This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Bars.
And Lazarre.
Hello, everybody nailed it? Joined us always buy our Bara. Here is Evan Lazar and Alex Bars. Jam a square hole into a round peg. Because your offense is an under center offense, you.
Can't jam a hole into a peg. So it's nice pegging.
A hole peg into a hole. Yeah, he said, peg, square peg, round hole.
Yeah there are you just like the worst at preschool?
What do you think?
Yeah?
Yeah, okay, come on, just making sure you took literally the whole toye hitting the one piece.
I like how you ended my rant with that.
We're gonna we're gonna cover triangles today now that we were squares and circles down.
Maybe you know it was really hard for me. Was was coloring between the lines. I could not do that.
You know what I was bad with two?
I was like, this is not all twenty two? Like where's the football?
You know what I was bad with two? Like art class? The glue bottle. Yeah, I would just make it like I had to use a glues stick. They wouldn't let me use the glue bottle because I made such a mess.
See we were we were just you know, we were ahead of our time. Like now being like people like us is like they know what to do with kids like us now. Back then they did it and they were just like, I.
Don't know what that means.
I don't know.
I want you to qualify what that means.
I'm just saying that, you know, somebody like me, I was not good at school. No, I was terrible at school, but I was good at what I liked with like football, you know, but I'm not good at like the traditional school stuff. And I feel like now they realize, like some kids just that they're not BookSmart.
Well you know how there's people that, like remember the kids in school that would be like, no, I know it, I'm just a bad test taker. And then people would be like, oh so you're no no, no, But like I remember like hearing that and somebody be like, oh, so you're bad of the thing that measures how much you know, so you're not It's like, yeah, no, I'm a bad testinger because I don't know the stuff. Yeah that's why. But I just also didn't try you put like you know, we used to have was like you'd
get like sixty math problems in a minute. Yeah, and I never could finish it. This isn't like elementary school. Never could finish it. Put the fifty three players on the Patriots roster give me a minute. I I could have gotten all those. I'd be done with time.
To spare it exactly. That's that's exactly my point. Thank you for saying.
I'm not saying now, I'm saying, like back obviously I could do it now, but even back then I could do it well.
Uh Hey, 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 Tyota's official website for deals for the official vehicle of the New England Patriots. Tyota Let's go places and easy to drink, easy to enjoy, but like the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots. Hello everybody, Nice to see everyone. That was an interesting open. I like I like that though, nice cold open for
us today. But Evan Lazar Alexar Patriots catch twenty two with you for the next couple of hours here and we're taking calls. We'll get the emails set up here in a second. As well, so call on in at eight five to five Pats five hundred. We got a lot to talk about, though, and I want to start by looking back as we normally do, and looking specifically at Drake May, of course at Shocker and the place.
I want to start with Drake May because on Tuesday, we had our typical game recap unfiltered on Tuesday, and I'm sure a lot of people heard it. I was quite complimentary. I'm sure as you could imagine, I was
very excited. And when you come off a game like Sunday, where I will tell you point blank, the most exciting moment of Patriots football in probably three years was Drake May's touchdown pass to Kashan Boody before halftime, Like that was the first time in probably since Mac Jones's rookie year, at least maybe even since Brady where I was like, holy crap, like you know that is a throw, Like that is a franchise quarterback throw. And it was exciting.
And I watched the film on Monday, and that was exciting. Now that a couple of days have passed and you kind of turn the page and all that, I think there's a lot of conversations about okay, are we just kind of glossing over the three turnovers, the two picks, the fumble, some of the misthrows that he had in this game, and highlighting just the positives because we're starving for positives with this team, especially on the offensive side of the ball, and putting our heads in the sand
and just kind of ignoring the negatives because it's more fun. Frankly, it's more exciting as a fan. It's more promising as a fan. But we talked about this in the draft, and this is like a philosophical belief of mine when it comes to quarterbacks. I'm gonna try my best articulate this better, and I did in my original point about preschool.
But I would rather the quarterback where he checks the physical tools box, and I feel like he checks generally checks the mental box of his eyes are in the right places, he's making the right reads, he's making good decisions, and he has all these physical tools. I would rather work with that young quarterback. Then I'll give you two examples. A quarterback that has all the physical tools, that looks great in shorts, that looks great at his pro day, but you get him on a field in an NFL
game and he can't see the defense. He just doesn't know what he's looking at. Yes, I knew you were going to know my comps already. So I would rather have a quarterback like Drake May who checks the physical tools box but also seems to have a general understanding of how to read coverage, where to go with the with the football, how to read out progressions, you know, all that kind of stuff, than as Zach Wilson, who's just really good in shorts right, looks great at the combine,
looks great at his throwing sessions against air. I would also rather have Drake May over a mac Jones type who doesn't have the physical skill set necessary to truly be a franchise altering guy, but might have some of the reads and the decision making and the mental side of it down. I truly believe that Drake May is only going to get better because the things that he needs to get better at are things I'm willing to be patient with him on. It's details, right, it's footwork,
it's throwing mechanics. It's not that he looks totally out of place playing the position. For one reason or another, there were the concerning part about the film, if you want to go concern was that the what I you know, we call sprays or like inaccurate throws or wild misses. Those were all over his film at North Carolina. And
it's not fixed yet. Now that doesn't mean it won't be in two years, right, But at this point in time, the Aeron throws were the most of the negative grades that I had, you know, graded plays I had for him were misthrows, not misreads, but wild errant passes, like the first interception to Pop Douglas where he just throws a ten yards over his head. That is going to be prevalent for him. But now that we have this archetype out there, of a Drake may type, we have
seen accuracy developed. It used to be like an old quarterback thing back in the day twenty twenty five years ago, was that you can't teach accuracy, that that's just something that quarterbacks naturally have. Now I feel like we have enough quarterback We have enough evidence that a Josh Allen, a Jordan Love, even a Justin Herbert coming out had some of these concerns. Those are just three examples. You know, Patrick mahomes right, and I hate picking up Mahomes because
he's Mahomes. But this type of archetype, we have enough examples that you can fine tune mechanics and you can develop accuracy and eventually, hopefully he instead of having five or six sprays a game, that becomes two or three, and then eventually it becomes one or two and then hopefully eventually it becomes zero. Right now we're still at half a dozen. That's too many. But I still would rather work with this type of quarterback.
Yeah, I mean, I think to your last point, something you hit on. Their accuracy and mechanics are tied together, right, And that's why there's been this change. It used to be a guy would go out there either could throw the ballery couldn't, and you were more so coaching how to read the field, how to you know, make changes at all. Like you weren't coaching the actual mechanics of the position. The coaching was pretty much all done on
the mental side. Now you have teams in house, and then also guys like I didn't mean to do this, but guys like Tom House, right, who are to house in house to house Tomhouse. Oh yeah, I didn't need to set that up that way. You guys like Jordan Palmer, Tomhouse. So yeah, I mean accuracy is I don't know that it's entirely a product of mechanics, but I would say that it's significant slice of the pie when it comes to accuracy is due to mechanics. So yeah, they'll clean
that up. But this is something that I talk about with players a lot in the draft, not just at the quarterback position. I mean, there's there's two kinds of traits. You can really break pretty much any trait in his game down to one of two things. It's either natural or coachable. There are some traits that guys have that you're born with it or or not. And that can be physical traits, right That can be speed, that can
be size, that can be you know, agility. It can also be mental things like do you have that dog in you or not? Like that's not you can't coach somebody to love football, you can't coach somebody to be tenacious. And then there's coachable stuff, you know, things like mechanics, things like like field vision things, field awareness like things like that, and just because sometimes there's guys that have all won not the other and that can go both ways.
And I don't think either one's just qualifying. But for me, as a general rule of thumb, give me the athletes that love football. I'd rather turn an athlete who loves football into a football player, right then try to turn a guy who knows exactly what to do but doesn't have the physical ability to necessarily do it as consistently as he needs to. Some of those guys work out.
Like there's some guys at the wide receiver position that maybe, like throughout the history of the game, not just right now, that aren't like nth tier athletes, but have still had very successful careers because they're so technically sound. There's some linemen too that maybe like aren't the biggest, strongest guys, but their technique is so good that they make it work.
But again, as a role thumb for me especially, you know, and you talk about this with Drake May, the things that Drake May can do at a high level, and you compare them to Mac Shown's right, there are things. I know people are gonna roll their eyes at this, but coming out of college, there are things Mac Jones was doing at high level. There were things you can coach somebody to do. The things that he in theory
needed to get better at. He just wasn't going to get better at because it was stuff that you're either born with you or nine. R. Drake May has a lot of natural things that you can't coach, you can't teach, you can't develop in the on the practice field, in the weight room, in the film room, whatever that. There's still some other stuff that needs to be rounded out.
But what's become very clear is those physical traits that you know, you drool over on the film and a lot of people will say, well, who he plays in the ACC. You know it's not gonna look the same in the NFL. No, those all translate to the NFL. That's what's been clear to this point. Now, it's just like you said, the mechanics, seeing the field better, things like that, that comes with time. It's not you shouldn't expect it to happen right away. It's not going to
happen right away. It does need to happen eventually. I'm talking. You know, you gave two years. I think you want to see most of the development happen over the first two years and then you really start honing in on things. But I think that to me is the biggest takeaway from Drake May not just in this game, but to this point, the physical tools, the mental, the mental and physical natural tools are real, They translate and they play at the NFL level.
You use a word that I like, disqualifying. I still haven't seen anything whether it was on his college film, training camp, preseason, and now one career start under his belt. I still haven't seen anything from Drake May where I say that's disqualifying, like that is he is going to fail if that doesn't improve, or to your point, well about like a mac Jones type, he just doesn't. He wasn't born with the arm talent. It's just not gonna that's going to be disco.
You're push back on that. I do think there are things like you can't turn the ball over three times again, Yep, that's disqualifying.
Right, But why was he turning it over one? We'll get to those on him. Yeah, we'll get to it one and a half through head.
But I guess here's my point, Like, there are things he needs to get better at. There are things that if they become patterns, he's not the guy. But all of those things are things that like realistically and regularly guys improve at once they get into the league, Like accuracy improves, pocket presence improves. Let's just seeing more football. So the Tom Brady answers to the test, as he gets more answers, he's going to improve in that regard.
It's not that I didn't see anything like. It's not that I looked at it and said, if he plays that game every week, they have a stud No. But I look at it and I say, all right, The things I'm most concerned about are things I've seen a lot of quarterbacks improve on over their first two years in the league. And assuming that they can get him on that path, then there are some other special tools in there to build around.
So I want to I want to go we went, we went macro. Now I want to go micro with this. And I understand that, you know, if you want to go read it on Patriots dot com and listen to my commentary watching the film back, that's the visual side of it is on and after further review on Patriots dot com. But I broke up the plays into plus and minus plays, and I'll just say this off the top. Everybody has a different criteria, right, so I'm probably not as harsh of a greater as some other people are,
and that's totally fine. I don't want this to be like a shot at anybody or anything like that. But I want to go through some of the plus plays that I had on here that were particularly I was the word exciting to me, and then I want to go through some of the minuses that you were just talking about a little bit as well.
Can we start here because I'm curious. I just want to ask you this because I feel like there's like three or four different answers to this question that are going around to regularly. What was the most impressive throw he made or the most eye popping throw or the most encouraging throw in your mind in that game?
It's a good question, I would I would say the best throw is still the booty touchdown. But that's a throw that I guess we knew he had in his bag, So I understand that side that piece of it. I've heard that and I understand that piece of it. I would actually say that the throw that encouraged me the most, and this was I was gonna go here first so we can just talk about it was the drive starter at the two you know, under two minutes at the end of the half to Pop Douglas, because that's a
throw that is his fourth read in the progression. He starts on the left hand side, goes through two reads over there, comes back backside. When he comes back backside on that progression, he's actually like really supposed to hit that backside dig route that's also not there, and so he progresses all the way to the fourth read across
the field to Douglas. Not only is that showing some mental you know, strength right there by progressing you know, in a full few of progression, but you also watch him throw from a muddy pocket with people collapsing around him and people at his feet. From an air distance perspective, next next gen track that as a twenty six yard
throw coming across the field at the Douglas. So you have the mental side of it, if you are into that sort of thing, you also have the physical side of There just aren't that many quarterbacks that can make that throw. Like, there's a lot of quarterbacks that try that throw and it's a pick six the other direction.
Yeah. Kendrick Borne talked about this earlier today that when they get into these scramble drill modes, you're taught to run with the quarterback. And what that means is he's rolling right, you break off your route, you go right. If he's left, you break on ther right. What he said is with Drake May and he's whatever. They're not coaching it this way, but it's kind of just a situational thing, you know, in a moment. And this happened on the Hunter Henry completion, which I'm sure we'll get to.
You can break away from Drake May on the scrambles and still be in the play, yeah, because he has the ability to make those throws, which to your point.
I don't remember if Pop broke away from him on that throw, kind of drifts into the sideline like a like really nice job by him. It's zone coverage, and he kind of feels that that zone defenders, like because Drake's eyes are to the left and into the middle of the field, so the zone defender kind of drifts in that way, and so Pop just naturally kind of like gravitates off of it and you know, moves out into the open space, and I just I love the read.
Like obviously the progression is awesome and a progression under some pressure too, right, but more importantly, that is just a throw that the Patriots have not had in their bag, Like, that's not something that the Patriots, that was not offense for the Patriots before this, you know, putting Drake may in the starting lineup, so that gets the whole drive started, it wouldn't have been a drive. It wouldn't have ended in a forty yard touchdown to Kaishan Boodie if he
doesn't hit the twenty two yard er. What's your favorite throw?
So I thought the most encouraging one was the touchdown to Pop late in the game. And I mean, first of all, like it, it's a good throw. He puts some zip on the ball, there's some distance on it, he hits some right and stride. But it's more with that throw. It's more taking that throw in the context of the whole game in the season, because one he missed that throw or at least a very similar throw twice before. The first pick he threw was on a
similar concept. And then I think it was like the drive before, it's it goes as a completion but should have had the same touchdown. But it was behind right like you said, and Pope's kind of jump up and grab it. And he gets tackled. So you go from it's picked off to it gets there, but it's out of the frame of the body to like perfect like Pop does not break shrine, it's right there, and that
is all right. Kids, got a short memory. He's learning on the fly, he's adjusting, he's improving on the fly like you. I'm a big short memory guy when it comes to quarterbacks that you cannot dwell on mistakes. You have to learn from mistakes. And the other thing is, and I talked about this going into the game. For this offense to hit whatever its ceiling is, and maybe the ceiling is relatively lower because of other things, but you still want to hit the ceiling regardless where the
ceiling's at. Pop Douglas needs to be a part of this offense for it to hit its ceiling. Because the deep ball, even with Drake May, there're gonna be limitations on the deep ball because of the protection and you're just not gonna have time to access it. So for explosive players are gonna have to be guys making plays with ball in their hands, which Pop Douglas is better than anybody else on this offense. Jacoby and Pop never really seem to get on the same page, and it
hurt the offense as a whole. You see what happens now when the quarterback is looking regularly to Pop Douglas and on a play like that, like that kind of thing that cross or to Pop Douglas needs to be a core part of the Patriots offense. So that's why I love that throat, not just because it was a good throw itself, but it's like it's so many boxes you're looking for big termari short memory improvement, getting on the same page as a keywide receiver. Like I just
thought that throw. Give me that, Like, give me that once a game, you know what I mean.
Oh yeah, like that.
Not not that I'm saying, don't give me the Kishaw Booney throw once a game, but that's a play that's realistically going to be available to you one, two, three times a game.
Yeah.
And if you can hit it right, they ran it three times, they hit it once. If you can start hitting that play twice a game, like, you're in great shape.
Yeah. So I agree with so much of what you said because that throw and we talk about this and we kind of joke about it a lot. Unfiltered Paul has this thing where it's like, does it look like an NFL play?
Yeah?
Right? Does it like not like this like discombobulated and you just kind of stumbled or lucked into a completion? Right?
Like?
Does it look like an actual NFL play the way that they drew draw it up in the playbook and on the whiteboard or whatever cliche you want to use. And that Pop Douglas touchdown was the receiver beating his man and man to man coverage, the protection holding up long enough for Drake May to get the ball out against the blitz and Drake May just putting it on his receiver and stride for a touchdown Like that was
NFL offense. And one of the things that I didn't necessarily care if I saw it, but didn't want to see was like every single throw being the Hunter Henry offscript play because I know to see that. No, No, I wanted to see it once or twice. But if it was, if all of his production was just that then and all the actual like in rhythm instructure stuff was messy, I would have been like, all right, well
that how replicable is that going to be? The touchdown of Booty the throw to Pop Douglas on the other touchdown, even the touchdown passed to Hunter Henry, which I know is to an open receiver like on on sort of a bus. But like those are NFL plays Like that looked like NFL offense and that was super encouraging. There was a couple of other plays I wanted to bring up on the plus side, and then we'll get to some of the minuses. We can talk about the you know,
I just mentioned it, so we'll just talk about it. Yeah, the Henry offscript plays. We all were waiting for that one, right, one sort of scramble drill improv type of play. What And I posted it on on my my x account. I posted on my Twitter What I love so much about the offscript play to Henry is that he tries to play in structure and on time and his reads are are covered right, so he actually doesn't force the
ball into coverage. He almost gets covered two trapped on one side of the field, Like a lot of young quarterbacks make that throw thinking that it's like, you know, this the corner is is going up the field, you know, whether it's like you know, cover three or quarters or something like that, and they have the flat he gets trapped on the on that side of the field, and he doesn't throw into the trap. He pulls it down and says, oh wait, that's not open, and then he
goes ahead and makes a play. So it's not again, it's not like instantaneous. I don't know what I'm looking at. I'm just gonna start running around. That was like a true I'm gonna go through my progression. I gonna stay in the pocket. Okay, there's nothing there. Now, let's go make a play. And that was really encouraging to me on that one. I would say that late in the game, and I know that this is kind of in garbage time and whatever, but he had two really good throws
late in the game. One of them was Takeishan Bouti on a corner route where he kind of pump fakes the corner off and throws the corner out. That type of stuff, you know I mentioned earlier, the pop play before the half, the progression, the full field progression, pump faking or like manipulating zone coverages and like moving defenders with either pumps or your eyes or your kid whatever
your body language, like whatever it is. That's advanced stuff like that's not like rookies don't just roll out of bed and do that kind of stuff already. So his feel for Okay, I have cover two, I have the flat, and I have the corner. If I pump to the flat and I get the corner to jump the flat, I'm gonna rip the corner behind his head like that is. That's a real advanced NFL trow that I'm gonna you know,
I'm gonna to victory lap a little bit. There was a lot of people that told me that he wasn't capable yet of doing those types of things.
I mean, how do we know he was. He would have gone out there week one and done that. I'm not saying, hell I do that, you know me?
I would. I think he was doing that in North Carolina. I'm just saying that the sit Drake May crowd, the especially from like the national media, the sit Drake May crowd was telling me that this is a raw, just physical marvel, but he doesn't know how to play quarterback.
Yeah, to be clear, let me just clear it. There were because I've been getting this this week, there were two different sit Drake May crowds. Yes, there was sit Drake May. Because he's a project. Yeah, and there was sit Drake May because the rest of the team isn't ready. So I'm not to specify which crowd you're talking to him. I'm talking to the the sit Drake May because he's
a project. Okay, I'll just name names, like I'm talking about the Dan Orlovsky's that were saying that this guy needs to sit for three years because he doesn't know how to play quarterback.
He's a great thrower, he's athlete, but he doesn't.
Know what And I'm with you on this. Those people were you know, I was in the camp of, well, the offensive line is a message, right, so you can't put him out there yet those people find yeah, he was ready though he was ready.
Yeah. The people that thought that he wasn't going to be able to read coverages, that he wasn't going to be able to go through progressions, that he wasn't going to be consistently accurate enough to put up numbers like that type of stuff, they were all proven wrong in
one game. And it's one game, and maybe it all snowballs on them, but there was too much evidence on the film of him doing stuff like the throw to Booty that I just I don't think that, uh, And I mean the second throw, the corner route throw, the progressions, you know, getting all the way to his check downs on a couple third downs, to Antonio Gibson getting to
Pop on that one play before halftime. Like there was too much of that for me to sit here and say that those people, like those people are crazy like that. You thought you had to sit for two years like he's already doing this kind of stuff and start number one, uh, off the soapbox. Now the last one, I would say, late in the game, fourth down and he throws it out to Pop Douglas, that old friend Miles Bryant tried to jump because he's throwing it from the far hash
all the way across the field on fourth down. That's a throw again, like kind of like the other one to Pop. A lot of quarterbacks get picked six there, Like a lot of quarterbacks can't get the ball out out there like that. It almost looked like it took Bryant by surprise, like, oh God, like this ball, this ball's by me right. That was a really impressive throw late in this game as well. He got much better
as the game war went on. But in general, I would just say, some of the nuanced quarterback stuff that he was doing already speaks to that crowd. This guy needs to sit, this guy needs to watch. It's gonna take a year or two for him to be ready. I think we all know now that all that stuff was crazy. That's the plus side. Is there anything else on the plus side that you wanted to mention before we move over to the minus?
Just his his rushing ability. I mean, it wasn't just picking up the yards that were given to him. I thought he created some yards on his own.
Yeah, the fifteen yard scramble was really nice, Like there's nobody open and he and he just made a play happen, and then he picked one up on fourth down lay in the game.
I'd like to see. And I guess this is more of an Alyx fan Pelt thing than a Drake may thing. Like I get why you maybe didn't have any design runs for him in that game specifically. Yeah, but moving forward, whether it's Reid options or just outright like QB power, QB zone whatever, especially on like goal line short yardage like when yeah, which which they didn't have a ton of. But yeah, like let's let's get the kid's legs involvedmore. Now, that's I think that that should be on the table.
Yeah, absolutely, I was watching. It was that Monday Night football, Bill's Jets, right Monday Night football. Yeah, and the last the last official play of the game before the kneel downs, and then it was third down and gotta have it for Buffalo to avoid punting the ball back to the Jets, and they run like a zone read with Josh Allen. It wasn't like it it just in that situation. I'm not No one wants him to be Lamar Jackson and
start running the ball ten to fifteen times a game. No, just like a couple in right, those high leverage situations. They allowed Josh Allen to just go pick up the first down with his legs, and that's definitely on the table. Now for Drake May, that's a good point to bring up. All right, let's go to the minuses. So I had nine minus plays in this game for Drake May. And we can do this every week if people like it. You know, this is how I do it. I usually
don't peel back the curtain this much. But he's a rookie quarterback and we're all excited. So I decided to write it up and share it this week. So I had nine minus plays for him. The encouraging part was that only three of those nine were mental errors in my mind. Yeah, six of them were physical, And by physical I mean Aaron throws, So he had he had six sprays.
So you're talking about like when you say mentally, you basically mean like he made the wrong read to make the wrong decision.
Yeah, yeah, you know, we didn't make the right reads, didn't get the ball out on time, you know that sort of stuff. And we'll get to those. So my six physical errors, I can just rapid fire through them here. The first interception is obviously a physical error, you know, sales the ball over pop Douglas's head. I had one play early on in this game where I felt like he caused his own pressure, got a little bit antsy
in the pocket and ran into pressure. On third down early on in this game, Austin Hooper is open over the middle of the field and he missed the throw. Now, he might have thought that Hooper was gonna sit. There could have been more of like a miscommunication there than like a physical error. But I put it down as physical because I'm not inside his head. So I don't know what he was thinking on the play. You mentioned
this one earlier. He had a third down throw to Pop Douglas on a crossing grout that he just flat out missed that was down backed up inside there on twenty five and he just flat out misses. You mentioned this one as well. He missed behind Pop Douglas on a throw on a crossing route that should have been a big play. Left yards on the field on that one. And then my last one was wide left on a hitch to Jamichael Hasty in the flat, just airmailed it,
just missed the throw. So those are my six physical errors. My three mental were the illegal man downfield penalty early on in this game on a screen that to me is on the quarterback liked you either had to throw it or you have to throw it away. But he held the ball and that's what caused the penalty. So I put that on him. I put at least a
little bit of the strip sack on him. I felt like he had open receivers, especially keish On Booty in the left sidelight on a hitch that he could have gotten the ball kind of double pumped on that one and held the ball a little bit too long, and then there was one to late in the game. Another the last sack where I felt like he had a check down to Antonio Gibson and got caught with his eyes of the field. So those are my three physical, mental, excuse me errors in this game. Couple of the sacks.
Obviously the turnovers that sort of thing, But I I think the biggest thing when I look at these errors and just just kind of spin it forward, so a lot of those are spray throws, right, like a lot of those are missthrows. And as we move forward here with this offense with Drake May, I look at what he did last week against Houston against man coverage. Specifically, he had six completions for one hundred and ten yards
and two touchdowns against man coverage. He also had a couple scrambles against man coverage that were positive plays for the Patriots. I don't think moving forward that teams are going to be able to sit in man coverage anymore against the Pats. I think Drake May, if you give him man to man and you show him the matchups that he has, he's gonna shred you. He's gonna absolutely
shred you. So that's a positive, yeah, but the negative side or not even the negative, but just like this is the other big thing for me with him moving forward. We saw this with mac Mack was great for the first what ten games of his rookie then all of a sudden, defenses started to adjust, They started to adjust to his playing style, and he never matt could never counter from the adjustment. So the counter to Drake May's
playing style. If you sit in man to man against the Patriots, they had a forty yard touchdown, a thirty five yard touchdown, a seventeen yard completion, a fifteen yard run. Like we're talking about explosive place given up against man to man. That's what it's gonna look like every single week if you try to man up against the Pats. Now, my guess is is that teams are gonna start to back off, they're gonna play more zone coverage, and they're gonna force him to sit in the pocket and pick
them apart at the first two levels. So when we talk about these misthrows or the spray is like, that's where that I think can be exacerbated is if teams are gonna say, you're gonna have to hit these tight zone windows at the first two levels of the defense, and you're gonna have to be consistently accurate throwing the ball into coverage. That's where we don't think that you're gonna be great. That's gonna be the test, like can
he adjust to that. I'm not necessarily as concerned about the mental errors because I think that those were rookie mistakes a lot of the time. But assuming that he doesn't get to all the sort of Aaron throws fixed quickly, which I don't think he will because it was there at North Carolina and it was there already. Now that teams are gonna start to do that, they're gonna see can you be consistently accurate from the pocket? Is gonna now be the game plan on Drake May I think.
For me the big thing just in terms of the negatives. Remember in camp, like the first week, so a lot of those misses, a lot of those sprays, they were long, they were high, like they were overthrown. Yeah, he didn't underthrow any passes. They were all overthrown. If you go back to the early days of training camp, it was the same thing when he came out and struggled that first week everything was overthrown. And I remember saying at the time, like the kids clearly just jacked up. You know,
first NFL training camp. He's got the adrenaline going, he's probably got some society going, and you know, he's pushing it. And I think you saw it. He kind of said that that's what happened to him in this game, that like he needed to settle down because most of those misses were early or the ones that happened later. We're
in big spots, right, third downs, things like that. He's just got to learn to like settle down and you know control you know, controls, heart rate, control, the adrenaline, things like that, because do some breathing exercise, breathing excite. I wasn't gonna go there, but yeah, but like that, that to me is like can he just And I know that sounds dumb, but it's fair.
The first one, the interception, the first pack with Pop Douglas, to me was a direct correlation of he's amped up.
Right and it's early on and I know it sounds dumb, and I know it sounds simple, just like calm down, but like this is what the great quarterbacks can do. This is essentially what I guess it's not really qualifying it, but it's sort of qualifying with clutches, right. Don't let the moment consume you, don't let the moment be too big for you. Level headed, It's just like every other snap you've taken, high school, call, practice, whatever, and that's
gonna be the next steffort. And I'm not saying you shouldn't play with passion, like he has a ton of passion and that helps him and he should continue playing with it, but it's it's controlled passion. Like this is where I don't want to put Tom Brady up as a standard for the kid because it's impossible to reach or we allowed to talk about other teams owners on the show. I just breaking any rules here like Brady.
And some people pointed this is why Brady wasn't good at the beginning of Super Bowls, because he was maybe too jacked up because that gay like those games are so special to him. But for the most part, Tom Brady was cool, calm, collected first minute of the season opener, two minutes to go in the Super Bowl, in the tie game, and it was that same level of intensity throughout.
And that's what Drake may again just Drake May get to the Tom Brady level of it, Probably not, because I don't think anybody has ever gotten to that Tom Brady level of just balance. I mean it's one of his truly for a guy that has a lot of elite traits, that is an elite of an elite trade
for him. But it's something May is going to have to chase where he just kind of has this level headedness as the game goes on in this find the level of intensity that he can play at where he's locked in, he's engaged, he's playing with passion, but it's not hurting him and he's gonna have to kind of figure that out over the course of this year.
Yeah. So, you know, we talked to him on Wednesday, and some of the conversations, you know, I had tried to point him in the direction of like heay that throat of Booty was pretty darn good, right, and his lament was about the bad place, and I like, I kind of love that.
Well though those are two different things. Yeah, Like you can be your own harshest critic. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't relate those two, Like I'm.
Not relating to what you were saying. I'm just saying, like you're talking about the mental side of it and like kind of getting yourself more you know, even killed or whatever you want to call it. Uh what I I really there's been a lot of praise for his play in this game on Sunday, and people you know at your station who are on my side, so I shouldn't you know, pick fights. But people on your station are saying, you know, everybody's just glossing over a lot
of the negatives. Yeah, and just Drake May is not glossing over the negatives like Drake May is. Like we lost by twenty points. I turned the ball over three times, but even if the last you know, one off the tip wasn't necessarily my fall like that, that's what they're talking about, you know. He said at the podium on Wednesday that he thought he saw it well, he just missed some throws, and I thought that that was really accurate, Like that was exactly what was on the film, Like
he was seeing it. He was his eyes were all in the right places at all times, he was going the right places with the football. He just flat out missed some throws. And I'm, like I said earlier at the top of the show. I'm just so willing to work with that guy, right, the guy that just you know, we got to hone him in, We got to get him more less amped up. I asked him, you know why,
he said, I missed some throws. Asked him why, why do you feel like that was and he said he felt like he was jacked up, like he was he was hyped up. Especially he pointed to the Douglas interception at the top of the first you know, first one at the beginning of the game and just said that he was amped up. And you know, that's hopefully something that first career start, you're just kind of have jitters, right, and maybe that that dies down a little bit moving forward.
I'm also kind of lamenting, like he felt like he took too many sacks in this game and he should have gotten the ball out more than he did. Uh So, I like all the messaging and all the things that he's that he said, no limp, right, we can we can say that at practice, no brace, no limp on the knees, So that that's good news as well. Is there anything else on Drake?
May?
I feel like we we unpacked it pretty good, but I I I don't think I have anything else until we get to the Jaguars, which I will talk about here in a few minutes.
With Drake. Uh, no delay game penalties.
No delay games like the operation had smooth. He had one under center snap that was a little bit wonky, you know for a first.
We'll get to Ben Brown, but like, yeah, no, for the circumstances that that we're there, I have no problem with the Snake. I just remember there were there were concerns about him, like you know, the play calls are gonna be too long. He never called plays in a huddle with the headset and things like that. Uh, nothing in that. I didn't see that like kind of in my face right during this game.
Yep. Absolutely, all right, let's do three up, three down, and then we'll take the phones and we'll we'll get into the Jaguars a little bit as well. So let's start with the ups, start with the positives as we normally do. Who is your number one up in this game?
My number one? Well, we talked about this before, like you're you're gonna cover? Are we doing like Drake may Aside? Since we just did Drake may Aside? Yeah, wait, did my phone erase it?
I did this earlier. Oh my god, I'm do it again. Don't lie to me. You forgot or did that.
No, Evan I stood next to in the locker room earlier. We were doing it. My phone didn't save it, all right, whatever, I just oh wait, oh, I have two up down notes in my phone. That's why that's weird. I don't know I have that all right.
Uh.
Up number one, I kind of already. Uh you know, I'm gonna make that up number two, Up number one. Ben Brown nice for everything Drake May. Usually I'm the guy for everything Drake May did in that game on Sunday. Yeah, pound for pound, Ben Brown was the most impressive player on the field for the Patriots. Yeah, I'm okay saying that, like not to say Drake May was bad. Ben Brown was the most impressive player to show up on two
days notice. Center a line that is already patchwork, with a guy making his first career start behind you, in a system that is heavily predicated on the center making sure things go right pre snap against one of the best pass rushing teams in the league, and not not a guy that's like a veteran either. He played I think eight NFL snaps. Yeah, before Sunday, all at guard. That's unfreaking believable.
Man, Yes, and I think get tested much like and I don't. The bar was on the floor, So in full disclosure, because I'm with you, full disclosure. Pregame, I was freaking out were I was freaking out and I was freaking out to you and I was like, what the heck are they doing? This is his first career start. Like, even if nick Levert's like not very good at football, at least he's been here since training camp and he's been you know, he's been in this offense and he's
been at these practices. And he actually worked a lot with Drake May over the summer because he was the backup center, so he took a lot of snaps with Drake May and I was like, this is this is
not good, Like this is not a good decision. And then he get into the game, and so much kudos go to Ben Brown, So much kudos to go to I know they get a lot of flak, but Scott Peters and Kugler and all those guys to get him ready to play in this game, huge props because all of us were like, holy crap, what are they doing? And may a cople on that like they he was better, he was better than I should say.
Let me add Peters in Coogler to the list as well of ops with this and I I know there was kind of some narrative out there this week about well, you know, the line wasn't great at the beginning, but they keep finding guys. Does the staff deserve more credit than they're getting. I don't know about the front office, because the front office still put them in this spot. Peters Coogler, who's third offensive line coach and blacking the guy from Brown. Yeah, anyway, we should know the names.
I should know that name. I want to make sure I get it because he deserves a credit. The fact that I'm actually incredibly high on Scott Peters just for the season as a whole. From what we've seen.
There's definitely moments happening, maybe even a little bit more the last couple of weeks that I've seen.
Michael McCarthy, that's so Scott Peters, Robert Ruey, Michael McCarthy. It's been six combinations in six weeks. Is going to be seven to seven this week in Jacksonville? Do you know how many linemen there are healthy on the active roster that were with the team in camp? Five? Yeah, four guards and Veeri four guards and no I think it's all No, it's just four. It's not a tackle. Oh, I don't know if I'm counting low or not. I
gonna go back and double check that. But the point being like they had seventeen linemen in the start of camp. The guys who are still here, Jordan low when who Robinson?
So?
Yeah?
Jordan low On when Robinson so? So? For their health? Counting right, four that are healthy and all guards and the fact that and it hasn't been pretty, but how many times we come away from these games saying how much better? And I thought it would even if it wasn't good.
Yeah.
Ton of credit to the offensive line coaching staff to the point where now I'm like, well, what's gonna happen When they get like five NFL caliber players across the board and it's that same group week after week after week, they may be able to really put something together. Right. So Ben Brown deserves a ton of credit and the offensive line coaching staff deserves a ton of credit because what happened. Here's the clearest way you can put it.
What happens Sunday should not have happened. Then Brown should not have had that kind of performance. The fact that he shouldn't have had to play, He should have had to play. But the fact that he did that kind of performance is so far above and beyond expectations. He and the coaching staff deserve so much credit.
Okay, So I agree with a lot of what you said. Now, run blocking wise, they were.
Bad, Well, they were bad. We'll get to the running game a little bit. We didn't disagree with me, but.
They did not take They did not block well in this game. So that's a piece of it. The other piece and kind of victory lap a little bit again. So I had them with a thirty three percent pressure rate allowed. It's the lowest of any game this season.
I do not think it's a coincidence that the quarterback change and now all of a sudden they have a low pressure rate with a bunch of backups with Vederian low playing ten snaps and then going out of the game with a really third string, fourth maybe even four string of Brian Hudson's factoring into this center. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that Drake may is playing and all of a sudden the pressure rate looks a
little bit better. A lot of that is tied to the quarterback, just like a lot of the sacks are tied to the quarterback too. To be you know, to be fair on both sides of it. To the offensive line. I told people ahead of time that the line would look better with the better quarterback, And the line looked better at the better quarterback. So the run blocking wasn't great. You get over there, Yeah, I know what's going on. The linebacker wasn't great, or the running the linebacker. Linebackers
weren't great out there. The run blocking wasn't great, and the quarterback changed, And that's a factor. It's a factor like the very his first completion of the game, the bootleg player comes right through the middle of the line of scrimmage. But he's athletic and he's strong enough to get out of there anyways. Right, So those are the little things that happened that are different now that they
have a different quarterback. But you're right, Brent Brown played a heck of a game in this game for given the circumstances. All right, So we're taking Drake May out of this, right, are you dying? Are you good?
Like?
Are we gonna? I just got like some I don't know, Jesus Christ. Everybody's like, I.
Don't know how much people listen to him trying to pull the mic away.
Apologies, there's yeah, yeah, all right. My number one up in this game was Pop Douglas. I thought he was the best player on the field for the Patriots offensively.
Uh.
Six catches, ninety two yards, touchdown, career high for his career tee, all that kind of stuff is great, But I I really felt like he could have had like one hundred and fifty yards in this game if Drake May had made some more throws on those crossing routes. Uh. He is an absolute problem against man coverage. Like this is a legitimate man coverage demon in Pop Douglas that the Patriots have. Uh, the teams are going to have to start accounting for this now that they have a
quarterback that can actually get him the football. Uh, they're gonna have to. I don't know if they're gonna it's gonna be a bracket, it's gonna be robber, it's gonna be what, you know, whatever they do to try to cut off the middle of the because if you just play man to man with popping the slot, he's gonna run across the field and he's gonna get open. Like he was absolutely I don't even have the word for it. Like he was just absolutely owning Jalen Petrie and Eric
Murray in this game. Like it wasn't even some of the reps weren't even close. They weren't even competitive, Like he was shaking them off the screen on some plays. It was awesome to watch. He was great in this game. He is a man coverage problem. If he gets hitting stride on the crossing route that we talked about earlier, that when for seventeen, that's probably another thirty five yard touchdown.
And if he gets hit on that third down play early on in the game, and that he airmailed on the interception, and there was another crosser that he missed in the early second half, like third quarter on a crossing ground. You add those three plays back into his totals, we're talking one hundred and fifty and two touchdowns for Pop Douglass in this game. So he was fantastic. And now you know, if they start playing, they start playing cut like they start cutting him off on those crossing routes.
I'm waiting to see the inverted over where he fakes the crosser and then breaks out like on a corner or something like that. I'm also waiting for. Now, you're gonna have one on ones other places, right, Like if the safeties are helping to Pop in the middle of the field, that's gonna create one on ones for Polk, for Booty, for Born, for Hunter Henry. Like those guys have to then go out and windows. But I had I had Pop as my number one up. Who's number two?
Yeah, I popped all this too, I mean, and the biggest thing I agree with already said, it's sustainable. I think this is who he is.
Yeah.
I just think he's an absolute demon out of the slot. Yeah he should be he stays healthy. We talked about before the year, we thought he could be a thousand yard receiver.
Like, here we go, he's on pace even with how a kneemake their passing game was to start the season, he was He's on pace for seventy catches. And now if you're factor in that, Drake May is going to be throwing him the ball, hopefully for the rest of the season, he might might add, you know, five to ten catches onto that pace. We might be talking about like at least eight for eight hundred. Yeah, eighty for eight hundred. I mean for Pop this year, if not more,
if he hits on some of those explosive plays. The only thing that I'm waiting for now I mentioned the inverted over is what they used to call it. Some West Coast teams call it a Seattle route, or like you fake the crosser and then you break out, like you get the corner to commit his hips to the crosser and then you cut out on it. Edelman was great at it. Jacobe Myers is actually really good at
that route. The other thing I'm just waiting for, too, is like, you know, some more vertical routes down the field, like double moves or seams or whatever. Now that Drake may is in there, I think Pop Douglas is a big play guy that can do those types of things. So I had Pop, You had Pop? Who is your third?
I think the second week in Orre, I've had this guy, Marte Mapu. Yeah, just continues We'll talk about the defense and then has not been good. But I think the like Macro picture for the defense, right, Yeah, you lose to On bent Lee, you lose Jabrill Peppers, you lose Matthew Judon, you lose Christian Barmore. Not only are these guys good players, their tone setters. They play with a physical edge that sort of just becomes infectious to the
rest of the team. And what you have right now with this defense is I think a unit that's not playing with a ton of intensity, not playing with a ton of physicality. Except for Marte Mapu, who continues to play very good football, very physical football. They need to set it up where he becomes the new tone setter for this defense because he's the only guy playing with that tone right now that they need to get to.
Yeah, I thought he was good in this game. I considered him as well. He also has the pass breakup in the end zone that leads to an interception. It's kind of like the only play they made on defense. It feels like the guy that I had on defense, because when they lose like this, I try to do one offense, one defense. And then I had Drake, so you don't have to go over that again. It was Devon Gotscha, who I know it feels weird that you give up one hundred and ninety rushing yards and you
put the nose tackle as that and up. But he did it running away from him. Yeah, he had six stuffs in this game. He's up to eighteen stuffs on the season. It leads all in interior defensive linemen. Yep, and that's stat with eighteen of them. So he's been fantastic. I think he's done his job more than adequately. He's done his job at a really high level. So they're
running away from him. It's off tackle and in this game they actually ran a couple of wham plays where they specifically blocked him, you know, with scheme because they couldn't block him one on one, so they had to throw something else at him. And it's not really on him that other people aren't making those plays. So Devon Godshaw six stuffs is a lot, especially for that position where you're playing nose tackle. You're getting doubled a lot, like you're not necessarily in there to put up stats.
He's put up stats this year and he's been very very good. So Godshaw is my other one. Let's go over to the downs, right, we did all of our ups ye. Yeah, who's your number one down mine?
Jalen Polk. Yeah, so on a day for the where the offense really got going for him to kind of be left out of that. And I'm not somebody who believes like this is like who he'll be, but drops or thing with him. Now, Like we knew he was getting open, he continued to get open. Doesn't mean anything if he can't catch the ball. So he's just he's got to catch the ball.
Yeah, some focus drops in this game, and that's that's a little bit concerning, like drops that are that are tough catches or forest errors or whatever. Some people don't even track those as drops, like if the defender gets his hand in late or something like that. These were like these were on your mits and you just dropped the ball, right, Yeah, Yeah, he was on my list as well as Austin Hooper, you know. With that fumble was my third down, But I'll start back up at
the top. I had four downs actually, because you know we'll lose by twenty points, we're gonna have some more. My number one down right now, and this is like kind of crawling on my backside a little bit. At this point, the defensive coaching the defensive coaching to me in in general, I will I understand that they've had injuries in off field circumstances and nobody's fault that Christian Barmore randomly gets blood clots like the day second day
of training camp. And I get all that they are too talented on defense to be twenty ninth in the league. In Dvoa, they are at bottom five defense in the NFL. They have too much talent on the field. Like, they have guys in the secondary. They have a Christian Gonzales. They have a number one corner Kyle Dugger is a good football player. They have guys in the front seven, Keon White. I mentioned Devon Godshaw as an up. Joshua Ja has played better football than this in his past.
Jelani Tavai has played much better football than this in his past. Their fundamentals aren't great. Their run fits are terrible. H they're not playing good fundamentally. Do your job, you know, assignment sound football on the defense. Uh, they are getting out schemeing weeke in and week out getting out schemed. I mean they the same play post. It's a simple post. Cross.
San Francisco started it like they started spamming it. Miami hit a big playoff of it, and now Houston hit a big playoff of it, a twenty six yard indcut to Stefan Diggs. It's the same play base defense, cover two, run a vertical over the top, run a cross or a dig at the second level, one of those two routes is going to be open. Just throw to the open guy. Three straight games, three straight quarterbacks have hit
the same route all three times. You know, these are things that you look at the play calling, you look at the fundamentals, you look at across the board. They are too good. They have too many horses on defense to be giving up forty one points a game. They
I understand they had some short fields. I understand they had the injury excuses, but I thought to Von Gotshaw said it best after the game, Like we've had injuries in the past, we've had circumstances in the past, We've still been able to maintain a certain standard, a certain level of defense. And you know, my one big take too on the defense, and this is just my opinion, strictly my opinion. I don't love the approach that Gerard
Mayo has taken, and I didn't love it. I'm sure we talked about this when he got hired, because I didn't love it back then either. It's to the point now at the defense where I'm starting to consider that Gerard Mayo might might need to take over himself. He is a defensive minded head coach. He is a first time head coach. He's one of the youngest. He's the second youngest. I'll just stick to the facts. He's the second youngest head coach in the NFL. It's really difficult
to be a CEO head coach. It's the ideal. Bill Belichick is the ideal. A guy that has a rolladex of knowledg that he can just go all three phases and he can just go through it and he can hand you know, we got to do this on special teams, got to do this offensively, defensively. I don't think Girod Mayo has the experience to be able to pull from past experiences like Bill could to coach the side of the ball that's not his area expertise. Does that make sense? Like, yeah,
so I look at it. Coaches across the league that are in similar spots, that are in you know, similar age ranges, similar experiences. Demiko Ryans, he was just here with Houston. Demiko Ryans is the Texans defensive play caller. He's, by all intents and purposes, their defensive coordinator, Bobby Slowick is running their offense. Does Demiko Ryans every once in a while get in the headset and say, hey, let's run the ball here. I'm sure he does right, I'm
sure he has input. You're the head coach, but his focus is on the defense. He leads the meetings, he calls the plays like he's the defensive coordinator for all intents and purposes. Even a guy that's his experienced is like Andy Reid in this league. Steve Spagnelo is coaching the Kansas City defense. That's his baby, That's his side of the ball. Andy Reid's calling plays on offense, He's drawn stuff up in the lab. Steve Spagnello is coaching
the defense we see it on Sundays. He's calling timeouts from the sideline when they're on defense, right, Like, that's his side of the football. I like Covington. He's got a lot of energy, he's got a lot of intensity. I think he's got a really good chance to be
a good head coach or a good coach. Excuse me down the line here, and I'm not saying he's a bad coach, but when you're twenty ninth in the league in Dvoa, I believe there's still thirty first in the league on third down, Like, they're just not a very good defense right now, that's Mayo's side of the ball. I would like to see him take maybe a little
bit more ownership. And just for the sake of discussion here, I don't know for a fact that he's not taking ownership right Like, I don't know one hundred percent of this isn't already how it's going on. But it feels to me like he kind of wants to be that CEO. That's what he told us, that he wants to delegate and he wants to sit at the top and do all that kind of stuff. I'm just not sure if that's the best structure for him right now. I'll give
you one more name, Mike McDonald. In Seattle, he is allowing Grub Ryan Grubb, their offensive coordinator, to run the offense. Mac McDonald has the play sheet on the defensive side of the ball. Right former defensive coordinator the Baltimore Ravens. That's how he got this job. He is running his defense and Ryan grub is running the offense. That's the youngest head coach in the NFL by like a year, right, Sean McVay very first time, and I promise I'll stop
branding Sean McVay. His very first setup as the Rams head coach was Sean McVay is the head coach slash. Let's just call it what it is. Offensive coordinator. Wade Phillips was the defense coordinator. There's nobody more experienced and more knowledgeable about defense besides maybe Bill and Nick Saban than Wade Phillips. So he hired a veteran guy who's done it before, and Wade Phillips was in charge of
the defense like it was Wade Phillips' defense. I just feel like Girod Mayo might need to be more hands on with the defense because this is tackling, this is run fits, This is not like high level stuff. This is fundamentals and baseline standard of football. They need to be better at that sort of stuff.
And to your point about there maybe being a change, Trod Mayo said this week when he was asked about is the penalty specifically, but I think this applies to all the fundamental stuff they're being changes. Yeah, to you know, they need reliable guys. And it came across like he was talking about the roster and the depth chart. But maybe that applies to coaching staff too, So maybe last week's game is the impetus for that.
Yeah, And I don't necessarily, I'm not advocating is against just my opinion. I'm not advocating for the fact that they should take play calling away from DeMarcus Comington necessarily.
But if girod Mayo is trying to have his hands in every single sort of jar, so to speak, and split his time up between offense, defense, special teams and give each one of those his time, it might be time to give seven sixty five percent to the defense, right like favor of the defense, because that's your area of.
Any fertities, that's where you need more helpe right now?
Yeah, one hundred percent? All right, who's your another second time?
So I mean kind of along the same lines. I just went run game, both sides of the ball. You covered a lot of what's going on on defense, poor run fits, poor tackling. You look at those two big runs. There's guys just shooting out a position, being way too aggressive, trying to make plays that aren't there. I saw Jacquelin and Roy who's played pretty well, but like, yeah, he had a blown assignment on a run. Marco Wilson had a blown assignment on a run. Just guys being out
of position. Then on offense too, they missed Ramandrie Stevenson badly in this game. Yeah, and this is where you're gonna roll your eyes and me and I know, because.
They're gonna go that was the running back and not the guys getting blown off.
Yes, and no, they didn't block well, but they haven't blocked well in the run game all year, and they've still run the ball well with Stevenson in there. Remember there's that stat two weeks in the season that kind of blew up that Stevenson in more yards after contact than he did total yards. And you can push back and say the way PFF calculates yards after contact or the way next Gen calculates yards after contact is maybe a litterable, a little more favorable than the running back
than it needs to be. But the reality is that all their backs were getting hit in the backfield constantly, but with Stevenson. Where they miss Stevenson, and this is where I think the running backs don't matter. People miss the picture. It's not about Stevenson's ability to break off a thirty yard run, a thirty five yard run. We know we can do that, but Antonio Gibson can do
that too. The difference is, to me, like Ramandrie, Stevenson is really good at turning a run that should go for no yards into a three or four yard game, or a run that should get stopped in the backfield into a game of two or three yards. And what that does is it allows the Patriots offense to stay on schedule. Even when the run blocking's not there. Stevenson's still gonna get you three yards. Now it's second and seven. Again, maybe the run blocking's not there, He's gonna get you
three more. Now it's third and four, instead of when you look at what happened on the first series of this game, third and nine. Because that hidden yards that Stevenson was getting for you just by falling forward or not allowing the first guy to tackle him and waiting until a second defender got there to come down. Stevenson's averaging four was averaging four yards after contact per carry coming into this game, right, and again you want to say, well,
that number is not right. It's not calculated. Just for reference, the same people that were calculating that had the Patriots at two point one yards after contact in this game. That's two yards per run that aren't there. That adds up over the course of the game. So you know, did they They didn't miss when it comes to the big runs.
Right, are you telling me that you go and this with drafting your boys. I'm not.
You still don't understand that take, so I have to refine it. I do not say, well, let me just be I do not think the patriot should draft ash genty in the first round. Let me be clear about the Patriots should not draft ash Genting. I truly believe it true. Whether I want them to or not a
different story, but they should. The take is there's a lot of hidden yardage, the issues with the run blocking that that I think Ramondre Stevenson is able to kind of work around and hide because of his ability to pick up yards after contact and because of his ability to fall forward and to force the second defender to make the play. They missed that big time in the offensive line didn't reciprocate or didn't compensate for it. And this is where we'll disagree because you'll say the running
backs don't matter. Not everybody falls forward like Ramandra Stevenson, and that showed up in this game.
So I would also just on your side of the street because I don't want to be completely combative to your take. Okay. It also just it chips in with Antonio Gibson because now he's kind of playing a different role right and he's playing a little bit more of an early down base type of role.
He's also just not a bowling bat.
Right back or high volume back really ideally like maybe for a game or two, it's fine, but I thought it had an impact on him as well because now he's playing early downs, he's playing third down like he's playing a lot of football in this game. On Sunday, I could I don't necessarily disagree with you. I can't like, I don't have any major you know, pushback to what
you said. There's been a lot of criticism of a VP yeah, all year, and some of it from the show, So it's I'm not saying that it's it's not totally warranted. But in this game, they script the first fifteen plays every game, right, that's the first fifteen is like sort of their thing, so they there's a little bit of Christism. Myself included. I wrote it in game observations. I didn't love it, and then I thought about it some more
and I realized what really was going on. So they run the ball twice to start this game, first and second down, to your point, like they're thinking that at the worst case scenario, they'll be in third and medium, right, they'll be in third and four, three and five something like that. Turns out they get one yard on first and second down, So now it's third and nine. Now they're three and out and they're punting. The very first play of the next drive was the bootleg play to
Kendrick Boord. I actually felt like AVP learned from the Jets game a little bit that I'm not gonna start with the bootleg because we haven't set it up yet, right, So I'm gonna run it twice. We'll pick up third down, and then on first down we're gonna boot leg. And
that's how we're gonna get Drake into the game. Like, that's how we're gonna give them an easy lay up because to me, like the best thing to do with the young quarterback has to give them a layup to get them into the game, right, just giving them a completion that is simple. One read exactly the throat of bourn Like, that's exactly what you do with the young quarterback.
It just they just went three and out, right, So like they went out they If that had been the fourth play of the opening drive, then I don't think everybody would have been as critical of how the game started. It just the first two plays were run plays and they gained no yards on them. So I agree with you and a lot of respects on that. I definitely put more on the run blocking. But I hear what you're saying, Uh.
Well, I'm just like on that first series, maybe we're Monderick Seedson gets them more yards, yep, because again, like I think there's hiden yards there. Maybe they do get to third and five with Romandre right becomes an easier pass on third down, and then that bootleg becomes the fourth play, like the fourth the fourth play to drive right, right, because it's all scripted, so everything is it's all sequenced together already. So that was always going to be their
fourth offensive play. Whether it happened on the first driver or it happened on the second drive, that was going to be their fourth offensive play. We all got on a VP after the Jets game on Thursday, that Thursday night game for calling play action before setting it up right like that was the big criticism coming out of that game.
This game, he's set it up. It just happened that they didn't pick up the third down right, And so that's the difference. All right, a couple more downs, just the off ball linebacker play. It's just not good enough. Ray quand McMillan and Janieva had both of them.
They're gonna get to vie back on the edge. I know they're probably Kendrick Bourne told us that there's a plant's kind of easing back in, and he wasn't gonna go right right to talking about Takias And yeah, so Taki Taki hasn't told us that they're doing that, but it would stand to reason that that's the situation. But gotta get that ramp up going because they him and and Christian Ellis are suddenly like you kind of need those guys.
Yeah, we'll see about Christian Ellis in terms of early down, I think he's a little small for that.
Well, they said he's gonna play more early down.
They gotta try some different things. That's the bottom line. Ray Quan McMillan feels like, I hate to pick on him, but it feels like every single week he's in the middle of some big runs, like it's he's at the point of the.
Sad they just he's so miscast right now to me.
So I think he's an early down player. I think right now he's overthinking things and like trying to do too much. He's trying to cover up too much. He's trying to be Juwan Bentley, right. It's what's surprising to me with him is like be a hammer not a nail, right, Like go out there and Bentley would do this all the time. You might not be the one making the tackle, but if you can be the one that's ruining the blocking scheme, then that will allow somebody else to make
a tackle. So like on the big fifty nine yard run, the first one, it's a wham play. They hit it backside, they wham Devon Godshaw and they get a second level climb to ray Kwan McMillan, Ray Kwan McMillan tries to back door it. He tries to shoot the gap, you know, inside, and he just misses. He misses the ball carrier and it goes out and it's a fifty nine yard run.
Like I would so much rather see him try to compress the space, like go into the blocker, like meet the blocker in the hole and push him into the edge so that way there there's less of a hole, you know, compress the hole for the running back. And
then maybe you don't. Maybe you're not the one that gets him on the ground, but maybe that gives you Kean White an opportunity to make the tackle, or maybe the safety coming from from depth over the top has more time to get down there now and make the tackle. It might still be an eight yard run, but it's not a fifty nine yard run, right if something like that happens. So I just think he's been timid and just like not playing very it's in his head or
something like that. Their run fits from the second level. They're they're constantly in each other's gaps, they're constantly over pursuing. There's cutback lanes all over the place. From the second level the defense, you know, not being sound with their fits. They can't get off blocks, like it's just ugly. It's ugly right now. They don't cover well like their base defense, Like they can't play bass against the pass because they
don't cover well in space. So whether it's Taki Taki, it's a Ellis, it's whoever, like Joe Giles Harris from the practice squad, like, yeah, whoever. They have to start trying some different people there point blank. It's just not gonna be good enough like this, Uh, do you have another down right third?
But yeah, I kind of feel bad doing this because I mean, he's putting in a bad spot. But Entrey Jacobs was not good.
Yeah, him and Thomas were not good, but bad spot.
Yeah, I mean he got blown by a couple times, almost almost at the point where it's like, dude, just hold, just hold if you're gonna get beat clean, Like, don't let the kid get hit, right. But I actually thought he was making some progress at right tackle the last few weeks, and now he might have to Now he might have to flip the left, which that makes me really nervous. They got to start doing more to help these tackles. Out, Yeah, because they are just putting guys in bad situations.
All right, last one for me, I know we're going along on this and we'll get to the phones, I promise. The last one for me was Jonathan Jones. Just I know, I'm not ready to say that he's like declining or any anything.
Like Dell is a good freaking play.
He's a good player. But five or five or seventy one in a touchdown into Jonathan Jones' coverage in this game, I just feel like teams are starting not to throw a ton at Qrushian Gonzalez. They kind of know that that.
What do you think of him?
So?
I thought that he was okay outside of like two bad reps and two bad reps one goes for a third big third down completion and one goes for a touchdown. But really, outside of that, there was really no damage.
I think Diggs had the best game any receivers had against Gonzales in his NFL career. Now, I think that says more about Gonzalez because because it really it wasn't this great game, but it like objectively rights one has to be the most impressive digs just whatever it is about the Patriots especially in Jelette Stadium, just gets digs going. I don't know if he's a big Lighthouse fan or whatever, but like it'll be interesting to see. So two things
for Gonzalez. I think he has to bounce back from what was a objectively I think the best performance against him.
Okay, I think A. J. Brown was better, but that was his very first game right in the NFL.
This is also like, and look, I think Brian Thomas Junior is a really good player. Yeah, but this is also the first game where it's not like like the Gauntlet's over, not over, I mean for the time next week, but like, this is the first game where it's not like, oh my god, he's going to an elite elite receiver was right to monte Ada. Yeah, it's the first game where it's not like, oh my god, he's going up against that guy. So it'll be kind of interesting to see how that plays.
Yeah. No, I mean, look, he's if you had him on your downs list, I wouldn't like hold it against you.
I didn't know, but like I didn't put him on my downs, but like those, if you were to rank his career performances, this is his last or second.
Aligne it's down by the bottom. It the one thing I was just crazy. It wasn't that bad. Yeah, I mean the stats are really it's like I think it was like four for forty four in a touchdown, Like it's not like a game of one hundred and fifty
yards into his coverage. He was. The thing I would say about Gonzales is just red zone third down, Like those are really big plays for this defense, and they need him to be even better in those situations, right, Like those are high leverage downs that they need three points instead of seven points. So like that's that's a big deal.
And go back to camp. Sorry to go back to camp. And I think clearly at this point we made too much of the struggles he was having a camp but some of us. That was one area that definitely stood out with some of the red zone stuff for him where he was struggling.
Yeah, So the reason why I put Jonathan Jones on there more than more than Gonzales A it was just because the stats were worse, Like the numbers were worse, But be what's what's gonna end up happening is that if Gonzales continues to be really really good or even if like that's a down game for Christian Gonzalez is
still pretty good. Teams are gonna start picking on the other corners, right and they're gonna start coming after Marcus Jones, Jonathan Jones, Marco Wilson, like, those are gonna be the guys that are gonna be on teams radars now because they're not gonna want to throw at Gonzales as much. So Jonathan Jones is going to have a lot of attention. He's going to get a lot of targets, He's going to get a lot of action coming his way, and he struggled in this campaign. Dal was a good receiver.
He is, but this was a down game from Jonathan Jones. So those are our downs. Let's get to the phones. I know you guys have been waiting on hold for a while, so we apologize for that, and then we're going to talk a little Jaguars here too, because I have some takes about Jacksonville as well. But Patty is an agaam. What's up Patty going on?
Gentlemen?
How you doing.
Good?
I just want to say something about May and I got a question for both of you guys. May look like a Rickie quarterback, but I got heat. For me, he exceeded expectations because I didn't know what to expect with the line. I was a little nervous, Like you know, we all know how the lines look this year, but Havan, you're thirty three percent pressure Yate. I think he does definitely have something to do with that because he is so athletic and man, he's always got a cannon. That's
all I gotta say. I like how they incorporated some of the second year guys, like like Pop, Douglas and Booty. The big question, big overall arching question for me is do you guys think that before the end of the year or hopefully within the next couple of games, we see Polk get out of his own head because, like you said, Ivan on Taput, it looks like he's getting open, and you know, he was highly regarded for his hands.
Didn't catch the ball, hasn't caught the ball in the last couple of weeks, and I would like to see him progress and get better much like much like May before the end of the year. And two part questions, do you think he could possibly become a viable number two guy? That's all I got because I want DK metcalf.
That's all I got. Guys.
Thanks, I appreciate the call as always. Yeah, I'm sure you have a Jalen Polk take as well. My thing with Jalen Polk is I'm actually in a weird way. I'm like, glad this is what he's struggling with, because I feel like this is turning almost into like a yip situation where he'll get over it because he does have great hands, and that is a calling card of his. I would be more concerned if he wasn't getting open, because you can't. It's harder. It's almost like goes back
to the quarterback thing we were talking about. To me, it's a lot harder to teach separation than it is to teach a guy how to catch. Yeah, and I'll give you a great example. Julian Edelman. Julian Edelman his rookie training camp, could not catch cold. He dropped a million passes. But he had the shiftiness, he had the route running ability, he had the work ethic. He could get open. So eventually he developed hands, or at least
good enough hands, and turn into a great receiver. It's so much harder to teach the separation part of it. Than it is to teach the hands. I'm glad that Jalen Polk continues to get open. I thought he got opened a couple times again in this game and just dropped the ball. And they'll work on and he also, you know, just wasn't targeted. It was away from the ball in some instances. So they'll continue to work on that. He'll be on the jugs machine. He'll you know, he'll
get it, you know, get it down. And I would rather that problem. Then this guy is just not an NFL athlete, like right, Like he just can't get open. He can't separate, he can't run away from anybody. That's not his problem right now.
Yeah, I was gonna say, hit the drugs machine this week, and can they set up we talked about setting up an easy one for Drake May. Can you set up an easy one some sort of layup with your scheme Jalen Polk open you know short, just pitch and catch and the you don't want to turn into the yips right right where Suddenly like now he doesn't get the ball next week, Now he's worried about it. Now catching is all he's thinking about, like as a receiver, like
catching the football needs to be second nature. Yeah, you need to be more worried about your route, about your spacing, about things like that, like you just just catch the ball in your sleep. So for Jalen Polk, it's it's getting back to that. It's get one or two under your belt, get a couple layups under your belt, and we move on and you forget this ever happened.
Yep, absolutely, really quickly. But before they take the next call. Uh, this is the weird I had trouble with last week because I'm gonna try to do better this way.
See it.
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you can save. When you Dare to compare with Bob's Discount Furniture, the official furniture store of the New England Patriots. That was better. I feel like that was better. I got the Falladay down. That was when I had tough, tough time.
I thought that was last weekend though, Yeah, he did a better. Know what today is?
I have no idea.
National past today.
Oh it's a shame. The Bruins don't play shut out David Pasternak. And he had a goal last night, right he did score back door?
There we go?
Ye, all right, Jeff is in Maine. What's up, Jeff?
How you doing?
Guys?
Good?
So I got a couple of things. One, I know you don't talk to fantasy, but I just wanted to let you know that the Manhattan Project is sitting at a proud four and two. Overcomes some adversity with Cooper Cup and Nico Collins.
But death, it's good death.
We're holding strong. I thought the same thing in the game about Mayo potentially taking over the play calling. It's just it seems like in a lot of games this year, it's almost like the defense isn't prepared to adjust on the fly to anything that they might do. It's like the third or fourth game where they started incredibly slow, and it seems like they haven't been able to adjust
till at least the second quarter. And in terms of the only real question I've got, uh, I know that AVP and Borne talked about Booty working harder and being better in practice, but from a film side of things, I was wondering what differences physically you've noticed. Obviously his freshman year, he just dominated the SEC and then he tested like crap because he was hurt. Rookie year didn't do that much. I mean, I don't study the film,
but I didn't notice anything particularly outstanding physically. And then this past week he I know there was some hand fighting and he was sitting on the route, but he ran by Derek Stingley, who's a four to three corner and probably a top ten or twelve corner in the league. So I was just wondering what you guys have seen from him physically that might make a difference in how he's been playing. And I'll take it off the air.
Thanks guys, Thanks Jenn, thanks for the call. So with Jay with Kaish on Booty, excuse me, I I got to apologize to kaishon Boody. I was not familiar with your game, right, Like, I really wasn't a big a big booty guy. No, no pun intended.
Yeah, the first one to make that joke.
Well, yeah, I wasn't a big kishon booty guy. I hate that we do that where like you know how much I love Pop Douglas from start to finish, you know, draft and everything, and then it always kind of comes off like you hate the other guy, you know, like that's that's just sort of the way that those things work. I wasn't a big kishon booty guy. I didn't necessarily see this coming from him, that he was all of a sudden going to be like a core contributor to
the offense. I don't think physically he looks all that different. I just think mentally he looks more locked in, and he looks more just like sure of himself and confident on an NFL field, which is great to see, like he's playing great, Like it's not the production isn't crazy. Like he made two catches I think in this game. One of them was obviously a forty yard touchdown, which is huge, but it's it's really one big play. But at the same time, you know, he's he's blocking well,
he's making big plays down the field. I think his confidence is a little bit better than it was maybe you know, last season, earlier even this season, and the late speed on Stingley showed up. You know, the ball was in the air and he pulled away from Derek Stingley on the touchdown. I didn't necessarily know if he had that in his back either, not just because of the forty time, but just you know, he was more of like a first and second level guy at LSU.
Even when he was playing well, it was like those slants and stuff like that over the middle of the field. So he deserves credit. He's worked his butt off, is what everybody keeps telling us, like born Pop Avp, like all these guys are saying that he flipped a switch and he started really working his tail off behind the scenes, and I love seeing that, Like, good, good for him, kudos to him.
Yeah, and I really wit Like if you remember back when we did that draft, I was really high on Kishan Boody at the beginning. I wish I knew and I don't know why he ran a forty with the bust at ankle, but he did. I wish I knew that at the time, because I wouldn't have backed off my I would have been I would have stayed as strong on the take that like he should be a
target for the Patriot. It's the thing with me, and every time we got these calls about him in the spring and the summer, like the talent has always been there, just hasn't been there consistently.
Yeah, like you.
See what the guy's capable of, but he would have like one big day of practice and you wouldn't see him again for a week, and then you have a big day and then you wouldn't see him. And you just have to be consistent in the NFL. He's consistent right now, like you're seeing it day in, you're seeing it game in and game out. And I would think the fact that his playtime is not just steady but increasing tells me that that being reflected at practice as well.
And that's what's big for him. Like the whole thing last year was there was no consistency to it. He wasn't a reliable player. The skill set was clear, but you just didn't know that he was going to give you. His top performance came in and came out. Now you're starting to see that, and now you're starting to see some of what made him such an exciting player at LSU.
And that's what's big for me is just you talk about him being more locked in, like, yeah, I just think he's more focused, and I think it's probably a better environment for him. I do wonder how much it messed with his confidence last year that he doesn't get that foot down in the opener and then suddenly doesn't get the play right right. I think that probably impacted him, and I think that the internal belief in him has led to more confidence, and that in turn has led
to him being more focused. And he's just in a good place right now and you love to see it. And he's got to keep it up, obviously, But this is a guy that has a ton of talent and he's finally a position to showcase it. He's doing that, Yeah, him, that's what's all about.
Yeah, and winning on the vertical routree a lot too, like whether it's like stops or comebacks, and then obviously goes their verticals like that. That part of his game. I wasn't really what he did at LSU.
No, he's a middle of the field or super at LSU, which is part of what excites me because if he's now establishing this vertical stuff, you can build off of that, and you know, if teams are going to have to play off of them, he'll take He'll run slants. You can run him on slants all day. Yeah, and he'll take one of the house. If you throw him five or six slants, he'll break one of them up the field for a big gain, if not a touchdown.
Yeah.
So because that's what he was doing in LSU, Right, So what's cool about this is like, he's not that guy you think of on the for forty yard go ball, Like that's not who he is.
No, So I agree, if.
He's doing that, there's so much more you can build off of that. And now let's see how they do it.
Yeah. I mean this goes back to what I was kind of saying about Drake May with the man coverage stuff. Like, now if you see more off or you see more like soft zone because of that, he's just gonna start running unders and slants and things.
And Kaisehan Booty is the guy like get the the like ceiling ceiling com form in that draft. Do you remember who it was I know ceiling ceiling sitting was Debo because kind of like this big strong receiver that's a ceiling I said, ceiling seat you get, But but do you see where like like I could see what people were saying with that, and I never thought he
was gonna be Deebo. But it's like, if you get him the ball in space, he's a problem, not the way they've got like Pop Douglas is a problem, or not in the way that Julie Edelman is a problem.
He's a type of guy, right.
He's a big, physical ball carrier that when he gets ahead of steam, you're probably not going to tackle him one on one. So when if you can get him going over the middle of the field underneath and set up situations where he's catching the ball in space, like he's going to be able to do things off of that. Yeah, I'm not saying he's Deebo. I'm not saying he's going to be Debo. But that was like the the player proto type, the apex of that prototype.
This is this is very different from Debo, Like this is outside receivers.
Well, that's what I'm saying. The goal ball is like, all right, that is not what I thought he was like if to me him having success, wasn't that to me him having success?
Douglas catch and run stuff, right, Yeah, you know he's vertical routes like he's running corners, he's running verticals, he's running comebacks a lot of the time, or like stop routes along the sideline off that vertical action, and like he's getting open on these routes, and it's it's good to see you. Like I said, you know, you start to get teams to back off now a little bit.
They start to fear the deep ball a little bit more with Drake May and now all of a sudden, all that underneath stuff is gonna is gonna be open and they're gonna be able to get him the ball that way. So it's encouraging to see. They needed somebody because you have Pop who needs to play in the slot ruh Jalen Polk's really a flanker, like he's really a z or an off the line receiver. And then you have Kendrick Bourne who's really like a flanker off
the line receiver too. So to get those four guys on the you know, in the mix together, somebody had to play the X like somebody had to play outside. They've had to play Jalen Polk there a lot more than I think they want to. And if Kaishan Boody can continue this, then maybe he can be a more permanent X and allow those other guys to play to their restraints and play to their skill sets. So it's it's good to see it.
And just on Kishan Boody, one more thing before he fell off in that twenty two year, you take that out. His freshman year when he broke out, he averaged eight yards after the catch, yeah, per reception. He followed it up with seven. The next year he had over half his yards after the catch. So not a guy you think of that catches, you know, forty yard touchdown, catches it at the one from thirty nine yards away. Not usually who he is, but if he can add it, great.
Phil is in Coventry. What's up, Phil?
Hey? How you guys doing?
Hey?
Good?
Oh well, you're totally ruined my leaving things because I was going to talk about case Sean and now I kind of been been a fan since they drafted him and waiting for him come out and finally doing it. But I guess we can do that with Drake May. And I'm kind of considering that, thinking that Drake May is kind of like, uh, crap, don't see his cat? Hello, Hello, yep, And you know, because it's I'm assuming you guys are aware of the theory of uh, they put the cat
in the box shoating his cat. Excuse me.
We've actually done Schrodinger's Cat on the show before. I don't remember what it was. We did it and I said it was I said something. I said it was like a psychological thing or philosophical No, that was different. It was around there, No Schrodinger's Cat.
What it is is you put a cat in a box with a vile of poison.
Theoretically, you don't actually do that. It's a theoretically yes.
We are not we're not. We're not you know, saying that this is good to do or anything, and we don't do that. But but at that point, nobody knows whether or not the cat is taking the poison. So you don't know if the cat is alive or dead until you open the box. And I think that everyone needs to, you know, put breaks on with Drake May.
We cover on for a little bit and until we really want to open it up and see what we got because this is only one week, you know, and it's gonna be tough even this week without Romandre Vina, you know, and having the running game going on and all of that. So the other thing I wanted to ask you guys about is, uh, I believe there's an edge rusher in on the Eagles that we may be able to grab and sign and you know, I mean kind of help out the defense a little bit take place of Judaan.
You talk about Sondick, and.
I believe it is.
Yes, the Jets, I don't think the division viable.
Whether that's uh you know what're talking about.
Yeah, thanks for the call, Phil, I appreciated and uh, I agree with it with his his what's what's the cat?
Schrodinger's cat. So it's a it's a thought experiment. It's basically if I'm I know.
He got it, he got it, I get it. It's a little premature, id to start crowning him. We're not fitting Drake may for any Red Jackets yet, but.
I feel like starting him was opening the box.
Uh. I think starting him was putting him in the box, right.
No, drafting him was putting him in the box.
No, starting him was putting him in the box, because now he's in the box with the poison and we're and we're trying to figure out what we have.
But the whole point is you're not observing it. We're observing Drake Mane. It's it's about observation. If I know this correctly, Okay, I got I got in trouble last time because I got this wrong. Like I understand the concept.
This is definitely more your side of the street. I have no idea what we're talking.
About, so I would say I would guess, and people in the YouTube comments, I'm sure'll correct me.
This is not Yankee concepts.
Him is putting him in the box. We've now like opened up the box. But it's not instant. That's the difference. This is like an instant thing. You'd see it, yes or no. It's not gonna be instant with Drake.
May Okay, to his last point about Hasan reddick that that's probably not happening because he's with technically with the Jets. But I do have a The trade deadline is on election day this year, November fourth, right.
Day.
I know it's that too.
Other day I pulled that date out of my fifth November fifth, I was close. I do kind of have a take on on the trade deadline, and maybe I don't know if this is going to be popular. I actually think I might be in the minority here if I was the Patriots. I'm not totally out on the Patriots buying players at the deadline. The main reason why, and it's a certain specific type of player, like let me put it, let me be clear about that. They're not like I agree wholeheartedly that like DeVante Adams had
made no sense for them. Amari Cooper I don't think made a ton of sense for them either. But if we get to the trade deadline, and I'm just gonna use this as an example because it's a common example. If we get to the trade deadline, which is November fifth, so we're a couple weeks away, and the Cincinnati Bengals are two and six, Yeah, and they don't feel like they're gonna be pulling out of this nosedive that they're in. They're not pulling up the plane, nose of the plane.
Joe Burrow's like low Ki having an MVP season.
Yeah, and they're terrible.
Yeah, it's weird.
So I am not totally against the Patriots trading for T Higgins because that's not an investment for to put you over the top in twenty twenty four. That is a future investment to build this rock.
So basically what the Bears did last year with was it Montes sweat right.
Good example.
So I'm I'm with you as long as that comes with an extension. I wouldn't during the We're gonna trade for now and hope he likes a year so we can resign him in the spring.
I'm talking about making an investment for the future.
Yeah, it's got to come with an ext I'm with you, But I think they can do both.
Like sure, I think this is a rare occasion where both actually could make some sense.
Yeah. Uh, Like I actually think I know people are really down on kJ Osbourne. Yeah, I actually think kJ Osborne has value to a contending team because.
He's an NFL receiver.
He's not always an NFL receiver. Like you see what he can do when he's next to guys like Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, yeh in the coverage isn't being dictated towards him. That's obviously not the case. Here, even if you add t Higgins, that's probably not the case here. But if even if Minnesota has an injury, maybe they want to back or another one of these teams. Right, maybe you're
not gonna tram him the Jets in the division. But like if team like the Jets replacing Mike Williams or somebody as an injury, like I think you can get something for kJ Osborn. Maybe not gonna get top one hundred pick, but you get a fifth round pick that plays into a trade next year or something. So like you know, I I think both makes sense. I also just think, you know, opening up or off spots for younger guys. How happy is Taekwon Thornton here right now?
Yeah?
Probably not? Like he's getting passed over left and right. Can you just get him off the roster he gets to go somewhere where he's gonna play. You get even if it's a conditional seventh, and then you get to elevate, you know, somebody from the practice squad, or you create more snaps for somebody else. I think both makes sense. Like I would not be opposed to them looking for that Monteese sweat sort of trade. I'd probably only do it for a receiver, maybe an edge rusher.
Or a tackle.
It's just not gonna happen. Yeah, in theory, but that's not.
Okay, I'm not one hundred percent sure it's not gonna happen at tackle because this is like the pre agent thing, right, Like you look at some of those guys. I think Garrett Bowles is getting a little bit up there in age. He's like thirty two, thirty one, thirty two years old, so maybe not him. But like in Jacksonville, Cam Robinson they're starting left tackle, is a really solid player. He's gonna be a free agent next offseason. Who knows what the Jaguars. Where the Jaguars are going.
Yeah, I just think if I'm one of those guys, I mean I'm hitting the market, okay.
But my point being, no, in general, like we can throw out names because.
I would do it for a tackle, I just wouldn't count on it.
Yeah, it's important to put the name a name to the claim and not just like throw hot air out.
There because you say that, like you say, oh, you know, maybe they trade for a tackle deadline and then we get a million questions about every tackle in the league. Remember that guy that called in and wanted them to trade for Pina Seoul. Yes, Like that's what I'm trying to say that. It's like, sure, you know, there's realistic conversation you can have about receivers and edge rushers. I
don't think you can realistically have that. You can be open to it, but I don't think you can realistically have that conversation for an edge rusher.
So my point with this take though, just to put a bow on it, the Patriots should be in the talent acquisition business. Yes, and you know me, I'm a pseudo FM picks kind of guy. Yeah, I'm not touching your first or your second round pick. Those are gonna be top five to ten picks in those rounds. You're not touching those picks.
I think. Don't you have to trade the second for Higgins? Though probably.
Maybe? I mean he's technically a rental, Like I don't know, Maybe I would put the second round pick on the table for Higgins.
If you can do Higgins for the third, Like, hell, yeah.
Maybe I put the second round pick. I'm not like necessarily thinking about it.
Like this this deep, but like that you have to write if you're gonna say, well.
My point is is just in general, Yeah, like we and I this is just a philosophical belief in mine. We put way too much emphasis on these draft picks sometimes and we treat them like they are this like slam dunk commodity. And I get that it's an imperfect science. And like you could, I could say, you know, Yadney could justin. You could say Fred Warner right, like, you know, we could do this all day long. But the point is is that those picks are only as valuable as
the player they turned into. And what we've learned here over the last couple of years is that sometimes those picks end up being completely not NFL players. And if I'm the Patriots, you know, the Montes sweat trade, I didn't even think of that as such a great example.
Like that's literally what you're describing.
They should be about stacking talent on this roster, not about oh, like maybe we'll draft Jake Andrews in the fourth round next year.
So what if it's more about like I don't entirely disagree, but all right, so t Higgins the receiver available to deadline? Yeah, what happens if like, like, all right to move your second for Higgins? And I get to the offseason and DK Metcalf's available, or maybe Bill goes to Dallas and realize it's not gonna work with Ceedee Lamb and he becomes available, or I don't eame a receiver, right.
Yeah, I hear what you like.
I don't think you can count on that, though I almost feel like he can. I know you can't, Like I know you can't, but.
You're not gonna get this DK Metcalf thing out of your head?
Has there? Well? I to be fair, I'm kind of using DK Metcalf as a placeholder because I think he's the most realistic. But when was there a period in the last five years in the NFL when a star receiver wasn't at least available and I acknowledged that they didn't all move?
Yeah, ultimately right like two years ago, like Hopkins was like the best receiver that ended up being available. There was no like splash wide.
Okay, so I guess that. But like if we were sitting here in and we wouldn't have been because the team is in a different spot. But if we were sitting here in like I think it was what twenty twenty two, Oh no, it would have made sense, all right, they need a receiver for mac Jones. Yeah, And I had said, what if they trade for Tyreek Killed, you would have kicked me off the show. I understand what you would have kicked you and said, what are you
talking about? That is the top five most untouchable player.
But isn't that the point that we're both Like, we're both kind of making the same point, because like my whole thing is is that I just wouldn't overvalue the picks because because right now the Patriots don't need draft picks, they need Town.
So I would I I'm agreeing with you on that, Like, I'm not against trading it when it was twenty two that he'll get traded. I guess my point is more, I'm not against trading the pick for a player. I'm totally on board with that. Yeah, you might have more options, Like once you trade that pick, that's it. That's the
player you end up with. And if it's t Higgins or nobody at the deadline, and then you get to the offseason and there's four or five guys available to you that are better than Higgins, like it's well, you know, we rush to make the move and we missed out. On a better player. I'm not against that. Now if you can do it for a third. Now, now maybe you get Higgins for a third, and then you do go out and get DK Metcalf for a second, and now you're really I mean, you probably get it.
But like if you talk about it from Cincinnati's perspective, just to play out the T Higgins thing. But again, I just like, philosophically, I just really believe strongly that you don't pass up opportunities to bring in talented.
So okay, so this is where we're going to disagree. I don't disagree with trading the pick. I believe philosophically there's always more talent available in the offseason. Like I am not a huge fan of like big It is kind of across all.
But the one difference about the off season though, right is that the pool of teams that have the flexibility now to make that type of move increases. And I think the one situation that the Patriots are in right now is that it's hard to convince people to come.
So what I would say is there are the teams that can make that move, but the Patriots pick is probably gonna be higher than most of those teams.
But this is all true, just all the things in the last off.
No, no, but it's not let me finish. The Patriots pick is gonna be hired in most teams. You get more money to offer, more money to offer than most teams. All right, you want what changed your guy? This was the whole thing about play the kid.
But my guy could he could be great. We're on his own without any trades or out any moves or any anything like that. But you're it's probably still gonna be what it was on Sunday, where there's gonna be some ups and there's gonna be some day.
I think you can still sell a receiver on what you saw on Sunday.
I agree, but I'm biased, Like I think the kid's awesome. So like I'm biased, right, but like I just I just am saying that I wouldn't I wouldn't mind that. And I also think that there's value, Like, yes, if they traded for a guy like t Higgins at the deadline, are they all of a sudden get to rattle off like six or whatever, how many maybe weeks they're left, you know, eight straight wins to end the season. No, so you're not gonna completely change the course of your
franchise with that move. But there's value in well, now we have T Higgins for the next four years on this team because we signed him to a mega extension after doing this trade. Now we maybe have some momentum going into your two of Drake may because he has T Higgins for the second half of you or one, and all of a sudden, like the offense looks like a legit offense and we're going into your two with maybe we win three out of the last six or four out of the last six, or whatever the case
may be. I just I don't necessarily I hear a lot of and this is why I brought it up that like they should just start selling all their players, And I agree with you that maybe it could be in the middle, like a little bit sell on the margins.
I wouldn't move. I've seen people talk about moving like I like Andre Stevenson, Hunter, Henry No. We've seen people say like like Devon got Like if you want to, I wouldn't do that.
And I don't mean to, you know, pick on anybody in particular, but like if you wanted to trade right then.
Fine, josh Uch, I'll use Taekwon Thornton because we've heard his name in trade rumors, right, you know, don't trade any of the core guys. But yeah, that's but I just I don't know. I like, get to the off season and I think you'll have more options, and I think that's something. Now people are, oh, you're just excusing them not making yal know, if they don't make the move this offseason, I'm gonna be upset.
But like my fear about move and then we can we should move on. But my fear about waiting until the off season is that you increase the pool of teams that that can get involved. And he's yet you we had this issue with Calvin Ridley, they had this issue with Brandon Nyuk, and maybe Drake May does enough that it changes all of that. But you can have the highest draft pick, you can have the most money. Yeah, and Brandon Ayyuk can give you two birds and say I'm not coming here.
What if? But then, like, what's stopping T Higgins from doing that? Now? I don't think that changes.
I don't think it necessarily because if you for TI Higgins.
Like I said, you can't trade for T Higgins without signing him to an extension.
I'm not saying it necessarily changes for T. Higgins, but if the Bengals want to sell T Higgins in season, there's fewer teams that can legitimately make that move, like logistically, but.
If Higgins comes to you and says, well, I wan't sign an extension.
Again, I just think it's like, I just think that it could be easier because the amount of teams that have the money and the flexibility.
I think better because he's going to look at it and say, no, I want to hit the market. I want I want people bidding for me. I want a competition. I want to drive the price up.
Okay, but if you offer him thirty million dollars a year, then you're not going to get a better price than that.
Is what they want of These guys just want They just want to see it. They want the bidding more. They want to be wooed.
All right.
I think we're kind of on the same page where it's yeah, this is a philosophical yeah, but I wouldn't be upset if they traded for Higgins.
All right, let's get to the rest of these calls. John is in Boston. What's up, John, Hey.
How's it going.
Hey, I just want to ask about stilting his cat. Okay, now, I'm just kidding that's a joke. But what I actually want to ask about was, I've been really disappointed by what I've seen in Michael Lenhu. I think when you're paying a guard eighteen million dollars a year, you.
He's got it.
Especially when he's two hundred and fifty pounds. He has to be an impact run blocker where you know that you run it behind that guy, you're gonna be able to get three yards every time. And I just haven't seen that from him, And I think that he's a guy that just deserves a lot more criticism. And I just wanted to hear what you guys thought about that.
Thanks for the calle, John. I didn't even hear what he said. Was the first thing that he Oh, okay, John, thanks for the call. Yeah, I agree. I agree with I've had him on the downs a couple of times recently, had him on the downs last week because I thought he gave up pressure on the Jalen Polk touchdown. That ever was I agree, Like, I don't think he's been an eighteen nineteen million dollar a year player right now.
He hasn't I do put some of it on the coaching staff, because all right, so they signed him as a.
Tackle, they keep moving.
He spends the whole offseason at tackle, comes into camp, gets moved to guard, then later in camp he gets moved to tackle, then he goes back inside to guard, and now this week he's probably going back outside tackle. Like he can't comfort anywhere, he can't build any chemistry with anybody, he can't get in a rhythm. So like I'm not saying he's been good. I just and and
you may have to write this season off. It may be too much at this point, but like, yeah, next year and this is gonna be what year six of me saying this, can we please please pick a position for Mike and WNU and leave them there?
But the problem that the reason why this is happening, and I'm not you're right, like I'm not arguing.
With you, Oh is happening.
But the reason why this is happening is because they don't have anybody options, right, so.
They won't address the tackle. Oh no, I agree with you. Yeah, So all right, so let me reface that. Can we please next year make sure that the tackle position is set, right, so you can put Mike on WINU at guard and leave them there. Yeah, is that better? Okay, yes, that's but like, can we create a situation in which Mike and WNU doesn't become the the last resort savior for the offensive line and has to you know, boomerang back and forth between positions.
Yeah, that was the I agree with you that he deserves some grace because of that. Yeah, because a lot of the issues that I'm seeing with him at guard are like he's kind of caught between playing guard like tackle almost where like with guard, everything happens a lot faster on the inside, so guys are on you quicker.
You know, you're not out in as much space, right, So like when that happens, you know, he's getting guys are getting into his chest, and he's getting on skates a little bit at times playing guard because he's like, oh crap, Like this is happening a lot faster in here right than it does out there, So week to week it changes. You know, He's talked to us a few times over the course of the year, and that's always his thing. I don't care if it's tackle, right
tackle or right guard. Wherever they feel like I'm my best or that is best for the team. I'm willing to do. He just wants it to be one position. He doesn't want it to be keep being this inside outside inside outside, brought hole. Yeah, like he's a utility man. It's a good way of putting it, all right. Aaron is in Connecticut. What's up, Aaron? Aaron? Aaron going once? All right, call us back. I don't think he's there. Kendall is in North Carolina. What's up Kendall?
Hey, what's going on?
God? Hey y'all doing good?
Hey?
I wanted to get asked about the Jaguars. Man, how do you think I'm thick with the whole defense matches up to get his Jaguars? I know they are what one and five and Tiva Lawrence. I don't think he's played that bad, but which I'll think about the matchup to get those receivers in tight end.
Thanks thanks for the call. Ken. I'm glad you put us on the Jaguars because I did want to do that before we wrapped up the show. Uh, he asked about the defense, so we can start there. Uh this to me, first of all, I just want to say I watched her last two games on film, and I think Trevor Horns is playing fine. Look, I really don't think he's the issue.
He was reacting to pressure a little weird for a couple of games. But besides that, yeah, he's.
Been He doesn't look he doesn't look like sped up or broken his mechanics. His lower half is still excellent like it always has been.
It had what was it five passes six passes dropped in the end zone last.
Week they had three passes dropped.
In the end zone on the same drive, the same drive. Yeah, you know that, and then it was like five or six total.
So, uh, he's second has his receivers have dropped the second most passes of any quarterback in the league. He has fourteen drops on the season already in six games. I think he's playing great. I really do. In terms of matchups, and I wrote game plan today. It's up on Patriots dot com. I'm sure your previous coming if it's not up already tomorrow morning. The biggest thing I look at with matchups is I actually kind of feel like this is one of those games where the outside receivers,
you know, Kirk is kind of his own thing. Uh, But Davis and Brian Thomas Junior BTJ are pretty similar, Like their target sharers are similar, their rout trees are similar. Uh,
they're both vertical deep threats down the field. Like I don't My point is is, I don't necessarily know if this is a big shadow game, like you have to put Christian Gonzalez on player X, like you have to put Christianganzalez on Stefan Diggs, or you have to put Christian Gonzalez on you know, Tyreek Hill right Like this to me feels like those two guys and I obviously BTJ has a higher ceiling just because he's a rookie, but they're pretty redundant as of right now of who
they are. Christian Kirk in the slot worries me a little bit because he's like one of those thicker like vertical type of slot receivers, Like he's not like a Pop Douglas jitterbug type of slot. But I don't necessarily look at this as a game where they're going to have corners shadow or travel with specific receivers lasting on the Jaguars offense. This is a vertical based passing game. This is not Doug Peterson with the Philadelphia Eagles in
twenty seventeen. Maybe a little bit of the Bengals, maybe a little bit, but they are a bombs away offense. Trevor Lawrence leads the league and deep pass attempts, deep pass completions. He's fourth in the league in air yards per past attempt. Like, they are bombing the ball to those receivers, as they probably should with that type of group. So big plays is a problem. They are explosive offense.
They've been wildly inconsistent. They've been shooting themselves in the foot left and right, you know, but they are a big play offense.
Yeah. Yeah, And that's I mentioned the Bengals because again, like they forced the Bengals to kind of just nicklin dine their way down the field and and the Bengals struggle to do it. Yeah. So I think a similar philosophical approach applies in this game.
Do you Patriots offense against the Jaguars defense? I hate to like put a ton of expectations on a rookie quarterback in his second career start, but I would be disappointed if that Patriots don't put up some points in this game. This is a really, really really bad Jaguars defense, like a historically bad Jaguars defense. They're giving up the most passing yards in the league, two eighty passing yards
a game. They are thirty second in DVA. They're thirty second in DVA against the pass, They're thirtieth in play action against the pass. They're also twenty eighth in the league and yards allowed on scrambles right Like, they've given up a ton to mobile quarterbacks. Caleb Williams had a couple big runs last week against them in London. This
is a really, really vulnerable Jags pass defense. And this, to me, is a game if you're the Patriots and Drake May who just played a really good Houston defense last week in his first career start, this is one where I hope he's able to build some true, real confidence, Like he should go out there. He puts up two hundred and forty and three touchdowns against Houston, he should be able to put up three hundred yards against this Jaguars defense. I don't even know if they're playing for
their coaches anymore. Also, like that's a piece of it too. I know a lot of people are calling for Doug Peterson's head in Jacksonville, like Ryan Nielsen, their defensive coordinator. I also think is kind of on the hot seat. If they don't fire Peterson, that might be the move, right, Like somebody has to pay for this. H They are thirty second in the league right now and pretty much every metric on defense.
I think this is gonna sound a little weird. I think roster wise, not schematically. Roster wise, they're similar to Houston in that if you can keep them from getting in the quarterback, you're going to be able to throw on them. And it's you know, Will Anderson, Denil Hunter excellent, like Trayvon Walker is good. They have the best Josh Allen in the league.
Oh God, I know you're gonna say that.
So, like it comes down to the tackles again, and like I guess I should say Josh Heines Allen chadn't want to respect to change his name, but yeah, he shouldn't have had to change his name. The other guy, what's the quote from Office Space? Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks. Yeah, But Josh Heines, Allen, Trayvon Walker, anybody on that defense stand out t Beside those two guys. I remember we were bad big Chad
Mouma guys in the draft. Yeah, Chad moom is not gonna win the Jags this game, right.
No, No, it's really it's really those two guys. They might be getting Tyson Campbell backed or they're starting corner. And we had a Jags beat writer on the playbook yesterday and he mentioned that they're hoping to get him back this week. He's like, there their number one corner on the sun side. Yeah, but they are another one of those teams two that plays like really a safety. Darnell Savage, Yeah, plays the nickel for their defense, just like Jalen Petree plays the nickel for Houston. And what
did pop Douglas due to Jalen Petrie? So again, yes, for me, there's so like they're giving up the highest passer rating in the league to slot receivers right now. Like this matchup is so juicy, Like there's so many opportunities for the Patriots offense in this game.
So again, like it's just a matter of keeping Alan and Walker off. Yeah, don't let them Mart, that's it. Yeah, because there's nobody in the secondary, there's no linebacker that's gonna like, you know, make like life tough for you. It's literally just those two guys.
Yeah. So they play a lot of cover too, Like that's their bread and butter coverages, cover two zone. So it's a big week forget those cover two beaters, right, Like he dust those things off. They play a lot of man on third down, like everybody does. They have two really good edge rushers. I wouldn't say, yeah, they have one really good one and Josh Heinz Allen. He's a really good player. Trayvon Walker is good. I don't think he's great.
Trayvon Walker's helped playing across from Allen, but like he's a good player.
Yeah, he's good.
He's the best pass rusher on the Patriots right now.
Yeah, yeah, he's and he's a freak athlete. But you know, I said this the other day on PU. So, first of all, he has five sacks on the year. Three of them came in one game against the Colts and the other two came into another game. So he has four games with no production basically in two games with really good production. So he's capable of taking over a game, but he's also capable of disappearing, right, So there's a double edged sword there. With him. I said this on
PU and I still feel the same way. Trayvon Walker, to me, is the exact example of what you don't want to happen to the Patriots, which is you have the number one overall pick in the draft. It's not a quarterback draft, but you have a quarterback, So nobody wants the number one pick, right, and they kind of got Now, they probably made the wrong pick. They probably should have taken Aiden Hutchinson if they were gonna go pass rusher.
Was that two?
Yeah, yeah, they took they so Aiden Hutchinson and Sauce Gardner in that draft, and they took Trayvon Walker, if I have it.
Right, Also Thibodeau too. Some people thought, yeah, so.
They they take Trayvon Walker because he was the toolsy, high ceiling, freak athlete, all that kind of stuff. He's been okay for them, but he hasn't in my opinion, lived up to a number first No.
Uh and so first round pick he's been a first round.
Yeah, yeah, Like I'm not trying to trash on like, but he just hasn't been a number one overall pick. And uh, you look at it and in hindsight, like if that had been a quarterback draft. They already have Trevor Lawrence on their roster in Jacksonville, So they're trading for a haul you know they're getting. They're trading out of that pick, and somebody is drafting the quarterback number one overall.
I'm surprised nobody's dumb enough to move up for Kenny Pikett. Nobody was for once they got it. For once, they got it.
If you're a Patriots fan, like, that's the worst case scenario to me is you get stuck with the number one overall pick in a non quarterback year when you don't need a quarterback. H So we say it all the time, but Shadora Sanders Ward right in Miami, cam Ward, like, we all should be fans of those j.
Carson back.
Yep, let's take these calls. Tim Is in Virginia. What's up? Tim?
Hey?
How you guys doing Hey good?
I love to show you guys are my favorite writers as long.
As thank you much appreciate that.
I know we don't want to talk about this, but there is a likelihood we may be top three pick, and for starters, I would love for the offense to show some sort of spark like I want to go like the third overall pick, but in a way like let's say our offense is like we're losing games, but not like by a large margin, Like our offense is going off, but the defense may be like letting us down towards the end to like have wide receivers or people that actually want to come to New England. But
here's a question. I don't want to take too much of your time. If we had the number one pick, who would you pick? And that's the question.
Thank you guys, Thanks Tim, that's a good question. I feel like we're going to be answering that question a lot in a couple of months. Uh, if they have the number one pick, or let's just say the pick of the of the of the board, like you know, there's three to one, whatever.
They're they're they're they're they're either picking like third or they're trading down to take the first non quarters.
Yeah. So I feel really strongly about the fact that trade down is the best option in my opinion.
If it's at one, yeah, if they end up at like four or five, you might need a stay, right.
If they're at one or two, yeah, I'm trading down. Yep. I'm with you, and I'm hoping. I've thought about this the other day. I would love it if they could do a Bears trade down or a player like Dj Moore is also in the package, right, so it's picks and a player that had a position. Indeed, maybe it's not wide receiver as much as we'd all love that. Maybe it's an edge rusher. Maybe it's a tackle, like, probably not a tackle, So let's.
Go edge rusher, edge rusher, corner.
Wide receiver, one of those spots. I love it. I think that was so smart by the Bears to instead of taking like another pick, you know, day two pick or something like that, give us Dj Moore instead. Great way to help your young quarterback. It didn't work with Justin Fields, but it's gonna work with Kleb, you know. Like, great job by them on that trade. So if their patriots are one one, I'm trying to trade that pick as fast as I can for a hall. Would you trying to get a pick in a player first?
Would Would you do it if it means and we both want them to take a tackle?
Yeah?
Would you do it if it means you don't get your choice of the tackles uh, and maybe too soon for you to answer that.
Yeah, like I would have to well, you know really because if you're an opinion like if if right now, I kind of feel and I know there's all this discourse about if their tackles are guards.
Their tackles they're banks of tackles. Campbell what banks at tackle? But let's just assume they're both tackles. I think right now it's kind of like it's a it's almost like
a Drake Major and Daniels situation. So I'm not necessarily too worried about it if you're because the reason I asked this because if you're getting that player right, the Bears traded down from one to nine, Yeah, one of these tackles is gonna go five, So you're and maybe you move back up, maybe you do what was it Miami, right that traded down from three to twelve and then back up to six. Yeah in the in the uh.
It sounds right. I think just Houston did that as well. Houston all right, but like Arizon, it was Arizona that did it. Sorry, I didn't know.
I'm thinking of the the.
Arizona did it with Paris Johnson.
The Trey Lancier. The Niners moved up to three with was he the Eagles or the Dolphins? And then those Doves made it another Yeah, so they went from three to twelve and then from twelve to six. But the point being, like for me, I think it has to be a tackle. I'm actually leaning more Calvin Banks now and it's not even because of the arm lank thing. Will Campbell has a little bit of a penalty problem right now for this team. It wears me a little
bit the way they've been committing penalties. A lot of ball have to be played. I still reserve the chance to change my mind, but I do want at some point you got to watch ursery and because maybe that puts Tech McMillan and play for you. But Calvin Banks, I'll take Will Campbell. I wouldn't be mad. I think they're both tackles too. I know it's coming from Brugler who said that they're both guards. Like I don't want to say the draft guys, because we're the draft guys.
Like everybody said, there's a certain point where every tackle is a guard. And then I've got to go back. This is like a homework assignment for me for the bye week. Who are the other tackles that were called guards initially? Because there's some really good I don't remember the names off the top of my head, but I know there's some really good tackles on that list.
It's one of my biggest pet peeves of draft season. Yeah, is hearing the discourse of he's a guard, he's a guard, he's a guard, he's guard, he's guard. Like in certain instances, I can hear what you're saying, Skaransky, I think that was fair because his arms are I think are below thirty two and a half. They're like close to thirty two.
I want people last year saying Ah was a guard, Yeah, because he wasn't experienced enough. There were people saying Alt was a guard because he wasn't physical enough.
Yeah. No, it's just every single time that there's a prospect unless he is literally Joe Thomas reincarnated, we start talking. We started talking last year and we started talking about that, that he's a guard. Yeah, it drives me up a wall. Uh, the offensive line people you talked to, not not the
draft people. I'm not picking on the draft people, by the way, but not like the draft analysts, but like you know, the people actually study the film of the offensive line think that it's absolutely nuts that we're talking about these two guys, especially Calvin Banks, because he checks all the measurables as potentially moving inside. Look, it's the easiest cop out, like, oh yeah, like he's not gonna make it a tackle, so we'll make him a guard. Like, it's such an easy cop out.
And for the people, well, and also like for the people who want the Patriots to draft a wide receiver, it's the way to justify it. Yeah, you might just have to eat your vegetables. By the way, for Banks, you talk about the film people, the college football film people, so they have no stake in what position Calvin Banks is going to end up playing. They watch film of the college teams. They go off of that. A lot of them have said these two tackles because Texas right
tackles also top fifty pick Cameron Williams. They said this might be the greatest offensive line, greatest tackle combination of Texas history, which is saying something, Yeah, you're not gonna say that about a guy who's playing guard. I know we got one call off.
Yeah, because that I got it on the busy, all right, you're wrapping it up for us.
What's up, Jose Hi, I have a question of the current roster, if and when Cole Strange and Kittie Wallace come back, and I'm throwing in Leyden robertson what does the what would be your best offensive line if you had all those guys available? And one more thing, this is this is talking about what you were talking about in the draft. If the Patriots don't trade down and then trade back up into the first round to get a combination of either two tackles or a tackle and
a wide receiver, I will lose my mind. That's it. Thank you.
Thanks for the call, Jose to the first one on Cole Strange. I think there's a real chance at center. Yeah, I think there's a really really good chance at center.
We'll see what Ben Brown does here the next few weeks.
Yeah. They I hate to say that they have a logjam at guard because the offensive line just hasn't been good enough like that. They kind of do that if that feels like a compliment, you know, they kind of have a log jam at guard. I mean like guys like Citysow and Leidon Robinson haven't been playing, and those two guys I think have NFL futures as starters in the league on the interior. So that's tough for Cole Strange. They really, this coaching staff really really likes Michael Jordan
because he's really consistent. He's not a game changing guard by any stretch of the imagination, but he doesn't have any glaring errors to his game either, and he's just really steady, and that's something that they need right now. So it's hard, like, it's hard to find a path especially if on when he is really trying to play inside, it's hard to find a path for Cole Strange. Isn't center, Like they're they're probably not gonna take Michael Jordan off
the field right now unless he gets hurt. Right guard. Cole Strange has never really played right guard. It's not like he's probably played more center frankly than he's played right guard. So I look at Cole Strange as the center. I think we feel the same way on that one. And then the second question about the draft, I hear everybody I would say that free agency and not let's get through March. Yeah, and see, like if they signed T Higgins or they trade for your boy DK met.
They should trade that second pick. But like, if you trade the second round pick for DK Metcalf, you're probably not gonna be able to trade back up in the first round. But I'm kind of okay with that.
Yeah, and this is a bigger take and we don't have time for it, but just really quickly, like, don't totally sleep on the defensive side of the ball. I know it's not sexy, I know it's not shiny. I know it's not what we all want. But they're twenty ninth in the league in DVOA on defense right now, and they'll get bar More and Bentley back and that will help, but like, they are not a good defense, So don't sleep on that.
We do this every year, we do a big three needs, right like, and it's just worked out that there's kind of been three needs that are clearly a tier above all else.
Yep.
Last year quarterback, receiver, tackle, this year tackle receiver. I would say edge. I would say edge is a bigger need than anything on offense outside of tackle or receiver.
Yeah. I don't necessarily disagree with that at all. And look, if you want to build it from the back end and you draft corner, the opposite againzales and that you're gonna build a no fly zone instead, Like you can go that way.
We're good at developing corners though, Like that's again. We'll get in there in the spring.
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