This is the Patriots Catch twenty two Podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Barth Lazar. Hello, everybody, nailed it? Joined us always buy our David match noch. Here is Evan Lazar and Alex Barrs. And you told me that my take was unoriginal, but I'm gonna give it anyways. You are the host. Hello everybody, and welcome into a new edition of the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts. My takes are sometimes unoriginal, Alex, but they're correct. That's the way
I look at it. I just want to be accurate, even if it's what everybody else is saying, or even if it's something I've said before. If that's what it is to me, that's what it is. Now. That that being said, busy day, busy day. And by the way, that that's what this show has been since its inception, Before it was this shows pointing out the opera. We're not necessarily trying to comment and burden the place down.
We just want to be right. We want to take If there's one thing this show appreciates, it's a good victory lap. This show is basically just one long vehicle to set up victory laps. That's all it is. Yeah, I'm not sure. We don't have a ton of victory laps yet, but one victory lap we certainly well, this is what is this? This is uh Brian Hoyer episode eight. Yes, Antoine Walker eight, Antoine Walker eight, cars Tramsky of course, I can't forget about Yaz. Was cam Neely eight? Was
cam Neely seven or eight? I think he was eight? I'm going eight. People are going to be furious at me for not being able to get this. There's other we're missing one Patriots eight. I don't know why I can't Jawan Bentley eight? Is it cam Neely eight? A Josh Miller eight? There you go, a punter back in the day. I looked this up last week when we did the seventh. There haven't been a lot of the eights. I was right about cam Neely though, Right, you were
right about cam Nely. Yeah, that I thought. All right, So we don't have a lot of victory laps yet about the Patriots to take not because we've been wrong. It's a show hasn't been on that long, and we also just I think the Patriots still need to hold up their end of the bargain for us to take some victory laps. Now, with that being said, one victory lap that we both certainly can take is that the Zach Wilson is not good victory lab. Yeah, neither one of us were huge Wilson guys coming in it him
as the sixth quarterback in that track. I think I had him at five or four in that draft, but certainly light years behind Lawrence Fields. Trey Lance, and I fell in love with Trey Lance. We still don't know about Trey Lance. We still the books still out on Trey Lance. And I'll even say the sitting here is a person. And this apparently might surprise some people. I didn't realize this was up for debate as somebody who's a big time Mac Jones guy. Book still out on
Mac Jones. We don't know. He might be an NFL quarterback. He might not. We know about Zach Wilson now we know he's not. And it's not even necessarily the raw quarterbacking ability. He doesn't. He's not. He doesn't have the makeup the mental makeup of an NFL quarterback. He just
he just doesn't. You saw it in the post game. Yeah, I think we saw that in the post game I was listening to your guy Ted Johnson this morning briefly, and he also mentioned that he's not a captain, which I don't usually look too deep into those types of things, but you're too. Mac Jones see on his chest, so captain. One of the big knocks about Zach Wilson coming out was that he was a multi year starter at BYU. He started as a I don't remember, sophomore, junior, junior, senior,
whatever it was. He was never a captain. A multi year starting quarterback not being a captain in college football is unheard of. And even just making him the captain just because he's the quarterback right right, Like, even if he doesn't earn it. A lot of teams will just give the quarterback, the starting QB, the incumbent starter, the entrenched starter, the captainship just because they want the quarterback to bed. I think you could say the same about
what's going on with the Jets right now. It's not it's not like, oh, you know, we had all these qualified players, he's not not. The quarterback is usually a captain, like they just we thought Mac might have been named a captain last year. We were talking about that as an outside shot after Cam got cut right, No, that happened because he's not up to it. Talking about Wilson,
Robert Sali went to the podium yesterday. I don't know was the virtual podium or the physical podium, but he was at the podium yesterday in the Meadowlands and said that he's not committed to a quarterback next week. So this is starting to get really dicey with Zach Wilson. And I don't want to take away too much from what the Patriots defense did on Sunday against the Jets and come in here and say they actually didn't play that good, because I don't think that that's necessarily true.
They're the Patriots. And what I did before the show to kind of plan this show out was I put things in two buckets. Things I liked about this game and things I didn't like about this game. And I want to tee him up and then we can talk about him. Can call in also in weighing on this eight five pads, five hundred if you want to email us at web radio at Patriots dot com as well and give your two cents on how I break this
down or how you another point. If we don't get that to that to us up for it, So give us a call, and we were with you for the next hour until the head coach, until Bill comes to the podium, so what we'll be here for the next hour. Anyways, one of the things that I did like about what they did on Sunday, Well, first of all, Zack Wilson not being good is great, right, I mean that that
confirms our priors, which is obviously most important. But secondly, it means another team in the AFC East is searching for a quarterback I think as soon as next year's draft, which which is fascinating. And you also put into it that the Jets are probably still going to be around a five hundred football teams, so it's not like they're going to have you're talking about for the rest of this year. Yes, okay, yeah, So it's not like they're going to have a top five pick again to take
take a quarterback. So I think there's a really good chance that the Jets are going to sell the farm to move up for a quarterback, and maybe Zach Wilson will be involved in that trade, right, A team that wants to try to tap into that physical potential, and maybe they think that their situation can get more out of him sort of thing. So that or because I mean the Jets might be a quarterback away from being legit. That that's that's sort of what I was getting out with.
The defense is watching this this film back the Patriots front, their defensive front is excellent, and I know everybody's waiting to play Buffalo, right and everybody's waiting for the shoe to drop with this defense. And I'm not saying that the Patriots defense is going to hold the Bills to ten points or anything like that. I don't think that's going to happen. But the way that they play the run and the way that they rushed the passer right
now is it's fun to watch. I mean, they are coming downhill at the line of scrimmage, guys like you know on the defensive line wise Godshaw, Larry Guy, Matthew jude On, you know, those guys are doing their jobs up front. You have the linebacker level. I think Tabi has been sneaky. Okay, yeah, I'm not saying that he's a superstar. He's done his job. Jawan Bentley, when you're having him just come down and fill against the run
and that's his only responsibility. He's been huge. Kyle Dugger and Jabril Peppers just lighting bodies up in this game. It was that was one of my favorite parts of this game is Kyle Dugger and Jabriel Peppers just filling from depth, whether it's a linebacker or too high a lineman and with the safety is rotating and they just come in and they get into like a fit against the run, and they are coming downhill at people and
you see that sort of physicality you see. I think the energy that this defense plays with, or you can call it speed I suppose, but I call it more energy that they play with against the run and in the pass rush is terrific. There four and five mine pass rush on third down is ridiculous. I mean, they can do all sorts of different things. It's not Judon allows them to get creative with it because he can
win a one on one on any given down. But it's a team effort up front with those guys that Judean why is a quality just playing that interior role, taking on double teams and occupying guys on stunts ouch Mac Wilson. So they have that five man rush unit. Gole's not forget high rate. Right. They don't have arguably their second best pass rusher right now in Christian Barmore, and they look they won't have him for a bit. But there's still room for this group to grow. I
guess it's my point. Yeah, I just love watching their five man pass rush package on third down because they can just do so many different things out of it. They can two man stunt like a TNE They can three man game. They can spy with Mac Wilson or he can be part of that five man rush package. They can one on one, beat you one on one. They can beat you with loops, they can beat you
with blitz Is Nickel, Blitz's linebacker Blitz. I mean it just they can throw so many different things at you as a group, and you just never know where it's coming from, right Like who's looping, who's picking, who's blitzing, who's dropping. Like it's all just creative and exotic right now and just difficult to decipher. I would say more
so for the offensive line than the quarterback. I think a lot of gets made out about confusing quarterbacks, but that's not necessarily what the pressure package is naming to do. That's more about confusing the offensive line, and this Jets offensive line, you know, they're opening the center to one direction and then they're spinning it the other way, and they're just getting all sorts of pressure on Zack Wilson. I think their pressure it was forty eight percent in
this game, which is incredible. That's without a lead, right, Like the Cowboys pressured Kirk Cousins on sixty percent of his dropbacks in that game on Sunday, but they're up forty to three, so they're pinning their ears back and getting sacks in the second half. The Patriots were in a three three ball game the entire game and they still pressured Zach Wilson on half of his drop backs. That's incredible. So I think this pass rush is legit.
But when you look at you know, going to the things that I didn't like as much about this game after watching the film is that, quite honestly, the coverage wasn't great, and I think that this Jets receiving group is a little bit underrated. Garrett Wilson's a dude. That guy is going to be a good player. If he gets a competent quarterback, He's going to be a thousand yard receiver in this league. I think that Conklin, their
tight end, is a little bit underrated. Denzel Mims has stone hands, but when he catches the ball, he makes plays and he also gets open, right. He might not complete the catch, but he can get open. So in this game, there was a handful of opportunities. I'd say half a dozen plays that a good quarterback hits. He just a good quarterback is not going to miss these throws.
A good quarterback is not gonna miss his tight end open over the middle and he throws it ten yards over his head and Devin mc into Devin mccordy's lap, right, Like, those types of passes are going to get completed on you. So, on the one hand, love what they're doing with the rush. I think the rush definitely helps out the coverage of time and makes it so that quarterbacks have to fit
the ball into their first progression, right. It's not like they have all day to go one two three or one two check down, like they have to find an outlet quickly because of the way that they're rushing the quarterback. But you do get a little bit concerned about the way that they're covering, and I just look at it now, and I see the good teams, you know, Miami, Buffalo, Cincinnati, these good passing tacks. I would say even the Raiders to a degree as well, just because they have Davante Adams.
These teams are gonna take Miles Bryant, They're gonna take Jalen Mills, and they're gonna target these guys a ton right like they're just gonna come out after those dudes. So whether it's Marcus Jones getting run on defense, if Miles Bryant's having a tough game, or they have you know, John Jones, Jack Jones and Brian in the slot, or
you know, whatever mix and matching they can do. I think that that's an advantage that they have this year that they didn't have last year, is they have some options. If guys are not playing well, they don't have to live and die by Miles Bryan against Isaiah McKenzie. They
can change it up a little bit. But they didn't cover particularly well in this game, and there's definitely some things that they need to improve on and in that regard, and I've just I still can't get there with this defense where I'm one hundred percent sold that this is gonna last. And it's not so much about the defense not being good. It's just eventually they're not going to hold teams to three points in one hundred and three
yards of total offense. And when they played the Bills, the lowest yardage total of the Belichick era that I believe, and it really it could have been less, Like there was instances. I mean, the win turned what should have been an interception to a forty yard completion for the Jets right on that tape ball. And that's why kind of you talk about putting this in context, right, the good and the bad. And I had this conversation with somebody yesterday and I'm interested to get your thoughts on it.
I mean, Bill's been here for twenty two years. Yeah, They've played a lot of games, They've played a lot of bad offenses. They've played a lot of bad quarterbacks. So to hold a team to one hundred to the lowest yardage total ever in that error, regardless of who's there, is impressive. Like we just set off the top. We don't think Zach Wilson's an NFL quarterback? Is he the worst quarterback Bill Belichick has faced in New England? I don't think so. No. I mean they started Bryce Petty
against the Patriots a couple of years ago. I was going through a list the other day, EJ. Manuel, it's better than Sam Allener, Sam Ellener. I was going like I was just going through the AFC East quarterbacks. Brooks Bollinger started a game for the Jets against the Patriots. At one point like so, it's you're you're you're grading them on a curve for sure. But the fewest total yards allowed in the Bill Belichick era, I don't care
who the quarterback is. That's impressive at this point. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, after the game, Garrett Wilson was very vocal about his displeasure. I think mainly with the quarterback play. I know he didn't he was a good teammate and talked about it from somebody was a big picture standpoint of all of us. Right, it was us, It was we. It wasn't Zach right. It wasn't like he was singling out the quarterback. But I think that I still have to see it. I do.
I still have to see it against Buffalo, against teams like Cincinnati in Miami. I think that you know, those teams to me are not the ultimate litmus test, just because if you want to see how much this team has improved from last year to this year, it's about stopping Buffalo, right and and again, I'm not saying that
they need to hold Buffalo to three points. I'm just saying that they need to be more competitive against the Bills than they were in those two games last year, especially the one here in the regular I hate talking about the playoff game because they have you know, DeVante Bosby and Jewan Williams playing corner and at that point, so it's really the regular season game here until we see it against that team in a full capacity like next Thursday night or um, you know, in Buffalo I
had the last week of the season. I'm still gonna have reservations. I mean, that's why I don't know. I just can't help it. Now. If the defense was their biggest problem, they'd probably be a thirteen win team right now, right, So I hate to pick on them. I just I think that there are going to be moments where this coverage is going to get exposed. I'm less worried at this point. I know this is crazy because I'll Belichick
always got problems with mobile quarterbacks. YadA, YadA, YadA. But I am a little bit less worried about that now than I am about them just holding up in the back end. If that pass rush goes cold, like if the pass rush does not have a good game against the Bills, then I don't think that they can just dominate with coverage anymore. But I mean, that's just football. That's not unique to the Patriots. Every team is built
around its strengths and weaknesses. Right, Teams that pass rush like that generally play a little more aggressive in the secondary because they know the quarterback has less time. It was the opposite here for the last couple of years, where they had that dominant secondary, so the pass rush was a little more conservative because if the quarterback extended the play, so be it, he still probably wasn't gonna
find anybody. I think some of what we're seeing in coverage is just they're trying to capitalize on this pass rush, and if something happens where the pass rush goes cold, I think they can make adjustments, and maybe it won't be perfect on the back end, but I think they can make adjustments where it doesn't need to look like that. Right.
I think that's trying to take your strength and capitalize on it versus right, because you're gonna try if you know the quarterback doesn't have time for routes that develop at the second level, you're gonna jump those routes at
the first level. You Also, I think the other thing that I'm still holding on to at this defense is that against Wilson, they were using their safeties to jump some of those intermediate routes because I think they knew that they were going to try to get the ball out of his hands and not have him just sit there and pat the baby and throw interceptions like he did last time. So you're gonna play Buffalo completely exactly, Yeah, exactly. That's why I look at some of the coverage stuff
like you're talking about. And remember, earlier in the year, before the pass rush really got going, we were talking about how good this secondary was and Jack Jones and Jonathan Jones, and that was actually against them good. I know they lost the game, but we were talking about how well they looked against Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers in that passing attack. That's really come on now, right, So I'm not the pass rush needs to play at a high level for them to be competitive against the
team like Buffalo, against team like Cincinnati. Certainly, I'm not saying that the pass rush can afford to go cold in those games. But I'm not super worried about the secondary right now. I think that they have enough back there. So we'll get to Minnesota here by the end of the show, I promised. But this is a really good appetizer because the Vikings have some things in the passing game that can that can scare you, right, I mean,
Justin Johnson's might be the best. We'll get there. But the point that I'm getting at is that this is a step up in competition, certainly from what they played against Sam Ellender or against Zach Wilson over the last couple of weeks. So this is a step up. So we'll see what this defense looks like on Thursday night. The other thing that I liked, and I'm gonna I'm gonna start maybe this will be like a compliments sandwich.
All right, I'm gonna start with some compliments for the offense, because you know, we are Patriots dot Com, so we can't We're not gonna just be completely negative, all right, Well, we're not making stuff up either. I think there was stuff, and we're gonna then we're gonna certainly get to some of the things that really bugged me, like really really bugged me about the way this game was called by
Matt Patricia. Now what I did like, and I'm on the record in multiple places saying that I would like them to be a spread offense. I would like them to spread the field. And I think people when they hear spread, they think I'm saying a vertical offense. I'm not necessarily saying that spread it out and spread it out space of formation. Right. I want them to be RPOs.
I want them to be quick game. I want them to be in third and six and hit intermediate routes on third down, right, Like, that's what my dream is. My fever dream about the Patriots is that they come out and they got all sorts of crazy RPOs like they're Miami and we're having fun with it. Like that's
that's what I want. With that being said, I think we've gotten to the point now this season seeing it both ways, seeing it with Zappy, seeing it with Max, seeing it with Mac, and Gunn seeing it with Mac under center that the stuff that they did was zappy, And now the stuff that they did on Sunday with Mac from under center is their best option. It's just
what they're best at when they executed properly. Now in this game, what I because it's something that they execute much more consist instantly than it so in this game, what I really liked about some of the things that they did. They had some of those zappy play action passes into this script right where they had seven guys or eight if you want to count. The running back is kind of scanning for blitzes and penetrators as well,
and they're just running two guys into the route. You know, it's a vertical clear out for Parker or Thornton or Agalore or someone like that. And then Myers is usually the one running that intermediate route, whether it's a crosser or kind of like a read it route where he has a little bit of an option down the field or what have you. So they ran a lot of that zappy stuff that we saw against Cleveland and Detroit from under center play action. The full house package was
a cool wrinkle. What are we what are we call them? Are we calling the full house inverted wishbone, the Diamond? I'm going full house Okay, I just like that. I don't know, I've heard a lot of different I'm sure they have something for it. It's probably named after a basketball player. But I tried. I tried to ask Hunter Henry, and he gave me a little smirk and was like, no, not him. We'll find out by the end of the year. I'm sure we'll. Yes, maybe we can get it off
the record from one of them. So we're gonna call it a full house. I'm gonna call it. Call it whatever you want, I'm gonna call it a full house. So love that. And I think what you really saw was they kept on running that those you know kind of double lead play right, it's double lead, double lead. They hit a big run on Damian Harris ran for thirty yards on one of them by bouncing it outside, and then you hit them with the play action right, and you get the big one to John the twenty
six yard or to JOHNU. So they did a lot of good things from under center play action that I liked that. I think for now, that has to be your bass, right And I'm not saying that's gonna be your whole offense, but that has to be your bass offense. And first and ten from the twenty five, you're under center and you're either running the ball. To try to hate using that phrase, but I'm gonna use it established the run or your play action on first down, which
is what I would prefer. I prefer them to be more aggressive on first down, and this game they or like a fifty fifty split almost exactly. So I like that in terms of aggressiveness, but it maybe even sixty forty pass like really get those play actions, and some of that is probably the game dictating it as well, maybe a little bit maybe the win, maybe the game.
So I think that they can do some really good things, especially against these zone teams and the Vikings or another zone team as well, where they can really get some
big plays down the field off of play action. And there were some instances the one that he hit to Meyers for twenty yards where he had good protection, He had time and space in the pocket just like Zappy did in The big reason why is because they had seven guys into pass protect They have bull tight ends in the running back like I mentioned, is sort of an extra blitz protector as well, so they have some real bodies up front to keep them clean. And he's
able to make these throws down the field. So I think that those are things that you can take away from this offense and say, for now, this is probably who they are. And secondly, it worked, so if it ain't broke, right, I mean that this needs to be their base at their offense. Yeah. I liked what I saw. There were elements of things that we've kind of been saying they should add. I maybe my favorite play was
the one where they ran. I actually don't know what you call this because it was play action in the sense that it was a run fake to draw off the defense and then throw it. But it wasn't a fake handoff. It was a fake pitch, right yeah, yeah, Like is that play action? I actually don't. Yeah, it's play action. It's cool. It's it's play action with a different kind of they're what they're faking a crack toss,
right yeah? Yeah, So I didn't know if there's a different term when you're faking a toss instead of faking the hand off. You don't see that very like, you don't see that very often. Some of the Shanahan teams do it just because they bootleg so much, but yeah, not very much. But I you had. I mean, how many times have we been able to say all of
these words together in a row this season? They went under center, play action, cleared out the side, brought hunter henry backer, brought a tight then back across, rolled mac Jones out of the pocket, and hit the tight end with room to run after the catch. Yeah, that's a lot of words that have not been said a lot about this page season. And when you see something like that and then I think they went no huddle out of it, or it might have been a get to it,
it's not what they did. Well. I like that they went no huddle. What they called when they went to huddle. You don't like that they went no huddle. No okay, So just as it as let me let me, let me separate, separate two things here, well, because I liked that play. And then they go up to the line and they start going tempo. No, you just don't like they're doing tempo at all. What's wrong with tempo? No? Okay?
So they run this is this is the problem. That's what I wrote about it, and after further review, and this is what's driving me absolutely up a wall about this game on Sunday, which The reason why it's driving me up a wall is because they should have won this game thirty to three, okay, and they didn't win the game thirty to three for two reasons. One, we'll get to the offensive line, and we'll get to the saxe. That's in the don't like category obviously, And what's also
in the don't like category is the damn play caller. Okay, because you're talking about the sequence with Hunter Henry, I just mentioned the completion that they had to Jakobe. This is the same sequence right back to back plays. They go under center, they go play action and what what do you know? Oh my god, they ran play action with some run action in it too, right, Like they
motion the receivers in tight to the formation. That's usually a tell that they're bringing that receiver into block somebody in the box, whether it's a crack toss or just one of their inside zone or duo plays like that's how you get that extra body inside is with that motion. So the motion marries up to the run game. Then the offensive line is blocking like it's a run and oh we have it, Like we're going, okay, this is execution on play action. This is designed on play action.
So they hit back to back plays. They go twenty yards to Myers, twenty yards to Henry on back to back play action plays. They get first and ten in the Jets territory. And what do they do. They put a totally different personnel grouping out there, totally different personnel grouping. They go eleven personnel, they go trips to one side,
they go shotgun shotgun. You just had two forty yards and two plays, two explosives and back to back plays, and the very next play we run a complete It's like a line change, right, It's like a line change in hockey. We take all these guys off the field, we put pass game players on the field, We run a shotgun trips formation offense, and mac Jones get sacked instantly, instantly sacked. On the next play. After he gets sacked, we're just gonna go back into the shotgun because why not, right,
because that's totally what's working. So we go back into the shotgun, holding penalty second in twenty seven. So you just had a positive drive where you get into Jets territory. I think it's like first and ten from the Jets thirty five yard line or something like that. And you move backwards seventeen yards and two plays from the gun of the one that they got called for holding was the one that they went no huddle right, not ready to play. So here's the thing with the play calling.
And we've talked about it a lot already, I think on this show and other shows here on Patriots dot Com. And there's two ways that you know, I look at it, or ways to call we've been calling like it's training camp, right, We're just running plays to run plays. And I think there's one hundred percent truth to that. Like, I think
that's exactly what's happening right now. They have a play sheet, let's call it, twenty twenty five plays that are in the install for the game, and they're just picking them att random. None of them are complimentary, none of them sequenced together, none of them make any sense together, Like how you go from too explosive off of play action from under center and then you run shotgun trips and get sacked. Like those plays have nothing to do with
each other. So good teams, good coordinated offense, good play callers would look at that and say, okay, so we motion hunter Henry and tied to the formation like we're going to crack toss. We fake the crack toss. We bootleg mac out, which I love because they got to move the pockets some now because the offensive line's a problem, and we hit Hunter Henry on a cross or for twenty yards a good offensive coordinator. The very next play, first and ten from the thirty five yard line, crack
toss right, crack toss from under center. So you show them, even if it doesn't go anywhere, you're showing them the action again. You're showing them that you will do it. You're showing them that this is a complimentary play to one of our base plays because now you can run the same exact fake again, right, and then you hit them with the fake. This is what all of this
is what the Shanahan team does. This is what their whole crew is all about, right, is marrying up their play actions to their runs and sequencing them together so everything looks the same and it's difficult to predict what's coming later on in the game. Or actually it was earlier, but there's three instances where this happened earlier in the game. They came out in that full house formation, they get an explosive thirty yard run by Damien Harris out of
the full house. Then they go back under center and they check it down to Damien Harris for fifteen yards off of play action, and then they go back in the gun. Right and it's just like this has no semblance of sequencing of complimentary plays, of scripts scripting, right like we're just pulling plays out of a hat, like oh, now, like we feel like doing this, and now we feel
like doing that, and the offense right now. Back in the day, and I know we always say this, right back in the day, when they had Tom Brady and they had Josh McDaniels. Back in the day, they were able to do this because they were so damn good that they could execut anything. Right now, they don't major in anything. There's no foundation to the offense and the talent and the execution from play to play is not
good enough for them to just run everything. Like right now, they have a mix in their playbook of some of its Shanahan stuff, some of its old school McDaniels stuff, some of its spread stuff. Like they just have so much stuff, okay, but they're not good enough to execute all of it. So the best thing that they could do for their team moving forward is this is the three things that we are good at as an offense, and until teams stop us, we're just going to keep
running these three things. And even at times I would say with McDaniels, they did this like they in the Super Bowl against the Rams, super Bowl fifty three, they ran the same play three times in a row down the field of the game winning touchdown against the Bills. Last year in the Windstorm, they ran ge lead one hundred times. Perillas is egging me on right now. They ran g lead one hundred times against the Bills, and they just kept pressing the button. Crack toss. There you go.
It's like me playing Madden, right Like in Madden, I used to run the same play one hundred times. There's ten plays, and this guy is just like he's on ask Madden. He's like like, what do I do next? I don't know. Now we're gonna do this now. It's
just hey, I I sequence my plays in Madden. It's very frustrating to watch, and I'm sure it's frustrating to fans to watch when they have these positive plays out of certain formations and then the next play it's like that formation isn't even in the playbook anymore, and we're just running something completely different. So in this game, the offensive line was a problem. We're gonna we're gonna hit
on that next. But they were moving the football. But every single time they moved the football for some reason, it's almost like they're like red zone or fringe red
zone offense. They have like one set of plays for that, and then they have one set of plays from between the twenties, and so they can't They just won't pull from the between the twenty section of the playbook once they get inside the thirty right, like it's like that's off limits now, which is where it's not like Madden, because Madden will tell you to run four verts from the two yard line. That's fine if it's working, not
that one. So the last driver where this happened was the one where they went forward on fourth down and didn't get it. The fourth and three play to nowhere. So the first down play or on the jet side of the field, the first down play, they actually pulled Trent Brown from left tackle. They run power basically with Trent Brown as the poller, and that was cool, Like I was like, oh boy, here comes three hundred and
eighty pounds right at you. So and remember they were doing that earlier this year, like that Green Bay game and it was great. Yeah, and I we'll talk about maybe what was up with Trent, but that that's a that works, right. So first down, first and ten, they run for six yards by pulling Trent Brown. Ye second and four from like the Jets like thirty forty yard line, Like, good position to be in sequence here. What's the next thing that they do? They run outside zone? Like that's
what are we doing? Like this is a completely different play, like it's a completely different scheme. So they run outside zone and Damian Harris gets tackled by three Jets behind the line of scrimmage. And now it's third and seven. So what do they do on third and seven? Morrell? They run the power with Trent Brown from under center on third and seven. Well, you get to gain into eight yards from an under center run. But here's the thing.
Here's where it bothers me more. If if it like if you're in four down territory, right, if you know you're going for it there, sure, then all right you can pick up four yards right then you get fourth and three, fourth and four and you're in good shape. It's the fourth down call that me. So then on fourth down they've gained ten yards on two players by pulling Trent Brown. Yeah, on fourth and three they were
runna sweet play from shotgun on fourth and three. And that's where it kills me, because again, I'm not opposed to running on third down. If you know, if you're sitting there like third and seven like they were, and you say, all right, we're gonna run the ball here, we're gonna get to a third and three or fourth and three, fourth and four, and then because when you're in fourth and three, fourth and four, you have a
you have options. You have a lot of options, and that's where you want to be as a play caller. You want to have options. You don't want to be limited to, oh we can only do this, we can only do that. So the third call, the third down call, maybe like see a different run play, But I don't hate the overall idea that one was fine. You gotta come with something. I generally, as a rule, hate shotgun runs. I don't think they're they're especially when you don't have
a good offensive line. Right, they're they're fine. Is like a change of pace thing to keep the defense on their toes. But I would rather the back gets the ball where he's already built up some momentum and can see everything in front of him, which is running under center, not out of the shotgun. It's a philosophical thing. You don't have to agree with me, but like you said,
we're the offensive line can't get anything. And they did it on the other fourth down too, after the mac Jones quarterback sneak right right where they ran out of shotgun. You're giving them back the ball as he's moving laterally, he's moving east to west. That's where his momentum is. And and you're having Nelson agil Or block a linebacker. Right, He's not necessarily going to get a chance to cut up the field because you haven't had those cutback lanes
all day. Right. The explosive plays created by the backs were created by them finding space. So the third and seven whatever, honestly, the third and seven whatever, the fourth down, that that's the one that caught me. Fine. So here's the thing though, So they pulled Trent Brown twice the game ten yards on the play look and play. The Jets want to know part of getting in front of
that free train like they had success with it. So whether it's on that drive or it's the next drive, why can we not get Trent Brown faking the poll and it's play action right like that? That that's how you do it, right, Like okay, so now Trent Brown pulls, but instead it's that they call it Charles Barkley, right, they pull the guard instead of the guard. It's the tackle.
The reason why it was the tackle and the distances because the guards couldn't block anybody, so it was better to, you know, have them kind of form a three man surface and fold the defense that way with three guys and then you pull the tackle instead. Nice little wrinkle, nice adjustment. Fine, So on the next series, if we pull Trent Brown and we get the linebackers are like, oh here comes again, and then you hit Hunter Henry right behind it. For this is that's that's how we
mary plays together. Right. They never went back to it. They never went back to it. They ran it twice, they never went back to it. And what's done is they're setting it up for the vikings. They're setting it up for the vikings. It's the long game, setting up. Michael's been waiting for a long time on the phone. So Michael, what's going on? Thanks for waiting. No, you're you're good man. Actually you had exactly what I was going to talk about. It was play calling, especially on
that fourth and three, which is just egregiously bad. And I'm like the thingy was Mack was playing pretty well, um in retrospect too, right, like he was playing pretty good, Like you know, he at one point he was ten for ten. I know he had like four stacks during that time too, but he was throwing it well. And that sequence specifically, they ran it four times. I just I was just I was frustrated by that. And yeah, you're right, guys that they should have, Like it felt
like they were dominating the entire game. The fact that it came down to the very end just seemed like, uh it was. It was. It was tough to watch, but exciting way to end. But you're both there. I mean, this was kind of like a true Stickos game. Oh yeah, it was really impacting the passing game, like Zach Wilson said something during like that, but it didn't seem like it really impacted Mac too much. Yeah, thanks Michael, thanks
for the call. I appreciate it. So on that point on the wind, and then I really do want to talk about the offensive line. I think it was more of a factor in the kicking game than it was in the passing game. Zach Wilson air mails throws every single week, so I'm not gonna put it give him the benefit of doubt that the wind caught one of his pass honestly, Honestly, the one time the wind impacted him, it helped him because it was was it Garrett Wilson
knocked it down? The one down the sideline that Jack Jones has read, I think it's Denzel Mims? Was it Denzel Mims? All of a sudden, you see Jack Jones stopped like he looked really weird. At first, It's like, why did he just overrun the ball? I was actually watching the ball on that one. The wind knocked it down, it did. But in terms of the short passing game, the intermediate passing game, if you're not throwing an absolute
lollipop rainbows, yeah, the wind was a minimal factor. No, Zach Wilson is every golfer that stepped up into the tea box put in one hundred and fifty yards out to the left in the woods. He probably if he's golfing, he probably would have hit poored Devin mccordy standing out there the wind, gus Win guys. Windy today, guys, it's like there's barely breeze. It's windy today. Guys. Do you
feel that I've golfed with that person? Anybody? I don't know if Morell plays golf, Evan, I know you're very against Morrell, doesn't Anybody who's listening who's played golf knows exactly who I'm talking about. That was Zach Wilson on side. Oh you feel this breeze at Oh, I think it's starting to rain. There's not the grass, Yeah, exactly, it's coming right back down on him. Oh look, hell, hell, it's going all the way over there. Like Zach Wilson is deaf. And then I'm gonna I'm gonna take a
mull again. It's fine. Yeah, breakfast ball, breakfast ball, guys, breakfast ball. Zach Wilson when he throws it right in at the mccordy's gut, that and then the not taking accountability for it in the locker room, Zach Wilson is definitely like the worst person to get stuck playing golf with Okay, so you made it eight episodes before where I got into a golf ran to have a good job, good job, good effort, so offensive line. So David Andrews
is out, might be out, might not be out. I had also heard what Zoe had heard, which was that it wasn't as a bad as originally trickled out. Zoe says Thursday. I'm not going to Thursday, I know, but I did hear the same thing. And I think a big reason why is that David Andrews is a tough s ob. Yeah, so if he can play, I think that he's going to try to give it a go. I know Rapp reports new report is that he might be able to play towards the end of the year
in the playoffs. And I think Karen Gregan had a similar reports as well. Right, well, so we'll see it's not necessarily season ending for David Andrews, but it's gonna be James Ferrens. And I know we're gonna get questions about Cody Russy and could Cody russi the rookie from Houston undrafted rookie free agent that they signed that's now on the fifty three. Could it be him because it
hasn't looked super pretty with James Ferrens. But I think from a mental standpoint, there's so much that goes into playing center, you know, line calls things like that, that it's gonna be really tough for a rookie like Russy to take over. But I think he's in play. If it really goes downhill with Ferrens, I do think he's in play now. The bigger concern that I actually have, and look, Ferren's is gonna it is what it is
at this point. The Jets did a nice job of getting Quinnon Williams one on one against him a couple of times, which was obviously just not fair, not not a fair fight. Tackle is going to be an issue. They're gonna have an issue at tackle. And this kind of segues into the point of six sacks? How many year on mac Jones? How many can he get rid of the football? Like this was a big talking point yesterday, I know, was how much can you put blame for
taking six sacks on mac Jones? Because with all the pressure that we might have seen, you know, in certain games and stuff like taking six sacks in the Brady era in one game is like crazy, right, Like, what do you mean he got sacks six times? So sure, I think that there's an element for mac And I know a lot of people want him to like step up in the pocket and thinks I think watching back a lot of these sacks, I don't think there were too many of them were stepping up in the pocket
was really going to do him any favors. I think that there is definitely an element though, of him throwing balls at guy's feet or just throwing it over a guy's head, right. You know, there was one play that I think was really the killer, which was a third down play that knocked them out of Nick folks field goal range because of the win and he joined it
off the crossbar, and that one was a killer. And I think, you know, he wants and Nelson aglare on this corner route and he's kind of waiting for it to come open and the pocket collapses on him. Nelson Agler wasn't necessarily open. But if you throw one of those, only he can catch it type of passes where it goes, you know, it's either a circus catched by Nelson Agil or it's just out of bounds, but that's also where
the wind comes in. Like on a day like that, maybe he doesn't want to He's he's thrown enough of those passes that end up hanging up and turning into interceptions. So this is this is my point. I think this is what the biggest thing right now with Mac Joneses is that he first of all, I think anticipation is a problem right now for this offense because he's he needs to see it open right now, like if he's throwing the ball before guys are coming out of their breaks,
like the way it should be right now. You know, he's got guys fallen down, he's got guys cutting the wrong angles, you know, and stuff like that. And this is how interceptions have happened to him in the past this season or guys you know, not fighting for fifty fifty balls. I won't name any names, but you know who I'm talking about. So this type he's gotten better. Yeah that was like a first two weeks. Yeah, but yeah, so so these things have happened all season long, So
I think that that's a big part of it. And like you said, you know, weird wind gusts or weird thing happens, and the ball hangs up longer than he wants and then the Mac apologist and it's intercepted. Right. So on the one hand, you say, okay, well, he kind of has to get through that, right, you know, he needs to be throwing with anticipation. He needs to be getting the football out and not taking sacks. But on the other hand, you can understand why he's gotten here, right.
So I think when you really go back, and I did this, and after further review, I went all six sacks and put them all out up on the board and broke them all down as best I could. There is probably two out of the six that I had some reservations about, like, okay, maybe he should have gotten the ball out here. One of them was that one I just told you about where Folk jointed off the crossbar. And then there's a one earlier James Farrens gets beat
cleaned by Quinn Williams. No doubt about it that Farrens is registered, you know with the with the sack allowed. But the play design, the route design works right. It gets Hunter Henry open, but Mac is kind of waiting for it, right, He doesn't want to throw it with anticipation. Now, I'll allow for the fact that maybe Quinn Williams knocks it down because he's already in Mac jone his face.
But you know, they kind of opened up a passing lane by sending John who on a cross and Remondrate in the flat, and it kind of opens up the two zones and Hunter Henry just curls up in between the two zones and he's open if Mac throws the ball with some anticipation, but it just he doesn't pull the trigger. So I would say one and a half because that one was tough because quinnin Williams is already in his face, So that means that a lot of
these are on the offensive line. I want the numbers, Yeah, do we want to do the numbers from PFF and you can give me the number I've recently started. I like giving the numbers from PF because then it's not just me that's telling you, right, there's other people that are back in this up. So PF tracks essentially Q. It's qb owne pressure, So get the quarterback. For whatever reason, he ran himself into a blocker he held onto the ball, or there's a couple of reasons. The quarterback and allow
a sack. So they have Mac Jones this season in seven games, four of his twenty one sacks and five of his sixty it's sixty something pressures. I don't that's the one number I don't have here, But five of sixty something is very small percentage have been on Mac. Yeah, when it comes to percentage of draftbacks, because Mac obviously missed some games here, eight point two percent of his pressures have been on him. That's the eighth best number in the league. So they don't think it's a problem.
He's basically top ten at not getting himself pressure. They don't think it's a problem. Here's the bigger number. And by the way, some of these numbers because a sack can be at fault of multiple people, like you just said with the transparents one right, So these percentages add up to more than one hundred if you're playing along
at home. But the offensive line percentage or in terms of the pressures ninety six point seven percent, that's the highest in the NFL, no qualifier, highest in the NFL. Twenty four point six percent from left tackle, nineteen point seven percent from left guard, eighteen percent from center. And this is for the season, not the jests skins this season six point six percent from right chout at Michael
and window. He rules. I mean, it's not his best game on Sunday, but he's no. But let's sip our yea, let's tip our cat. He's been like he's the one guy that's been less responsible than Mac for all of this. Yes, right tackle forty one percent of the pressures from right tackle, and then there's another four percent that's either other blockers so tight ends, are running backs, or just covered sacks right. So here here's the thing. The tackles are concerned. They've
been a concern all year long. I think Trent Brown has been good, had stretches where he's been good, and almost almost seventy five percent of all their sacks coming from the tackle spot right. So pressure, sorry, pressures right tackle. Yadi could just has had some good run blocking tape, some good screen tape. He had a really good block on Yeah. Yeah. Pass blocking has been a nightmare. I don't know what why the athleticism that we see on
the screen does not get translated into pass blocking. But it just hasn't. So on the one hand, you would say, okay, well, so instead of Mac dropping you know, five step drop out of shotgun where he's getting to ten yards, right, that's kind of like the depth most tackles are taught to set to ten yards, right, Like if you get your guy to ten yards or beyond, and the quarterbacks should step up in the pocket and you should keep
it clean. So instead of Mac setting to ten yards, maybe they adjust and started having him set to eight, right, so they give the tackles a little bit more leeway. But the problem is is that you have to have a good interior then to keep the interior clean because he's not dropping back as far. So I think on the one hand that the positive or the silver lining the Jets defensive front end. I would also put the
Colts like that. Those two teams have two of the best interior D lines in the league, right like quinnin Williams, you know DeForrest Buckner with the Colts, like those are some of the best D tackles they are going to face all year long. This Vikings team does not have D tackles like that, not anymore. So I think that that's, you know, part of it. That's what I think they have to do moving forward, is they're going to have to trust the interior line to be better than the tackles.
And I would also then say design plays around it, right, you gotta get the ball out quickly. We know that the moving pockets I think is going to have to be more frequent. Play action in general, you should help run plays that. So it's not necessarily designing around it is in getting the ball at quicker moving mac. You can do things where the pass rushers have to think about it. You can slow down the pass rush when you run things like play action, when you run things
like draws rpo Zevan. Not to get you too excited, I'm getting tweets that people can hear you banging on the table when you run those sort of concepts. Right, if you're pass rushing, you want to pin your ears back and get back up field. Now all of a sudden, Oh, here's a draw and you've totally vacated your space and they're going to run right into your gap for big play. Now, next time you line up, that's in the back of
your head. You're not necessarily going to sell all out as a pass rush run the next period, but Patricia will never call it again, so they won't think, look, I'm just here, We're just here to say how the game works. Right, Yeah, you can slow down a pass rush in that way with those sorts of concepts where you don't even necessarily need to run a quick throw or whatever something like that. You just get in their head about it. We've talked about speeding up mac Jones, right,
mac Jones has been sped up. There's a defensive equivalent of that too. Pass rushers can get slowed down if you kind of force them out of position based on the scheme. Yeah, so they can find ways in the passing game to work around it. They can also find ways in the run game. I think that they did with the full house package where you have multiple lead blockers, right, and now you're you're leading through both sides in the line, the running back has more options of where he can
find space. And you know, maybe that's the way that they do it. Maybe they start pulling Trent more like they did in some of the plays that we broke down earlier. Like, so they're going to have to be very cognist in the line because Americans isn't walking through the door, right, like Matt Light's not walking through the door like This is not getting any better from a
personnel standpoint moving forward. This is sort of what you have, So you're gonna have to just work with what you have now as a play caller, Mattie p Yeah, you have to be super cognizant of the fact that your line is a problem. Right, So they cannot have any game plans anymore where they're trying to push the ball, you know, vertically down to four three, three and a half second passing content, right, unless it's under center play action with seven guys in the protection. Right, So they
have to be any very cognizant of it. Yeah, yeah, I agree with all Right, we got two more calls. We got to fly through him ten and Mayne quickly. What do you got hey? Um, So we just wanted to ask Love the end up analysis. Why can't we let go of Matt Appreciate as the offensive play caller. Why can't we put someone in like Nick Kayley or someone else? I mean, coaches get fired all the time. Why can't he actually do his job as the offensive line coordinator and get someone else in the mix calling
the plays, if not Bill Belichick himself. Yeah, it's a fair question, Ted, and I think that's one that a lot of people are asking right now. I think it's there's a couple of things. One. I do think that Bill looks at it and says, I mean I kind of put him on a pretty bad spot, right, like he's not an offensive coach now making him do all this stuff on offense. So more or less, they kind of had Maddie P fall on a sword, right, And
I think that's part of it. I think the other part of it is is that you know, maybe his background is an offense, but Nick Kayley has never called plays in an NFL game. Joe Judge has never called offensive plays. So at this point, at least Mattie P has some experience under his belt, like maybe to get better at it. I don't know, I think just trying
to explain it. I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with Ted or disagree with the notion that they should move on or give those play calling responsibilities to somebody else. But at this point, you've built up ten games of experience ends for matt Patricia doing it, and I think that their hope is that he's gonna get better at it,
like just like anything. Yeah, that's the big one. I mean, and I said this to you kind of in different contexts, but I said this to you earlier in the week off the air that remember where we were like two three years ago with Steve Belichick and the defense, and oh, he's not the guy in this not And we haven't talked about it a lot, probably because there's so many questions on the offensive coaching staff. But Steve is pretty
good at this Steve has been excellent this year. So I Bill always talks about learning and growth, and he may just see this as all one big learning experience from Apatricia. If you pull him, he's not learning. The other thing is that's a pretty dramatic change, even if
it is somebody within the organization still calling plays. If there was a time to do that, it was the bye week, and I'm not saying they were going to but especially now you got back to back short weeks and all of that, like it's you might there's a good chance you create more problems than you solve, just with the the sheer volume of what that shakeup would be that I think this point it is what it is.
You're going to see the year out. At this point, it would just you risk creating an even bigger mess. I think you seriously risk creating an even bigger mess if you make that change at this point. All right, Steve in New York. Steve, you're on the air. What do you got Yeah, I just had a quick question. Um, just wanting to know, why is it that we can't get to that like dink and dunk? You know, Um, if our offensive line is still bad, then we only get like two seconds, you know, you know, less than
three seconds to throw the ball. Is it do we not have the receivers to do that? Um? You know when Brady was here or you know Brady now when he has a turple offensive line, he still gets the ball out, like, you know, really quickly. Is it something that we can do? Can we go back to any of our playbooks in the past. I'm just wondering, why is it that we don't do that if we know the line is terrible? Yeah, it's it's another fair question.
Thanks for calling in. I think they do try to do pieces of that, and they've had a little bit of success with it. I think the biggest issue that you that you have with it, or what I see with it, is that the defenses get paid to Andy and they know that that's what they're going to try to do right, right, And I think that has a big part about it in this Jets game is the Jets knew that the Patriots are going to try to run some quick game concepts and get the ball out
of Mac Jones's hands. So they're kind of sitting on those types of routes right, They're waiting for them. So I think that the idea some of the under center play action stuff is to kind of open that type of stuff up, right. You know, we're showing you that we're going to push the ball a little bit more downfield and hopefully it will open it up. I think that they are trying to run some of that kind of stuff. It just it just hasn't been successful for
you know, different reasons. I also would maybe push back just a little bit and that the Patriots offense was ever truly dink and dunk. You know, it's kind of like a little bit of a of a Patriot Homer got to defend the wall on that one. But I hear you. I think that that could be a bigger part of what they do moving forward. Yeah, all right, we have like six minutes to talk about the VICA. We also need we need time to walk down the hall. Okay, yea six minutes, six minutes. We can walk down the
hall in two minutes. That's for faith in this all right. So big thing here with the Vikings to me is that everything that I look at, from a macro level to a micro level, tells me that this eight and two record is a little bit fake. Negative two scoring differential, Okay, so they're bad scoring differential. They're twenty third in DVOA right now. They have the lowest DVOA in the history of DVOA for an eight and two team. Like, they're
the worst eight and two team. That's Aaron Schatz. This whole thing right now, right is they're the worst eight and two team of all time. Yeah, since nineteen eighty one or whatever. Yeah, he doesn't go back further than that. So they're the worst. So I'm not saying that to take them lightly or anything like that. It's they've got really good skill position players. I think there is some new coach mojo that might be wearing off a little bit, but that they were playing with a lot of energy
for O'Connell and stuff like that. Earlier on in the year certainly, but this, to me is still a very winnable game. The macro is that they're probably not a very good eight and two team in reality. The micro is, I think that there's little things in this matchup that really favored the Patriots. Right. So one is that Kirk Cousins is a statue. So you can sit the numbers, you can sit there and tee off on Kirk Cousins. He's also terrible under pressure, not Zach Wilson terrible, but
he's oh, he's very close. He's actually, he's not as bad Zach. It's pretty close in terms of in terms of completion percenters. There's only three quarterbacks between Kirk Cousins and Zach Wilson. Kirk Cousins from clean pockets this year, completing seventy four percent of his passes. Yeah, when he's pressure, that number goes down to forty two point three. Yeah.
So the other thing that you know that we've both kind of hinted at is that, well, first of all, their run game is just Dalvin Cook right Like, it's an under center, traditional, no mobile quarterback, and the Patriots have actually been outstanding as a run defense. Against those types of run teams without a threat of a quarterback run. Now they do bootleg, so I guess there's like the play action threat, but without the true threat of a
quarterback run element. The Patriots have been nails against those types of teams, so they can win up front in this game. Especially Christen Derris out not playing, so they can win up front in this game. The other thing from a defensive standpoint is real quick before you blow buy that. The Derissa loss is massively Yeah, he Massi is one of the best tackles in the league. He's been PFF's best tackles here. His backup, Blake Brandell, has played less than a hundred snaps this year. He played
thirty nine two weeks ago, thirty nine last week. Last week and thirty nine snaps. He allowed four pressures in two sacks. He's a guy they can tee off on. He hasn't played a ton of football. If I'm the Patriots, we talked earlier about these games, right that they run with the pass rushers. Yeah, anything you can do to get this guy one on one with Matthew Judon, you'd do it. And Matthew Judon will have a memorable Thanksgiving.
The poor guy gets into the game after I'm sure, I'm sure Blake's yeah, and put they put Micah Parks. He's got Micah Parsons and now Matthew Judon back to back weeks. Welcome to the NFL. Play ye nightmare. But that is a match of the Patriots. Michael Parsons ran that like little inside out rip that Matthew Judon also, Like I was gonna say, you think Judon was watching Parsons like, oh, I can do that, and I can do that, and I can do that. It was. It
was not good. So traditional run game offensive lines, a little bit banged up quarterback that doesn't handle pressure well and can't escape pressure. And we've we've been on this, which is why I was getting at Besides, justin Jefferson this passing game, like Theeland's not the same guy anymore, right, Hawkinson's still getting integrated and they're still trying to figure that out. Plus the Patriots took Hawkinson out when he was here with Detroit, so Dalvin Cook's probably their second
best weapon. And they've had some trouble with receiving backs in the past. Yeah, and their screen game is really good. With Dalvin, so that's something that you have to worry about as well. But I think the point that we're getting out from the Patriots d offensive perspective is we know that Bill is gonna he's gonna game plan the run game with Dalvin Cook, and he's gonna game plan Justin Jefferson right right, And if they beat them throwing to theal In and kJ Osborne and t J. Hawkinson,
then you tip your cap. Kirk Cousins passer rating drops by twenty points when he's throwing wide receivers not named Justin Jefferson, right. So in the past Bill has gone with a couple of different strategies. You know, when he had a Stefan gilmour Derrell reeves that it would just be that guy against Justin Jefferson. Last week with Dallas, they have Trevon Diggs, so he shadowed Justin Jefferson everywhere he went. That could be John Jones, Like I think
John Jones has earned it. I think he's played had a hell of a year, so I think they could trust John Jones on him. I think we will also see some bracket calls against Justin Jefferson, especially on third down, because His whole thing from Jefferson is he loves that dig series right where he's gonna He's kind of like an option. He can break in or he can break
on the out. He just reads the leverage of the corner, breaks off the leverage, and if you put a guy inside of him and a guy outside of him, then they can't go in and out right, you know. So he's excellent dig route runner and he's dealing with the toe injury too. He's injury. So the last thing is that this Vikings defense zone defense. They played like, yeah,
fifteen percent man coverage. They're big zone defense. They are allowing the most yards in the league to play action right now, So I think the Patriots can throw on it. They're like Patrick Peterson's still good, but yeah, Harrison Smith is still good, but he's not the player he was. They've been rotating all year at that second cornerback spot. Andrew Bruth Junior, the rookies. He's hurt. He's hurt. Yeah, he's a guy that they've tried there. They've tried at
Caleb Evans there. I think he didn't practice this or he was limited yesterday as well, or would have been right the pass rush isn't bad. They've got to get it blocked. But if they can get it blocked, like the Jets defense is much better. Yes, they're gonna be able to throw on this Vikings defense. If big, if if Mac has time, so you have it. There's a chance.
We're saying there's as like I think. I think when you look at the records of these two teams, you think, oh, eight and two Vikings at home short week like this does not spell a great This is the beauty option for the Patriots. This game is the beauty of football in that it's not you know, if you were to just rate them on one, two, one hundred Madden Rating, right, the Vikings might have a better rating. But all the matchups, it's strength on strength. All the matchups in this game
favor the Patriots. It's kind of like how the Patriots beat the Jets. The Jets then beat the Bills right in the Patriots then beat the Jets again pretty embarrassingly. Does that mean the Patriots are that much better than the Bills, As much as I'd like to think so, No, it doesn't. It's just the way it all matches up. It's very favorable to the Patriots is another game where the Vikings do some things at incredibly high level. Those also happen to be the things that the Patriots are
experts are taking away exactly. All right, that's a great way to put it, and they don't necessarily have like a secondary option to go to. Okay, so we got to wrap it up well and then Unfiltered will be at noon and Playbook at two a long day on Patriots dot com right here, So keep it right here and we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening. Thank you for downloading this podcast. Subscribe on Apple, Google Play, and everywhere else you listen. Like the show, Please rate
and review us. Listener comments and ratings help keep us high on the podcast rankings so new listeners can find us. Be sure to check Patriots dot com or more news and more podcasts.