Patriots Unfiltered the world's original podcast. Patriots Unfiltered brings you inside Jillette Stadium for rousing conversations on everything New England, Patriots, and NFL. Join host Fred Kersh alongside Patriots dot COM's Paul Parillo, Mike Desso, Evan Lazar, Tamara Brown, and Alex Francisco as they bring you in depth coverage of the team.
He's a red shirt rookie at that point, so it's really that's his rookie season essentially too, So now we're really not talking about them, really knowing.
Search for Patriots Unfiltered anywhere you get your podcasts. This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Barth.
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That I agree with, And this is the only part of your take that I agree with that I find interesting A little bit.
He said that about like three or four things.
But okay, you kept saying that. I kept saying that I find this interesting, and I actually went back and listened to, which I don't often do, but I did to that part because I felt myself doing that radio and I absolutely said, like four times about four different things that I was claiming, wasn't an interesting somebody?
Somebody's going to be watching some North Carolina football next year come the.
Fall, to be fair, to be fair, like it's Bill Belichick, like where you were, I work for the Patriots. Like obviously it's obvious that I would be interested in Bill.
That was the whole take. That was it.
It's Bill Belichick's putting a team on the field. How was that not interesting?
That was the take? Yeah, but that that's me, Like I'm talking about like I think like some Patriots Dick and Larry, you.
Know, Like I'm not talking about me like I'm the target audience for anything. Bill Belichick is a.
Is an NFL exclusive fan in Boston, anywhere anywhere besides New England gonna watch maybe not. I think Patriots fans are going to be interested because it is Bill Belichick. Yeah, I mean that that's valid. That's Veld. That's the whole thing.
No, you did, you were gushing a little bit about college football. All right, calm down, bother I do that.
That is it has gone right up Felger's tail by.
That that has made my week, just constantly ripping you and calling you barthy.
And all of it. He calls me Barty one where it is fantastic.
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When does Jordan Love get his Toyota deal? I didn't know about this, so I'll pull up the numbers for you. Do the second read a drink easy to enjoy it, but like the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots, just just save it for a little Okay. I do want to talk some Patriots and then we can get into the well. I was trying to line it up with the read. I'm trying to help the sponsor. Yeah, okay, what do you got? So Jordan Love during Toyota thon,
So this it's a what's it called? It's an anomaly? Yeah, I'm trying to find the actual distribution of the numbers. Jordan Love in his career is like night and day, a different quarterback during Toyota thon.
Okay, but isn't that just lining up with He's better late in the year, late in the year, and the Packers are starting to roll Like that's well.
It's not just this year, it's career. So Jordan Love touchdown interception ratio not during Toyota than for his career, Okay, twenty nine and twenty five, twenty nine touchdowns, twenty nine picks. Okay, Jordan Love and thirty two hundred yards Jordan Love during Toyota than which is fewer games, Yeah, thirty two hundred yards, twenty six touchdowns, only two picks.
He's an MVP of the league when it's Toyota than like, yeah, yeah.
Jordan this year during Toyota than sixty nine completion percentage, He's averaging about ten yards per attempt, eleven hundred yards and five games, eight touchdowns, one pick, one hundred and twenty passer rating.
A little bit of Jordan Love and Drake May I know, we're like we make like seventeen different comparisons. I feel like for Drake made. It's Josh Allen. It's justin Herbert like I could see a little bit of Jordan Love in there as well.
But I want to we need to figure out what Dan would Drake May's like Jordan Love is Toyota tha On? Hopefully it's not super summer for Drake May. That doesn't help us at all. What are the other ones? Isn't it like Trucktober or something that doesn't really help either? He'd like, well, if you put him together, because trust something in January?
Maybe you know something.
December Toyota Thon ends. The last Sunday of the regular season. Is the last Sunday during Toyota Than. Okay, so Toyota Than does not include the playoffs. Okay yet? Okay, Yeah, maybe he gets a deal with Toyota and he gets him to push that. But I love it.
All right, Let's get back to the task at hand and talk a little bit about the Patriots. I understand that this has been this has been a week, this has been this has been a week coming off this Cardinals game, and I understand a lot of the criticisms for the Patriots and for the Patriots coaching staff.
But as you can imagine Alex. The one thing that that kind of.
Just just bothers me a little bit about the discourse around Drodmeo right now is how much focus there is on press conferences like that. That piece of it to me really just kind of like, uh, it misses the mark a little bit.
And and.
I want to preface that by saying, like, this is not excuse making for draw because I'm about to tell you how I really feel, right but like I just when I watch and listen and hear and read people that are going over at all of his press conferences and all this kind of stuff and being super critical of things that he says are the things that he that he or whatever, I just truly feel that it is like low hanging fruit, Like it's we don't want
to actually talk about the actual football of what's going on with the Patriots. But did you hear what he said about the press conference at the press conference after the game, right Like it's that sort of thing, and uh, as a show that's all about the actual weeds and the x's and o's, it just I want to talk about that stuff because my biggest issues with the Patriots
right now is what's going on tape. It has nothing to do with what's going on at press conferences, right, And one of the things you know with press conferences, to Dan Campbell got dragged like he got absolutely killed for the kneecaps thing. Yeah, if you had I when I saw that introductory press conference by Dan Campbell and he did the kneecaps thing the bit, right, I thought
for sure that guy was gonna fail. Like you know me, I was like, oh, get this hard O at before that, I thought for sure he was going to fail at that press conference. If you asked me that day, do I think Campbell's gonna be a good head coach?
I would tell you no.
I would also say the same thing about Bill, Like Bill, the way he conducted himself at press conferences was criticized for twenty five years, and then to go even to in game stuff in game coaching, like Andy Reid was dragged for game management for it for fifteen years until he got Patrick Mahomes and he just didn't matter, right. And plus now the Chiefs are great late in games, like they're probably the best team in the league in
close games in the fourth quarter. My point by bringing up all those guys and I know that those are all the rosy you know, success stories of bad first year turn it around sort of thing. But my point of bringing up all those guys is that I feel like those elements of head coaching do get better. Like, if you're a good coach, I think you learn how to time management. I think you learn press conference etiquette. I think you learn all of these CEO type elements
of being a head coach. And I would be more than willing to take on those growing pains with Gerrod Mayo in this coaching staff when it comes to all that kind of stuff. If I thought that the team was coached well on Sundays and I just don't feel like I am seeing enough of that, Sure you can jump in. I have some more stuff I want to unpack from there, but no, I'll just I'll.
Echo something Felger said this week, like I don't I care more about So the comment was that you said that not me, right, Yeah, was in regards to essentially not being able to pick up a yard on third and one, fourth and one, a crucial point in the game. Right, I care a lot more that they didn't pick up the yard. Yeah, Then the way Gerard Mayo addressed it. It's it's just a winning cures all thing. Yeah, Like, look at Joe Mizula. Joe Mizula says weird stuff in
press conferences all the time. He said yesterday he doesn't watch the NBA. Yeah, but the team's a wagon and we just kind of laugh about it.
Yeah.
So now, obviously Joe Missoula is it's it's not to compare Joe Mazula girod Mayo. Joe Mizula has built all ready in a short time a very impressive resume. But the point being, at the end of the day, they're losing football games, and everything becomes more frustrating when you're you're losing. And I'm with you. That's not to say he there aren't things to clean up in the press conference.
There certainly are. If he's giving you know, the ninety eight Michael Jordan of press conference, right, the seven Tom Brady of press conferences, and they still ninety six Jordan, thank you, you know, the the you know, two thousand Ken Griffe Junior press conferences. Yea, and they're still only winning three games a year. I really won't care, Like
that doesn't mean anything to me. Win the games and I'm with you, like, if you want to talk about what's being said at the press conference is like, I get it, it's a I understand why it's a story. I'm not faulting anybody from talking for talking about it. Mean too. I guess my point is more in especially
on this show, what we do. How about the questions that are being asked that are leading to these answers, Right, what's going wrong on the field, Because if you start fixing some of that, if you can pick up they had two chances to gain one yard convincingly and I still think there was a bad spot on the third down, but they had two chances to pick up one yard convincingly and couldn't do it. You pick up that yard, the question never happens. So fix what's happening on the field,
and I think the rest takes care of itself. I don't think, well, he needs to be better in press conferences. Could he be better? Yeah, I'm not saying he couldn't. It doesn't do anything if the product on the field doesn't change.
Yeah. I just think that not a lot of people want to have the conversations of like, what's going actually wrong with the defense and the offensive line and the play calling. And that's what I want to unpack because I don't want to talk about press conferences. When we came off of the Colts game, I didn't want to talk about did he manage the game correctly?
And now that's in game stuff. This is where you lose me that football coaching. But it matters, but you don't want to talk about it because it's not nerd stuff.
But it will get My point is that I would allow some grace for him to improve in that area if I thought that he if I thought that defensively, they were putting out a good product every single week. And the reason why I bring that up is because you know all the coaches that you hate that I love Kyle Shanahan, those types of guys like no matter what happens with Shanahan, who also tends to be a little bit snarky at press conferences.
To remember when they asked hibout, Jimmy Garoppolo is like will he be on the team next week? And Shanahan was like, I don't know if anybody will be alive this week?
Right, yeah, Like he's also a little weird. Hey, it's a stress environment, has a little Missoula in him, Kyle Shanahan.
But except for the winning championships part. Okay, I saw that coming out. I said it was wrong.
So here's the thing though, Like Kyle Shanahan brings one of the best schemes on the offensive side of the ball to the game every single Sunday, right like he That's that's the trade off, right, The trade off is, Yeah, you might get some quirky press conferences. Yeah, you might get you know, you people like you. The time management, you know, the clock management, not running the ball late in games to milk the clock like that stuff's gonna
drive everybody crazy. But every single week, the forty nine ers and Kyle Shanahan have a chance to win the game because his scheme is is fantastic.
They have a chance to do it, and they do it about half the time. I would argue that the management thing plays into that too. Though. Look at a guy like Mike Tomlin, who he has his intricacies in prescommens. Remember a couple of weeks ago, he wouldn't call Lamar Jackson Lamar. He gets saying mister Jackson, I guess kind of a weird thing. Yeah, you know, every week Mike Tomlin's team is going to come out prepared right sound.
It's not about the scheme. The scheme's good, but like, yeah, play sound fundamental football and he's going to do his part. And that's not a joke about him nearly tripping to Kobe Ford down the sideline. I don't remember the last time I was watching the Steelers and go for it or kick decision or time out usage your clock management, Like Mike Tomlins as buttoned up as anybody in that regard. Yeah,
so the game management thing can apply to that too. Again, it's just if the product on the field is better one, you're not going to be in a position to have some of these because some of the questions he gets asked, and this is true for just any coach that's losing. You're gonna get questions that are difficult to answer because at the end of the day, as a coach, you don't want to put down your own team, you don't
want to put down yourself, et cetera, et cetera. But if you're losing, you're losing and somebody has to be at fault. You can't just go out there and awe shucks it. So and That's where some of these answers come from. That's where some of these bad answers come from. There are certain questions. This isn't just a Mayo thing. This is just how it works where certain questions there is no good answer. You want to create a situation where you don't have those kinds of questions. Win football games.
Win games, that's how you fix it. Yeah, So looking at the football, I want to start.
I want to start defense actually, and this is the side of the ball that troubles me the most because this is supposed to be Girod Mayo's side of the ball, right, Like when the Houston Texans hired Demico Ryans, there were questions about whether or not he was going to get the oc higher right, He's going to get the offense right, the quarterback right, and all those kinds of things. They've done a nice job on that side of the ball with Stroud and and Bobby's look, but going into it
there are questions. There were never questions about the Texans defense because that was Demiko Ryans's specialty. Same thing with Patriots. The Patriots and Girod Mayo, and when I look at them statistically on defense, it is alarming how much they have just fallen off a cliff on that side of the ball.
I mean, you could argue between the two units, what's been the better unit this year, offense or defense?
I would say the offense certainly more promising. Like, you know, I don't know if it's statistically any better.
I think it is.
It might be slightly, but your little metric they're better, I don't think so. Oh maybe by EPs.
I saw that this week. That's what other ada. I didn't know which one of you were going on. Oh yeah, the same thing to me.
So they're defensively right now, the you know, the number everybody throws out there is their thirtieth and d v A defensively, they were ninth last year, right like that that's always it. But you know, I wrote down some of their other numbers for the show today. I mean they're thirty first in past DVOA. They're defensively, Yeah, they're twenty fourth on third down defensively, they're twenty third in the red zone defensively, like this is just the red zone.
Yeah, but when you look.
At defensive coaching, I always look at past defense, third down, red zone, like I think those are the three biggest things, uh that you need to be good on defense, and they're bottom of the league and all three. And the big thing that I look at with this defense right now is a combination. I think it's It's one. They don't play fundamentally sound defense anymore.
They don't.
They don't play blocks well, they don't take angles well, they don't tackle well, they don't you know, they're mechanics up front, Like there's questions about fits and things like that, like our guys in the right gap apps or guys in the right spots? Are they getting into the right alignment's pre snap is something that Jabriel Peppers spoke about after the game on Sunday that he didn't feel like they did that often enough, consistently enough.
I mean, they're on.
The goal line and there's just nobody in gaps right, James Connors just walking in for touchdowns. I get it's the goal line, Like you're probably not gonna stop him anyways, but it would least be nice to make him go through somebody right to get into the end zone.
So you see a.
Lot of stuff that I would label controllable, Like I think all these things assignments being in the right gaps, you know, being a fundamentally sound like you can can even if you don't have great roster talent, like you can control your own house right, Like you can control
those things. And a lot of the time, especially on the defensive side of the ball, I feel like you can overachieve on defense by just being structurally sound, like just having eleven guys playing the right defense, playing the right gaps tackle well, like you can get away with the fact that you don't have, you know, the eighty five bears of talent on the defensive side of the ball if you're doing those types of things. And the Patriots defense right now just isn't doing those types of things.
And I think Girod Meyos spread really thin as a first time head coach and that his imprint hasn't necessarily been on this defense as much as he expected. I think DeMarcus Covington, it was a pretty big promotion for DeMarcus Covington, and I think we were all excited about
his prospects as a coach moving forward. But I think you're seeing just what happens when you put two guys in a position that are both green, right, like that bald weren't totally ready for the job yet, And I don't know where they go on that side of the football, because what they did against Arizona on Sunday was way too simplistic, Like the Cardinals just undressed them with little motions and things like that.
The entire time.
It wasn't like the ram style of motion where they were motioning at the snap to create space in the defense. They were using coverage indicators, like they're just motioning a guy across. If somebody went with him, it was man to man. If they didn't, it was zone, and Kyler just had answers right no matter which the coverage was, and he was just seeing it pre snap all right
there in man to man. I have Trey McBride on del Pettis, that's a matchup that we're gonna win, and I'm gonna hit him for twenty nine yards on third down.
Like those types of things just consistently happened in this game where they were just they were just beat And I just I don't know if it's simple as get everybody back next year that was supposed to be here, you know, get one hundred percent of Christian Barmore, get one hundred percent of Jabriel Pepper's, Kyle Duggar Jwan Bentley, Like I can get that.
Pass rusher to replace Matthew Judah.
Yeah, Like I can hear that argument, Like if you want to use the I want to call it injury excuse, but injury excuse for the defense or availability excuse. Like I can hear that argument and say that Water will find its level next season. But what concerns me the most, and this is really on both sides of the ball, but since we're starting with the defense, there's just a lack of creativity when it comes to scheme to try to do anything that gets the offense on its heels.
Yeah, and what's troubling about that is just to play it off the offense. The Patriots offense. We talked about the Patriots offense also being maybe a little more simplified, and we'll talk about this later in the show. Alex Van Pelt actually had an interesting comment on this today, but it almost sort of makes sense for the offense
to be simplified. Maybe not to this extent, but you have a rookie quarterback, you have a line that is not remotely consistent, like you kind of they can't go right to a five.
Yeah.
Right, on defense, you have veterans, you have guys that have been here, You have players at key positions that, in theory allow you to complicate things more. Talking about a guy like Christian Gonzalez, right, yeah, so I can understand why the offense might be things. I can understand why the offense might be a little more simplified, right right. The defense, they brought everybody back they should have been starting. And we've done this the last few years with the defense.
I've talked this up where you bring everybody back, you don't really have to do a day one install in the spring because everybody's on page. Everybody's on that page from last year. There should be more levels to this defense. I get they've lost guys due to injuries, but even a lot of the backups are guys that were here last year. Yeah, so yeah, it's a good point by you. I just think how simple the defense is right now, and then you get to the execution on top of that.
The simplification is supposed to help the execution. It's not, but how simple it is right now is kind of eye opening.
Every single team when they come into a game against
the Patriots. They are not schematically challenged, Like they don't get put in binds by the Patriots right now, and either side of the ball where oh, like they're doing something that's really innovative or really creative that we have it, we're gonna have to have a plan against, like we're gonna have to have a plan against the Blitz package, or a plan against some sort of wrinkle on the defensive side of the football, like you might see what Mike McDonald or Brian Floores, or like one of these
coaches that do dial things up.
I mentioned Demiko.
Ryans earlier in the show, Like those guys are constantly challenging the opposing offense schematically, and I don't see that with this defense right now. I see them being very vanilla and very easy to decipher. And that puts you in a position where your players just kind of have to make plays. And Christian Gonzalez is sort of the only guy in that secondary that truly is capable of down in and down out making plays on the ball, and so it really puts you in a tough position.
And the other thing that I wanted to bring up defensively that we can move over to the offense is they've always been a two gapping system. Like I think they're always going to be a two gaping system. I understand why. I understand that it has its advantages and
things like that. But in order to be a great two gaping team, the Mike linebacker needs to be a sledgehammer, Like he just needs to be a Jwan Bentley, a Dante high Tower and Roberts I brought him up the other day even like going back aways to Ted Johnson, right, like you always had somebody in the middle of the defense that could take a guard on and put that guy on his heels, right and now, is nothing against their their linebackers, Johnny Devii, Christian Ellison, Taki, those guys
just aren't that.
They're not that kind of player. That's not who they are, the coverish linebackers, right, so well Tavia's played that role at times this year, but overall sorry yeah yeah.
So the biggest thing though, is that when they have a guy like that, the biggest reason why that is is so key to the defense is that it compresses space. Right, Like, all you're doing is you're bottling up the runner. Like there's a lot of times if you go, And we watched Jawan Bentley that he doesn't actually make the tackle, but he's compressing the space and he's blowing up the blocking scheme so that somebody else can come in and make the tackle, right, or multiple people can come in
and make the tackle. So what's happening a lot of the time. And I thought the uh the fifty three yarder by James Connor was a great example of this. You know, they have the polar coming across. Marcus Jones is like the nickel on that side of the field. He does his best, but like he's five eight one eighties play to make right, so he he tries his
best to hold up the polar. But Jabriel Peppers is put in a spot where there's just a lot of room for James Connor to make a cut right, Like there's just not anybody compressing the space so that he can just take him on straight on. Like James Connor essentially has a two way go like he could go,
he could have gotten around him both ways. And so now if you're Jabriel Peppers, you're just kind of sitting there like waiting for him to declare, and it's just really difficult to then make that stop and make that play. So I look at a lot of the things that are happening from a run defense standpoint as like, okay, well you're your front mechanics might need to change, Like you can't be a two gapping defense if you don't have the horses to go out there and be an
effective two gaping defense. Now, on that particular play, they did try to run like a little bit of a stunt, like to get a little bit more penetration. But like, in general, I just think it's really difficult to play a two gapping defense without a really really good, hard hitting mike linebacker, like even like guys like freaking terrez Hall, like who was like on the team in twenty twenty, Like he wasn't a great player, but he could he could take on a guard.
That was the one thing I like teres Hall because it was the one thing he did. He lowered the hammer, by the way, he was here last year.
Yeah, I remember that. I liked terres Hall too, And and that was the main reason is like you saw the role that he could play in the defense. Was he like prime ray Lewis? No, but you saw a role. Okay,
this is what he does for this defense. So I just wonder when it comes to like tweaks and things like that on the defense side of the ball, if there was ever or is ever a consideration that two gapping would these this personnel, Like even looking at defensive end now they have Barmore back now, but like, is Daniel a Qualley like a true two gapping defensive end. No, he'd like he would be much better suited if you let him get into a gap and get up the
field a little bit. So I know I'm picking on you know, a lot of schematic stuff with the defense, but I just I understand that people have this overarching thing a lot of you know, we get a lot of calls and emails being like, look at the talent on the roster right.
Well, I guess I was talking to somebody about this earlier, Like for all the criticism of the coaching, and I'm not saying that it's not warranted. Yeah, Like, don't we talked a lot at the beginning of the year about the roster and the shape it's in. Yeah, And I understand that you know, that's been talked about and that's more of an offseason topic and all that and change. Yeah, over the last few weeks. So I just like the
coaching stuff shouldn't overshadow the talent on the roster. I said, it's not fair to talk about defensively.
I truly believe that they are not the thirtieth worst defense in the league on paper.
That's fair. I truly believe that. Now. Do I think that they're an elite defense on paper?
No?
No, And were they ever going to be? Probably not.
Maybe if they had everybody healthy and running at one hundred percent, they could have been, you know, an average to above average defense like they were last year, right Like, I think that that's realistic in terms of their talent on the roster. Now, they're probably middling at best in terms of talent, but they're not thirtieth and they have a number one corner. They have a young player in Keon White that can get after quarterbacks on third down.
They have guys that I always like that are those hard hat lunch paale guys, godshow whys to buy, you know, dugger peppers like these guys have been around and played a lot of football in the NFL, and they've done it a lot better than what we've seen them do it this year. So that's the troubling thing for me.
On defense, I just don't know where you go with that if it's not going to be Jirod fixing it, right, Like, if it's not going to be Girod fixing it, like I've heard a lot of well, why don't they just get the Ben mcado a defense?
Well, isn't that supposed to be? Yeah, we talked about this last week, right, you.
Know, so you're in a tough spot in there on defense. Moving over to the offense, there's a lot of things that were said today at Alex Van Pelt's press conference. I think a lot of them are relatable to what I was going to say anyways. But on the offensive side of the ball, I really just felt like it's kind of a double whammy here in terms of this game against Arizona. One, I don't think they were very well prepared for this game against the Cardinals. It was
a it was a different opponent. They don't play a ton you know. It's one of those weird, like you know, other conference, like every four years type of games, right, Yeah, And I think that they got caught off guard by a few things that Arizona did.
The number one thing. Arizona is one of these teams.
You know, we talked about the Colts being sort of a do what you do defense, and we talked about the Bills really being that, Like the Bills are really a pretty straightforward defense too. The Cardinals, especially up front, they change a lot with their fronts, right like they have they run a lot of different varieties of different fronts, and they are constantly like shifting the line like right before the snap, and they like they do a lot
of things. And you know, some of it with guys like Vederian Low, like he just didn't block the guy right, Like, I get that, but a lot of it, you know, there was a lot of times in this game, at least three or four times where Vederian Low was just like blocking air, like he was just blocking an open gap.
And I'm thinking to myself, like, how is this happening?
Right?
Like, how are these things happening? And they're talking to some of the linemen. It sounded like they were a little bit off with like their points and stuff like that of Okay, you know we're gonna have you're gonna have this gap. Well, what happens when they shift and there's nobody in that gap right, you know. Now, now who am I blocking? You know?
And now a lot of that happened.
And the other name that came up was budh They had a tough time declaring what Buddha Baker was when he was in the box. Is he a safety? Is he a linebacker? Is he on the tight end? Is he blitzing?
Right?
Like?
What is right? What is he? And these are the types.
Of things that you go into a game and you know, the center comes to the line of scrimmage and the center calls out the front four down, three down, right, like they call out the front even odd and then they have rules of like this is how we're treating these players, right, So these are the linemen have you know, five guys that they can block? So these are the
five guys the linemen are responsible for. If this guy comes, if that guy comes, it's on the quarterback, it's on you know, the back and bit blitz pick up, like you have different rules. I thought in this game, what they really struggled with was that sort of coordination of what are we calling this? What are we declaring Buddha Baker? You know, how are we setting the mic? If this is the way that they're tilted, like those types of things.
And again I go back to what I said to before about controllables, like that's a controllable right, Like that is not oh Vederian low Whift trying to block Brandon Browning. That is a controllable aspect of the game. That even if you have a plan going into the game and it's a bad plan, if you're all on the same page, then it might still work.
Right.
That's that's really how a lot of these things go down, Like it could in hindsight, you could look back on that and be like, I don't know how it worked, like that was kind of an awful plan, but we got away with it because everybody was on the same page and everybody was doing the same thing. In this game, there was way too much of confusion upfront from the
offensive line. They don't have the talent to get away with that, Like they're not talented enough in that group to have mental mistakes and lapses and bad snaps and things like that. So that was a big, big problem in this game. And the other thing that I would I would point to, I do not believe they expected Arizona to play as much man coverage early on in the game, as they did. The Cardinals play a lot of zone. They're one of the more zone heavy teams.
They bucked that trend this week by playing a lot of man to man early in the game. They were fifty percent man on in the first quarter in this game was Arizona. They played a lot more zone as the game wore on because the score, you know, they they were just kind of keeping things in front of them. But they came out and they played man to man, and the Patriots got fooled by a lot of their man to man coverages into running things that weren't going
to work into that defense. The Brady thing right like, are.
You snapping the ball in effective play against that defense? Answer to the test, you're right.
So they you know, big one to me, you know, just breaking down the whole opening drive. I've heard a lot that they moved the ball on the opening drive. If you actually go and watch the opening drive, it was a mess, and they moved the ball because they had some things go their way within that mess. Very first play of the game is at eleven yard completion the Hunter Henry. Their spacings off on the on the
route combination Jalen Polk doesn't clear out. Actually had Austin Hooper for a bigger play if the spacing had been correct. They have bad spacing on that play. The next play they gained sixteen yards on a little swing screen to ramondre Stevenson. Ben Brown rolls the snap to Drake May and he just gets the playoff on the screen to Remandre. Then you have a holding call on third and five.
And then the third and ten that they got off Drake checked into a screen when he shouldn't have checked into a screen, right, So like even then it was like watching it back, I was like, well I should have seen this coming, Like, yes, they got some yards out of the first drive, but they really were not buttoned up from the get go.
No, they weren't. It was it was all over the place. To go back to something you said about Buddha Baker that stood out to me because they talked about during the week, Like, Buddha Baker is a guy we need to be aware of. They use him differently. They use him as a linebacker, they use him as a safety, they use him as a corner. We need to know where he is, identify him right. Things like that and that that wasn't there on the offensive line two it
looked discombobulated. Ye, to your point, I just think there were too many guys, and I there were the talent gap was there, right, Darian Logan's blown by a couple of times on those two short yarded situations. Lade Robinson get stood up. But I think what you see is guys try to overcompensate for that, and that's where some of the I don't know that I'd call it freelancing, but like me different page, Yeah, it comes from.
Yeah, you know, you look at I always I hate to bring up like all like the Yester Years all the time, but like with Scarnekia, how many linemen did Scarnekia take? You know that we were like who and then all? But it worked because at least they were in the right spot. Five guys right, and so even if they didn't have great talent at a spot or two, they were able to get by because they were so well prepared going into the games. And that is very
noticeable in this film. I'm not saying it's every single week, but in this film it was very noticeable that they don't play the Cardinals a lot. And I don't think that they were fully prepared. I also think if you watch the Cardinals against certain teams, you know, they play bad teams differently than they play good teams, So the numbers are kind of skewed because you know, against good teams, they might be a little bit less aggressive than they
are against bad teams. The other thing I wanted to bring up offensively and kind of segue a little bit into what Alex van Pelt said today at his press conference, which I thought was like one of the most interesting press conferences of the year.
There's a lot to unpack them. We learned like it was in terms of being educational, it was good. It was I think I received it more positively than you did. Maybe.
I like Alex van Pelt at press conferences. I think he does a nice job. I think he's he's professional like and you can clearly tell that that you know,
he's been experienced at this. The one thing though, that I can't let go, and it's bigger to me than just the third and fourth and one, like that's sort of the microcosm of it, but it's bigger to me than that, And really, you know, I always kind of felt this way, but It really hit me hard watching the Bills offense this week a little bit and studying the Bills on film the way that Joe Brady leverages all of Josh Allen's talent, like his mobility, his arm talent,
but especially his mobility into their scheme to threaten defenses and to manipulate defenses and create space in the defense and all this kind of stuff and numbers advantages for the offense, like those types of things that all it is is just like Josh Allen needs to be accounted for, right Like it's not even something that's like so revolutionary, Like they're doing a lot of the same stuff that they did, you know, Brady did at LSU in twenty nineteen.
Right Like, this isn't like super revolutionary, but every single play that they call for, Josh Allen has some sort of way of leveraging his ability against the defense, right Like it's some sort of threat. You know, they run that tackle trap play all the time where they pull the backside tackle and then they have an option. Right he's reading the front side is the end crash? Does
the end stay? Sometimes they'll put a bubble screen attached to it too, so we can throw it out there, and then they obviously have the run to James Cook on the inside. All those things they're doing is accounting for numbers, and so what you see with Buffalo's offense is their hat on the hat in the running game constantly, right, Like they just have the numbers to the run side
of the play. For James Cook. When you watch the forty one yard touchdown that he had against the Detroit Lions, he walks into the end zone because they literally just have a dude for every dude that's on the Detroit Lions that's to that side of the field. Besides, the deep safety in the middle of the field is the
one guy that James Cook has to make miss. But once he's moving full speed at you know, ten, twelve, fifteen yards down the field, it becomes pretty easy for a talented back like him to make the free safety miss in the middle of the So you have these advantages that Allen's mobility has in the offense, you know, moving the pocket right, like even from under center, like having boots and having nakeds and things like that, like all of these things that they've built into this scheme.
And then you watch the Patriots and they just don't do any of those kinds of things with Drake May. And they don't use Drake May's full you know, assembly of powers right Like it's it's like they, you know, use a superhero comparison, Like they don't use all of his of his superpowers at their disposal. They don't leverage these things against the defense. He's their best playmaker on offense.
He's the best thing they got going for him, and they're they're not They're asking him to play to like seventy five percent of his strains by not running him. So today with Dallas Vanpeld he had a lot to say about this sort of thing. I think the biggest thing to me was that he mentioned earlier on in his press conference that there they want to have a conservative effort, uh concerted effort, I should say, of getting
Drake May through these last three games healthy. And the natural fall up for me was, if you guys were eleven and three instead of three and eleven, would you be running him in these situations?
Right?
And his answer was yes. So that tells me that the Patriots are basically telling us that they have gone out of their way to or in the order to protect Drake May from injury to not run the offense at its full boat right and to and to take some of these quarterback runs off the table until they're more competitive as a team. But my only like sort of uh, you know, clapback at that is, how do you expect to be a competitive team if your quarterback is being held back?
Right? Like?
How that that's what makes the Bills the Bills, Like, that's what makes them unstoppable. That's what makes the Baltimore Ravens stoppable, you know. So that's what makes Jayden Daniels and the Commander is a playoff team.
It's funny you use those three examples because the Bills have had trouble getting over the hump in part because Josh Allen is so banged up at the end of every year. The Ravens have had trouble getting over the hump because Lamar is not Lamar come the playoffs because he's taken such a beating. The Commanders have fallen off ever since Shane Daniels suffered that rib injury. So I think you kind of get your answer there is to
why they're worried about it. That's a fair point because they and Van Pelt like he almost sounded shell shock today when he's talking about, yeah, I know what comes with the quarterback run game. I remember losing the quarterback for the year in Cleveland and you look at now, Look, I think Mahomes is fine. But in theory, you look with the Chiefs are going through Mahomes right now, things
like that. So I've talked about this. I don't think the answer to how much you run the quarterback who can be a factor in the run game is zero. I think you just take some of the risk that comes with him getting hurt because of what that can add to your offense. On not running him right now, you know, I think it's glass half full, glass half empty. When you look at Van Pelt's approach on one hand,
and this goes back to conversations we had. It's very similar the conversations we had about when to start Drake may right, And you know, is he going to help you win more games right now in the immediate yes, But is that ultimately what's best for the organization. You could argue glass half empty. I don't care what the record is. Win games. That's your job. Go out there, do everything you can win every single game. On the schedule. You could look at it glass half fall and say
Van Pelt, you know, where's his job security at? And he's still so I think not running Drake May right now. Now they could have worked in a quarterback steak last week, but as a whole, I think not running Drake May right now makes sense. We know he can do it. It's not the kind of thing that you're necessarily going to get better with that better at with reps. I think it's just an instinct thing. Every run is different.
You can you know he can work on that in practice, that's not something where he needs to do in games a lot to get I also don't know how much better he needs to get at it. He's a pretty dang good runner when he takes off on a scramble, right Yeah. Sure, some things with the Reid option and seeing that better, but again you can simulate that in practice. I get wanting him to get through the year healthy.
I've said this since the beginning. The worst thing that could happen is he suffers some kind of long term injury and loses development time early in his career. So, you know, Van Pelt, with his job potentially online doing what's best for the kid and along with that doing what's best for the organization. Big picture. You look at and you say, that's a guy that's a leader, that's a guy that has the team over himself. Yeah. So again, you can approach it both ways, and maybe there's some
truth to both of them. But it was a really good question by you, and I think it kind of shows you where they're at right now. And Drake even talked about it this week, and John Mayo talked about it this week. These last three games are about development. These last three games are about who's gonna go out, Who's gonna be a part of this team moving forward.
We know the roster's going to change this offseason. Who is You know you have guys from guys like Drake May, Christian Zalez down to the bottom of the roster who are trying to show what they can do for next year. Drake May gets hurt, it blows a lot of things up. Yeah, so I thought it. He didn't need to admit that. He certainly didn't need to admit it, could have lied, could have talked around it. If he talks around it,
we kind of know what's going on. But I can't help but at least in part commend him for it because again, his job, we don't know, his job might be on the line, and he's still doing what's best for Drake may So I like that take.
I agree with you that that's commendable by Alex van Pelt, that he could go into this and I think, you know, just to use another rookie quarterback. I think the Commanders did this. I think the Commanders came out and they
unleashed Jaden Daniels right now. They installed basically a college offense with a college you know, coordinator and longtime head coach in Cliff Kingsbury, and they ran LSU's offense at the NFL level and it was gangbusters for the first like six weeks of the season, and to your point, he gets hurt and it hasn't been as good right now.
The biggest thing that I would just say and reverse to that though, is like my concern is that we don't necessarily know the schematic chops of Alex van Pelt in terms of designing that kind of options if they haven't put it on film.
That's where it gets in this weird conversation talking about Alex man Pelt for the future, because if you want to defend him and defend his job, you can sit here and say, we know he's good at player development. We know he's good at that part of it. There is more, like, if he's holding back the quarterback runs, what else he holding back? Maybe there's other things. Maybe it's not about Drake May's health, but maybe there's some things. And it's like we're three and eleven.
I have this, but I'd rather save it and not put it on tape and come out next year week one with it and go gangbusters.
Right, here's why. Or you could say, all right, he's holding back the quarterback runs saying that to save his job. How much is how much more really is there? Why wouldn't he be doing it?
Yeah, sorry to interrupt. Here's where I'm at with that. Yeah, because this is where it comes in with like, because I think this is an interesting conversation, right, Like we don't actually know the answer to that question of how
much is he holding back versus not? No, we can only speculate, but I would say that comment opens the door to the possibility that he's holding more back, right, so, or sorry to cut you off again, how much is he holding back because we don't have the offensive line to run this, we don't have the wide receivers to run this, et cetera. Right, So here, here's where I would go if I am Drod Mayo in this whole regime.
Right now, here was where I would go with Van Pelt in January, when the season is over, I would say to Alex van Pelt, Okay, show me the actual stuff, right, you know, give me a presentation of what you actually want to run or actually are capable or could run in terms of quarterback runs in particular, or just movement right, like moving the pocket right, running the quarterback, all the things that we could do, uh to I know you you're gonna hate to basically bills like this offense, right,
like you really want to be the bills like that, that's what you want to do.
Cutting down the turnovers. But yeah, and we know Van Pelt is not okay with the turnovers, unlike the nerds who have excused them. Okay, he doesn't turn the ball over as much anymore because they made it a point of emphasis. So back to back weeks, get to the place we'll get to the interceptions.
But so basically, give me a presentation, give me a power point on this is what we're actually gonna run. And because if I'm Gerrod Mayo and Elliot Wolf, I'm saying to Alex Van Pelt, well, we're gonna get the personnel right now. I understand that people hear me say
that and are like, well, what confidence do you have. Well, if they're not gonna get the personnel, it doesn't matter what they call, right, So let's just operate on the on the prism that they are actually gonna do their jobs and they're gonna be They're gonna get the personnel. We're gonna get the personnel. We don't want you to worry about that right now in season. You gotta worry about the fact that you're left tackles and right tackles deficient and all that stuff.
But we're gonna get you tackled. That's done.
We're gonna get your receivers, Like, just tell us what you have cooking in the lab and if you like what he says, then great, then then you're good.
You're golden.
Yeah, if you don't like what he says, you have two choices. One is obviously to move on. The other choice is sending him and this happens all the time, and coaching sending him to some like college program and you're probably better at picking a program than me, honestly, uh for like a week or two just to learn their quarterback run package, right, Like, just teach me your quarterback run package and have Van Pelt then come back with a different a new chapter to his play.
What right think about? And maybe this wouldn't this wouldn't have to be instead of that, But what about having like a run game coordinator a pass game coordinator?
Adding yeah, or that's another option too, right, is like hiring somebody from the outside who specializes in like spread offense and that kind of stuff, and is going to install that along with Alex van Pelt. I forget who I was listening to on the radio the other day, so I'm sorry that I can't credit this person, but they said that this is what Andy Reid did in
Kansas City. It might have been Burt, it might have been Albert Breer that he hired Brad Childress to come in and essentially be his spread game coordinator and take the Chiefs West Coast offense and turn it into a modern West Coast offense, right and install all these rbos and motions and things like that into the offense. So
that's a path for you too. And then when we come back in here for OTAs and you come back in here for training camp next season and next spring and summer, that's when you start drilling all these things, right, Like, that's when you really start to hone in on running these things, so that when you get to September, you've drilled it for six weeks and you guys know what you're doing, you know, in terms of these types of things.
That would be my big thing with Van Pelt now is all right, we got through the season.
We knew it wasn't gonna be pretty. It wasn't pretty, But what's next? Like what's two point zero of this? Seems to say they maybe aren't already doing some of that stuff. At practice, Van Pelts talked about like there are things on the play sheet he's not calming. Yeah, so maybe this has already started. Yeah, I'll give you the school. By the way, you're not gonna like this, but I'll give you the school that you do that with. Okay, it's army.
I honestly don't hate it.
Bryson Daily is like a big physical. Now he's not six ' five like Drake, Yeah, but he's six foot he's listened to twenty. I think he's bigger than that. I think he's probably closer to two thirty yea. And it's a lot of that, like you want to Josh Allen kind of runs where it's not you know, you look at how Lamar runs, you look at how Jane Daniels runs. They're running to the outside, they're using more speed,
they're trying to get to the perimeter. Josh Allen is and they'll run him to the outside too, but they're not afraid to put him between the tackles and have him truck somebody. That's kind of how bryceon Daly and Army's offense were.
Yes, so they run a lot of inverted Verer in Buffalo, so like, well that's Army. Yeah, So like inverted meaning that the inside run is actually the quarterback and not the running back. The running back is the one that's trying to get the corner, and the quarterback is the one that's trying to get the middle of the wall.
And actually you get the perfect marriage of it because you know who Armies head coaches, Todd Bonkin's brother, Todd Monkets Jeff Monkett. Yeah, so you get and and him and his brother obviously discussed these things right there, kind of a similar philosophy. So you have that Jeff Monkin kind of influence, that Ravens influence. But you also they built it around Brendan Daly is a more physical, bruising runner. He's not gonna run around guy, He's gonna run over guys.
He was I think the fifth or sixth leading rusher in college football this year, not among quarterbacks, just overall. That's the That's the school i'd try to emulate. Yeah, look, I just the seventh in the nation. He ran for fifteen hundred yards in twelve games.
I am willing to be open to the fact that Alex van Pelt might still be capable of doing this himself without having to change coordinators. And I gotta be honest with you, like, you know how much I love Josh McDaniels. I think Josh McDaniels is a great coordinator, not a great head coach, but a great coordinator and a great play caller. But it does concern me to change playbooks on Drake May from year one to year two. He's more talented than Mac Jones. He's a better quarterback
than Mac Jones. But we just did this, like we just changed coordinators on a rookie quarterback that had a promising rookie season and went to somebody different, and it just went off the rails like three years ago, right, not even And I just I'm very wary of that. It's not the reason you keep Alex van Pelt like, it's not. The number one reason is continuity. I don't think that's what it is. But I do think it has to play a factor in where you go on offense.
And I do believe that if it's Gerd Mayo that he wants to run a West Coast system, I don't think he wants to necessarily go back to the to the Earnhard Perkins offense, Like I don't think he necessarily wants to do that. So look, I I'm open to the fact that it could be Ox van pel that that does this and does this pivot. But in order for me to be open to that, I would I would.
I mean, I'm not going to They're not gonna I'm not going to be in on the meeting shocker, But like you have to have a presentation, you have to have to sit down, and I wouldn't even.
Wait till the end of the year. I think that would start probably now, and maybe you start doing some of that stuff at practice to kind of see what it looks like. So you know, you know your point about that. If they were to have that meeting, it's not just okay, what are your will get you the player? What are your plans? It's what are your plans so we know which players to get right that fit into that?
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I think they have some of the guys already that oh yeah, that would fit into it. Maybe maybe not so much on the line because they have a lot of work to do there. But I actually really feel like Pop Douglas is like a useful player and that sort of thing. You know, I watch how the Bills, I use Khalil Shakir Uh and killers.
Here's a little thicker, like it's a little bigger than Pop Douglas, But like in general, you know, they run a lot of orbit right with the motion coming behind the quarterback and things like that.
George last week, Yeah, Cardinals.
Yeah, like they use a lot of that orbit motion or satellite motion where he goes behind the quarterback. And what I really like about what the Bills will do is they'll they'll use the motion man to run a play action fake to the motion right, so they're gonna fake the sweep, the you know, the Jets sweep or whatever, and then that allows that frees up the running back
to like get into the pattern instantly. So they ran like an orbit motion behind Josh Allen against Detroit and then they ran the back and on a wheel right from the place that the motion was coming from right, so that space just opens up and then they get man to man coverage and it's just a running back on a linebacker with like twenty five yards of space to work with, and it was a bomb. So you
look at these types of things that Buffalo does. That's that's just what the Patriots offense is missing, and that you know people that are not it's like me that are studying Bills tape this week, Like when you watch the game on Sunday, you'll see it. Like you'll see when they get down on the goal line that they're running bash and they're running counter and they're running trap and they're running all these things with Alan that allow him to just walk into the end zone sometimes untouched
for touchdowns like last week. You know, the Red Seas just parted and he just waltzed in for a touchdown from like three or four yards out. The Patriots need to get that stuff in the playbook next year, like it needs to be in the playbook next year. That's how you get competitive. I get it now. But that's how you get competitive on that side of the ball. So that's that's your coaching autopsy. Did you do three up, three down? Are you prepared?
I am all right? Did we agree that we're retiring Christian ZoZ just saying he's good? Okay?
So I have two up and four down because of you know that kind of game. That's what you get from me. So I'll just start because we both just said it. I had Christianzalees is the number one.
I think he's just like he just counts it like we did with bar Moore last ye he's number one up.
I still want to talk about it because there's not a whole lot of positives to talk about it right now. This to me was one of his best games as a pro. Now, Marvin Harrison Junior is maybe not the instant franchise number one receiver that we thought he was gonna.
I wouldn't say we there because some people some people it said he was very good, but he was not going to instantly step in and fix everything. You did say that the way many thought you did say that.
Now. I also had him and Malik Davers really close. By the end of the process.
Has been good. I think he's just limited in that offense.
So Christian Gonzales against Marvin Harrison Junior. I didn't write down routes. I think it was twenty two routes across from him in coverage, five targets, one catch, twenty three yards and it is a pick play. Didn't play it great, to be fair.
I'm surprised more teams haven't done that to Gonzalez this year, and I think you're gonna start to see it more now.
So he's usually pretty good at navigating it. On this one, I think he was in inside the slot. I think that sort of took him by surprise that they ran it that way. So he had PFF had him with two PBUs technically, I know the the box score after the game, I want to say had had three one of them now, but PFF tracks what they call forced in completions, which isn't necessarily that they get a hand in there to deflect the pass, but it's more just like such tight coverage that like there's no way the
pass was going to be completed sort of thing. So they had four of those for him on five targets. So all the other targets that he had, he was just he had him in jail. I mean, he was just strapped in on Marvin Harrison Junior. This is one of those tapes that when you're Christian Gonzalez, who I talked to you this week, I have a post about
it tomorrow. If you want to make the case that Christian Gonzalez is like an All Pro, a Pro Bowl caliber player this year, that this is this is the film that you show, Yeah, you know this was This was a league cornerback play by him on side. Yeah.
I mean, I don't have much to add to that, just playing incredibly high level right now. I think, you know, the team's records probably hurting him in terms of some of that league recognition stuff, Pro Bowl, All Pro. But can you name five better corners in the NFL right now?
No?
I mean sir Tan's having a great year.
Yeah.
Uh, Stingley's having a great year. I would say that you're a third right, like you're you're you have an argument that Christian Gonzalez has been at worst the third best corners.
By the way, this show had Stingley oversaw us that it did it did, did it did very proud. I was like annoyed by that one. It really goes to show and this is the last thing I promised have to move.
But we've talked about this before, and I know Stefan Gilmore once he got into like a little bit cocky defensive player of the Year mode, which I loved.
I love that version of Stefan Gilmore. Uh.
He came out and said it like there's zone corners and there's man corners, like some of us, like Christian Gonzalez, like Stefan Gilmore, like Derek Stingley, Like we try right and we're gonna go with you all over the field, whether you're in the slot, whether you're left, you know, to the left of the quarterback, to the right of the quarterback.
Like we're going with you everywhere.
Then there's corners like Sauce Gardner that had just taken a deep third of the field and cover three all game long. And when you have a great pass rush, you all of a sudden you look great, right like you look fantastic. Oh wow, you know I easier job is an easier job.
I've said this to you off there. I don't know that I've brought this take on the year before that Seattle three defense. Yes, is two corners with the Shanahan offenses to quarterbacks. Yeah, it takes a lot off their plate. It makes it very paint by number for them. It puts the emphasis some players in other positions.
Yeah, good one. Who's your number two?
My number two?
Up?
I had four because I didn't know if we were if I didn't remember if were tired Christian Azalz or not. Yeah, Drake May Yeah. I thought for what this game was, and they were obviously very conservative. Was that because the offensive line was struggling and they wanted to protect him? Was it just general conservativeness? Is probably some of both? For what this game was, he handled himself well. A couple bad snaps avoided disaster there. I thought, I know
it's in garbage time. The throw to Kendrick Bourne's a really good throw. Your arm doesn't know how much times on the clock or what the scoreboard is Mechanically, physically, it's an impressive throw. Same with the play to Pop Douglas and he he turned the ball over, but that it hit the receiver in both hands. Yeah, like second, he didn't put the ball on Harm's way for a second straight game. He did have a spray, which we hadn't seen from him in a few weeks. Yeah, but
it wasn't a dangerous throw. Was he just he missed it. It wasn't near anybody. You hope the sprays don't add up, you know, It's just all right. It came back, move on from it. But I thought for what this game was, this was a game where Drake may probably should have had a much worse game than he did, just given everything surrounding him, And yet he was solid.
Yeah. So the reason why I didn't have him as an up isn't it because I didn't consider all the same things.
They just asked so little of him in this game.
And this is another thing about you know, I didn't bring this up with the whole rant about the offense, but this is my initial take after the game. So I didn't want to repeat myself too much. They just came out of this game. This was Patricia esk like in terms of like screen screen draw draw, right, Like, they just didn't put anything on his plate. And that, to me was really frustrating because for one and the boss says this all the time, Fred says, don't coddle him, right,
like you did that with mac Jones. And it worked for one year, and then the more that was put on mac Jones's shoulders, the worst that it got, Like you have to see what you're capable of at this level.
Yeah, I don't know if it was coddling so much as protecting, especially in the wake of Van Pelt's comments today. Yeah, you look at the way that offensive line played early, right, I wonder if they saw that and said, yeah, we can't five step drops, No, those are off the play sheet. Rollouts, no, those are off the play sheet. Like I wonder if they just looked at it and said, we got to
make sure he makes it through this game. The offense, like sometimes starting pitcher in baseball gets up there in the first inning, hangs a curveball and maybe it's a good pitch, but hangs his curveball and catcher looks at it and says, doesn't have the curveball today. We're throwing more fastballs, We're throwing more change ups. I wonder if they just went out there saw it. Offensive line doesn't have it today. We can't put the kid in in danger. Ear I hear that.
But when you go into halftime and his average aery yards per target is negative point eight, like you're below zero. Yeah, and everything is near the line of scrimmage. They really didn't even remotely touch on opening up this offense until midway through the I'm.
Not necessarily defending it. Like if they if the goal was to protect him, I get it, but they overdid it. Yeah, I'm just saying, I wonder if that's what happened. I wonder if it was so much protecting Drake. May the rookie putting too much on his plate just for his physically protecting him with the blocking.
Yeah, I'm be in. Look, he grated out well again, but a lot of his plus players came late in this game. You know, some people would say, in garbage time of this game, Uh, the interception, I put it on Booty. But I also think he was late to the d cut a little bit because of the pressure. You know, that's one of those that it's probably more on Ben Brown getting beat and Booty dropping the pass,
and it is on Drake. But I've seen him throw that ball sooner and better and like more on time, I guess is the better way to put it in the past, you know, like the ones to Kendrick Bourne against the Colts were just perfectly time, perfectly fit.
Overlords at PFF said it wasn't a turnover worthy play.
It's not a turnover worthy play, just like in my mind the Hunter Henry one on the goal line wasn't a turnover worthy play.
But could it have been? Could have been better? Yeah, right, but it shouldn't. That throw shouldn't lead to a turnover. No, that's why it's not a turnover worthy play.
Now. I just it goes back to the quarterback run thing for me as well. Like they they just they did not ask him to do a whole.
Lot in this game.
Yeah, And in my mind when I'm watching it, when I was about it right after the game, I'm like, he's not Bailey's appy, like right, Like you know, he's very talented. Like I don't understand why we're bottling up him up here, and then all of a sudden, you get it, Arizona starts playing some softer coverages. It's garbage time, whatever you want to call it. But like to your point that the goball to Kendrick Bourne in the fourth quarter, that's man to man right, Like, that's not they're not
backing off there. They're playing press man across the board and he just throws a dime to Kendrick Bourne. Like, if you do that in the first quarter instead of the fourth quarter, and that play doesn't take forever, that's not like he doesn't need four seconds to like get
that throw off. But if you do that early in the game, then some of the short game stuff that they were trying to do now it almost makes the defense like respected a little right, Like you know, now maybe some of those swings and the screens and the flats and things like that, Like maybe that stuff like works out. You know, the little sticks that they like to run to the tight ends that the Cardinals will
we're all over. Well, if you run a little stick nod right where he acts like he's gonna sit, and then he goes up the field, up the seam and he hits him early on in the game. Well, now, maybe they don't sit all over those throws underneath anymore. Those are the types of things that I just feel like they could have done better. Anyways, I digress my my second up in this game.
You want some interesting breaking news here? Sure, the Jets have interviewed Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy for their GM job. Oh interesting? What do you think that?
I like Jim Nagy? I really have enjoyed all my conversations that I've had with him. I think he's a bright football mind. I think it would behoove him to not have to gas up every single player that goes to Mobile, right, you know, I think that would that would help.
He's very good.
At putting together teams and understanding the landscape of college. So from that aspect, if you're just looking to be truly like a draft and developed team, it's a it's a good person to interview.
Yeah, is he gonna use MAGN ratings? So that's the question. No, he is not. You saw that, right, did I can't. I don't. I'm choosing to believe that that story wasn't real. Next time people say who cares about the men ratings? Woody Johnson is a really great apparently really great. Apparently he cares.
Number two up number two Antonio Gibson. Okay, I thought Antonio Gibson both running backs. Yeah, I thought Antonio Gibson was fantastic in this game. Continues to just pound the table for more and more opportunities. He had eleven forced miss tackles in this game.
And he had more yards after contact than he had totally.
Yeah, so he had forty four after contact as a runner, and then he had thirty three yards after the catch in the passing game. So he had seventy seven yards that he basically.
He did on his own, did on his own. Yeah. No, he's good. Stevenson too. So the Patriots backs finished with one hundred and sixteen yards or sorry, no, that's with Drake may I'm not gonna do the math in my head. They they had how many did Drake may Drake may hae? None after contact? So the Patriots running backs finished with one hundred and two yards in this game. Ninety eight of those yards were after contact.
Yeah.
This you know, it was like early in the season against the Bengals where the running game worked. It wasn't because of the offensive line. It was those guys creating and good for them. And I thought, I think Ramondre Stevenson, after a rough stretch there in the middle of the year, continues to kind of get back into form. Here Gibson should have a bigger role. And you see as Gibson gets a bigger role, Ramondre Stevenson looks a little bit fresher. I wonder if those two things.
They outside the by which I think did remind of the buy.
But just as a hole for the last few weeks. So I thought both running backs ran hard, ran well. That was encouraging to see, especially like in theory. Obviously they're out of it now, but like these are probably gonna be their top two backs again next year, just based on contracts. Yeah, that kind of running. They're in Arizona, they're indoors. You get up here in the cold late in the year, you start running like that, you're gonna create some really big plays. Yeah.
So that the one play at the end of the game by Gibson where he catches the ball that's a little behind him with one hand, then breaks like three tackles and goes for a pretty big and it's.
Also with that those numbers, by the way, or without the one that was brought back on the Leaden Robinson.
Yeah, I mean that's that was a big time play on that catch at the end of the game by Antonio Gibson.
All right, anybody else? Yeah, I have one more Christian Ellis. I know it was a rough game for the defense as a whole, but he comes up. He tackles Kyler Murray in space on a third down. That's a really good tackle. Had another good tackle early on on the big James Connor run where Brill Peppers gets beat. You watch Christan Ellis on that. He comes almost all the way across the field to chase him down and make
that tackle. Busted his ass. If not, that's a touchdown. Yeah, And I hate, I hate to give an up on a play that was a what fifty six yard run? And it was kind of just that kind of game. But this where this team is at record wise, this time of year, who's still trying, who's still giving it? There all? Christan Nellis played with great motor in this game. He made a couple of plays when nobody else on defense really did you talk about what's the playing down
the road? How many of these guys are still going to be here. I don't think Christian Ellis is your starting linebacker. I think you need to find somebody with a more athletic skill set to play next to Juwan Bentley as a depth guy who's also gonna play on special teams and be kind of a spark plug. I'd like to see Christian Ellis on the team next year. I think he continues to prove that he belongs and should have a role. I don't know what that role is. It's probably not as big as it is this year,
but I don't think it's nothing either. Yeah.
No, I think it's a great point. I actually think you know, came away from this with the same thing with Christianallis, Like, if you can get him into a specialized role, you know, a third down, passing down situation type of role. Yeah, Like, I think he could be an effective player for you down the road. He's not a first and second down linebacker in this defense. We just talked about the whole Bentley, you know, sledge hammer,
that whole thing. That's not his game. But yeah, absolutely, I think that he could play in this defense in the future. All right, to the downs, yep, I have four I have it could have been probably eight under ten number one Vederian Low Vderian Low number one by far h sack, three hurries, four run stuffs he was responsible for in this game, including uh, the the third and one it was a third and one and fourth and one, whichever one it was, it was one of those was his fault.
Yeah, I forget which one. I just come back to.
With Viderian Low, you know he's gonna miss blocks, you know that he's gonna struggle at times because he's just limited talent wise. It really really gets off the reels for him when he's not locked in mentally, Like if he's not doing everything correctly all the time consistently, then he now he's a real problem.
He doesn't really just have an okay game. No, like he either oh hey, Vaderian Low played well today, kind of played above it or like it was bad. You don't just see him sort of play alright.
Yeah, So like the sack that he gave up, he just doesn't get out of his stance and gets.
Blown by him with three blowbys, two of them are on ye in the game.
Yeah, and then the four run stuffs was just as big of a problem in this game, I thought than the pressures too.
So look they it is what it is. And you hope that next year.
No, no disrespective Darien Low, but you hope next year you have a better left tackle that's starting these games.
But it's he played, so he's on the list. This is why no half measures at that position. Yeah, this is why I say I had him as well. I also just go to my second also on the offensive line, Ben Brown. Yeah. I gave the take last week that I would leave Ben Brown in for the sake of continuity with Drake May You gave the same tabe something like that. Apparently a bunch of people thought that was me saying Ben Brown was an All Pro and should never be removed from the lineup. That was not the case.
And look, if you can't get the ball back to the quarterback, everything else beyond there doesn't really matter. And he didn't have a great game blocking either, But I mainly look at the two bad snaps. Was good for a couple of months, but you got to get the ball back to the quarterback. Nothing else matters if you can't do that. Yeah, the dribbles back to the quarterback were tough. I mean that he was my number two
down too. Those were the two snaps were tough, and they came at tough spots to like just you know, opening drive, you're trying to get going. And then another one of them I was a third down, Yeah, put him in a bat third down spot. So like you had just two big spots for them too early on in the game. And then he also allowed three hurries in this game and was probably his worst game from
a blocking standpoint. In pass protection too, he had some really uncharacteristically ugly reps in pass pro in this game, including on the interception where he just gets completely whipped the line of scrimmage and that caused the whole play to kind of be late. And you know, Drake made a throw a little bit off his back foot, and
like all this kind of stuff. So it was a chain reaction from the get go that the center gets beat on the pressure and then all the other things happened in CONSEQUENTI because of that, if that play to Booty hits on time when he comes out of his break, it's a nice completion.
It's there.
But all these types of things contribute. So Ben Brown, number two down, I mean, look, it opens the door for Cole Strange. Absolutely, I still feel like it's a little unfair to Cole Strange to put him in an NFL game at center without any training camp, preseason, any sort of real work in there at a more live setting, Like you're not really practicing live this late in the season. So I still kind of err on the side that that might be a next season project with Cole Strange.
But I definitely think that you have to at least I would at least have him active for the game on Sunday. Yeap, Who's next?
My third one was Alex man Peltt. We already covered that, Yeah, just they went to shell. I get that there were limitations, but unable to pick up. Like when you're when you can't get one yard on two plays and you essentially run the same play back to back, it's not good. Yeah, not good, not good? All right. So my last two are on defense. Kyle Duggart probably should have somebody from defense, I'll say the safeties. Dugger and Peppers.
Yeah play so yeah, I didn't think Pepper's played well either, But Kyle Dugger again just just not good enough, you know, just lost in zone coverage. A couple of times over the middle of the field. There was a third down where they dropped out of a pressure into zone and Trey McBride just crossed in front of his face for an uncontested third down conversion was third and six, and Dugger let Trey McBride go untouched for the first seven yards of his route, and so it was just too easy.
The two miss tackles, you know, in the open field, were really really rough. Obviously, he's like the last line of defense on both plays, the doors screen and then the James Connor run, and he's got a chance to at least limit the damage. And you know, talking over the years with Devin mccordy, I remember that was always the biggest thing as being the last line of defense. It's already a big game, right like, if it's getting to you, if the ball is getting to you, it's
already a big gain. But at least you can make it a twenty yard game instead of a fifty three yard game right now, it really helps out your defense. So Kyle Dugger, again I would say this about Kyle Dugger. I almost didn't have him on here because something is going on with Kyle duggery ankle mental. I don't know what it is, but they have to get him right, you know what I mean. And maybe the offseason does that, you know, it's a reset and get away from football
for a little bit. But Kyle duger Is just has not been good enough for weeks now. It's just every single week. Do you have anybody else? So my last one on defense was Jolanie Tovai, who, again, like do I necessarily blame him for being in these positions? Like no, it's probably more of like a roster issue or a
talent issue or a coaching issue. But he's got two plays to make on third down where he makes contact with the runner with the receiver short of the line to gain and he whiffs on both of them right Like he had an opportunity early on in this game to stop James Connor on down and Connor brooke the tackle and got the first down. They just need him to be able to make those plays. You know, it's
one or two plays. It's not a big deal in terms of volume in this game for Julani to vie, but I just thought those were two backbreaking third downs that that cost the defense. So I had to have some defensive guys on there. Let's open it up. And I know people have been waiting, so we appreciate it. And we got, as you can expect, Alex the entire email inboxes, draft and off season topics.
So we'll get into that.
And first, Bridgeton's official tire, Bridge Stone official tire, The Newngland Patriots is proud. The partner was Sullivan Tire, New England's headquarters for quality Bridgetone tires. Visit Sullivantire dot com to find a location near you. All right, let's get to the phones. Patty is an aguam.
What's up? Patty? Hey? How you doing.
Pretty good? Hey listen, I don't know. I don't know if you're gonna have a show next week, but if you don't, I just wanted to stay the holidays, happy hanak, gentlemen, and I wanted to throw up a couple of hYP well just one hypothetical really well. Two, First off, will Campbell if his arms measure out, I want him. I don't care where they take him take them. Three, I don't give a you know, a flying f you know.
The other thing is if the other idea that I had and Alex, I know this, this kind of drives
you crazy, but but hear me out. Let's say that they do thank Higgins, or they're able to trade for DK Metcalf, you know, they get we get that big Stud X receiver, would you be opposed to maybe moving down the board a little bit, taking Luther Burden, who I know both of you guys love, and taking a guy like Connorley and this are like moving up to take Connory possibly at the end of the first or second I kind of I think, like Paulus said, I don't know if either of you guys have said this,
but like I think we need two wide receivers, and I think we need two studs. And I think if we get that big X, you know that outside X and Evan you know I said this on PU today. I'm not really a believer in to Mario. I think we need something better in that slat and I would love to you know, we just we kind of need an overhaul at at those first two wide receiver positions, and I want to get your guys thoughts on that. I'll take it out there.
Thanks, Patty, appreciate it.
So I.
I guess I agree to an extent with what he's saying about Pop Douglas, Like, Pop Douglas cannot be your number one receiver, right right, He probably can't be necessarily even your number two receiver on a good team, But he is a very useful slot and gadget player.
If I have T Higgins and Luther Burden getting more attention coverage, suddenly Pop Douglas going to look like a much better player. Yeah, Like, I don't think that.
I believe that there's a role for Pop Douglas as like a top three receiver in an offense if you build the room correctly.
Right.
So, look, I love loser Burden. I see where he's coming from. That Higgins and Burden together coming here. That pairing makes a lot of sense.
I'm for it.
I still am weary of the fact that you're not drafting a tackle probably until the thirties, maybe the twenties, like that, if you trade back in, I think we're both a little bit concerned about so doing that.
But if you get the right guy, I know Patty's talking about it. You know that take annoys me. It's more than Josh Simmons. Think nothing against him personally, but not the guy coming off a significant knee injury, Like, that's specifically what bothers me. If they really like Arianta Rasii or they really like Josh Connery, who are probably gonna go at the highest in the mid twenties, right, and you swing that, I could be sold on that, Like, okay,
that that makes some sense. You've got to really believe that either of those guys can be a Day one starter, but you could swing me on that. It's what specifically bugs me is either Josh Simmons or when you start talking about like Cameron Williams or Emery Jones, because those guys are right tackles, and I know that there's been some success moving guys from side to side this year, but it's another if that you have to deal with.
Can you just draft a player that's a good player at that position, that is ready to play that position, not that has to rehab, not that has to learn a new position. Just a guy that is a left tackle that you believe can be a good left tackle, period, full stop. No position changes, no injuries, no, none of that.
That's the hold up. If you want to sell me on the best path as T Higgins or DK Metcalf the outside X and then we're gonna move down to get Burden and use part of what we got moving down to move back up to get Erstrie or Connory. I don't know that it's what I would do, but i'd give a good grade for that. I would say that that's a pretty solid haul for it's a pretty I would say the positions are addressed.
Yeah, I love the idea in theory, and I agree that I would agree that it would be addressed right like they would. I feel like they would have attacked it if that's what they are I have done. I do think it's a little bit fantasy football. And I don't mean to pick on Patty, but it's just like that's a really difficult like Adam to split right, Like, Yeah, you've got to really wail that.
You gotta really want to say this too. And I know nobody wants to hear this. Hate to be the bear of bad news. I won't get my hopes of POLTYE Higgins fam a Patriots fan. Did you see what he did in terms of his agency? Yeah, I did. He jamar chase his agent. I understand that's a pretty clear message, but I'm still I'm still not totally sold.
That he doesn't hit free agency.
I know you had.
You know, Taylor Kyles and I have gone back and forth off the air about this a lot. I just for him to not hit free agency now after everything that's happened in Cincinnati. He's gonna make so much money on the open market. Yeah, but they would really have to blow him out of the water because like at this point, he's he's months away from being a free agent. You know, like it'd be different if he was still under team control for like another year or something like that.
But at this point, like you've made it this far. So unless they come at you with like thirty plus million a year, and then I just I still think he goes to market.
Joe Joe Burrow says what he says after that game.
Well, they're clear the Burrow and and a little bit Chase too, are clearly lobbying to keep them like that that I think.
That the Bengals would be I wouldn't piss those guys off from the Bengals, I'd be But if were the bengalsose guys.
If you're the Bengals and you you obviously you know, extend Jamar Chase and get that done. Like, aren't you one of those teams if you're Cincinnati, where like you could probably draft a receiver that has a similar skill set and you're good enough offensively with those two guys that, like, it's not the Patriots that.
Also their needs are on defense. That's if you pay those. If you get that, you know the offense is set, like the offensive line. They just used the first round pick on a tackle. Right, it's okay, we're gonna pay t Higgins and Padro mar Chase. Maybe you don't have a lot of money left, but all the money you
have left and all of your draft resources now are defense. Defense. Defense. Right, You're gonna get maybe not Abdua Carter, they're not gonna pick that high, but you get maybe like a James Pierce right or a Chiha Campbell in the first round. You get that edge rusher you go, you get one of or they probably go corner first because it's not a good corner draft, and you get one of those day two edge guys, one of the Ohio state guys.
You keep them in state. Right, you can address it's a it's a good linebacker draft, like you can this offseason. You can attack defense without spending a lot of for any team, you can attack defense without spending a lot of money. So that's what they need to attack. They can pay T Higgins and still think do what they need to do this offseason.
Yeah, it's a good point. I just think it's two full of the bank.
We call Tracks and ask him, Yeah, right, tell Trags call in, give us the Bengals offseason plan.
It's two full to me with T Higgins still, though, one is you have to at least account for the Bengals of it all. Yeah, And the fact that it's a smaller market team and now they're about to give out what like a billion dollars in contracts to like three guys. Essentially it's gonna be less than that, but
like I'm exaggerating a little bit. So you have to think about, Okay, we're you know, we're the Cincinnati Bengals, and we're like about to give out five hundred million dollars in contracts to three guys, right.
And that that's matters, Like Toy, it does matter. I'm gonna own the franchise, right, How many guys are they paying? They don't have a ton of big contracts coming after that. It's gonna be a few years. You look at their drafts the last few years, there aren't. I mean, there's some decent players, but Okay, even if form Marius Mims, who was tackling drafted last year, if he picks out, you're not giving that contract for another five years. If you take the first year option. By then you're not
signing Chase and Higgins the five year deals. Right, those guys are off the pall in. Chase is gonna get Chase, but not both of them. Chase is gonna get thirty five million a year, right, But I'm saying they don't really have burs paid. It's those two guys. A lot of the rest of theirs is either transactional or just really young and not doing for new contract for the next few years.
All I'm saying is is I just know that that team is not it's not the Dallas Cowboys there.
Well, the Cowboys are too. They're not printing money, is my point over there? You don't really have a Los Angeles Dodgers in the Uh.
The other thing I would say about this with the Bengals, I do think that there's an argument and maybe I would be dead wrong and it would set them back, and we could you know, I would allow for that to be right. But I do think that there's an argument that they have the infrastructure to just keep on doing what they always do in Cincinnati, which is just draft and develop, right, and so like is there I just I don't.
Know if they're not going to agitate Joe Burrow, I guess.
But like if you draft Joe Burrow, if you pay Jamar Chase and you draft Joe Burrow like a day two wide receiver that's in the similar mold as too, you're.
Talking about letting them both go.
No, no, no, absolutely not if you're signing Jamar Chase and you're drafting a Day two receiver that you feel like, hey, they I mean, Jamar Chase didn't really need development. So I'm not gonna give them too much credit for that one. But like they seem like a team that Yoshiva's t Higgins, Like these guys are making plays.
Yeah, you're kind of pitching aj Brown trailing Burks right now a little bit really because you have Chase. They didn't have another guy. But you're you're kind of taking the mystery.
Blocks, Okay, but you're you're pitching that with Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase. You're not picking that with Ryan Tannehill, right, Like, It's a different infrastructure. And I just think that good teams tend to spread the money around, right, you know, and like tend to take like more of like the Kansas City approach, where we have the quarterback that's gonna
make everybody better. So that's just my argument that the Bengals might not blow t Higgins out of the water with the contract offer that makes it so he doesn't go to market. Well, I just think the messaging out of there right now is pretty strong. I agree, but I'm not closing the door. All right, all right, Reggie is in Peabody. What's up, Reggie?
Hey, guys, I'm just I'm curious. I understand all the conversation about the rosters, talent and everything like that. I'm just thinking back on twenty twenty, when, you know, with the Cam Newton year, when we won seven games, which might end up being the amount of games we've probably went over the last two years. I'm curious how you see from a you know, from each position group, how this this roster today compared to the twenty twenty I remember excuse me. That was the year we had Nikio,
Harry de mere Bird, a young Jacobi Meyers. I'd say our wide receivers were better, are better now.
Than they were then. Our offensive line, I mean we had Joe Toney that year, Justin Haran Isaiah Win, which was an issue at left tackle. I mean Dalton Kincaid and and and Devin Asiassi. I'd say our tight ends are much better now. I'm curious to see, like, position group I, position group, you feel this roster today from here to how we did it in twenty twenty.
Thank you guys.
Thanks Gregy, Dalton Keene, I think is what he meant there. It's tough because they had all the opt outs in twenty twenty.
Twenty twenty might is one of Belichick's finest works, just getting that team to seven wins. I also think it's tough to use that year as a comparison for anything because there were so many added variables, and I think just Belichick's experience and his ability to create a routine in a pattern like factor in a year where so
much was weird. Yeah, the militaristic approach played so well. Yeah, not that I don't not that I think it ever played poorly, but twenty twenty is kind of its own thing because of all the external I know the question about the roster talent, but I'm with you, we can do the exertion. Brian Hoyer, Cam Newton, Jared Stidham, First, Drake Madjeor, Kobe Brissett, Joe Milton.
Well, it's definitely, you know, Drake is definitely the best quarterback out of that group from where Cam was at that point of his career. But I just think the biggest thing to me when I look at that team is that offensively, that team had an identity right like that that team could run the ball. Yeah, they could run the football, and they used the quarterback and they
could really run the ball. And to mcdaniels's credit, he designed an offense around Cam Newton on the fly, which I thought was really impressive, and they had a really I know, you know, he brings up Isaiah Win and stuff like that, But that line, especially on the interior, was Tony Andrews Mason. Like that was a really really solid offensive line in the middle of that group, and they were able to run the football all basically all season long, even when Cam started to decay as a thrower.
They were still able to run the ball. So as much as I would say that, you could probably say that the talent might be a little bit better in some spots this year than it was in twenty twenty. That twenty twenty team was playing together in a lot of ways, you know, and they they had identities on both sides of the football that this team doesn't have.
So I don't know, you know, I probably would say the twenty twenty team was was was better because they were better, Like, they won more games, right, Like, they they were more competitive, even if like we could sit here and say Hunter Henry is a better tight end than Devin Ossi Ossi. And was it Ben Watson right, the corpse of Ben Watson?
Oh, it was. It was the rookies, it was.
It wasn't Ben Watson on that team.
No, he didn't come back until I think the next year. I thought he came back in twenty he came back. No, because I remember talking to the locker room. We weren't in the locker room that year. He might not have been back. No, he was back the year before because he came back with Brady. So did he come back the year he came back nineteen Yeah, yeah, when when
Gronk retired late, they brought him back. Okay, I got my years mixed up, but yeah, I look, I don't know how you can sit here and say that the twenty twenty team was worse when they won three more games, four more games than this feam is going to Brad Is in Ohio. What's up, Brad?
OHI Gods good, Mary Christmas is so yeah, well.
Thank you.
I just wanted to make a couple observations and suggestions and see you guys take on these. So we know that we haven't been able to run the ball. And I know I've asked you this before, Evan, I think both of you. We haven't been able to run the ball continually throughout this whole year. We can't even get
a yard when we need to. And how were we last year in regards to where we're ranked now in regards in regards to that same type of running when City Style actually played on the team and actually was on the line, not lined up as a fullback. Which leads me to say we should draft in Breteston of Michigan if that's what we need, a player like that. But can you can you correlate that for me? Evan and two of you kind of give me where we're at now compared to where we was when City fell.
I knew could block and get a yard at the goal line. He's flattened Cameron Hayward and now he can't block at all.
I'm confused. So and then I know McCary page from a free stafety of Michigan Coaston Ludlin a tight end. The tight end from Penn State and the tight end from Bowling Green are players that I think are really going to be a better bit or a better player than the wide.
Receivers that are available in the draft. And they're like second round picks, I think. So what do you think about that too, in regards to a tight end, the young tight end to fit in with Drake for the future.
So thank you, thanks Brad, thanks for the call.
So to the first point about the full back and like all that kind of stuff, I didn't really get what he was saying about City, So I guess just just that.
They were able to run the all the said. He's sow in the lineup last year, I think, and now he's not in the lineup, So would putting him and help them run the ball. Got it so think I.
Would say that they have struggled to run the ball for three years now, like going back to twenty twenty two with Matt Patricia. Their last really good run year in my mind was twenty one with McDaniels. Now, there's an argument to be made there about full backs, right, like McDaniel's used the full back as we all know, and they don't.
Use a full back now.
They really pivoted away from the full back in Patricia's year in twenty two. But McDaniel's also just a really good run game coordinator, always has been, was really good in Vegas, like that was the one thing with Josh Jacobs that they were actually good at on offense and Vegas was running the football. Josh Jacobs won the rushing title, right McDaniels first season as the coach Chare So I
give a lot of that credit to McDaniels. I think he's a really good schemer in the run game and does a nice job there.
Yeah, twenty twenty two rushing leader.
The City SO thing is interesting. I would say the City So thing is interesting because it doesn't feel like this regime identifies with City, so as their draft pick and Scott Peters wasn't here, Alex Van Pelt wasn't here, it definitely feels like they are trying to make their guy work in Leiden Robinson instead, and for better or worse, right, Like, I don't have the answer to that question. I think they're both similar players. Frankly, I think that they're both
physical downhill blockers. I think they both struggle in pass protection, and I think they're both decent at moving the line of scrimmage in the run game. So the fact that they like Leyden Robinson a little bit more than City, so I think it's kind of a coin toss. Like, I think it's kind of, you know, a picker flavor.
By the way, Trags years must have been burning. He just tweeted this out just now, this quote from Jamar Chase. I just talking about Rocky Arsenow, the agent.
Yeah.
I just told him we're stuck together for life. Now we're locked in for life. Now there's a possible chance both of a sign with the Bengals long term possible. Well, I asked Trags. Trags thinks it's happening.
Okay, Well, Trags know better than me. I'm just if I'm t Higgins, I'm going to market. That's all I'm saying.
Well, both both can be true, both can be true.
The second point, what was the second point?
And I forgot he just listed a bunch of guys in the draft.
Oh yeah, the whole tight end thing. We've talked a little bit about the tight end thing, like I think it could have. I think Drake likes throwing a tight ends. I think that's clear.
You want to get the pipeline ready. You want the next guy Hunter. Henry's gonna have two years left on his deal. It's really one concrete year. He's older now. You want to get and tight ends generally take longer to develop than the average position. I'm all for getting the next guy in the building and getting going. And you know he replaces Austin Hooper is your second tight end next year, and then the year two he takes over, Loveland and Warren are going to be first round picks. Yeah.
I would not invest that heavily in that position, especially with how deep this draft is. At tight end, you're gonna get a ton of good project players. So we mentioned Harold Fannin from Bowling Green Yeah, he's gonna be an interesting one because he's the first consensus or he's the first All American in the history of bowling Green. But he's coming from the MAC. You got to evaluate that thing. I like Mason Taylor from LSU. I like
Gunner Helm from Texas. Bunch of Day three guys. Mitchell Evans is my player to watch for Notre Dame in the college football playoff. Yeah, he's old school. You want like an old school tight end who is big, blocks his ass off, wins with physicality at the short and intermediate. That's Mitchell Evans. We'll see you know, Oscar del Terrence Ferguson. There's a bunch of there's a bunch of tight ends in this draft, like they'll they'll find somebody. Colston Lovin's
a good player, Tyler Warren's a good player. I don't think they need to use a first round pick on a tight end right now.
Yeah, it's it's definitely something that I don't necessarily see as like a pressing enough need to use a first round pick, Like if they were getting a guy that they thought was gonna truly be like the number one weapon in their offense. It's like a Travis Kelce Rob Gronkowski like level tight end, then that would be a different story. I don't maybe Warren, Like I think Jacob Warren is really talented Tyler.
Why do they think Jacob because he was a tight end here for like a minute, Jacob Warren. Yeah, he was out of Tennessee. He was the Tennessee guy that came with the Bay.
I had a reason Tyler Warren. I could see maybe him being like uh in that upper echellent you know. Like, I guess what I'm getting at is like, if there's a Rock Bowers in this draft, then I maybe would think a little bit differently because now you're thinking, Okay, we're gonna build the offense.
Around this guy. I don't know that Tyler Warren is that guy. I don't think so either. And even if he is, like so, I guess the counter would be we talked about it earlier, right, do you trade down and then trade up and receiver tackle? If enough teams are scared off by Will Campbell but you believe he's a tackle, do you trade down slightly, move back up and take time Warren instead of maybe Meg Buca like a receiver late first round pass Catcher. Yeah, it's possible.
I could hear it, and that would probably be how that would have to happen. Like I said, I Drake definitely likes throwing a tight end.
Yeah. No, I want them to draft a tight end with the upside. I want them to get a guy in the building. But when you look at some of these guys, like again, I like Gunnerhelm, Yeah, he has tight end one upside, He's just not nearly as polished as Tyler Warrens. And they can afford to have a guy who's not gonna be ready year one because ideal he's gonna be playing behind Hunter Henry to start.
So let me ask you this because you know I like this guy, and so I have to bring it up and obvious connection here. You know what what happened to Bryson as a bit like why is because he was somebody that was considered maybe a top fifty, top one hundred guy. Am I Bronk like last year?
Yeah?
He was.
He's from North Carolina, he played with Drake Manah, he was a top one fifty guy. He missed some time he was hurt.
Yeah.
I would also say their offense must have stunk without so well, it's not just without Drake. Max Johnson in who is a transfer from Texas A and M who they brought in to replace him, snapped his leg in the first game, and then Jacobe Criswell got banged up at times. They had a whole quarterback carousel thingo. By the way, Max Johnson, he's his son of Brad Johnson, total Belichick quarterback. I would not like from the outside looking in, I would not be surprised off his Bill's
quarterback this year. Like if he was in the draft and Bill was here, I would be saying, the Patriot's gonna draft Max Johnson. But you know he got banged up. The quarterback play wasn't good. He's one of these guys, you know how I love to talk about this. How do you view like how much of a recency bias is there for teams watching him? Are you looking at twenty twenty three? Are you only looking at him in
twenty twenty four? If you look at him in twenty twenty three, he's a high Day three pick with upset. The other thing is like he can't he doesn't block. He's a receiver and maybe he develops into a blocker eventually. Like Hunter Henry did, but he is a pass catching tight end. So we have some breaking Patriots news, okay, and it's not positive breaking Patriots needs. So Christian Barmore has been shut down for the season.
He had a I'll just read the statement out loud because I don't want to mince words here. The Newland Patriots are placing defensive linemen Christian Barmore on the reserve non football illness list after he experienced some reoccurring symptoms that required further evaluation. We appreciate everything Christian did to return to the team this season, but our top priority is Christian's health and well being. We know that he
will continue to receive tremendous care. You want to ensure that he gets the time he needs to come back stronger than ever. So my feelings on this are first and foremost. Obviously, you know, thoughts are with Christian Barmore and hope everything is okay. From that standpoint, I thought that watching him play since he came back from this issue was tough at times, and he just wasn't himself. He was clearly a shell of himself, as it would be totally expected given the circumstances at.
Three and eleven.
If he's starting to feel something that's not right, this is absolutely the right move for him in the in the organization. Long term, he needs to get healthy, which I hope he does, and then he needs a full off season to get his body back to where it was before this all happened. That's this is obviously tough news, though. I feel for him because I know he worked really hard to get back.
Yeah, and look good thing that they caught whatever this reoccurrence is right, and that he didn't go out there and play on it and risk getting hurt further. You hope he can be back next year with this kind of thing. You always wonder about the long term mature of his career, But yeah, thoughts with him and hopefully he can you know, get done when he needs to get done as quick as possible. Yeah.
Look, I love watching Christian Barmore play. There was nothing more that that guy needed to do this year.
Like, yeah, we were talking about that in practice today. Like the fact that he got back on the field, and I'm sure mentally as much as anything was huge for him to just climb past that and now it's just he's gotta do it again.
Yeah, man, I mean, look, that was a big one. You know you we talked about this, I think another time. But like these guys that they signed or extended in the off season that they were really expecting to be kind of like foundational elements.
Of this team.
Barmore, Dugger, Pepper's Remandre on Wenu. A lot of these guys were either hurt, had you know, extenuating circumstances off the field, and they just didn't They didn't answer the buck in a lot of different ways. And it's not Barmore's fault, right that this is a rare blood condition is not his fault. But the point being that, you know, when you sign these guys and you count on these guys to have that go by the wayside is really
a big reason why they are where they are. Like if they had twenty twenty three, Christian Barmore twenty twenty three, Jabriel Pepper's twenty twenty three Juwan Bentley, do I think that they would be five ten wins better and in the playoffs? Like, No, of course not, but they would be a better team on defense for sure with those guys.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So a tough one for the Patriots there with Christian Barmore. But I'd like to reiterate I actually think this is in some ways what's best for the player anyways. Like I just I think having him roll out there just wasn't right anyway. And he even said when he first came back like he wasn't in football shape. I wouldn't be surprised. It's just like mental just getting him back on the field. So he got that Yeah, you know, got over that hump. All right, So let's get back
to the last couple of emails here after that. Yeah, it's kind of depressing.
I'll just bounce back. I was gonna say on Bryson, don't don't sleep on Bryson as but as a draft pick, just watch him. I know you don't always do this. Just watch him in twenty twenty three.
No, I watched him in twenty twenty three with Drake all right, yeah already have watched Yeah, and look like he's to me, is one of those players that can get up to and as I like like Henter Henry a lot, I like Austin Hooper a lot, but they're not necessarily like explosive like field stretching tight ends, right that can do those sort of things Drake May rifle and throws up the scene to Bryce Nesbit was like a regular thing at North Carolina over the last two years,
and you just see statistically Nesbit's like production with Drake versus this year without him there, it just fell off a cliff so like he was like five hundred yards roughly I think in twenty two and twenty three with Drake May at North Carolina, which in college is really good tight end production. Yeah, you know, you don't normally see a big receiving production from tight end. So if you can get him in like the fifth or the sixth round because he had a down year, like even
more reason to do it. Already has the connection with Drake. You know, I'm sure Drake would love it, like I'm sure he would Loby for it. I don't think they need a running back this high. So I don't think Amrio and Hampton is really in their conversations too much because you know, he's gonna be probably top fifty.
Yeah, uh draft pick.
But uh, bryceon Sbitt seems like he would be a realistic target for the Patriots.
And uh so, I couldn't remember the injury he broke his wrist in November, so you figure he'll be bad. He should be good off of wrist injury. You feel like he should be good. He'll probably be a Senior Bowl guy, would be or at least a Shrine Bowl guy. Yeah, yeah, it might might be. It'd be fun to see him not listed for either right now, but he'd be a kind of guy that would would be good.
There.
Okay, a couple more things that I want to get to before we wrap it up. Got some emails, obviously, get in some calls about Travis Hunter. He just won the Heisman Trophy. This is topical obviously, coming off the weekend and him winning the Heisman.
I just want to speech.
I just want to say, like, I love the kid, like a great kids. I love the guy like I think he's a football nerd.
I think he alone. Who said it? Girlfriend? I thought you meant me. I was like, no, no, no, no no, it's like this whole thing on the internet that his girlfriend didn't stand up with the ceremony.
Jeez, Okay, people need to touch grass.
Uh So I just like him. No, he's got absolutely the right mentality.
Yeah, and I feel like he's uh you know, from everything that you hear out of Colorado about him, like he's like a film junkie.
Like this guy doesn't listen to music because he's just watched you. He's you. He doesn't love music, he doesn't love it, go out, he doesn't do any like it. I think people obviously Deon Satra is a big personality, outgoing. He's very out there in the public things like that, and I think people just obscribe subscribed that to Travis Hunter, there was this story where like he like he doesn't go to parties, doesn't listen to music, doesn't go out,
like he watches film and he plays video games. That's all he does.
Yeah, that's all he does. I think Drake's kind of the same way. I think he's kind of the same plosit of the two of us. Yeah, watch his film, plays video Yeah right, So therefore I think both of them together would would really know.
They do seem like get along. It does seem like you would be repairing. Yeah, I was. It was a good speech.
Yeah, it was a great speech. I think there will be a continue we are going to do, uh you know, five months or whatever it is. On is he a wide receiver? Is a corner? Can he play both ways? This that the other thing Jay Glazer had to report. I believe it was a Sunday morning during Fox's pregame that he pulled some NFL gms and a lot of the gms think he's a corner in the league. And Jay Glazer even reported that he doesn't think that he's
gonna play a ton of receiver at all. You know, it would probably just be mostly corner for a lot of teams. I still leave the door open to him playing receiver, one because I think he has great receiver film, and two because I think he might want to play receiver. So I'm still gonna leave the door open to that. But the more that we get closer, you know, the more that information that comes out about it, it does feel like the NFL views him as a corner on the whole.
I've said this, he is a better corner than receiver. Agree is not a good receiver, but he's a corner.
So David, you know, emails in and I think we've said similar things about this before. And you know, he just said about Travis Hunter that he's a luxury item. You know that that he's you know, Patriots drafting Hunter is like buying a Ferrari for a home that's in foreclosure. And we've used these types of analogies before. I hear that in a lot of ways. I know everybody is sort of like big on the offensive line, and I am too. It's a it's the number one need on
the team. Left tackle is the number one need on the team. But I still come back to my best player available thing. I still want them to take the best player available at a position of need. That that's always what we have advocated for. It's not, oh, we have this guard or this running back Alex rated, you know, higher than Will Campbell.
We're not doing that.
But between receiver, tackle, edge, rusher, don't reach right. I don't reach to to try to fill a hole. I feel like that's why bad teams stay bad. So if you view view Travis Hunter as a corner, it's a premium position. So I would at least could get behind that, and obviously Gonzo and Travis Hunter would probably be pretty dominant.
But it's not.
It doesn't exactly fit the big you know, best player at position need if.
He's not playing receiver, I'm not interested. That's just where for the reasons you just said. Yeah, and if if the league really views him as a corner. Any teams, if you highly as a corner, if he's on the board, you're gonna it's not gonna be like a quarterback, but you're gonna get a ton of value for that pick if you move down.
Yeah, I I agree with you. I I honestly uh am also tempted a little. I kind of attempted by Abdul Carter.
I'm not gonna lie like and Hunter is a better player, but like pound for pound, Carter makes more sense to me than Hunter does.
Yeah, it's a position of need. It's a premium position pass rusher off the edge right now. When you just look at their their their pass rush statists, whether it's pressure rate, win rate, whatever, like they're down near the bottom of the league and all of it. They don't
pressure the quarterback. And when I look at the cornerback room, I actually think that their corners are decent, Like Christianzalez is great, and then you you kind of have a hierarchy there, Like I think Marcus Jones is a very capable slot corner. We still are talking about the outside cornerback position and that being a little bit of a maid.
Carlton Davis one year, twelve million dollars solved. Don't need a superstar over there.
No, And I definitely am still of the mind that I think Alex Austen might be able to do it. Yeah, And so you have between those guys, you know, the Jones is Christian goan Zalez, Alex Austin Jonathan Jones is a free agent. But if he comes back, I think that's a decent cornerback round.
I really do all their other issues you can get by with that putting resource into that room. You're talking about a room going from maybe good to great. Yeah, obviously Gonzalez is great, but like he's around them, Yeah, when there's other positions that you need a pump serious assets into just to get them a good Yeah.
It just feels to me like if you get the safety play that you're expecting back from Duggar and Peppers, you get those guys back to the level that you're used to, and you keep this cornerback room in tack, which is pretty good, I believe, then if you add to the pass rush, like that's the bigger need, right, Like, that's clearly the bigger I don't remember.
If I said this on this show last week. But I've said it somewhere like if you have Gonzales right, and we talk a lot about it, right, well, how do you maximize Drake May on offense? And what pick, what additions, what's signing? Maximize Drake May because he's your stud, that's you're building round on that side of the ball. We can do the same exercise with Christian Zalez. How do you maximize Christian Zalez? And the one knock on
Christian Zalez right now, and I think it's overblown. I would call it more of an observation than a knock is that the on ball production isn't tremendous, right, Yeah, he had a couple of pass breakups last week, but he's not getting interceptions. He's not gonna got two PEPs this year. Yeah, But because nobody's thrown at him and these quarterbacks have time to adjust, he's also playing trail man.
So like this is a big thing I think to with the zone man corner thing, Like when you have zone eyes, you have eyes in the backfield, so you have that ability to jump the football, right, like you have the ability to see the quarterback throw the football, have it leave his hand and then ballhawk and trace the ball corners. Like you know what made Stefan Gilmour's Defensive Player of the Year season so ridiculous was how many picks he had playing man to man the whole season.
So like that, that's a really difficult to do. Part of that was and to my point, how do you maximize Gonzales. It's not putting another corner on the other side. It's getting another pass rusher, because with Gilmore you to pass rush, and a lot of quarterbacks when you pressure them, their first instinct is just gonna be I know my top receivers over here. I'm throwing it like I need to get rid of this ball. I'm gonna get crushed. Buddy, go make a play. And that's when you know it's
the pick and the Super Bowl. Yeah, picking super Bowl fifty three where it's van Ney, right, is it van Neuy? Yeah, run a blitzer. They run a zero blitz and Steph Gilmore gets to turn around and catch it like a center fielder. Yeah, that's how you maximize Gonzalez. It's not putting another corner on the other side, it's getting a pass rusher that's gonna speed these quarterbacks up and force more bad throws to his side.
Agreed, I think their their secondary is good enough. I think your secondary would be is is good enough if they had a legit passage.
I'd like to see them add another boundary, physical, bigger corner just to kind of compete with Alex Austin for that second job. But that you that does not need to be a first round pick. All right, We'll take one more call and then we're gonna wrap it up. Jay is in Atlanta.
What's up Jay?
Hey, guys, Thanks for taking a call there. Hey, guys going to I want to ask about Daveon Williams a TCU. And secondly, from my second question, I want to ask, I know in the first round probably gonna be tackled by receiver or second round probably whichever we don't get the first for those two thirds, what do you think would be the best option for us to pick?
Thanks, Jane, appreciate the call. D you know I'm not deep enough to know. Yeah, so I haven't done a ton on saveing on Williams. I I some of the people who get in really deep really like him TCU wide receiver, So you're gonna have to get over the helmet.
Now big gon dots in two point outs. What I'm hearing, Well, I've seen more like Quinn Johnson. That one's bad too, both of them.
Much better athlete, much more explosive. He's quicker, he's not a straight line athlete. He hasn't played a ton. He's very raw. I got to pull up the exact number of games he's played. But he's a he's a full projection. So this is a guy that's you know, six four, six five, two twenty out. But well, he's like an early day three pick.
Okay, like any but to me, and I'm sorry to cut you off, but any receiver that we're handing this coaching staff that is a project or is raw or anything like that. Until I build some confidence with the fact that they can develop at that position, I'm out.
I would call him as a prospect. Now we know how this turned out. As a prospect, I would call him a little Javon Baker ish. And that's not being super familiar, but like, you're drafting a guy who's big, who you're gonna throw the ball down the field to. Yeah, if he's the only receiver they walk away with, No, if you're telling me that they got Luther Burden and this is maybe doubling up them trying again to find an X. Okay, yeah, I guess I could see that.
It wouldn't be my favorite thing, but I could see it. I will to the second point, those two thirds trade one trade one, move up, move up in the second, move up from the second to the first. This is the same mistake they did last year. They had those two fourths, they were in position to move up. Instead they moved down for Jalen Polk. They take Kanen Wallason and they use them on Landen Robinson and Jaymon Baker. Use those picks move up. So I'm open to anything
in terms of moving up like that. I'm all for that.
I also wonder if one of those third round picks can be traded for a veteran player like I still will bang the table for that all.
Day, every single or for a veteran player like I.
Just I keep coming back to the fact that, look, if you can't draft well, then you might as well just start trading picks for guys that you know, you know can play in the league, right like in the way that this has gone throughout the NFL, Like trading picks, like the value of the veteran players is going down. I would say, like you can start to get some
real talent for those players for those picks. So look, if you're you're wary of like certain blind spots that you have from an evaluation standpoint, or you don't love the draft, or whatever the case may be, trade it, like, trade it for a veteran player.
Here do you want, We'll just do this live. You want to save? We both trust the Draft Network. They do a good job. Yeah. So here's what the Draft Network has on Savion Williams. Since I wasn't fully prepared. Okay, uh six fo Okay, here's the summary. Save on Williams offers NFL teams a diverse and unique skills set at the wide receiver position. Has a rare combination of size, explosiveness,
and quickness to create explosive plays. Strengths, diverse release package, explosive great short area quickness, position, versatile playmaker ability to create explosive plays. Oh concerns yeah, TCU raw route runner concentration drops. So this was written before the season. Lack of production. I'll give you his production this year. It's all career highs sixty catches, six hundred eleven yards, six touchdowns. He also ran the ball fifty one times for three hundred yards and six touchdown.
Okay, so I love the big playability, right, that's what you're looking for. It does sound a little Javon Baker ish, right, like splash play guy.
The running thing is interesting. I saw run the ball.
I don't love the football. I don't love the conference. I don't I've had this conversation with a lot of people.
At this point. It's Big twelve, right.
So my biggest concern with drafting out of those conferences, drafting guys like Ted McMillan from Arizona, drafting a guy from TCU. None of the teams that they play on a consistent play basis play NFL defense.
Like.
None of those teams are playing Manton Man at a high level. None of those teams are playing any sort of NFL style press right Like.
I'm not saying they never do it.
I'm just saying it's not their major And so a lot of the time when you watch the film of these guys, they're just running into pockets of space against zone coverage and just catching balls over the middle of the field against like linebackers and safeties or whatever, you know, catching throws underneath like off coverage or bail technique or whatever, and so much.
You know, it's hard.
It's hard to like find that translate to the league, right, like, oh, this is a this is an NFL rep. Like, you know, he's getting pressed, he gets off pressed, he wins the route, he wins the route on time, like he's not hanging out forever on the line of scrimmage. It's really hard to find that, especially in those types of conferences, you know, the Big twelve, the old Pac twelve. Like those teams it's all three cover three, it's all quarters, it's all
soft zonne like that. That's to worry something to me with those teams.
So this is interesting because again I one of the few guys that, like I wasn't ready on and I'm looking at some of the comps here. So he started playing wildcat quarterback and running back late in the year. That's where all those carries came from. Jim, and it's Jim Naggy. Jim Nagy's comp is cord Aero Patterson at that size. If he's I mean fifty one times, we do like Cordero. Yeah, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna
try to watch them. Maybe you do your job, I know, if you like to say to me, maybe he's my recency biased guy. Uh next weeks week because my recency bias guy. This week? Do you have one?
I do?
I'll go really quick, Okay, I kind of like Isaiah Bond. Of course you do. He's fast, Like he's only fast.
He's fast.
So we're doing takwan again.
I'm not letting you say that. I'm not letting what's the difference because Texas. That's the difference.
Baylor is in Texas.
Okay, but it's not Texas. All right, like you asked me, We're gonna relate this. Then I have one more thing that I really want to bring up. I know I do this every show. You asked me, who are the players in the college football playoff that could or like gain the most Okay, there's some obvious ones at the top of the draft, Abdull Carter connorly, you know, like guys like that that. You know, if they have instellar
college football playoffs, they're gonna help their stock. To me, you know, Isaiah Bond's gonna see some real coverage now, right, Like he's gonna see Yeah, so they're gonna see some you know, one thing that boy Dabo can do his coach DB's like, that's the one thing that he's good at.
Yeah, So Brett Vannable's a hell of a coach. So let's see, let's see what he does. You know, I I love the speed. I love the speed. I love the else. I love the separation ability to speed. What else? But to me, I just like, you know, I think the skill set translates, like I think he's gonna what is the skill set beside speed? Speed? So we're doing taekwon again. Drake needs somebody that that can win a go ball, That's all I'm saying. It sounds like Samuel
Williams pretty fast too has changed direction. So mine, I'm fascinated by this guy. I still don't know how I feel about him as a patriot. Elijah Roberts from SMU. Yeah, so, yeah, you've been talking to me about this guy for We had one conversation with No. No, it's been days. So every almost everywhere he's listed at two ninety five ESPN has him been two seventy eight six four to seventy
eight everywhere else. I bet two ninety five. He's among the nation's leaders and pressures like he gets after the quarterback. I'm like thinking, Okay, defensive end, he's like standing up, he's playing out side linebacker and at least two hundred and eighty five and ninety pounds getting after the quarter
But he's not built like Keon White. Keon White doesn't like Elijah Roberts, looks like a defensive end, like he looks like a three four end, but he's standing up and chasing down running backs in the backfield and pursuing.
You're literally describing ke White.
Yeah, I guess, I don't know.
I'm not saying that's as a bad thing is a good football Well, okay, so here's the other weird.
I guess this is like Kean White. You'd think a big physical guy, right, wins with power. You can't defend the run. Ke On This is Mike confidence confidence Byron Coward. This is just he's not as exposed as ke On White is. All right, all right, fin, I'll give you another one. No, Michael Michael Kamara from Indiana second in the nation and pressures you've time six one, two, sixty. What do you do with him? Like undersized edge rusher.
But undersized the length thinking to be an issue. Yeah, he's kind of like remember Mo Kamara last year, you liked him. I don't think they're re lated.
I did like him. Okay, last thing? Who's college football payoff?
No?
Not that.
So this is Todd emailing in and full disclosure. I'm sitting at a at a bar in Arizona on Saturday, and I sit down and there's a one of those things that called what they put on the table that's like an advertisement, like you know, like the little packard.
The little placard.
Sure at the table and I'm sit down and this guy that Todd emails in is on the placard and he's standing there with this big plate with this like giant hamburger on it.
And I texted the picture to Barth instantly because it's the scatter Burger. Baby. It's Cam Scataboo, Welcome to Scatibo, Welcome to the NFL, Welcome to the nil Era. Yeah so Cam scattered, No, I couldn't get it had so much dairy in it, you know that. But Cam Scataboo is has a placard with his face on it, and he's standing there at the burger and it's the scatter Burger right next to Arizona State, and uh, the emailer asked, you know, if you're sitting there in the fourth round
and Scataboo is there, are you taking him? There's gonna be better backs there than him at that point. But I'm not a post. Come on, you love it.
I do.
I love every running back in this draft. This is an insane running back. Love him. I like a lot of these backs. I'll take Kyle m Mike Alstott. Know you in that game and I said, I'm getting carried away here. Rockett Sanders will be on the board at that point. Film Maffa will be on the board at that point. I like Cam Scataboo. I think he's not he's His contact balance might be second to Jenty in this draft. Like he does not the first tackler never brings him down. Oh it's in the big twelve. We'll
see him in the playoff. We'll see what it looks like. But he's also a capable receiver. He's not James White. He's a capable receiver. He's a good pass blocker, and they run some wildcat quarterback stuff with him. Not saying that I would do that here, but like, if you want to start doing some of that weird gadget stuff with Drake May, He's gonna be a good guy to have in the backfield with him. He fits the mold of this running back they have of like a guy
who can do a little bit of everything. We see it with Antonio Gibson. We obviously know with Ramandre Stevenson he fits that mold. He'd be another good piece. I like him. I wouldn't be upset if they draft him. I think just he doesn't have that elite level athleticism. He's also a little bit older. That caps the ceiling.
He has more carries on him. So that's why if we're talking about the fourth round, there might be some other guys I'd look at, But if they got him in like the sixth, I'd be a great pick and it would mean they address some other things a little higher up in the draft. Oregon wins. It's gonna be Oregon. My preseason pick was Ohio States, Like I'm sticking with that out of default, but Ryan Day or Ohio State is the best roster in the tournament. Ohio State is
the most talent in the tournament. I don't know if they can overcome Ryan Day and their quarterbacks. Thinks. I think some of that's the coaching. He's so much worse now than he was at Kansas State. Quarterbacks bad. I think Debt Oregon has the better coach by far. How do you feel about him making the NFL jump? I been getting that question.
I was gonna say that if I if I was Dan Lanning, if I was an NFL team that had an opening this offseason, one of my calls would be throwing a bag at Dan Lanning. I think he's just a great coach, so, you know, great defensive mind, great motivator. Since two thousand, you know, there's only two coaches that have had their first their first NFL job as a head job coming from college with a record over five.
Hundred Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh and Bill O'Brien. Oh and they're just like like I. As a rule of thumb, primary college coaches do not have success in the NFL January. I generally believe that I would rather hire somebody with NFL experience of any NFL team. That being said, if anybody right now is making the jump from the college to the pros. It's Dan Lanner. So Dan Lanning really quickly.
It reminds me a little bit of like the defense's version of Sean McVay, Like where like he has the he has a great schemer on the d defensive side of the ball, that's an elite trade, but he.
Can also get away from this Mickey mouse offense he's running. But he also kind of has that motivator and that like sort of like leader called the college Dan Campbell.
I don't, yeah, but I think that he's smarter than Dan Campbell well in terms of that like leadership leader.
Right, That's why I went to I feel like McVeigh is like both mcvagh has that too. No, there's definitely there's definitely some Evan there. Andy's in the Nick Saban Kirby smart trade. Yeah, good coach. I Dan Lanning to me is the best coach in college football right now. I don't think it's close. You can have Lane, you can have Sark, you can have Kirby, and I know some of those guys have rings. Kirby's a legend. Kirby's a legend. I think Dan Lanning's the best coach in
college footballer Kirby. Kirby's good. Yeah, how much control does he have in his program? Kirby's stamp? How much control does he Kirby's stamp. Kirby's a great coach. I'm not saying he's not a great coach. If I could pick any coach in college football right now to start a program with, it's Dan Lanning.
All right, we can finally wrap. Now you got all your college football takes. I have more, but yeah, you got.
You're done doing Taekwon Thornton again. Oh God, don't know he's better than Taekwon. Why you haven't told me why? I don't have a good reason.
I just think I test he's better. So he's faster, No, he's just like he's not as like, he's not as as as frail. I think he weighs like one hundred and sixty pounds, all right.
And I like, isay you bought this? Come on, we gotta go, all right, just next week we will have a show.
We're gonna be doing our same time usual time on Thursday, barring your scheduling and stuff like that for the team, but we will have a show next week, so we'll see you guys, uh next Thursday. We'll keep you updated on the time if we have to move it around, but we will have a show during the holidays, so we'll see you guys then.
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