that right now they are not doing the things to keep the chains moving right so they can have these big plays. And I mentioned Kansas City had forty nine chunk plays this year.

That means that they're roughly at three a game. So you're not going to sustain offense with three chunk plays per game, and that's the best offense in the league. Get doing it right. So what you need is to hit the eight yard curl on first and ten to convert on third down to score in the red zone. Right like all these little other things, these little details that end up being big things. So right now, where the Patriots offense is at and where mac Jones is at,

is that they're truly a boomer bust offense. They either are hitting a big play down the field or their false start, short run, incomplete, incomplete, three and out right like that, there's no in between with the offense right now. And I think that this gets to the quarterback, which is my legitimate critique. Don't worry, I don't think he's perfect, all right, the legitimate critique. His short game was terrible in this game. His short game was off, His reads

were off in the short game. There are some throws that were off in the short game. And what that leads to is that you just can't You can't matriculate the ball down the field, right, They can't string drives together. And so that's where you have these peaks and valleys where they can have the opening drive of the game, they can have the eighty nine yard drive in the fourth quarter, but then the middle quarters is a rut

of nothingness. So you know, he had a couple of different plays where I thought he didn't really read the underneath coverage very well. They ran, you know, snag like and I want to mention this play because snag, which is, you know, a flat shallow cross and then you hook it up right in between the two zones. Snag is a play that every high school team in the country runs right like. This is not Matt Patricia's bad at coordinating. Okay,

I'm not saying he's good at coordinating. It's one of the basic plays that every team puts into their playbook. But the point is is that the quarterback, regardless of who's calling the play in from the sideline, should be able to execute it. And they get exactly what they want. Meyers.

He runs across the field on the shallow drag, It pulls one zone defender this way, I think it was Taekwon runs the flat, it pulls the other to zone defender that way, and Nelson Agloor just sits right down in between the stretched out zones and is open on first down, wide open waiting for the football, and mac Jones decides to throw it over the middle to Jacoby Myers with two guys bracketing him in the zone and

it's incomplete. I thought that the ball that everybody I think has talked about with Hunter Henry in the flat where he kind of short arms it a little bit, I actually thought that was more about the read than it was about the throw. Okay, another throw that I thought he should have thrown the hitch instead of throwing the flat you know, curl flat combination, and he throws

the flat instead of the curl. So for whatever reason, like I feel like mac Jones has at least based off this film, and I think that there are some evidence from other films as well, his rookie season has like flip flops. Like now, all of a sudden, he's making these good throws down the field and maybe be a little bit more aggressive in his approach down the field, but he's not hitting the easy ones, right, He's not making the layups. And in order to be a sustained offense,

you need to be able to make the layups. So whether you're Buffalo, Kansas City, the Patriots, the Bengals, like, it doesn't matter, you still need to be able to make those layups. And I think that that's what happens is you know, first and ten, they throw in complete to the flat to Hunter Henry. Now it's second and ten, and then they maybe they gain yards on second and ten, but now it's third and six, and now they have to convert a third down, right, and we know that

they've struggled in that department at times this year. So the short game was offen this one from Mac which again it is seems to me like a flip flop from what it was his rookie season where you had some concerns that he wasn't pushing the ball down the field, that they weren't letting him push the ball down the field. Now they're letting him and he's doing it, but he's you know, he's regressed in the other areas. So that's

an interesting thing I took away from this game. The other interesting thing I took away from this game was offensively, I actually think the Patriots offense and their passing game does a pretty good job against man coverage. Now they went right down the field, and I know Miami had some injuries. Right in terms of the secondary, is Avian Howard's out, Byron Joe's hasn't been playing, Nick Needham hasn't been playing, But at the same time, they have been

able to beat man coverage. You can go back to the Pittsburgh game in the beginning of the year when Pittsburgh played a ton of man coverage and Nelson Aghaloor had that big game. So they've had this ability. They had some issues. Miami adjusted in the middle quarters to more zone, and they had some issues doing that right.

They had some issues picking apart the zone, settling in zone, and I think the biggest reason why is you know the old adage is you run away from man coverage, you find soft spots in zone, right, That's how you are incorporate your passing game. And I think the biggest reason why they've struggled against zone is because that takes chemistry, right, That takes timing. It's not just I'm gonna read it out.

I'm gonna look count Henry's gonna beat his man and I'm gonna throw and put the ball on him this when it comes to zone, it's where is he gonna sit? Where is he gonna settle? Does he see it the same way that I see it? Is it? Is it? Split? Safety? Is a post? Right? Like what is the coverage and

what's the conversion based off the coverage. That type of stuff takes, chemistry, takes timing, dare I say, takes coordination right, and those type of right and those types of things are fleeting this offense so in a lot of ways. And Buffalo is coming in this week, and we're gonna get to a Bill's preview here soon. Buffalo in the week third team matchup played a ton of zone and

the Patriots obviously struggled with it. So now I feel like for years we were talking about this team can't get off press man, right, like they can't create separation against man. What I see on film with this team now is actually more struggles against zone than it is against man. All right, So a couple things, Yeah, a lot of unpack. Yeah. First off, you mentioned that really interesting number at the beginning, right about twenty plus yard plays.

The Patriots are second in the league. Yes, and you need to sustain what happens in between. I know people are probably gonna roll their eyes at this stat. It's a little bit my station. Oh well, if you take away this right the Matt's all of videos, but it proves a point here. Yards per play this season overall, right, Patriots are averaging five point three yards per play on offense. That's tied for seventeenth in the league, so middle of the pack. Yeah, yards per play on plays that gain

less than twenty yards. So on one hand, oh, you're taking out the big plays. Of course, the number is gonna go down. But if you are a sustainable offense, you should still be about the same spot, right in terms of yards play. In terms of their ranking, everybody's number is gonna go down. I'm looking at it here. The most yards per play the team with the most yards per play on plays of under twenty yards. Yes, is a yard less average in the last place team

in terms of yards per yards for play totals. So we're not gonna don't focus on the total number here, focus on the ranking, right, focus on where they are relative to the other teams. The Patriots again, yards per

play period this year offensively tied for seventeenth. They are twenty ninth, or sorry, they are tied for twenty seventh in yards per play on non explosive plays, right, So that just some numbers to back up your point there that basically, when they're not getting those shot plays, it's really the only way they're moving the ball at this point, right, and that is volatile. It's just inherently volatile and we

know that. And I think the other thing is if you look at those explosives, a lot of them are like twenty five yard explosives, right. You know he hits Taekwon Thornton on the opening drive. I think it was a twenty four yard pass, right, And not a lot of them, unfortunately, been for touchdowns right there right there between the twenty explosives. But it's it's so weird to me because they and I love that stat that you brought up. I'm probably gonna steal from you yet that

that's important Pro Football reference. Yeah, I love that stat because it's so weird to me because everything that you hear nowadays from coaches and stuff like that about football is that explosive is explosives. Explosives like big plays. If you get one big play a drive, then usually you are getting points from that drive. If you get two big plays in a drive, you're in the end zone like almost every time, right, Like that's how it works. But this team is only getting in the end zone.

You know, when Marcus Jones Houses went out from forty eight yards or the drive that they had against the Raiders where they had a big passage of Kobe and a big run by Remondra and it was like a four play drive, right, Like, those are the drives where they're scoring. Where they're not scoring is the eleven, twelve, thirteen play drives because eventually they shoot themselves in the foot and they go backwards, or they don't pick up the third down, or they have a false start on

first and ten. Now it's first and fifteen and you're playing behind the chains. So that's been the biggest issue for the offense. Spend the issue, biggest issue for the quarterback as well. And I don't know if that gets better this year, but I do think that there is some positives that we can take away and this is what I wrote earlier in the week, from the fact that the hard things they are actually doing right, Like they're getting the big plays. He's making throws down the field,

he's making higher level throws down the field. But the easy things is what they need to clean up, right, first and ten, third and six, Like, it bugs me to no end that third and six is such a difficult down for this team. It shouldn't be right. They should be able to move Third and six should be like sixty percent of the time they converted. It's not for the Patriots, so I can tell you how much it is if we saw a little bit. Those are the things that certainly stand out to you from this offense.

Another thing that I want to get to is before we move over to defense really quickly. I have one more point. You give yours five one more point on the well, you go ahead, because this isn't like a big picture Okay, so this isn't really a big picture thing either. It's actually bringing back something that we had talked about previously. Also, Patriots on third and six this year, by the way, you want to guess for the thirty

seven percent close, they're twenty sixth in the league. Thirty five percent on the yeah, they're averaging five point four yards. The twenty sixth ranking doesn't surprise me at all. Like that third and six, especially with this quarterback, like I feel like mac is should be able to pick those up, right. We're not asking him to pick up third and fifteen, where you know, you might have to go extended play, or you might have to go with a big throw

down the field or something like that. Off platform no, we're just asking you to pick pick up seven. Actually, sorry, that was the total third down It's a twenty six point three percent even lower twenty eight, twenty eighth in the league, although they are a head of directly ahead of the Cincinnati Bengals. That's surprising. And then the Browns Coltson in Washington. But the thing I wanted to bring up here, Evan, we talked about this and it was probably more of a fair point at the time than

I allowed it to be. I was just in my fields about the game. And this was after the minutes said after before the Minnesota game when you talked about Mac needs to put together the drive, right, Yes, and this isn't quite that drive. But how many times this year have the Patriots, whether it's to go ahead or to put a game away, right, we've talked about can they put that drive together? Can Mac put that drive together late in the game to at least seal the game?

If not? Right? And look, the level of difficulty on this one is not as high as maybe some of the other examples. But in this game against the Dolphins, Marcus Jones makes a great open field tackle on Tyreek Hill. Sorry, Miles Bryant. Yeah, Miles Bryant makes a great open field tackle on Tyree Hills. So credits Miles Briant. He had a great game in this one. Patriots get the ball back with about ten minutes to They're up sixteen fourteen,

so still very close. They then go eighty nine yards and eleven plays, take five minutes off the clock, and that's the drive that ended with that Jakobe Myers jump all touchdown DPI on the sideline. But Mac on this drive Kendrick Bourne for sixteen yards incomplete to Kendrick Bourne, Stevenson for five yards, throws it deep to Jacobe for twenty five yards. I think that's the throw that you shared on Twitter up on the wheel route. Then they

run with Hermandre. Mac does the QB sneak, gets it to Hunter Henry for four yards to pick up the first down. On second and two, one yard one run for Rmandre. You get to pass interference one more incompletion Damian Harris down to the goal line and then Mac makes the adjustment on that final play to get Jakobe Myers for the touchdown. Again, it's not Tom Brady against the Rams of two thousand and one, but that it's a glimpse into kind of that drive we've been waiting

for Mac to put together. It feels like the game awards that, Yeah, they put We've been waiting for that putaway drive. Eleven plays, eighty nine yards, five minutes up two that's a put away drive to me. And honestly, look, I know what they did against the Bengals at the end of the game wasn't wasn't the drive that we

are looking for, especially almost was almost was. But they also, let's not forget and I'm not saying they played well for the majority of the Raiders game, but they put the Patriots up twenty four seventeen in the Raiders game too, So they've had some of that later game that they've made some of that happened a little bit more Babe recently. I know the Bengals game kind of stands out as a well, we have that one in there, so let's not forget about that. But they've been doing a little

bit more. I come back to though, like we were just mentioning the non explosives part of your offense, just converting first and ten into second and three, right, and converting second and three into a first down and third and six and two a first down, like these situational things that should be easier than they are for this offense. And I think the big picture takeaway from all of it is that I still don't know what their identity

is as an offense. I don't know on first down, what are you coming out in, Like, what's your grouping, what's the play call? Like? I think they want it to be spread, quick game, Like. I think that that's what they want it to be. But the quarterback I don't think has done a great job with it. Quite frankly in recent weeks. I think that that's what they want their first and ten identity to be is Mac

and the gun, three wide, you know, eleven personnel. Let's run quick game and let's get first and ten into second and two, right, Like, I think that that's what they want it, which is a good plan. Yeah, it's a fine plan. You know. For McDaniels, it's probably under center, play action, full back, you know that sort of thing, right, that's sort of the identity. But if this is gonna be your first down identity, quick game, spread, all that,

I'm fine with it. But you obviously you gotta be really good at executing that if that's your identity, right The Patriots are great at lead the full back through the whole play action, hit, hit the crosser behind the linebacker, right like, that was their offense and they were great at it. They're not great at what they want their identity to be right now, and that's why their offense is so Jacqueline. I think a lot of that offense

is spacing. If you're gonna be if you're not gonna stretch the field horizontally, you have to stretch it vertically because there's less planes to work with, right and yeah, when I say planes, like you can have two guys who are on the same plane horizontally if one guy's five yards down field, one guy's twenty five yards down right, right,

because they're not near each other. But if you're gonna say, hey, we're only gonna work with ten to fifteen yards of the field, there's ways to do that, but it has to be spaced out correctly because you're gonna run into situations like we saw early in that in that Bengals game, right where receivers are on top of them, or like Smith gets a concussion because Kendrick board runs is right on top of them in a Quick Games style type

of concept. Yeah, and Mac just throws it not thinking Kendrick Bourne's going to be on top of Johnny and he gets sandwiched. Like, those are the things that you can't have with it. You have to have the quarterback has to read out the underneath coverage properly and get the ball to the open guy. You know, those types of things have to happen if you're gonna be good quick game offense. And I don't mind quick game, you know I quick game RPO. If that's their early downe identity,

I don't mind it. They're just not executing it well. Right, But that almost gives you a hope moving forwards, because it's like, hey, the pieces look like they're all there. The idea behind it is not terrible. And I know I in Windows. We've seen them do it in Windows, so it's like it's not like they can't execute it. It's not like they're not talented enough to execute it. Yeah. Right, final point here about the offense, which is kind of sprinting it forward to the Bills game here, and then

we got to talk defense in this Bills game. And look I know that there's a ton of non football stuff about this Bills game. We don't know Buffalo's mindset, we don't know if this game's even gonna be played right now, But just operating under the assumption that they're going to kick off at one o'clock on Sunday and the Bills are going to be the Bills. Yeah, just operating off of that. This is a game to me where you kind of have to let Mac try to

cook a little bit. Like, I just don't think you're gonna We know about the sideline outburst the last time around on the Thursday night game, quick game. I'm not going to use the profanity, but you know we all remember what he said, right, And I just don't think you're gonna beat this Bill's team because you're going to have to score in the twenties to get a win at least. And I'm giving the defensive end of the fit of the doubt that they can hold Buffalo to

thirty or under. Right, I think they can, But they are gonna, right, That's why I think they can. But they have to score twenty seven, right, they are. It has to be thirty to twenty seven or twenty seven twenty four or something like that, they're not going to win this game in the teens, and to play conservatively like they did on that Thursday night game where they're running quick game and they're trying to run the ball like you're not going to keep up with Buffalo on

the scoreboard like that. And I think that they've shown enough over the last couple of weeks opening up the passing offense and throwing the ball down the field a little bit more that to give the coaches confidence that they could do it right, that Matt can put the ball on people, that the receivers can get open, that the line can hold up well enough to give those opportunities a chance to get down the field. And I think that they've shown enough explosiveness over the last couple

of weeks to keep trying to do that. Because if you go into this Bills game and you try to go back to that Thursday night game plan and you're trying to throw beat Josh Allen with six yard passes down the field, and I know he doesn't play defense, but the point is is that you have to score trying to go punch for punch with him. Yeah, I just don't think that you can hang that way. And I would much rather if they're gonna lose and they're gonna miss out on the playoffs, like I would much

rather than go down swinging. Well, that's kind of what I was gonna say. You know, on what hand, what do you have to lose a playoff spot? And that's something very significant to lose, right, I am well documented is in being in the crowd of you people are lunatics for wanting the team to miss the playoffs. Yeah, but you just like you said, you're not gonna beat Josh Allen in the Bills trying to win this game sixteen fourteen, twenty three, twenty one, right, Like that's what

they did last week. Yeah, hold on tight, get that scare on defense, and just grind it out. I think that's what they wanted to do on that Thursday night game too, to be honest with you, I think they wanted them to elongate the game, right and the short game, which which you do need to do against this team to an extent. Yeah, you do need to do if you're playing the Bills, and I've talked about this before,

you need to shrink their margin for error. That all still stands from a defensive point of view, right, But you do need to take some shots. You just do you need. You can only beat the Bills their own like you can only beat the Bills if you give them a taste their own medicine a little bit. Yeah, and it's much easier said than done. But I'm not saying come out and be the Chiefs and run four verticals NonStop. But you got to have a couple plays in there that you're willing to kind of let it loose.

And this to go back to Miami game as well, something we saw in that game that they haven't done a lot this year. They've been very conservative this year as a whole offensively on second and short. There's been a lot of times where they get into second and one, second and two and right run the ball. They've run a number of quarterback steaks in that situation and sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't. But that's a great down to take a shot because the other team really

has to defend everything. Yeah, everything's on the table and you're third and two, which is should be converted rights. But the idea is now you have teams suckered in where your tendencies what they're looking at when they get that scouting report skew heavily towards Hey, they're probably gonna be conserve here. Yeah. On second and two and they had three second and shorts against the Dolphins. Two of them they threw down the field, once to Myers, once

to Thornton. The one to Thornton was incomplete, the one to Myers was complete, and then there was a third and two the second and two on that drive we just talked about where they did do the quarterback sneak, but more of that mentality. You know, if you and first of all, I get to get in a second and two, and we talked about that, but if you can get in a second and one, two, three, take some shots on those downs. Yeah, And I think that that's if they can do that and they can convert

on those it sounds like a little thing. I'm talking about a very specific situation here. You know, they ran how many plays fifty sixty plays against Miami. I'm talking about, you know, three plays in a fifty game script, a sixty game script. They ran fifty seven. I'm talking about three plays in a fifty seven play script. Yeah, but those can be impact plays. Those can be game changing plays. So that's something i'd like to see. We saw it for the first time last week. I'd like to see

if that carries over now. This has kind of been a theme this year where they do something and it looks encouraging and we maybe don't see it again. Well, that's the thing that goes back to the identity thing, right that I think sometimes this offense and this team on offense this year gets too caught up in game plan, right, like,

what's the best thing to do against this team? Well, you got to do what's what you can do best sometimes, right, and what you've consistently been able to execute, and not worry so much about it, especially when you're twenty six in the league in DVOA and any one, you're one scoring drive per game for the most part, right, Like, you're not a good offense right now. So to get caught up in all, well, this is a zone team and they blitz or they don't blitz, or they this

or they that. Like, I just think it's too it's over complicating things sometimes where you just need to run your stuff, Like one, run the plays that you feel confident in, that you feel good at and I think that goes back to this game. I also you mentioned the second down player they threw incomplete the Thornton. That one was from like the thirty five or thirty six yard line and it went into the end zone right to throw it. I love that because, yeah, it was

incomplete on that play. But I love the idea of taking shots from the fringe read zone right right, because it's not good in the red zone. So what's the point of getting into the red zone? Like, there's no so I would I've been harping all year long from

the twenty five yard line. Can we just throw it into the end zone from the twenty five because there's more space obviously, right, So there's easier it should be technically an easier access, and maybe you get it down to the one yard line on a DPI like on the Jacobe Myers right, and now all of a sudden, it's a little bit easier and you're not trying to drive it in the red zone anymore. Right, You're not first in ten or first and goal from the nine.

You're first and goal from the two, And that makes things a whole lot easier for the offense at that point. And it's something we know this offense can do. They do it last year with Hunter Henry from like that twenty twenty five yard line range, he was automatic. Yeah in that range. All right, we got more to defense because we got Bill coming up at eleven forty five things, so we got we gotta move defense first and foremost.

I I want to talk about this game and give them credit for this game because I thought they did this was the best job. And I know that they played backup quarterback, but still I go watch you know, Teddy Bridgewater and Skyler Thompson against Minnesota earlier this year, they lit them up, right, So just because they play these two backup quarterbacks, I don't think we can write

off everything that they did. I want to give them credit because I thought this was probably the best game that they had this year at handling a number one elite receiver and Tyree Hill and and really in a number one elite receiver in Jalen Waddle as well. Right, you could those two guys combined I believe had under one hundred yards in this game, or right around one

hundred yards. And look, I don't care who the backup quarterbacks are, those guys are still run they're gonna run their routes less, right, They're gonna run less like technically sound right, right, Because it's a backup quarterback, they're sticking with those guys in coverage. It doesn't matter who the quarterback is at that point. Right. So they've played a lot of this zone coverage, and I think there is

something to be said. I believe. I'm trying to remember the staff the top of my head since the Bills game in Week thirteen, where they've played teams like the Bills, you know, they've played obviously the Bengals, the Dolphins like these good passing games. Right, they are zone coverage on like eighty five percent of their downs. They don't play man anymore. They just don't. And that's that's fine. It's

because they don't trust the corners, right. You know they have Tay Hayes, you know, playing out there at corner, who's been on the team for three days. You're not going to go have him. Oh yeah, you got Jalen wat right, you know you're not going to do that as much now. I think there is something to be said of can you do this against an elite quarterback?

Can you do this against Josh Allen on Sunday, where a lot of what you're doing is, you know, they're playing a lot more split safety, and they're spinning it right, they're playing right, they're starting in two, they're making it one and they're starting in one and they're making it happen. Right. Yeah, they're just spinning the dial in zone against these quarterbacks.

And maybe that works against the Teddy Bridgewater, but it doesn't work against the Joe Burrow, or maybe it works against you know, a Derek Carr, but it might not necessarily work against the Josh Allen. Well Alan historically better against Man. Well, their receivers are just so good that you know, if you want to try to cover Stefon Digs in Man for four quarters like good, right, And that's why I think a big reason why they're so good.

They're great against Man, they're great against post safety right single high. They just shredded. They shred it. So what they're trying to do, and this is the sort of every single time I ask a player a coach about this, is that they want offenses to have to march. They want them to have to go on a fifteen play touchdown drive instead of a five play touchdown driving. I know that sounds obvious, but it's not how teams always play. You know. Miami is a defense that tries to come

after your aggressive and they try to play aggressive. And let's not confuse that with Ben don't Break, because that's not it's not exactly the same thing. No, I don't think so, because I think what they're trying to do is get that mistake right. And I don't mean get that mistake where they stall out in the red zone. I mean get the Kyle Dugger picks. They know how well the secondary ballhawks, and they are trying the more throws you have to make in all these different looks.

They're basically just trying to make the quarterback dizzy. Yeah, is ultimately what it is. Hey, you're gonna run fifteen plays, You're gonna see fifteen different looks, right, and then you're gonna come out on the next drive and you're gonna have to guess what you're gonna see again. And it just they are trying to force theseus. They are trying to, you know, make these quarterbacks mentally malfunction right where it's

just just just data overload. And I think the other thing that they're really trying to do, which they did a really good job against Miami in this game, and I think at times they did a good job against Buffalo.

And the first matchup is they're trying to get the quarterback off the first read, right, and they know the first read is gonna be Tyree kill or it's gonna be Wattle, or it's gonna be Digs or something like that, right, So if they can get the quarterback to hold the football, and they haven't always done it right because the quarterbacks that they've faced the Bridgewater in the beginning of this game,

they've done a nice job of just taking profits. Right. Okay, if you're gonna back off and play zone, we're gonna take the underneath stuff. But at the same time, I think what they've been able to do at times successfully is get the quarterback to hold the football and now all of a sudden, the quarterbacks holding the football and Judon and uj and Barmore are coming after him and

they're able to get some pass rush going. And I think that's sort of the key as well, or the goal I want to talk about Kyle Duggers, Well, I would just say that thing when it comes to the Bills, And I say this all the time. They can get impatient. Yes, they want to play their game. They want to be the Globe trotters. They want that five play scoring drive and something Josh Allen has done much better against the

Patriots than any other opponent. He seems to be more willing to be patient against the Patriots than anybody else. I don't know what it is. Yeah, it maybe it's just Bill, but you watch him play, and you know, like last year, right going into the game here, those like three or four games before that, he was not playing well. He had like a three pick game against the Falcons, and it was the same thing because teams

are just baiting him into it. And then he came here and he took checkdowns all day and he just marched right up the field. They didn't seeven to have an issue with it. So I like, he'll watch He'll probably do that again. But Alan in this offense is a group. You can make him patient and they will eventually think, hey, we're talented, forget what they're giving us. Let's try that deep shot and that will backfire on them at times. It hasn't against the Patriots, but it

does against other teams. Yeah, on Kyle Dugger, he's very good AFC Defensive Player of the Week ye Pro Bowl snub his game, and I mean this as a compliment, and I think people are gonna take it as an insult.

His game reminds me a lot of prime Jamie Collins because he's got these unbelievable, unreal flashes right where he's making these plays like the pick six where he jumps a route, he drops off the line of scrimmage, from the line of scrimmage, drops to depth, jumps the route, and then has this ridiculous return where he's stiff arm and guys and breaking tackles and things like that, and you're like, holy crab, Like that's an all pro safety type of play. Yeah. He also gets loose a little

bit uncoverage. Sometimes it gets lost in zone coverage, right, and we'll give up some stuff. So the player that actually gave up according to PFF, that gave up the most yards and coverage in this game was Dugger. Okay, right, so he has He's a boom er bust player right now to a degree. But I still think that the boom out in his case with the offense, I don't think that's the case, right, I think the offense is too much bust, But with Dugger, I think in his case,

the boom is certainly outweighing the bust. And I'll take some of the bust for the pick sixes, especially with this team because they need it right And and the way he attacks the line of scrip image is tremendous, you know, against the run, as a blitzer, all that type of stuff. He's still is coming along a little bit. I think in coverage, I still think that that's an

area of weakness of his game. But I think with Jamie Collins in his prime, I still think Jamie Collins was a great player, right, And I think Dugger's a good player. So I think some of that conversation of well is he really you know, as he overrated? Is he good? You know whatever? I think too. I don't know if that's really fair to him to be like, oh, well, he gave up all these yards in coverage. But they're asking him to go and make make plays on the ball.

They're not asking him to be Gilani to buy where you're just playing your role, like he's got to make big time impact plays. And I think sometimes we fall into this as well with Judon, where you know, maybe he lets the quarterback out of the pocket once every ten times, but the Patriots they don't need him to

just like push the pocket and collapse it, right. They need jude On to go out and get sacks, and go out and get and get force takeaways and force big game changing games, swinging drive swinging plays in the defense's favor, and I think dugger falls into that category as well. So you're knock is basically that he's not ed Reid, which like isn't wrong. But if that's the worst thing he can say about the guy, he's pretty

freaky good, right, I think. And I don't think he quite has the interception numbers because he's not targeted as much. But I know, I think that Duggard this year is very similar to what j. C. Jackson was for this defense last year, right where he's he's the turnover machine. And well, it's funny you say that, because I think some of what I see with him not necessarily in terms of the like how you'd write up a scouting

report on a player. But yeah, there is a similarity with jac Jackson in that there are these players that just they just get football on the level that it's it's not even a football IQ thing. And I think Dougger has a very high football IQ. But the way he reacts just his knack to be able to get in the right place at the right time. And some people hear that and they think luck. No, it's not

a luck thing. Like you just watch him and you can see him realize I need to be in this spot now, and he has the athleticism to get there. That's what that pick was, and he talked about it after the game. He's in a coverage assignment, his assignment stays into block, he becomes a free player. He recognized the route, conversation, combination, and boom, he gets right there in the spot and he makes the pick. And the thing about players like that is the more football they see,

the better they get because it's basically just processing information. Right, I've seen this before. I do I know what's coming. It's kind of Tom Brady's answers to the test thing. Yeah, right, he just knows. His instincts in the moment are so good that he just knows, Okay, I've seen this, this is how I need to react. And the more football players like that see, the better they get because they

simply have more information to work with. Jac Jackson is a great example of a very instinctual player and the more he saw, the better he guy. Jack Jones is another guy I've talked about in this light where his instincts are great and he needs to get beat a couple times to kind of see. I also find the game plays off of them. But if you're gonna play like that, I also think you are going to get beats.

You are, but because it becomes a learning process, and it also just inherently you're trying to make plays on the fall and sometimes you are going to get beat, or sometimes you're not going to be in the right place, I think. But I think with Jack get what I would say to aggressive with it, but I don't think that's necessarily Dugger's problem, and we well Jack's a rookie too, right.

The more you see, the better it gets. There are some guys that have great instincts but never hone them, and they just become these overly aggressive boom er bus players. Whereas you know with Kyle Dugger, you're seeing a guy that I think is adjusting, is learning, is taking that information in applying it forwards. I think you mentioned the Boom er bust. I mean it's it's much more towards

Boom than it was even a year ago. Yeah. So he has those instincts, he has that quick twitch ability, and now he's starting to use his experience to build on that and become an even better player. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I think that, like I keep saying, with guys like Jamie Collins, with guys like a JC, yeah, do you take some of the times where they get beat for the pick sixes? Right? You just take some

of the times. And I think that with Dougger, he's got a really solid baseline of run defense, that he's a he's a four down player just because of that, right, you know, and the fact that he can be so

many different things for this team too. You know, he plays a traditional strong safety, he plays a linebacker, he plays the edge or the nickel spot, like, he can do all these different thing on the boundary a couple times this year, Yeah, they they'll play him on the boundary in those three safety packages from time to time. So to I think that Dugger wears more hats in this defense than anybody else I think he's surpassed and

Adrian Phillips type role. I think he's surpassed some of the guys up front that that move on and off the line of scrimmage. He plays at the back end, he plays on the boundary, he plays in the in the slot. He plays at the linebacker level. He plays on the edge of the defense like he plays in line. When he they blitz him, you know, on those zeros, or they bluff them like they did on the pick six. He plays all over the field for this team. Last question,

it's his own role. It's his own. It's not he's not even this point the only guy. And I wasn't old enough to really study Rodney Harrison, but I have a feeling that this is pretty similar to how they ended yeah, how they ended up using Rodney back then. So so I was actually looking at Rodney last night. I know we got to wrap it up, but I have to put this tangent out. No time for this. Rodney Harrison comes in the league now he's a safety

or linebacker, he's probably dugger see. I think he's more like, uh, like Jamal Adams, like a Fred Warner tight or maybe the name I want to use and it hasn't panned out. But the guy we thought na Kobe Dean was gonna be coming out of the draft, he's bigger than a Kobe Dean, though not that much. Nakobe Dean's like five eleven, like two twenty. Ronnie Harrison six one, two twenty. I just remember Ronnie being thicker than that. He's listed to

two twenty. I was surprised too when I looked it up last night, but six one, two twenty back that no shot. Now he might have been aligned back. I just an interesting We have a I wish we had more time than I wish we had a Hall of we had we had a Hall of Fame minute plan, but all the schedules can pack today, so we're not gonna be able to get to it. We'll get to it for well, we'll get to it next week because I'm fired up about that as well. All Right, it's

it's getting ridiculous. I want to have this conversation with you. Yeah, the really quickly, because it's all I gotta get it out really quickly. Seventies Steelers, how many guess how many? How they have twe? Yeah? How about the Lombardi packers a lot twelve twelve Hall of famers on the Lombardi packers, And don't get me wrong, I think it should be harder than it was back then to get into the Hall of Fame. So I don't think there are ten Hall of Fame players on the Dynasty era of Patriots.

But right now we are trending and it depends like if you want to count Moss and Revs, you can count Moss and Revs. Did you count Lombardi? Like do you count the coaches and that? No, that those are additional, But I think Bill get right, So that's so right now, it's trending towards probably five. Right, So you have Law and you have seen Moore already in how many people are gonna be in with Patriots rings? Like, that's more the conversation. So they have Lombardi and they have Lombardi,

they have Law and see Moore already in. Yeah, Brady is obviously going to be in, Vinitari will probably get in, and then Gronkowski will get in. Yeah. Right, so that's five. Now, if you want to count Moss and Revs you can, so that that that's technically seven, but it's not even with a ring, right, And it's different because the Seventiesers didn't have free agency, right, So you know me and Joe Green played for the Steelers for thirteen years for

his entire career, right, he didn't go anywhere. But for guys like Vince Wilfork, guys like Rodney. I would even put guys like Devin mccordy in that conversation, Dante, Hi Tower, Julian and Dillon, those guys. If those guys were on the seventies Steelers, they're lock Hall of Famers. Yeah, But the Patriots they're not even gonna be. They're not even finalists,

let alone in the Hall of Fame. It's you can't have treated it one way for all of these years, and then you get to the modern, modern, modern era and now all of a sudden, all like all these other guys are going to get in. And I mean part of the problem though, is the Hall has not done a great job recognizing like not specialist players and

like kickers and punters. But well they have, but guys who like Vince Wilfork wasn't a statistical monster, right, and he wasn't you know, a guy like Julian Edelman wasn't a traditional wide receiver. Matthew Slater's another one. The fact that Devin Hester has gotten to a second ballot blows my mind. Yeah, because I think they look at him as a wide receiver who also returned kicks, but like he's the greatest kick return of all time. Kick returning is a position like the So the finalist came out

last night. They're fifteen of them. Some of them are locks, Joe Thomas, Terrell Reeves. You know those guys are Hall of Famers, Okay, but you're telling Hester as a finalist should be in. Yeah, Hester, like Jared Allen is a finalist. I mean he could play, He could player, but he could over some of these other guys. I don't know, but he was a hell I don't know every wide receiver. Reggie Wayne, Tory Hold, Andre Johnson. Andre Johnson's the best

one out of that group. Like he's he was an animal, okay, and he's playing with like Sage Rosenfelds and things like that in Houston. But it's just I don't know, Reggie Wayne's gonna get into the Hall of Fame. But Reggie Wayne is to Indianapolis. What you know, Julian Edelman is or Wes Welker is to the Patriots, right, you know, and it's just I don't know. All right, let's let's get to these calls. You guys got to be quick, but we can get to these two calls here before

we wrap up. Justin and Virginia, thanks for hanging on. How you doing, hey, guys, how you gonna? How are you doing good? Thanks? Hey. I'd also add to Kyle Dugger just like the value he provides and run defense, like when he was on the field versus when he was off, was just unmatched. Yeah, yeah, he's a great run defender. Absolutely. Quick question though, Um, a lot of people bring up Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr when they're

like talking about Mac jones physical skill set. If we gave him the weapons and support that Matt Ryan kind of had for the better part of his career, how do you think he would like match up to Matt Ryan. That's a good question. Appreciate your going, Thank you. So I tried to make the Matt Ryan comparison once upon

a time with Matt Jones. Matt Ryan is six four and like you know, he's just a bigger specimen than Mac Jones is so, I think there are probably a lot more physical tools to Matt Ryan's game than maybe people remember, and maybe compared to Mac. But I mean, if you get Mac Jones, Prime Julio Jones and like, that's I'm sure he would look great too, you know. I mean that's I definitely agree with the caller in that respect. I don't know that he's gonna like win

an MVP, but whatever one step below that is sure. Yeah, I could see it if he had Prime Julio Jones and Kyle Shanahan calling his plays. And I'm not sure if you would win an MVP either. Tony Gonzalez there for that, I don't. I think that was post Tony okay, but he obviously had Tony Gonzalez. First I met for his career, was Tony Gonzalez there? Maybe not? I was

there that year? Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, he had. They had Julio and Tony Gonzalez at one point when they were I think they made it to maybe one NFC championship game, or maybe they were competitive in a divisional game. I remember that for some reason. I think it was an NFC championship game. All right, Patty, what's going on up, guys, real quick point before my couple of questions. I said it when Nias Williams went into the Hall of Fame

before ty Law. But if Bryan Dodkins is in the Hall of Fame, Rodney Harrison absolutely belonged to the Hall of Fame. So just a couple of quick questions are with what happened on this past Monday night, do you think that these Bills players, if they line up, especially on defense, might be might still be in a little bit of state of shock, and that might might thank for a little bit more competitive game. Wanted to get your thoughts on that and the last collar justin who

brought up guys comparable to back? I dare you guys to find me a better top to Mac. Maybe not hype wise, but just watch him play, Eli Manning. It's almost like you're watching the exact same quarterback. That's all I got. I don't thanks for call, Patty, I don't. I don't hate that Eli com I know people around here are going to hate that just because of all the history, But I think Mac takes care of the ball, maybe a little bit better than Mac's never gonna lead

the league in turnovers, Yeah, there's a couple things. He's not gonna lead the league. And to be fair, but he's never gonna lead the league in turnovers. Yeah, but I understand from like an throwing motion, like all like playing style. I mean, if you want to talk about the aesthetic thing we set off the top, like guys Eli and Peyton both right, remember that, Yeah, they were ugly players. Um what was the other thing that he brought up? Oh, if the Bill's defense, I don't know.

I can't really like speak to that until we see it. Look, I'll say this, I'm not gonna blame guys for being hesitant about playing a FOA game on Sunday, like I I wouldn't blame any of them for that. Now, how that impacts the game itself, who knows. You know, maybe it's a thing where you kind of you know, as the game goes on, they feel better about it. Um, but I wouldn't blame any but it. And it could be the reverse. It could be, Hey, you know, let's go win this for our guy and and maybe you

get that effect too. I don't know how they're thinking. And the reality is it's probably gonna be a range and different guys are gonna fall in different parts points of that scale. But I went on anybody for coming into that and by across the league, I wouldn't fault players for coming into this game and maybe being a little timid to start on Sunday. Yeah, I don't necessarily think that they're gonna be timid to tackle people and stuff, because once you get back out there, I think it

just becomes second nature. Like I'm a football player, this is sort of what I do, right, But I do wonder. The big thing for me is if the Chiefs win on Saturday, yeah, and they decide the NFL has decided that they're not going to play Bengals Bills, which I think was reported this morning. It was trending them right. Then the Bills can't get the number one seed. So at that point they're they're talking about two and three. Now, if they win, they would be the two, so that

would guarantee to home playoff games. So it's not it is a factor, but I think that at that point, you know you're playing on wildcard weekend, you know you're not getting the buy. I think to a degree, maybe you get to a point there where how much does that game really mean to Buffalo. I think the two seed is somewhat important because you're gonna play the Bengals Tech probably on the divisional round, and you want that

to be in Buffalo. But I don't know if that alone is enough to get everybody up for this game, especially after what happened on Monday night. And I also play all out, Like if you're Josh Allen on Sunday and you can't get the number one seed, Sean McDermott has to be saying to Josh Allen like, hey, like, let's cool it this week. All right, we gotta get get going here. I'm sorry to Jerry on the line. We'll call back for Unfiltered. They'll be on at noon.

We're gonna go talk to coach Belichick right now, and Alex and I will be back next week. Where our time keeps on changeing, We're sorry about that, but we're just trying to We're probably gonna be on at this time. We're just trying to stay on video because we know you guys love the videos. So we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. Thank you for downloading this podcast. Subscribe on Apple, google Play, and everywhere else you listen like

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