This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Barth.
Blazarre from Lazarn, Hello, everybody nailed it. He joined us always.
By our bar gask.
Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars is.
The data skewed because in this one game he was struggling this one receiver or this type of receiver that maybe we don't have. Like again, okay, the right answer is not Okay, let's throw a million go balls at this guy.
It's to get me the cutups of all the go balls. Let's see why.
This is happening and do we have the assets on our roster to be able to take advantage of this?
Yes or no?
I think that's exactly okay.
But I think there are some people, and maybe they're not really the coaches, but I think there are some people who look at it, analytics who look at that and don't go to that second step and say, this guy sucks against the goal ball bombs away. That's not the process and that never will be the process, and math can never fill in that groundwork in the middle.
It always comes back to the analytics debate on this show, doesn't it. Oh yeah, it always does. No matter what we talk about for two hours, it always circles back to talking about math and nerds and analytics. But today we are going to talk a lot about roster projections, maybe a little bit of Patriots news here at the top of the show, nothing major, but a signing that we will discuss in the impact of that as well.
And we'll take your lovely calls and emails here on Catch twenty two for the next couple of hours, with Alex Bartha over there of course as always, and Evan Lazar in the host chair here, and we have our roster projection to get to Alex, we want need to do the defense in your special teams as well here in a few minutes, so we're going to get to that. But before we get to that, we wanted to get to some of the news off the top of the show.
And no, I will not talk about the Celtics too much in the show, I promise.
I know.
Let's look here, I know, I know everybody gets all up in arms when I talk about something that's not Patriots related, even though there's nothing going on in Patriot will the Celtics are the talk of the town and the Red Sox are playing, but the Bruins just released New Jersey, so I'm gonna have to buy the misses of New Jersey probably, So just no, I won't talk about it.
I have any kind of event you can use to like buy one for I'll say this. I was thinking about this driving in. This is in a lot of ways and people often say this a draft show. We like talking about the draft. True, the NBA Draft is tonight. That's why it's all the buzz about the Celtics. So let's save it till the end, and maybe we'll do so.
It's not everybody gets up in arms, stick to footballball.
Enjoy the draft.
So at the end of the show we'll do a draft minute and what league that draft is about?
Well, we'll see.
Well, maybe we can tie it together to the Patriots somehow, if we're good enough at this. But before we get into the roster projection at the top of the show here, the Patriots did make a signing the other day, signing ya Seir Durant, offensive lineman. Name might sound familiar. He has been here before, who was on the Patriots roster in twenty twenty one, actually played in a few games and started a game for the Patriots in twenty twenty one.
He has been most recently one of your leagues, the UFL, the DC Defenders, the champions of the UFL.
He can do that your specialty leagues because it is your league. Not everybody for football fans at all, it's everybody.
There are actually multiple people who are like true football fans, believe it or not.
So he was on the DC Defenders most recently. He won a championship in the UFL, for whatever it's worth, with the DC Defenders. He also, for whatever it's worth, was a first team All Pro in that league, the UFL, All UFL and from all for people that actually have followed that league closely. Yeah, Sir Durant was one of the best offensive linemen in the UFL this past season, just based.
Off he was the best left tackle, so he played.
A little bit of left tackle. He played a little bit of left guard, but he made the All UFL team as a left tackle.
Well, no, so he he started out as a guard last year.
And then switched to left tackle halfway through, and then he was DC's left tackle all the way through this year when they won the title.
So he was he's a player with some NFL pedigree, obviously some UFL pedigree as well over the last couple of seasons. Now there's conversation about Yasir Durant's future and his viability on this roster, But I also think this ties into our conversation that was ongoing last weekend is going to be ongoing all summer with this team about the left guard position in particular, and just depth on the offensive line as a whole. And I look at Yasir Durant, I can't help but connect that a little
bit to the retirement of Wes Schweitzer. You lost your veteran, potential, bridgy offensive lineman that could start on this team at left guard. You bring in another one, it seems like in yah Sir Durant, So in my mind, even though he played tackle in the UFL, he's played a little bit of tackle and he's played a little bit of guard in his career. The Patriots announced him as a
tackle for what it's worth when they signed him. But in my mind, I look at this as another body, another name to throw into the hat at this ongoing left guard competition, basically replacing west Schweitzer as sort of the veteran in that room.
Yeah, I think it's a little more than that.
Honestly, this is a guy that played right tackles first in the NFL, then played guard early when he got to the UFL, and has played left tackle since they have a lack of depth.
We talked about this last week.
Unless Marcus Bryant really takes a step forward, they don't really have a swing tackle. Vdarian Lowe is only playing on the left side. Cain Wallace to Mantre Jacobs are only playing on the right side. Jack Connelly played swing in college, but it's just like, where is he at skill wise? Is he a guy that's and I had him on my roster last week, but that was almost
kind of by default. If I'd had you see Durant as an option, I would have put him on the roster over Jack Connolly because he can play left tackle, he can play right tackle, and he can play guard. So the fact that he can give you a backup in all those spots where they don't really have a defined backup I think stands out. I think this is more than just an optional left guard. I think this is a guy that can fill a number of holes for them on the offensive line.
So you see him in that almost like a six man type of role where he can play guard and tackle, maybe move around as a backup and maybe make this roster. And this was another thing when we were talking about the offensive roster projection, which if you didn't hear that, that was in last week's show. This is another thing that stands out to me about how they can struy this fifty three man roster and how they build it.
Do they keep some of these guys that are younger that have developmental upside while also keeping a guy like Yasir Durant, who if somebody gets hurt, then Durant's probably your your top backup. And the guy that goes into a game, maybe it isn't Marcus Bryant. Maybe Marcus Bryant's just here to develop and it's not necessarily here to keep him around, you know, to actually get into an NFL game as a rookie. And you could maybe say the same thing about some of their other players as
well on this team. So I could see that I could see, yes, here Durant coming in as on game day, we actually view this guy as one of our top backups. He's not necessarily in the two to three year plan here as a future asset, like some of these younger linemen are that we drafted recently. But maybe on game day, if somebody goes down, you know it's yes here Durant
that steps up. I could see that. I still do think he's gonna get a chance to compete at left guard, because I think everybody's gonna get a chance to compet at left guard. I think you're gonna see four or five different bodies there competing at that spot in training camp. But again it's it's we talked about it yesterday on him filtered with poly P and I it's the number one thing with the team right now that I have
the biggest concern about is this offensive line. And on paper, they're definitely better than they were a year ago, there's no doubt about that. But they could only have gone up from last year. They were the worst line in football buy all intents and purposes. You know pretty much every statistical measure thirty one thirty two, thirty one thirty two in the league. You know, whether it's win raid or pressures or sacks allowed or PFF passer run blocking grade,
like whatever metric you want to use. They were one of the worst in the league. So they just continue to shuffle, even if this is back into the roster shuffling, looking for as much depth and as much talent at that offensive line as they can possibly get. Now, I know the only a one year deal. The terms were not announced, but I doubt it was for high money. My guess is though, is yes, here Durant had a little bit of a market. He had a really nice
season in the UFL. Yeah, and I bet you he had a couple of teams that were paying attention to that. He decides to sign with the Patriots, so we'll see, we'll see what ends up happening. But West Sweitzer retires, They had the open roster spot as a result of west Schweitzer retiring, and they bring in an offensive lineman to replace him. I think you can connect the dots there with those two things as well anything else on Durant.
No, that pretty much covers it all.
Right, let's get into our fifty three man roster projection for the defense and the special teams. Will obviously start on defense and then trickle our way down here. So starting with the defensive line, Now, I know we always joke about this. You get into the weeds of what's a defensive lineman, what's an edge defender? Do you even like the term edge defender? Now you hate it?
I included this year since Madden put it in the game.
I figured, since Madden put it into the game, I need not because I've been telling you it exists for like five years. But now that it's in Madden, it's finally on your roster.
No, I'll tell you honestly why I did it, And this is how I've always felt about edge. I think where edge met where that's a useful term, is when you go through the draft. There are guys that, depending on what team drafts them and what system they'll be playing in, might be defensive end, might be an outside linebacker. So in the absence of system and that context, you have to call them.
An edge because you don't know.
The thing that always bugged me is once they're on a team, you know what position they're playing because you can put them in that system, so it makes it a little clearer. But we don't exactly know how this Rabel system is going to use certain guys, So this might be a one year thing for me. I might go back next year when we have a better look at this defense, but for the time being, I.
Mean on White.
I actually don't know whether or not ke On White will profile more as a defensive end or more as an outside linebacker in this system, So.
You could go either way. So I have use it this year.
I haven't with the defensive lineman because I I guess I I put it two ways. I think it's Alignment's obviously the number one thing. If you're gonna be consistently in or outside of the tackle, like, that's that's the line of demarcation to me. Like, if you're lining up outside over the tackle, be five technique anything may seven to nine whatever, outside of the tackle, then you're like,
you're an edge. To me, you're a pure edge. If you are a Kean White, who I do think is gonna play a bulk of snaps inside the tackles, okay, then I would say you're more of a defensive lineman. The other line that I often use is two point or three point stance.
So I use that and then I use like, how often are you dropping in a coverage?
Yeah?
Right, You're not gonna drop a defensive lineman in coverage.
Remember, they used to always drop tray Tree Flowers into coverage, so like that made him seem more like a linebacker.
I liked you liked when they dropped Trey Flowers in a coverage.
No, but I did. I didn't mind it as much as everybody else.
I still remember when they were playing the Steelers and this was prime Le'Veon Bell. I don't remember exactly what yere it was, but Le'Veon was like the dude. It was like a third and five and they had tray Flowers and man coverage on Le'Veon Bell around midfield, and I'm.
Like, it got a little wonky at times. But I when you not that this isn't the point of this
segment of the show, but it's June. When you get into the simulated pressures in that world, you can see why it's advantageous because when he lines up on the line of scrimmage, most likely with his hand in the dirt, the offensive line or the pass blocking has to account for him as a rusher right, so that will get an alignment to engage him off the snap, which in theory could create a free runner someplace else.
So I get doing that sometimes, Like, yeah, it keeps the offense off guard. It's more like gotta have it downs. I'm trying to win with skill. I want my best players doing to get the best. That was always kind of how I viewed it.
They've been very successful in the past though with uh We're call him replacement blitzes, where the entire like you bring an inside linebacker on a blitzer you know, used to be like high Tower or Bentley in the past, and then he would drop an edge and that just schematically, the tackle is gonna set out to the edge because he's hand in the dirt about to rush or in two point stands about to rush. You have to count
for that player on the line of scrimmage. So then what happens is is like they slide the protection in that direction towards the pass rusher and then the linebacker just blitz is unblocked through the middle.
Because is what Brian Flores is making huge in Minnesota right now. Yeah, I get that.
I just remember that one play being like in Trey Fi he was on a heater and I forget who.
This Steelers tackle is, but he was like owning him the whole game. It was like, just let him just let him go get the quarterback.
So getting back to the roster protection defensive lineman, I have six defensive lineman currently on the fifty three man roster. Three obvious ones Milton Williams, Christian Barmore, key On White. Those three guys are locks. I have Kiris Tonga and Jeremiah Farms on the team right now, and I have Joshua Farmer on the team right now. So that leaves six guys on No Jacquelin Roy, Tremaine Jones, Javari Rizzi, Ziah Eaton or Wilfred Penny.
He'll stay as an ipp On Patrick quad. But yeah, yeah, I have bar More Farmer, Farms, Tonga, Williams, and then I have ke On White with the with the edge.
So you have you have Farms too, right, yes at Farms. Yeah, this one wasn't really really too difficult for me.
Feels pretty cut and dry.
It feels pretty cut and dry. I didn't really have any guys that I felt like I was really fighting for to keep on the roster. It's gonna be interesting, though, And I look at the top of this with Williams and Barmore, how much are they really gonna truly play those you guys, are those guys going to be seventy five seventy percent snap count type of guys? Because that's that's high you know that would be on the lot. Yeah, for a defensive lineman, I don't know if they have
the interior depth and to really be rotating them a ton. Wait, like Millan Williams, and we were talking about this yesterday too. Millon Williams in Philadelphia was I'd call him a rotational player, I think part times a little strong.
Yeah, rot rotational player. Well, he was like right around fifty percent.
Right, so that that's going to be significantly increased with the Patriots this year.
And he talked about that as introductory press conference.
It'll be interesting to see how that go. That goes one of two ways. Either his production follows and it's just even more production than what he was as a fifty percent player, or he's really truly a fifty percent player that they're now making place seventy percent and his production goes the other way. I'm willing to bet that he continues to be a good player for them, but
as something to monitor with this grew. The other thing that I thought was as I was doing this, like I continue to kind of feel the same way about interior run defense. Kiri's Tonga is really the only player on this list that they have right now, and Barmore at his peaks is carved out a really good run defender. You know, he's really developed in that phase of his game. But in terms of like true run stuffers, Kiri's Tonga's
really it. He's on the team because of that. There's really nobody else to put on this team as a true nose tackle that can play that role. But if I had to say one thing that I think this group, because I think the group's really good, But if I had to think of one thing that this group might potentially be a flaw or fatal flaw, it would be do they have enough beef on the line of scrimmage to stop the run against some of these true power
run teams. Like if a team comes into a game plan and they have the horses to do it and they say, we're just gonna run it down the Patriots throat today, Like that's how we feel like we're gonna beat them. Are they going to have enough beef to be able to hold up in that kind of game plan?
Yeah, it's a fair question.
We saw this be an issue last year and they've lost some size. We've talked about this, you know, them adding another defensive tackle, like true nose tackle would that makes some sense. But they're gonna have to win by combination and guys coming down from the second level to help in those spots.
And plays in the backfield. Yeah, I think that's gonna be a big part of it. Deuce likes to say they're going to stop the run on the way to the quarterback. I think that's a big part of it too. You know, if you make some of those splash plays, you get teams into second and longs, then they don't have the ability to run the football as much. And maybe that's how you get yourself out of worrying about that. So that's a defensive line. Williams Barmore, White Farmer, Tonga Farms.
I think we're all on the same page there. Moving on to the edge defenders. Love that this is a thing for you now that I'm.
Glad that you for this year. We'll signal come around for this year.
So edge defenders right now, I have Harold Landry Chase on, Anthony Jennings, Braiden swinsonaves Elijah Ponder the UDFA as of right now, on the outside looking in, I didn't really have very many issues with this one either. I hope that Swinson shows us a little bit more in the summer.
Yeah.
I didn't necessarily think that he had a bad spring. I think that would be going too far. He just didn't have a noticeable spring. I hope he's more noticeable in the summer. I am still circling Anthony Jennings on this roster. I just I don't know if he's a fit and what they're gonna try to do schematically, I'm not sure if there's a role for him on this team. So maybe Ponder ends up coming on a little bit
in the summertime. He's a little bit more their type in terms of the body type and the style of play. Maybe he's someone that could push Jennings here eventually. But that was my group as of right now, And again I do want to see a little bit more from Braiden Swinson. Maybe I just need to notice him more. Maybe it's not nothing he did.
I mean, it's it's just tough for any edge guy, and he wasn't out there a ton in the spring.
He's just kinda behind.
I mean, it seems like that top group is Keon White, Kaylevon, Chase On, Harold Landry, Yeah, on the edge. So I had those three Swinson, I save Anthony jennings On. I know a lot of people took him off just because of his usage in the spring, but when he was out there, even though he was with the second unit, when he was out there, he was dominating. And this team just can't afford to move on from players with that talent. And you find a role for a guy
like that. Now, maybe he gets traded. They can't be cutting a guy with that kind of ability. I just don't think they can. I think he's too good. So for now I have him on the team and they'll find something for him to do.
I trust that.
I'm with you. He's one of their best fifty three players.
Now I had him as player fifty one to fifty three. Fair enough, But because it is, the fit is a little weird. But I just again, I don't think they can move on from a player with that level of talent.
He's he's one of their best fifty three players.
So I'll hired me might be one of their best, like twenty players.
Even if he's not a great system fit. To your point, they don't have enough guys that I'm like, excuse me, I need to find a role for so and so.
So.
I can't keep Anthriny Jennings. From a talent standpoint, it's a no brainer. He's one of their better players. You can't just move on from that. I just wonder him and Tavai are the two guys that I just can't really wrap my head around in this defense. I just don't know where they belong in this group. I have them both on right now, just to get to the linebackers, you know, Roberts, Bullayne, Christian Ellis, Jelina to Via, Jack
Gibbons is my group right now. Obviously Marte Maphu could have a conversation here about him now that he's officially a linebacker. We're gonna have to see that in the summertime. Joly deVie is the same thing to me as Anthrony Jennings. Do I think he's a system fit?
No?
Do I think he's one of their best fifty three players. Yes, and until one of these guys, whether it's Mapu, whether it's Elijah Ponder, whether it's a you know, one of the younger guys, one of the rookies. You know, someone's gonna have to push those guys off the roster to just say they're not system fits, so they're not good enough to be on this team. Right, I don't think we're there yet. Who are your linebackers?
I Christian Ellis, Jack Gibbons, Robert Splain and Gelani Tova. And when it comes down to me, and we've kind of talked about this before, do they want somebody different than what they have at the top of the depth chart and Splaine and Ellis to run down hill and stop the run and help them in situational roles, or do they just want another guy that adds more depth of what they have. If it's the former, If they
want just one run stopper, it's t Vi. If they just want more depth behind Ellis and Splain, then there's a stronger.
Case for Marte Mapu. But I think they'll want something different.
I think they'll want some more size there and then Marte Mapu maybe can stick on the practice squad.
Honestly, I'm with you.
I also just feel like with Tavia, if there were to be an injury to Splain specifically, which, Yeah, when you look at this group right now, if Splaine gets hurt, then they're not in great shape. In my opinions, Splaine's kind of a lynchpin right now. This linebacker group. You need Splaine to be the one hundred and twenty plus tackle guy that he has been in Vegas the last couple of years. That's what you signed, That's what you
need him to do. But if he got hurt in his estimas time, the guy with the experience and with the really the NFL game experience to be able to go out there and play seventy snaps in an NFL game is July to Via like he's the guy that has that kind of experience. And I guess you could say the same thing about Jennings. So for that reason, I think he's here for the time being. The Mapu thing,
you know, fascinates me. I've been saying since the day they drafted him that he's a linebacker and not a safety. I got where they were going with him playing him at safety in the old system. There's a lot of overlap with those hybrid safeties and linebackers in today's NFL. It wasn't like it was we're gonna make this linebacker into a corner like they were making him into a position.
That made some sense, but him playing at the second level of the defense as a modern linebacker is still the best path to him sticking in the league in my opinion. He's still two twenty two twenty five with good length. So even though he's not two hundred and fifty pounds for today's measurements, in today's body types, at that position, he's right there. If he bulkes up to like two twenty five to two thirty, he's the size of most linebackers in today's NFL at that size, six three,
two thirty is an NFL linebacker. Now, what it allows you to do. You have a lot of coverage flexibility. I think that's the main thing. Whether it's him playing man to man against certain guys you know, running backs, tight ends that thing, or dropping into his own coverages high stress zone coverages. He just gives you a lot of that kind of versatility where he's a linebacker basically like a safety type, Like he's a linebacker in a safety body. So he's gonna have some coverage up side.
Is he gonna be able to get to that point where he was at Sack State though, where he was flying around.
Well, so that's the thing you talk about, he's got to put this weight on.
It's not necessarily as simple as putting the weight on and then just like all right, I have this weight on, I'm playing the same weight.
Like when you put weight on, how does it impact your movement ability?
Right?
So that's where the question is that he can get up to two thirty and still fly around like that, Yeah, he's going to be a contributing player. He gets up to two thirty and then slows him down a step, Well, then what good was putting on the weight because now.
He's lost was his best, best trait, which was his explosiveness.
Now, maybe it helps that he's playing more at the second level and maybe he's more natural in that spot and has more experience in that spot. Dating back to college. The other thing with him in terms of flying around, he just wasn't reading the field very well playing safety. I didn't think he saw the field very well. I don't think he processed the game very well from that spot. A lot of misdirection and a lot of things eyes in the backfield, you know, tunnel vision, Like he just
wasn't seeing the game very well. And if you don't have that instinct, then you don't have that processing ability. You're not gonna play fast. You're you're you're not gonna play fast. So that's why guys that aren't particularly fast can play faster. Like I don't think Robert Splaine is like this tremendous athlete, but when then you watch him play it, and uh, the NFL like he is a great sideline to sideline tackler because he plays so quickly
and he's processing things so quickly. So for Marte Mapu, I have less concern about him having the athleticism to be a rangy linebacker and more concerned about is he going to see the game to be a rangy linebacker. For whatever reason, it just didn't click with him from a mental standpoint. There's certain games that I just have stuck in my head of misdirection and things like that caught catching him off guard. Remember that game was it was two years ago in Miami where Tyreek Hill just
ran right by him. He was in like a quarters and like you just have the deep part of the field and he just got his eyes glued into some eye candy in the backfield and just let number ten, like the one player you can't let run by you just ran right by him. Like things like that just have consistently happened with Marte Mapu that if he's gonna stick around and he's gonna take that next step, he's
gonna have to process the game faster. And I think that's really fascinating with him because a lot of his teammates credit him for being a really smart football player and a guy that can wear the green dot and communicate and all that kind of stuff, but he just hasn't translated in terms of his actual post snap processing. So that'll be big for Mapu. Any any hope at all for Monty Rice or cam Riley, We didn't mention them with linebacker.
Cam Riley made a couple of plays in the spring.
That's a past break up.
We'll see. Keep an eye on.
Him, all Right, to corners. I have six corners currently on the roster, Christian Gonzales and Carlton Davis, Marcus Jones, Alex Austin, Marcella's Dial, Isaiah Boulden, So that six leaves DJ, James Miles, Battle Kobe minor, Brandon Crossley and Jordan pulk Off the roster, but Gonzo, Davis, Jones, Austin, Dial, Bolden.
Yeah, same group, same group for me.
I think Alex Austin's the key to this group in the sense, not that he's the best player, but like in the sense that you're gonna have Gonzalez and Davis on the outside, you're gonna Marcus Jones in the slot. If Alex Austin we saw him in the slot a
decent amount in the spring. If he can be your third boundary corner and your backup slot corner, that kind of saves you a spot, and it opens up an opportunity to keep a guy like Isaiah Boulden maybe for special teams purposes, right, And that's not to say he won't play some corner, but we saw them finally mix him in a little bit with the kick returners this spring.
Marcella's Dial kind of same thing. But you should be able to get through the season mainly with four corners, and then it gives you some more flexibility with those other two.
So the one guy that maybe had some questions again about scheme fit. They've talked a lot about size at the nickels spot. But I don't think Marcus Jones going anywhere.
No.
I think Marcus Jones is a lock on this team. To me, he's probably their starting true nickel corner. You know, they probably will have a safety nickel as well that they go to in those big packages. But when you just talk about traditional three cornerback nickel right now, Marcus Jones is the guy in the slot. To me, he's
just too good in man coverage. He's too strappy, he's too opportunistic with his playmaking ability as well, it's too dynamic, like he's just such a dynamic athlete and a dynamic player. And then you add on to that the punt return ability. He's team more than has a role on this.
You know, will they ultimately re sign him at the end of the year in his contracts up?
I don't know. That's where you get into more that do we want to invest in this player with our scheme? But he's not a guy you rush out the door.
Right Alex Austin, we talked so much about that Jason mccordy, third cornerback, outside corner roll. That to me is Alex Austen. You know, Carlon Davis and Christian Zalizer can be your starters. Is there a chance that you need a third outside corner in that group? Maybe Gonzalez is shadowing somebody that plays a lot inside that week, and so you need a third body out there. Maybe one of those guys gets dinged up at some point and you need him
to spot start or something like that. So I don't know if Alex Austin's a lock, but whatever is below lock, he's like right in that next category of pretty securely on the roster. Dial I like his versatility. I still think Dial could play some safety or play some slot as well some special teams. And same thing with Bolden. I think Bolden's are going to be a really good special teamer in this league if he continues to develop not only just as a returner but also as a
coverage guy. You know, a guy that can cover kicks. I think he has a really high future with that. So I have all six of those guys on the team there at cornerback safety this one. Again, I could hear arguments from some of these other guys on this group, but as of right now, I have four safeties. Kyle Duggar, Jabrill Peppers, Craig Woodson and Jalen Hawkins, Marcus EPs, Dealt Pettis and Josh Minkins are the guys off the roster
as of right now. If you wanted to make the case for Epster Pettis, I could, I could hear it. I wouldn't be opposed to it. But Duger and Peppers, in my opinion, have one more year. They have one more year as the incumbent starters. I think they're gonna play a lot if healthy. I don't think there's any real argument there. If they have another down year by their standards, especially Duger in twenty twenty five, maybe we're
talking about a different direction in twenty twenty six. But as of right now, because of the extensions they just signed, because of the year from hell that they both just had essentially last year, Let's see if Dougger can get healthy, Let's see if Peppers can get his life in order. Yeah, and you know, let's move forward with these two guys and hope that they're the players we thought.
Well, Peppers was banged up too, especially when he came back last year, So you know, you hope if the two of them are healthy, we know what they can do. The two of them are healthy, that's one of the best safety combinations in football. I like what I saw from Craig woods in this spring. Jalen Hawkins is going to make the team. They were just giving him so many opportunities in the spring. I don't think that's ultimately what his role will look like because Dugger wasn't out
there right now, we'll change things. I left del Pettis off items my fifty fourth player probably could make the argument to keep him over, maybe like Marcella style for special teams. But yeah, that group comes down to Duggar and Peppers. Where are they at they do they take a step forward, and can they bounce back?
After look last year, I don't think it was an accurate.
Reflection of either of their true skill sets. But you know, it can be tough to bounce back in the NFL.
You're another year older. Now.
It'll be interesting to see where they're at, especially to me, especially Douger, just because he's you know, still banged up and didn't practice the spring.
I'm hopeful that Craig Woodson can make those guys right, you know, like if Craig Woodson can play in the deep part of the field. Yeah, and then Kyle Dugger can play more in that box robber role or maybe over the slot a little bit, and Peppers can play closer the Line's like, if you can get those guys into their natural homes, so to speak, then I think that this group is still has the potential to be really,
really good. I still don't love it when it's bass, nickel, base defense, Dugger and Pepper's up top and that's your tandem. I don't love that together. I still have concerns about if they're too similar to one another, and if they both really belong closer to the line of scrimmage, are they going to be complimentary enough. When Devin McCarty retired, we talked about it a ton. I talked to Devin
about it. I wrote about it with some of the quotes that he had about how they used to be so the puzzle pieces used to fit together really nicely. Back there, it was McCarty, it was Chung, it was harmon, and they were able to just play off of each other so well. Once those other guys started to age out a little bit, it was McCardy and Duggart for a couple of years there where you have a true free safety, you have a true strong safety, if you want to call it that box safety, and it all
just fit together really nicely. I still don't know if Pepper's and Dugger fit together that well. But if Woodson can be the third guy in and he can be that guy that frees them up to do the rest of that type of stuff, then maybe you save that a little bit. Maybe you get back to that a little bit. It'll be interesting to see about that fourth spot though. Right now I have Hawkins. I think we both have Hawkins right as the fourth safety making the team.
But epstin Pettis have a chance like they're definitely not. That's not set in stone by any means. Epps has played games in the NFL, kind of like Hawkins, like, sort of like a journeyman safety, has played in the league, has started in the league. Pettis had a promising rookie season, if you want to call it Dad as a UDFA. I just wonder with Pettis if you can just get
them onto the Prata squad. I don't know if there's gonna be a ton of market for del Pettis right now, based off of the Patriots you know their roster and where their roster's at, so that that's a safety group. Defensively, I think I skewed a little bit heavier towards offense in terms of numbers. Here, let me do a quick math for you. So I had twenty four defensive players on my roster and.
I had I had twenty five and twenty five. I didn't even split. I didn't even mean to do that, but I did.
So I had twenty four and twenty five based off of my quick math.
Oh, did you count schooler as a specialist.
Yes, so I'll get to that.
You're really twenty four and twenty six.
Yeah, so a little bit heavier to defense then, I guess. Yeah, so that that's the offense of the defense. Looking at special teams, ye, your special teams.
Okay, you just like disparaging a bunch of fans for no reason when you do that.
I don't know why why you find that.
I just like, I just like doing it to annoy you. Bryce Berenger at punter that that's not a surprise. Julian Ashby had long snapper also not a surprise. I understand why they're they're keeping this competition going and I understand why Parker Romo is here. But Andy Borgallis is gonna be the kicker? Yeah, I don't think that's that that's really a question. So Parker Roma maybe sticks around on the practice squad as an emergency kicker, filling in practice
at times. That's often happens during the season to not put the tax on the leg Bargalis during practice during the week. So Parker Roma sticks around in the practice squad, But Andy is going to be the kicker.
Yeah? Do you do a do you do a bubble?
I do a bubble. Oh and by the way, Brandon's schooler coverage?
I had him with the safeties.
Is Brandon school the best special teamer in the NFL?
Who's the All Pro last year? Brand's school?
Yeah he's I think he's the best special teamer.
I think he is.
There's a is he still with the Jets? There's the other I think he's with the Jets. There's another one probably was the second team All Pro.
There's a guy there's Isn't there a guy in the Chargers too? JT. Gray from the safety or second team last year.
Yeah, he's a good player too.
Yeah, there's another guy.
I want to say is with the Jets. That's also a good special teamer. But I think the schooler's got him. Uh I do I do a bubble or did a bubble? So my as of right now Marte Mapu, Del Pettis, Leyden Robinson, Jayvon Baker, Land Larrison, who I head off, and then I just put tight end three? Okay, if they're going to carry a third tight end or not a third tight end, I think is a bubble type.
Of So I do my bubble like I like March Madness, where it's like, you know how they do like last four in, next four out? Whatever?
Yes, so my last three so this is essentially players fifty one, fifty two and fifty three. This isn't the order of how good they are, but it's the order of like where I kept them Anthony Jennings, Jack Connolly, Gelawni Tavai and then my first three off were Dell Pettis, Marcus Bryant, and Ben Brown.
Yeah, so we're similar. You're a little higher on Ben Brown than I am. It's not so much that I think Ben Brown's a bad play.
He got a lot more reps than I thought he would just spring now, granted that was with Jared Wilson limited. But I also still think if Jared Wilson wins the starting job.
In camp, which I think he can do if he's healthy.
Now.
I originally came up with this take before he found out he was dealing with some sort of injury. But if he's fully healthy by July twenty third, I think he can win the starting job. I don't know if
Garrett Bradbury stays as the backup. I he might just be a guy that's, you know, a seven year veteran, has never he started every game he's played, and I believe in the in the NFL, does he say, hey, let me go somewhere where I'm gonna a chance, Because once Jared Wilson's starter, he's the starter, right, You're not continuing that competition. And if they were to do that, well, now, Ben Brown's clearly the backup center. I think Ben Brown's
a good backup center. I thought he was, you know, okay as the starter last.
Year all things considered.
Yeah, for most of the season he tailed off.
He tailed off at the end, but like I would be fine with him as the backup. So I'm not he's gonna be in the mix all the way through. I also wonder if they just haven't played little guard, because, like you said, everybody's gonna compete there, and you know.
He's a physical football player. He is a smart football player.
That's the best argument I've heard.
So he's he's gonna be in the mix, like he's not somebody we can just forget about it, even though he might be the third center right now, and usually you're not talking about the third center as a guy that's really in the mix for a roster spot. The other thing is, if Jared Wilson plays left guard, what does that mean about Cole Strange. If that means Cole Strange isn't here, well, now you still need a backup
center behind Bradbury, which again would be Ben Brown. So he's he's more in the mix than it seems like at first glance.
I think that's a fair take. I hadn't really thought about because at this point, and granted, we have a long way to go, and I know we say that all the time, but it just has to be said. Yeah, I look at it as the odds of Jared Wilson coming back from this injury and then beating out Garrett Bradbury and training camp with really essentially not a very much of a spray, Like he was extremely limited in
the spray, So he's playing catch up come August. So beating out Garrett Bradbury in season might be one thing, But beating out Garrett Bradbury for Week one against the Las Vegas Raiders, I think is gonna be lofty. I'm not rolling out, especially when you put into this equation that Jared Wilson's already a one year starter in college.
That's a twenty one year old prospect, Like he's already a young guy as it is in terms of center prospects go like most centers prospects that come in the league have been playing center for like four or five years in college. So the fact that this guy started one season at Georgia is twenty one going on twenty two, and then really didn't have a spring where he was participating fully, I just think it's a lotty to expect him to then go out and beat a veteran center like Gared Bradbury.
It's not just about Wilson either, Like Bradbury took a step back last year, he's on the older side. He takes another step back this year, like does he come back to Wilson?
I see what you're saying. The one argument I would have for Wilson is that there's no doubt about it that his physical traits are beyond Bradbury's at this point. Like Bradbury is undersized, he gets picked on in pass protection, like that's a real concern with his game. Jared Wilson's much more bigger, sturdier, more athletic at this point of
his career then Bradbury is. I just think the experience is gonna end up winning out there, because not that he's a quarterback like Drake may was last year, but with any rookie, like you don't want to just throw the rookie into the fire unless you have to. Yeah, And I don't think they're gonna have to be in a position where Bradbury's so bad that they have to push Jared Wilson into the starting lineup right away. But maybe Ben Brown sticks around on the practice squad two.
Now that's possible because not a lot of teams carry like a true backup center anymore on their roster. They might carry a guy that could play some center in a pinch, like a cold strange who could play center in a pinch, but just a purely one position backup center. You don't see that too often in the league. That's usually now a practice squad spot. So maybe that's Ben Brown on the practice squad because I'm with you on Ben Brown in general. I didn't think he was awful
last year. I thought he was if he was your biggest problem on the offensive line last year, your offensive line would have been better than would have ended up being like they had much bigger issues and excuse me, than Ben Brown at center. So that's your roster projection. If you want to weigh in on our roster projections and you think that we're wrong or you think we're right or whatever, be sure to do so. The email address, which is right. I want to point this out. It's
right there at the bottom of the screen. Now we got we got fancy with this, we got graphics now, producer Alex. That's pretty cool. I like that.
Yeah, I had nothing to do with that.
Yeah, I like the graphics. So you can see right there on if you're watching on YouTube or on the live stream on any of your social media platforms. Podcast at patrons dot com is the email address eight five five, Pats five hundred is the phone number. We got some people waiting on the line, so we're going to get to those now and I'll get to your emails. Patty is an aguam. What's up, Patty?
What's up?
How we doing.
Doing good? So my question today is who is the as far as like who you guys have in making the fifty three men roster, who do you think you guys most polarizing player is. And I'll give you my answer, like I'm mold over two players, one on offense, one on defense. On defense, that was Kyle Dugger for me, But on offense, I think it's and I keep bringing
this guy up. I think it's Cole Strange. And this is what the caveat of take the quarterback out because obviously your quarterback is more oftentimes than not, your most polarizing player. But to me, Cole Strange is like the is the key to the whole offensive line, Like if he's going to be twenty seventy in the next month, and for me, like you know, twenty seven to thirty two, those are your prime year set an NFL player. You
have the experience. Even though he's been injured but like you have the experience of going through a system or systems, and you know, just if he's able to kind of put it all together this year and really solidify that spot up as left guard, you know, maybe he gets a contract expansion, but more so, like you know, Will Will Campbell's going to have his ups and downs as a rookie. You know it's gonna happen. He's not going to come in and be prime Joe Thomas' first year.
But if Strange can kind of capture that lightning in the bottle that he had in twenty twenty three where he statistically had his best season and can build off of that, Like I said that really to me, I know, like you'll have questions at center, but like that kind of solidifies the offensive life more, you know, more or less. And I just wanted to get your guys opinion on that.
I'll take it out fair guys, Thanks, Patti.
Yeah, Cole Strange is a fair answer. It's a fair answer. He's going into year four as the last year of his rookie contract. They obviously did not pick up the fifth year option for pretty obvious reasons, so he's in a contract year. Whether he plays left guard center. He's gonna have to play it at a pretty good level to be here beyond this season and maybe even be here this season. I still am not ruling out Cole Strange is not even making the team, that's right. So
that's definitely a good one. I would say the most polarizing, Like when I hear polarized.
We so like polarizing that we have them on the roster, or just who's the most polarizing player on the team, because like that's two different things.
Right, So I when I hear polarizing, I think of like controversial, to be honest with you, or like just a bane of people's existence in some type of way. I'm gonna have to say Jalen Polk, Like I feel like Jalen Polk right now.
You don't have him on the team. I don't have him on the He said that we have on the team.
Someone that we have on this So, like I was gonna say, I just think like when I hear that, it's like, well, so my first reaction was like, all right, polarizing in terms of like people are gonna agree or disagree with me having him on. It's Kendrick Bourne, Who's weirdly one of the most polarizing players on this team. A lot of what I hear people complain about about Kendrick Bourne, I'm like, are you sure you're talking about eighty four?
Are you sure you're talking about that guy?
Well, their complaints are that he's not a wide receiver one, and no one's saying that he is, Like, no one has made that art.
No, He's just like a solid, complimentary player. He's experienced with the quarterback, he's experienced with the offensive. He's got a little juice I don't know, like I And for all the stuff I hear about him being a bad locker room guy outside of the Patricia year, there's not much evidence of that, And I kind of throw that out because it was that year. So I think he'd be a good useful player to keep on this team.
He's not gonna solve every problem they have a wide receiver, but I think he'd be a good useful player to keep on this team. But people seem to have like a real real problem with him being on the roster.
I think the main reason why is there's sort of this like attachment that I think that gets attached to Kendrick Bourne. Of like the mediocrity that's been that room, right, and yeah, last year specifically, he was supposed to be the veteran in the room, he was supposed to be the leader. I don't necessarily think that he had anything to do with a lot of what went on, but maybe you think it did in terms of the immaturity and some of the stuff that went on with that
room last year. Maybe you think that he's shoulders some of that responsibility as the as a more veteran player, that he should have been more of the adult in the room and a better leader to his younger teammates. Fine. I think the other thing is is that for a while there, especially let's call it twenty three, twenty two, twenty three, like he was higher on the depth chart than he should have been. So I don't think it's necessarily Kendrick Bourne specifically. I think it's just more of
an era that Kendrick Bourne has represented. Yeah, and people just want to move on from that completely, which I understand. But I think both of us get heat for being so super pro Kendrick Bourne when all we're saying is that Kendrick Bourne is a serviceable NFL receiver, Right, None of us think that he's prime Randy Moss. Okay, he's just a serviceable guy. He's a decent NFL receiver. He's an average NFL receiver. That's it. That's all we're saying.
Well, and I also just think he has less variance than some of the other guys. And yeah, they have to keep some guys with upside, but you want somebody that you can kind of set your watch to, even if he's not the best player.
You want somebody that you kind of know what he's gonna give you.
Yeah, so that that's a that's a good one. Can I hadn't hear the part that they had to be on my projection, I would probably say, if he has to be on the projection, it's either born or col Strange.
Cole Strane is a good one.
It's a it's a it's put up a shut up time for cold Strange, Like he's gonna have to carve out a role, make this roster be a starter. Probably put some good tape out there. I mean, what's what's cole Strange's future if his season goes the way the first three have gone in and out with injuries, inconsistent play. I don't know where he sticks in the league beyond maybe like a tryout, second contract somewhere. So it's a big year for him, obviously with the first round pick
attached to it. It's a big conversation in the big storyline in general with that draft pick and what that draft pick represents and a lot of ways, similarly to Kendrick Bourne, it just represents a time where they were not making very many good personnel decisions as an organization, and so Cole Strange of gets lumped into that as as a poster child for that entire era of Patriots football, which I think a lot of us would would like to forget and like to move on from. So next
up here is Anthony and Seattle. What's up? Anthony?
Hey, Hey, what's up? Everyone's up? Alex I guess on Hey, longtime pfw S, last TU listener, call her emailer, first time calling into you guys.
Nice, So thank you.
And you know, through the years, I've looked for a second podcast to PEU to try to fill that void when they go to two shows a day during the off season, and none of them have caught my attention until you guys came along. So I thank you guys for that awesome. Hey, So one thing that I caught my ear a couple of times that Evan you've mentioned it. I want to see what you guys think about this scenario.
So you brought up Jared Wilson being not ruling him out in that competition to possibly win the left guard spot if he just ends up being just the best pure blocker out of that that group of guys, and uh, that got my ear cop just because so I thought about, Okay, well, let's say if that, if that, if it plays out that way and he was to win the starting left guard job and then he ends up being like a maybe like not great but good, Let's just say he's
a good guard, and then like I Will Campbell's you know, de center good. I think if that in that scenario, I like to know what you guys think. But for me, I think if that's the case, I'm no longer all that interested in like moving him back to center. Let's say we move on from Bradbury, you know, next next season, and uh, you know, I like the idea of you know, him and Will Campbell just kind of like growing up
together in the in this league. Now, if we got some you know, you got good play over there on on that side of the line, and then uh, you know, looking to try to you know, I think guard's more important position. And so now you're going to you know, Alex's you know, Soto sign one draft one at the center position now instead of being like a sign onund of one in trying to fill that guard positioning in or maybe even bring in a couple guys who can do kind of or like Wilson, who could play both.
And then now you've got kind of a competition where it's three guys that fill two spots. Where you got the best guys it takes the guard spot, the second best guy is the center, and then you got the third guy who's the backup for both spots. I was just curious what you guys think.
Yeah, thanks for the call, Thanks for listening. We appreciate it. With Jared Wilson, I agree with the consensus that his
best long term positions at center. Yeah, And I think the number one thing is when you when you talk to people that no offensive line play, you know, like the Duke Mannyweather is the world who have worked with Jared Wilson having a center that's that dynamic of an athlete can just really open up a lot of avenues of what you can do in the run game that you can't normally do with the center that's not a
great athlete. So the center a lot like the middle linebacker, sits the pace of the offensive line and says how much range and just athleticism you have on the offensive line. So when you have a center like Jared Wilson who's a very dynamic athlete, you know, the number one s tier of course of this is Jason Kelce. When you have a guy that can move like that at the center position, it just makes your line more dynamic as
a whole. But I agree with the caller and that in a vacuum, left guard is probably a more valuable position because you're going to be facing those three techniques, Like you're going to be facing more pass rush types on the defensive line than you might be at center, where at center, a lot of your reps in pass protection you're gonna be uncovered, like there's not gonna be anybody straight up over you, So you're not gonna be put into those one on one battles quite as often
as you might be at left guard. So I get the caller's point. I still think Jared Wilson's naturally best at center. I'm not ruling him out for left guard. Less bit about him maybe projecting as a left guard long term, and more because it might just be your best five on paper, like Camble, Wilson, Bradberry on when new Moses is probably your five most talented offensive lineman
on the roster. So if you're in that vane, if you want to get all those five on the team or on the field, excuse me, the way to do it is to play Jared Wilson at guard. So that that's more of my thinking of it. I like his point though, and I think that they're right there with you. Will Campbell and Jared Wilson are here to hopefully be anchors of the offensive line for the next five to ten years. Like that's the goal. Whether it's center or left guard for Wilson in the long term, well that
remains to be seen. But the goal is to have those guys developed together and develop along this runway with Drake may as pillars up front for you. So hopefully it does work out that way.
Yeah, yeah, I just I do think you want to keep his long term development in mind, and if it's your best five week one September twenty twenty five, but you think he's better off waiting a month and then slipping in at center in October and he gets to develop at that position behind the scenes. I know you said you think he can develop or well playing left guard. I'm a little less optimistic about that idea. I think you develop playing the position you're gonna play, practicing at
the position you're gonna practice. I want his long term development in mind, But if there's nobody else like he kind of has to do.
It be interesting to see how they feel about that, because in this system, there's not as much mentally on the center. It's more on the quarterback than it is on the center. We've talked about that a million times, so it'd be interesting to see how they feel about it. He's relatively inexperience, like I was saying earlier. Yeah, so regardless of where you play him, he doesn't have a
ton of in game reps under his belt. So if you feel like the best way for him to develop is in game live reps, which I do, I think that's the best way for any player to develop. Now you don't want to rush him and put him out there too.
They're not reps at the It's a different position.
It is, but it's not we're not talking about him playing tackle, like we're talking him move over and moving over one spot, but.
You're also talking about the mechanic of actually snapping the ball and having to get up from that stance and that sort of thing. So you are it's like, it's different mechanically.
But if you're in practice and yeah, he'll run, maybe he runs scouts team center and things like that. But if you're in practice and you're not getting any real live reps in games at center, and you're a young, inexperienced player, as it is, like, where is that is it enough to just give him practice squad reps during the season, you know, scout team reps during the season, and that because he needs to play at some.
Point, Well, we'll see how We'll see how close he is in preseason. That will be big.
But like, if you think he's close enough in preseason, maybe he's not perfectly polished to play center, but you see, like, hey, he's pretty close, so let's start him at center so he can get over the hump and by the time we get you know, around Halloween, will be rolling.
Yeah. I definitely think there's a chance that he plays as a rookie somewhere on this line, more than a chance. And I'm not necessarily with you that he beats Bradbury out for week one or has a chance to. But does he have a chance to beat Bradbury up by Halloween? Yeah? Absolutely, I think that's definitely on the table and should be on the I just.
Think that runway becomes longer if he's starting at guard. Also, if he's starting at guard and you want to move him to center to replace Bradbury, now you're changing two spots instead of one, which becomes more convoluted.
That's a that's a fair point as well. I understand what you're saying. And we've been down this road. We've been down this road with Mike Onwenu and it hasn't been pretty right inside outside inside. Now, this isn't quite like as give.
Them give him a position, but I think it.
I think centert to guard is a bigger transition than you're making it.
But it's not as big as guard to tackle. It's not.
It's not because it completely different mechanic, just like it's a different mechanic.
But you're still blocking in a phone booths.
Thematically, it's more similar. The actual physical motions are very different, but.
You're still blocking in a phone like tackle. You're blocking in space right your damp side, whereas at garden center it's a it's a quicker car.
But I think going from a loaded up three point stance to having an app the ball and get yourself up and get your hands up and get your head up and look around like, that's a big difference. When you're reguard, you're looking your see your assignment. You of them sized up from the beginning. When you're a center, there's more you're doing before you get to that stage.
You're right, So I just let him work at that position.
Can I bring up one other, like nerdy offensive line thing?
I need all the nerdy offensive line stuff I can get so and look bad in front of David Andrews.
Okay, so here's actually a good question for him.
Here's another nerdy offensive line thing I've been thinking a lot about Will Campbell. Yeah, and this isn't a short arm joke, so don't make it that. But it's not not a short arm joke. He really. I could probably in the six to seven games I want to say, maybe eight games of his that I watched at LSU last year, I could probably count on one hand the amount of time he was in a three point stance.
Yeah, they're very they don't do it. They don't do it.
They don't do it. And he's they play of their offenses out of the shotgun. He was up into two point stance, up on his feet with his you know, his arms up and not in the three point pat patriot style.
Yeah, and approach to that weird sort of upright stance to begin with.
And he has the weird upright stance to begin with. It's it's not something that I am concerned about. It's something that I want to watch, like it's on my radar to watch in training camp in this over the summer. There's a lot of advantages in the run game to being in a three point stance. Now, you might sit there and say, well, isn't that a tell? It can be Actually, if you really study film, it can be a tell sometimes for certain guys. A guy that has
a little bit of a tell like that. It's Trent Williams, but Trent Williams is so damn good. It doesn't matter matter that he has a tell, but he does have a little bit of a tell. Three point stance though, it's just as exactly how you would think. It's just
naturally creates a lower pad level. It just you are just leveraging your You're down in the three points, has said upright, So you're just naturally your pads are starting at a lower point, so it's easier to kind of like just get out of your stance and explode out of your stance and get into the block with low pads and good leverage. It's not not a thing that he's never done it, and it's also not not a
thing that his arms are not particularly long. So like when he goes into the three point stance a couple of times I saw him do it in the spring. It was just kind of awkward at first to see him do it. And I don't think he's done it a ton. Again, I'm not concerned. I just I am observant, like I just want to see it more consistently and see what it looks like more consistently. Am I crazy for caring about this?
Or is this like like you said, it's a thing. It's a thing to watch. I don't know that it's the biggest concern because it will help with the leverage at times.
No, it's it's absolutely a thing.
It's like when we talk about, you know, we did with Drake May last year, like he's never really been under center, right, and it's just a different mechanical thing. It doesn't mean he can't do it is another thing he has to learn.
Yeah, that seems like a fair comparison, right or.
Yeah, I would love to ask and I probably should have already asked Will Campbell about it, because in a lot of times when we hear about like the under center thing with quarterbacks, they'll come back and Matt Jones is this way. He laughed at it because like in high school he ran like a version of the wing
t and was under center all the time. So maybe there was a chance that Will Campbell down in the Bayou in high school and Monroe, Louisiana was in a three point stance for four straight years, right, Like I don't know, like maybe he was. You never know, So maybe it's nothing. It's just something that was on my radar, the stance that he has. And then Coupled with that, the fact that he hasn't played a lot of reps with his hand in the dirt is just something that
I want to watch and monitor. Do they tweak with his stance? His stances is unorthodox. He's he kind of stands like straight up.
Yeah, he's kind of got nash and Gendy thing going on.
He stands like more straight up or more vertical than most guys. But then as soon as the ball is snapped, he has really great sink and flexibility to like get into that power stance that you want to see him in, the athletic stance, but he does start from a higher point than what you're used to now. Emery Jones on the other side at LSU also did not as pronounced as Will Campbell, but it was also a little bit
more of an upright stance for him as well. So maybe it was just an LSU thing that that's how they felt they wanted to do it for whatever reason. But do you do you think Genty is a good example? In Vegas? They this has been a little bit of a talking point. Do you tweak with Will Campbell's set, not his actual post snap how he moves, but like the actual when he comes to set, he's more upright.
First of all, the Raiders are trying to change genty stance.
I don't think they are, but it was a talking point with their media.
That's something that I don't think he needs. You know, there's a picture of him with his hands on his knees. That'd be a shame if they change that. I love his stance, and he's not the only one.
Dude didn't.
I think Jaya Jai used to stand like that. Sound a couple other guys, but I might just yeah, maybe, but that was I think two coaches to go for them. I don't think you tweak his stance right away. If he struggles out of the gate, that might be one of the first things that you look at to adjust, But you're already thrown enough on his plate. If he's comfortable and it's working, it's I mean, there's examples of
this in sports. You know, I always go to like Steph Curry, right, you would never teach a kid to shoot a basketball mechanically the way Steph Curry shoots it. He's a very unorthodox jump shot. But you're also not gonna correct Steph Curry's because he's Steph Curry and it works for him. But it works for him, it's not gonna work for anybody else. Aaron Rodgers very unorthodox throwing motion.
You wouldn't coach somebody to throw the ball that way so that he throws both feet off the ground, right, But you're not gonna look at him and be like, no, you need to change this now. If Aaron Rodgers had gotten in the league and it kind of sucked it first, yeah, the coach is probably would have gone to him and been like, no, we need to clean up your mechanics.
So I think that's something with Will Campbell. If it works for him, it works for him, you don't screw with it, and it's not something you're necessarily gonna touch right away if he's proving in the summer that it's worked, but if he starts to struggle, that's going to be one of the first things you look at and correct.
When when Drake May first got in here last year, I remember talking to TC McCartney, their quarterbacks coach last year, and I know that staff has a lot of negative energy around him right now, but they did a nice job with Drake May. Van Pelton McCarty one thing, Yeah, the hardest thing they do. And I remember talking to him about Drake May's throwing motion because there's a lot
of talk about it. Was, you know, the elongated throwing motion and he kind of brought the arm all the way back and they would you want to tighten that? Would you want to shorten that? And the one thing that McCartney said to me was that if when it comes to the throwing motion, the concern that you have about it is is he controlling the football and is
he throwing the ball accurately? So some people looked at it in the draft and said, Drake May's throwing motion is part of the reason why he has those May sprays like is because it's throwing motions longer. So basically you just have like more margin. You're creating a more room for error, right because yeah, you're longer, so you have more time to make a mistake in your mechanics. So if you shorten that motion up and in theory, it's gonna be quicker, it's gonna be more compact, the
ball is going to come out smoother. I would say the same thing is true for Will Campbell. They didn't touch Drake May's arm motion because they felt like it wasn't an issue, right, They felt like it wasn't why he wasn't throwing accurately. They thought the accuracy was more timed up with his footwork and the fact that he wasn't throwing in rhythm with his feet. So once they cleaned that up, he had some sprays last year, but he was way more accurate than anybody could have imagined.
Like it was way better than anybody could have imagined. Same thing in my mind with Will Campbell, Like you said, if his stance in his start of his set is not hindering him and he's not losing because of it, then don't touch it. If he sprayed the ball all over the field with the offensive line equivalent of that is, then maybe you start to be a little bit more concerned about him, and you start to get him into a more natural stance.
But I'm not.
I'm not worried about like the high any of the high level stuff with Bill Campbell.
I'm really not.
I think he's gonna be fine. All this little minutia stuff though, is uh.
So we do on the show.
I find it interesting. We'll see what happens I don't know if they're gonna tweak with it, but I will definitely be looking for it. Uh. Kayley is in San Diego. What's up, Kayley?
Kayley, Hey, guys, I was watching Patriots on stills here yesterday and I heard Evan was talking a little bit about the break in between for the summer. Who are you guys watching for this summer and making sure they're staying out of trouble. We saw Digs in the yacht. Who else do we we watch him?
Oh Man, Thanks for the call, Keyley. I'm not going to speculate on players potentially getting into trouble. Let's hope nobody does. But that was just a point we brought up lot yesterday about this being at the time of the off season where just league wide, unfortunately, this is when guys tend tool out again in some trouble. But let me ask you this as an off season topic, Kaylee. We're not dodging your question. It's just I don't think
we need to speculate about that. The question that I have for you, because I have two different brains when it comes to this, My you know, working brain is saying, if you cancel my summer NFL calendar. I am not going to be happy, Okay, like this is our This five weeks is really our summer. Yeah, where we actually get to enjoy summer. And woe is us? I know, but bear with me.
Yeah.
However, from a logistical standpoint, it makes less than zero sense that they go through this spring circuit and they have this weird five week gap and then we come back for training camp. It just doesn't make any sense
logistically why they do it this way. I still think, based off of some of the things that you hear coming out of these NFLPA meetings and league meetings, that reconfiguring the entire offseason is on the calendar or on the you know, in terms of just putting it so that OTA's leads directly into mini camp, directly into training camp.
Instead of having the spring start in April run through June, five week break training camp, we would have probably everything would probably start in the beginning to middle of June run all the way through July. Maybe you have like a week off in there somewhere around July fourth, and everybody back for training camp. You the reporter would probably hate it, But doesn't it make more logistical sense for it to be that way.
It doesn't. It doesn't. You need a break physically at some point.
So the break would be the off season from the end of the football season in January slash February to the beginning of June.
I just think break two and a half months of camp, because that's what you're talking about. So you're talking about starting in mid June, mid June to mid July, mid July to mid August to the end of August, right, is the that's two and a half months of camp.
You'd have like, that's brutal, so you'd have to shorten it.
You'd have. What you'd have is is this ota thing what we have now where when in the very beginning would be more of like a ramp up period and it wouldn't be five six practices a week. It would be like two or three practices a week.
How about So how about you just get rid of that and you start like the second week in July. Start get rid of the spring and start two weeks earlier.
That would That is probably the compromise. That's where the NFLPA is. Yeah, the NFLPA wants to do away with the spring starting all together.
So like for instance, this year, because they always start on that Wednesday now, right, which is July twenty twenty third, Yes, start on July ninth, So that gives you two more weeks to lead up and that can be all the install. Right, What is install realistically, Tay, I've never done this process.
It is two weeks too short for install.
For your base stuff. No, now, but.
What are they installed in the spring? I'm saying the install that you would do in the springing.
Right, But I'm talking about your base offense, meaning like first and ten from the twenty five what plays are you running if by the end of the spring, because they have the extra time. Now, by the end of the spring, they're already into like red zone work. Well, I get so that the other thing, that type of stuff would have to wait.
Well, the other thing, I guess is because we're thinking of this starting with OTAs, they have what a month before OTAs begin, that's on the calendar.
Yes, So when is is that? What's starting in so the June.
The proposal that I have seen from the NFLPA, and that came out a couple of years ago, is the first time I heard of this. The proposal that I saw was they would start probably right around this time, maybe a little bit earlier. They would have essentially a mini version of the spring where it's o TA rules, nonpadded shorts and T shirt.
What about the stuff before they even get to the o TA practices because that would be that phase one, Phase two that would be gone. But you need that too, because isn't that when you like go over on the whiteboard.
That's when LA gonna be And yes, that's the classroom.
So do you need that?
I think you need it. But this is the compromise, okay, because I think that the this and in the story that Paul Broke brought up as a story from from Bill from Belichick about how stressed out Belichick would be about this time of year because you don't know what the players are doing. They're completely off, they're out of the ibility. And it's not just about the off fields, it's also where they come back.
I guess what I worry about is if you shorten this, we already have enough issues where you get to week one and players aren't ready.
Right.
The first month of the season has become an extended preseason because teams are still installing plays. The linemen have barely hit anybody. So if you're gonna shorten this even further, or what is that going to do to the quality of the product. If they're gonna do that, you need to have more padded practices.
You need to and I.
Don't think the players are gonna go for that, and I don't know that they should, but like you need to balance the fact that you still need to actually get ready for the season.
Agreed. Now, the biggest pushback this is really I would say player driven mostly. Yeah, the biggest pushback I think players have about all of this is that in no other sport, in professional American sports, do you have this kind of calendar where there's a spring practice circuit for seven eight weeks. It's almost two whole months really when you think about it. They have a little bit of a lull in there, like around the draft and rookie County camp where the veterans are out of the building,
but it's basically a two month thing. From April to the beginning of June. You have a spring camp, then you have a five week break, and then you have training camp into the season and then you're going In baseball, they report for spring training and they play all the way through. In basketball they report for camp, they play all the way through, and hockey they report for camp.
Yeah, so much more you have to do in football.
But I think that the players want one continuous break. Yeah, that's what they're trying to vouch for. So to your point, teams are probably saying, well, let's do two weeks of Phase one Phase two classroom in stall and conditioning. Then we'll do a three week ramp up period that is OTA rules, you know, shorts and T shirts. But we're on the practice field, we're playing actual football eleven on eleven,
and then training camp starts right around the same time. Now, that would start you in US right around mid June, mid June, where like right where Mini camp started. Yep, that would be phase one of ot of OTAs would be then, and we would you would run all the way through the whole season. It wouldn't stop at that point.
Yeah, that's just a lot. That's a longer calendar than these other leagues.
Have, which is why the players are pushing back and want it. Don't want to chop off Phase one and Phase two all together.
I just you can't. You still need to get ready for the season. You still have. Also, there's so I've heard mixed things on this from players because some guys, you know, during the season you don't get a lot of toat time to spend with your family. And this is more of the older players. You have kids, right, you want to be off when they're off. You want to be off when they're out of school. Yeah, so
you can do stuff as a family. And you know, if you start on June eleventh, you're basically going back to work, well like a week before they start summer vacation.
Yeah, and just you know, all of those things like if you play in New England and you're up here that time of year, obviously this is the best time weather wise, is the best time for vica. You know, the vacation around here.
Like it's weird.
But in theory, the best way to do it that would make everybody the happiest.
This wouldn't be good for the football. The best way to do it would.
Be to do it in the other direction. Come out of the draft, go right into OTAs. Not because there's like two or three weeks right between the drafts and OTAs. Come out of the draft, go right in OTAs, going to mini camp, do training camp in like May and June, take July off and then come back and like MiG mid August and have like a two week ramp up to the season. Now, that makes zero sense logistically because you're gonna lose a lot and then have to get
right into the football. But that's probably what everybody would want. It would just hurt the football.
So here's why I brought it up. Not only because I am preparing myself for this being a reality at some point that they're gonna chop July off in June, but also Joff here from Virginia. He wrote in about potential eighteen game schedule, and in my mind, the league is not going to part with anything, you know what I mean, the league, I mean the owners. Yeah, the owners are not gonna part with anything that cost them money. Like they're just they're not gonna give up any game.
They're not going to give up any any gate, you know, ticket gates or anything like that. They're not going to give up anything of actual value. Now, the one thing they might give up is making the calendar more player friendly, right, because that doesn't cost him any money in theory. So jaw for Jeff, I don't know how it's Jeff with a G.
That's Jeff.
Jeff in Virginia says, you know, the eighteen game schedule is coming and is an off season topic. That's why I'm bringing it up, and that's probably fair. So he said, how would you guys feel about three bye weeks to keep players healthier? The way it would work is you would do half the NFL have a bye thing. It's giving week. Half the week before knout will have the prior off week. Then you do one bye week. Okay,
this is very complicated. Basically, his proposal is to have eighteen games, three bye weeks, and then have the super Bowl on Presidence Day. If I'm not mistaken, all they have to do is add one more week in the super Bowls on President Yeah.
And that's coming, and that that's absolutely coming. Although they're gonna get rid of a preseason game when they add the eighteenth, so I'm not sure where that week will come from. Honestly, what they should do is, I assume when they go to eighteen games, they're also going to go to eight teams per conference in the playoffs, because that thing is looming to once there's no bye weeks, they should have a bye week before the playoffs.
And just everybody gets that week off like that. So maybe that's.
How you get to President's Day because they didn't they added a bye week before the regular season when they got rid of the fourth preseason game to push it back the way they did. No, they're gonna have to go to two bye weeks when they get to eighteen games, Like that's gonna happen. But what I think is that what that's gonna be is it's going to be. Uh, the NHL does something like this. I think it's called
potted bye weeks. I don't remember exactly, but like you're you're basically grouped with your division and every division has a bye week at the same time. So what you'll have is probably from weeks with three to ten, eight weeks three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Yeah, so from weeks three to ten or four to eleven, you'll each division will have a bye week in there,
and then from weeks eleven to whatever whatever to whatever. Right, So you wouldn't you wouldn't have a bye week week two and five, right, it would be you're you're gonna be in a group with the same team with your division you're all or maybe they just group teams differently, whatever, But like every team would have one bye week before the halfway point, every team would have one by week after the halfway point, and you'd be taking the same bye weeks with the same teams you're grouped with, and
the ideas you'd be grouped with teams that you play to make the scheduling easier.
Eighteen games, two byes, eighteen games two buys.
But it's not that it's a little more complicated than that, because you can't give a team like week two and five for a bye or week fifteen and like thirteen and fifty four state right, everybody, It's really what it's gonna have to be is first half by, second half BY, and you're gonna have to split it like that. And if you have an early first half BY, you have an early second half BI. If you have a late first half BY, you have a late second half BY.
Because even if you split first and second, if you have a bye week week eight and a bye week week eleven, that could be advantageous or disadvantageous depending on who you look at. So there's gonna be more math that goes into the bye weeks, and this is where it's okay to use math. There's gonna be more math that goes into the bye weeks once you get to two and when they go to eight teams in the playoffs, I'll say this again, there should be a bye week before the wildcard round.
So I agree. I actually love the idea of the bye week before the wildcard round because I feel like that would also then in turn, maybe make week eighteen or nineteen, whenever the hell it's gonna be, it'd be week twenty.
If you're gonna it's gonna be two buys eighteen games, be week twenty, Week twenty.
That would then, in theory, make week twenty more viable because you're not Teams that know they're gonna be playing on wildcard weekend now often use that as a rest week or they go easy or whatever. It's kind of a pseudo bye week because they don't have the bye week, so they have to build their own bye week. So now in theory that that week becomes more of like the regulars, you're not going to get what we got last year with Joe Milton versus the Buffalo backups, Like
you're not gonna get that as often. So I'm for that. I think that's just better for the product as well. I eighteen weeks, two buys where we're headed. The concessions, my guess is a lot of them we won't even hear about in terms of the NFLPA will be little things that have nothing to do with anything. Maybe the offseason reconfiguration. Those will probably be the concessions by the league. And let one less preseason game, which.
I can't wait till five hundred teams again.
And it won't bring five hundred teams back.
Right, yeah? Yeah, eighteen games, yes, even number.
So math ye, So yeah, I think that that's that's where we're headed. It'll be interesting to see though when we get there. Presidents say weekend right now is just a week after the super Bowl, right like?
Correct?
Yeah? No, they need they need one more week and then it will finally be official. The day after super Bowl will be a holiday.
It could just be holiday, like they could just make.
It back to I'll be fair, like back to back federal holidays. That's a tough sell.
I feel like our current president would do something.
Like that, though, Look, if it's built in, why not.
Also, don't you want to get it off of you have a certain other obligation that weekend, right, wouldn't you.
Like to get it out of that weekend?
I get again, Actually everybody is a certain it's also Valentine's Day.
We get again.
I find woe is me, But I get absolutely bamboozled by that week because it's just as birthday and it's Valentine's Day and it's Super Bowl.
So that the rams bengled super Bowl.
Like I was texting you the whole time you were Yes, we were to find out after you weren't watching.
We were out to dinner and there was probably didn't have to wait for a table and no wait and listen. Oh yeah, Jess, I rented out the whole restaurant.
Look at this and as you know, just as a big sports fan. So it's not it's not like that she's like one of those girls that's like, you know, very anti this whole thing, but doesn't trump her birthday when when it's not relevant teams, if it's not the Patriots playing in the super Bowl, it's not relevant teams, it doesn't matter. But there was a TV in her like her head was here and the TV was like right here. I know I'm really good radio right now.
The TV was right behind her, and she could tell that I was looking through her to the TV at one point, and she she made it. She was just not happy. I don't think she made a switch seats, but she wasn't.
You of all people should want that, is it? I kind of And it was the first year they did it. I think it was on Valentine's Day, right, and it was like brutal, just good luck, good luck to all you. No, oh wee, I look, I I speaking see I have the opposite. My birthday is on a major sports day or weekend, and I love it. My birthday weekend and it's not always exact day. My birthday weekend, uh is usually the first weekend of March Madness, which is awesome.
They'd better not expand the tornament. I do not want that to be the second weekend. It's also it's just too it's too many teams. It's too many teams.
Do not expand, Charlie Baker, do not expand March Madness. Please, it's fine, so plenty of teams.
You say this though, and Justin and I are going on six years together. Can you believe that's? Yeah? It's crazy, like, throw us a party for that six years? Well, isn't that the That might be Yeah, that might be the goal.
There's a thing, there is a party for that that people generally have, by the way.
So anyways, uh may the Patriots have obviously never played in the Super Bowl, yeah, in that six year period, so hopefully fingers crossed Mike Rabel all goes well, But imagine my world if I am not only am I gone for the entire week covering the Super Bowl, woe is me, but I am also not home for her birthday.
So it's been six years.
So literally, so you guys, the first year you guys were together was nineteen yeah, because because I remember watching that, I was I was with you guys for that super Bowl.
So twenty nineteen. Yeah, we met in October during football season of October of twenty nineteen and U and that was That was a weird football season for me because my priority has changed quite rapidly, like all of a sudden, I went from like only obsessed with football to like having this whole other thing in my life. My life definitely changed for the better, but it definitely changed.
They're gonna move to the Patriots, and the Patriots they're gonna move it back. The only shame in then moving it back.
I remember the Patriots, so that the first week of February, right Februar one, two, three, four, five, sixty seven, I believe I remember looking at some the time. The Patriots have won Super Bowls on I think five of those dates, so they only needed two more, and we would have spent the entire week with a Patriots super Bowl anniversary on every day. And now when they win another one,
we'll have to wait a whole other week. That one will be separate from all the others, and we only have five days of the week we get to separate celebrate super Bowls.
Oh woe was us.
But we'll get back to the football here in a second. But just one last offseason things. So Frank Amer, congratulations to got married, smart man. This is the time to get married if you're if you're in any NFL.
Unless they move this calendar, and then his anniversary is going to be during trient camp.
But in theory, you line up. It's not just about the wedding day. Everybody thinks about the wedding day, but nobody thinks about the wedding day and the anniversary, right, because then it's your anniversary every single year too. If you do it during football season, not only did you get married during football season, but then your anniversary now
falls on football season every single year. So smart man got married right during this dead time of the offseason, right now, and now every year, he should be safe.
I think he'll be safe unless they move his calendar.
Unless they move the calendar, and then he's screwed. All right, let's get back to the phones here. Robin is in Westboro. What's up, Robin?
Hey, guys, that's going Hey good. So I sort of have a bone to pick with both of you about this argument.
Okay.
I feel like the media is split into people who don't like math, like math and uh no one who actually does math. I see you as a lot of people who are handed as statistic and trusted equicitly or they are distrusted immediately.
All these formulas are secret.
You can't do it yourself. All the formulas are kept secret.
No, No, but you can create.
Your still have a general idea how it calculates.
No, that's the whole thing with dv o A. It's a secret formula, right, you don't know how it's calculate.
DVO is definitely a bit more secret. But I think e p A is actually something you could work with a lot more.
You could code it.
You have not a code.
That's yeah, the average football fans coding. The average fans coding is uh. I think QB are secret, right, pride secret.
We don't want people to know because we're just trying to create things that fit our narrative. Sorry, go, you could let him tell.
But my point is. My point is that people people who do MAK understand that there's assumptions built into it and are are less likely to trust their own statistics because they know where the shortcomings are. And I just wanted to say, like, e p A is a very real stat.
Alex, Yeah, what is it?
What is it? The measure of.
Expected points?
But it's expect. It's not real, it's expected.
It's right there, Robin all.
Expected is average point. It's just where his abilities. So we say expected, Yeah, he doesn't. He's hung up on the word expect. He's hung up on the word expected.
Yeah, Alex, how about this? How about you just read a summary of how e p A is calculated? And I think you'll like it a much a bit better better than you think, because it plays into the situation of the game a bit more like this. I'm not saying it's an all end all it's a great stat because again there's assumption built in, but I think, uh, it plays into the situation a bit more than you think.
Is that a problem? I thought you had a bone to pick with both of us. That's just a.
Talics Oh oh, Evan, Uh, I guess my problem was that sometimes you blindly trust the statistics like EPA, do you do you know how it's calculated you or do you have a general idea you don't need to know the nitty gritty yes, yeah, and stuff like that. It helps you understand what the statistic is. Basically, what I'm saying is watch the game film of the statistics rather than just have a statistics to spit out.
Oh yeah, I mean, I think I watch enough game film for all of us. But thanks for the call, Robin. Yeah, I hear what he's saying. No, I'm not a I'm not a statistician like I didn't. I'm not a I'm not a that much of a math guy. I am one of those math guys that if you give me the numbers, I then interpret the numbers the way I want to interpret them. Right, I'm not somebody that's actually calculating the numbers itself. I'm not Aaron Shatz, Like, I'm
not building a formula and calculating numbers. I just use the numbers at Aaron Shatz gives me to then draw conclusions from them.
But you don't know. But so this is what bothers me. You don't know what the basis is for those numbers.
DVOA is his own formula. So that's that's something that is a little bit more cut and dry in terms of that. But expected points added, I do know for the most part how it's calculated.
You know, take what it is basically on average, this this team would score this many points on this drive.
This is how much they actually scored on this drive. This is the difference plus or minus or whatever. I don't care about that. Why did they do better than the average team did? Why did they did where? I would like to think that most football fans people watch the game semi regularly can figure that out by watching the game themselves. Hey, this team started at the opposents thirty yard line, it didn't score. I don't need a number to tell me that was a bad drive. Why
didn't they score? Was the pass protection bad? Did the quarterback make a bad decision? Was the play calling bad? Did the defense make an unbelievable play? Did the coach make a bad decision? In terms of going forward, like that's don't I don't care that, you know, well, the average team usually scores here and they didn't. I know, I know, and I'd like to maybe I'm giving the average fan too much credit. I'd like to think the average fan knows without being shown a number.
But I don't think that that's I don't think that's out for debate in terms of that's not what the numbers are being used for. The numbers are being used to do two things. Either rank things, yeah, you know, ranked players, rank offenses, ranked defenses, or to just like quantify, you know, so and so is having a really good season in this area of the game. Third down. Let's say, you know, what are like all the NFL teams or what are like, who's the best third down team in
the NFL. I know you might traditionally just use like the percentages of did you make it or did you not make it? But EPA takes that into account and then also adds more of like did you generate an explosive play on third down? Not just did you pick up seven yards on third and six, but did you pick up twenty seve years.
We already have numbers for all this. We have third down percentage, we have our average yards gains per third down. I know you're gonna tell me, well, third down percentage doesn't work because you know, if one team has an average of eight yards to go and one team has an average for five yards to go, obviously the five
yard team. Okay, but that's almost removing the context because well, you know, relatively speaking, the team that's in third and eight, you know, converts more than the team that's in third and five, even though the percentage is lower. Okay, but the the team that's in third and five more often is still the better team because they're getting the third and five instead of third and eight. I actually don't want that piece of context removed. I want that in there.
So like, I just think it's again it's I'm not even saying the numbers are wrong. I just think it's in people creating another they're adding or subtracting context as they want in order to find a number that supports their argument.
That's what analytics are to me.
So often they feel backwards engineered that this is what I believe, and I need a number that I can put out there to say what I believe versus I believe this, and here are the numbers that back it up. Because it's why can't people say, I think some of these people because they don't watch the game in a way they can say I believe this, and maybe the numbers don't back it up, but here are the x
and ose football reasons why it's true. The numbers are in there to replace the x and ose football reasons, which I understand simplifies it for some. But I also think it's become something that's kind of become a lazy tool.
So two things to that, and to a different point to that. Specifically, I tried to like the caller's point about like watch the film that which is I think is funny, so to I try to watch the I watched the film first and foremost all the time. So when you but I when I look at the film, and I'll say, just in my head, when I watched that tape. My takeaway was that they were really successful this week with gap runs for whatever reason, their downhill
run scheme, the gap schemes. Those schemes are really humming today. But in theory like that could be anecdotal, right like where it's just a couple of big plays stand out in your head and that's how it feels. What I like about the numbers is that I can say the Patriots are really effective in man coverage this week, or the Patriots are really affected effective with gap runs this week, and then I can put not just my eye test
to it. I can put an actual quant a fiable number to it and say the Patriots are really good in gap runs this week. Their EPA was plus whatever. So now you say you have my film analysis backed up by the numbers. If you're going to the numbers and then reverse engineering like you said, and then trying to pry out the film that supports the numbers, you're doing the back.
Don't you believe that there's people that do that? Probably, yeah, there are.
But I think that the hope is is that the football people, the people actually in the football world that are making these decisions or commentading on this type of stuff are doing in the way I'm so, and it's this is what I'm seeing because let's face it, I'm I fully am aware. I am not a coach. I am not in a football front office, I am not on a coaching staff. So yeah, I can sit here and tell you that I know how to watch the film. If you don't believe that, I totally understand.
But why can't you do Why couldn't you just do yards per carry on gap versus yards per carry on that gap?
You could, but yards per carrying itself, like kind of the callers point has inherent flaws to the statistic, Like what if like a two yard run on thirty and one is much different than the two yard run on first and ten. That's where EPA can help. Like EPA, that's the goal of the statistics.
So the one that I've started coming around on it's success rate. It's a similarity, which is basically like did you get x percentage yards to a first down?
Right?
Yeah? So the way that I look at EPA is, you know, just kind of sum it up beyond just its expensive points at it. EPA to me is a better measurement of like explosiveness of your offense, like essentially just like a more glorified yards per play.
Okay, we have other explode we have explosive play percentage.
Right, but when you look at explosive play percentage, you're you're taking the sample and you're going like this because you're only looking at the plays that are actually explosive. EPA takes all of the plays into account and measures how just explosive an offense is compared to the to the average. Right, you can still success rate is really good. Success rate is like consistency of an offense, like how consistently are you taking chunks out of the chance?
Right?
So success rate I've kind of come around because you know, my theory is that like if you run the ball for three point four yards per car, you never need to throw it, which is not literally true, but it's kind of a thought experiment, right, So like I don't hate that idea of Okay, how often are you remember a couple years ago, I got really into that thing about average yard average yards to go on first down. Yes, so like that kind of thing I'm super interested in.
The The EPA to me is just like I don't you don't understand it, and nobody do you understand? No, but I no, I mean like you can't.
You can't wrap your head around it because of the math equation, Like you don't, it's a form.
What is the equation? What is the equation?
Oh, I can't just look like it's it's not just like as simple as a public yard. Yeah, I mean it's it's public.
Is it public or public?
If you or to look it's public. Now Here's the thing, the thing that I think bothers me the most about your argument, because I hear some of your other arguments about this. You and your brethren are caught up on the word expected because in other sports it means it's something different than what it means when it comes to EPA and basketball. It's like expected points are expected like percentage, Yeah, right, like that that's a projected number. It's not a real number.
It is if we take this shot one hundred times, we expect to make it seventy percent of the time. But it's not taking into account like your brethren likes to say, it's Game seven of the NBA Finals and the pressure's on, and like it's a different shot than in January that expected goals in hockey, same thing. You're taking shots from a high danger area. Most of the time those shots go in. This amount of times you got hoser, the goalie stood on his head, and it
only went in this many times in this game. That's not what we're talking about when it comes to EPA. EPA is taking in this situation, first and ten from the twenty five the league average is this, and you produced that.
But you don't you don't score two and a half points on one play.
But it's not That's not what it is. It's not about, Like, we're not talking about it in terms of like touchdowns where seven field goals worth three. It's it's on its own.
So where does that value come from? How are you assigning the value to that? What is the point like, it's not referring, it's referring to something that's hypothetical, right if you ever run.
How is it referring? It's it's a it's a baseline average of the league. All thirty two teams are this successful on this particular down and distance in this time and.
What what what defined successful in that situation?
Because you say average place the average amount of yards? How on first and ten from the twenty five how often, Like, what is the average yard per play across the league? That's the baseline, that's zero in e p A. If you are above that, if you let's just call it four yards. Yeah, if you have if you gain six yards, then you're in the green. You're a plus something.
Would you be plus two?
No, you're just because because it's so, then what is it?
What is the number tied to?
Because the number is on a scale, you're you're talking about it like, no, you're talking about it like numbers on the scoreboard.
It's not because it's on its own scale, right, So this is an imaginary number.
It's oh my god, it's not an imaginary number.
There's it's not yards, it's not points, it's not down like what.
Its own statistic. Yeah right, it's not. No, it's not made up. Made up is expected field goal percentage? That's made up. I get that. This is there's a baseline. This is the scale based zero of all thirty two teams and what they average in the game.
Okay, what they average. You have to average it. You average points, you average yards, you average Okay, So then but it's not on it's on its own sliding scale.
I don't know why that matters. It's on its own scale. Zero is zero, it's the average. So you either above zero, you're below's eero.
Or what dictates how much you're above zero? If you gain two yards above the average, but you're not plus two.
Because it takes into account the fact that just because you gain if you're if let's go back to four being the average, just because you gain six yards, that in the grand scheme, that's like only like a faction of the actual like impact of this.
So what dictates how much of a fraction it is?
The situation? What is it in the game? What is a down like third downs obviously gonna have more weight, a turnover, a touchdown is gonna have well soot.
So that sounds like it would. What about a team that nickels and dimes its way down the field?
Yeah, they would technically speaking, like they wouldn't be super super high. That doesn't mean that they couldn't be top ten or something like that, but compared to but if.
You have a team that dam nickels and dimes its way down the field, so it doesn't leave room for that like the the early Brady Patriots, right versus those Manning's Colts teams, who would have had a better EPAE more games.
It's a good question. I don't drink those.
Those Patriots teams are not hunting explosive plays.
I don't think we those Colts teams were. But like you're you're caught. You're so caught up.
You can't go back that far because now this number is informing or it doesn't go back for far because the number is now informing decisions and the preferences and what you value has been changed.
No, you can't go back that far because we just haven't had a nerd that's taken the time to go.
Back that far. Somebody should. I'd be curious.
I think I want to see, say, we go back pretty far.
It goes back to like two thousand and six. Actually, I feel like I remember seeing.
This, but it's not. It's not two thousand and three. Like, I don't think we can go here. I'll pull it up for you. Oh this one. Actually, this database actually goes back to nineteen ninety nine.
Interesting.
If you want to have the exact the exact number for you here, I'll pull it up for you live on the show. This is great Radio I know everybody's super into this right now, but like when I hear this, it's stat EPA talked about on your station, and people like you. You guys get so caught up in the word expected, like it just stands out to you, like it's like stabbing you in the because which.
So great about sports is it's unexpected. It's not quantifiable. There are unexpected things. You don't show up to watch. What's expected. You show up to a sporting event.
Nobody effect watch the game.
We are trying to quantify, but but it's being told, well, you, I know you think you saw this, but the numbers actually say you saw that. I know what I saw.
Because you're smarter than everybody else. The two thousand and three Patriots were sixteenth in EPA, middle of the pack. What year two thousand and three? The two thousand and four Patriots. Let's see, I'm trying to use my finger here. It's not as easy as I was wanting it to be. The two thousand and four Patriots is I think we're a little bit better offensively than two thousand.
And three were sixth?
So good team?
What were the peyton Man and Colts?
Oh?
Like off the charts first, right, Okay, so, but but.
The payment a better offense?
Who was in the Super But they were better offense? Who was in the Super Bowl?
But what do you mean who this was? It's a whole other side of the ball. Like the Patriots defense was much better. Like if you look at the Patriots defense in two thousand and four, I'm sure that they're very, very good in e PA. They were seventh in e PA on defense that year. Baltimore was number one. So like you can't just say who's in the Super Bowl, like there's two other there's a whole nother phase of
the game. Like that is we're just measuring offense, Like the two thousand and seven Patriots are the number one team in DVA in the history of d v A.
I'm pretty sure that sounds right.
So like I digress, the caller got us on this on this tangent, all right, so don't blame us. Aldred is uh? Is this Eldred Aldrid? What's up? Aldred? Yes it is?
Hey man, I love here better than But my question is there's the offensive line. And then this rumored that keeps going around about Triberdahl coming to the page. I might do every player Rubert to coming to us no matter what and what we're doing. Tribadau they got for the for the Giant. Did he drafted a couple of years ago because they got I do Carter they got?
And oh the defensive line. I was thinking on offense?
Okay, yeah, yeah, deepenive line.
Yeah.
So did y'all hear that rumor?
Do y'all think it's just a rumor or possibility?
According to Pat Chat, that what they're talking about.
Nice, Thanks for the call, Eldrid.
Uh.
Yes, so Keevon Thibodeau in New York? I did did they give him a contract or not? I always get this confused. I'm sorry, I don't think they gave him a contract yet.
Uh.
He's recently drafted in the first round, hasn't fully lived up to it. They now have Abdua Carter they just afted, and uh they have Brian Burns who they traded for. So they have three three starting edge rushers essentially on the team. Kvon Thibodeau, I want to say, is still on his rookie contract.
He is.
Uh, they picked up his fifth year option.
So in theory, he's tradable like he's a possible trade candidate. They picked up his fifth year option.
He's going into the year he's cold strangest draft, so he's.
He's going into his fourth year, so he has two more years of keeping control most of the time this year. It would be really next offseason that they would probably trade him, but it's an option. You know, he's definitely more of a hybrid edge Like he's definitely more of a hand up, pan down kind of edge defender, you know, doing a little bit of both and really outside the tackle type of player longer, if I'm not mistaken, you know, kind of one of those types of builds, has a
lot of traits. Never really put it together in college or the pros though, Like he's never been a huge producer. He's always just been kind of a trade based type of player. I didn't hate it, Like he needs somebody young and somebody developmental at that spot. I think we're both in the camp of probably drafting looking at that spot as a draftable thing coming up here. So I wouldn't hate them them being in on that. Like I'm not giving up any the farm for him, but I wouldn't.
Hate he's available. They should make the call, But I wouldn't expect anything to be imminent there.
I also think it's you know, you want the Giants of all teams should know the value in having a deep pass rush, and three starting caliber players at that position is not necessarily a problem.
It does help that Abdull Carter is so versatile like Abdul Carter can play in line, he can play off the ball, he can play on the edge Michael Parsons type, so that does help. He's not as long as I remember, six four two fifty four thirty three eighth inch arms, so a little bit shorter, you know, a little bit more chiseled. They're cut off than I thought. But good athlete, good traits. Just hasn't really put it all together with
the Giants. I'd say, like on the radar, like somebody that I if he does come available more aggressively, I wouldn't be if they made that trade. I wouldn't hate it. Depending on the return.
Obviously, yeah, I mean he's a good player. Wouldn't be against some ada him. I just don't think the Giants are going to be in a rush to give him up.
All right, Ron is in Alabama? What's up? Ron?
Oh?
Well, I'd likely on air.
Great, Yes, yes you are.
So.
I have a statement. I think we all can agree that the quarterback is better than in twenty twenty one. The weapons are better than we haven't we had in twenty twenty one. The difference now is, you know, we had Josh McDaniel, but I don't know the difference in
the offensive line. Can you go over kind of the offensive line in twenty twenty one that how that affected that season to go into what nine or ten wins with mag John's Yeah, and maybe let me talk about that a little bit and I'll get off there.
Yeah, sure, thank Ron, Thanks thanks for the call. McDaniels was here in twenty one two, but that's that's yeah, not here nor there.
So they had it was David Andrews at center, Shack Mason at guard, Ted Carris left guard, had left guard Isaiah went at one tackle and then the other tackle rotated.
Trent Brown played.
Ten games and then wait, hang on, David, I'm just I sorted by snaps on PFF to make sure I got the right group. David Andrews started every game at center. Shaq Mason played sixteen at guard at right guard. Yeah, so I'll help you out okay, Andrew Shack and Ted Carris was the interior. Isaiah Win played one guard, but oh, I should be going by snaps. Left tackle was Isaiah Win, left guard, left guard was ten Ted Carris with some
Mike and when who center was David Andrews Brown? Yeah, well Trent Brown and Mike and when who kind of split at right tackle?
Yeah? So what I remember of that line because I was a big teddy cave still am on When who started the season at right guard or left guard? Excuse me?
Yeah?
And it did not go well. He did not play very particularly well left guard, but there was obviously after his rookie season there was just a ton of hope and everyone figured he had a bright future. So they played him at left guard, and it was semi controversial that Ted Carris replaced him in the starting lineup at left guard. But for whatever reason, first six to eight games of the season in twenty twenty one, it was a little bit rocky, you know, when it wasn't playing
particularly well, Win had his issues. Right tackle was not solidified necessarily either, with you know, a little bit on Winny, a little bit of Brown, and then they put Ted Carriss in the starting lineup at left guard, and for whatever reason, it kind of all came together from there and they were pretty solid for most of that season on the offensive line. Now, they had Carmen Brisilla was the offensive line coach, good offensive line coach, Josh McDaniels
was the offensive coordinator, good offensive coordinator. But Ted Carris Man he came in and he really like steadied that ship.
Their line was kind of projecting more closer to what we saw and like maybe not quite twenty three, twenty four bad, but like twenty two rough, you know, that sort of projection, And then they ended up studying out and ranking pretty well for the entire season I want to see say, and a big part of that was Ted Carris So compared to now, it's hard to say because they haven't played any games obviously now, but compared to now, I would say that that line was more experienced.
You know, you had Andrews Mason. Carris was more of a veteran player at that point. Trent Brown certainly was, but I don't know if the talent level was all that different. You had a young tackle, just like they have a young tackle at left tackle now, and you had you know, maybe Morgan Moses was a little bit more of a name brand than Trent Brown was at the time, but Brown had the eighteen season with the Pats. I don't know. I think the town level is about the same as it was in twenty one.
Yeah, it's probably a little more charity in twenty twenty one. Right, You're gonna have at least one, if not two rookies starting this year, so there's unknowns that come with that, but the overall talent level, I'd agrees about the same.
So they've ended up finishing that season eleventh in pass block win rates, so pretty good. Eleventh and pass block win rate, and sixteenth in run blocking win rate. So if they get if that's this year, I'd great, golden.
I would make that's middle pack. That's average.
I would take an average offensive line, like they still need to be better long term, but we knew they weren't going to fix everything with the offensive line this year.
Yeah.
Yeah, that line ended up being pretty solid in twenty one. Yeah, it ended up that.
I'd be curious what those numbers are and I don't know. I don't think you can filter it this way, but like just second half of the year, one's cares, yeah, because they probably a top ten line in football.
Ones Carris came out.
It was a it was a weird thing. And sometimes you know, you just talk about like the mixes of offensive lines a five man unit, right, and for some reason that mix just worked better. For whatever reason it was, I don't know, but it just did. Mark is in Connecticut. What's up?
Mark?
Hey guys, how are you doing today?
You guys staying cool?
Yes, trying.
So I think I have a good question for you guys. And I mean no disrespect to the players, because I love the players, but eighteen week season, if we go to that, why do we need to add another bye week? I mean, they only play once a week, you know, it's not like you know, we're talking baseball where they play almost every day. Same thing with basketball, you know, other sports like that. So I just have that kind of question why we needed to think that we need an extra bye week if we do go to an
eighteen week season. And love you guys, Hope you guys have a great rest of the week.
Thanks Mark. So, I think it's twofold one. It just says we don't play obviously, right, But just as people that work in it, were at least close enough to it to understand it's grind.
It's a long grind to ride for them. We could get by with our second bye, of course, but like it's a long grind. Just witnessing it yea, like almost as like a first hand account. We're around it, we see it physically. It's it's extremely taxing.
The Patriots the last couple of years have had really late bye weeks, and it's long. It's a haul because when you really think about it, like we were talking about earlier about the whole offseason, like they start at the end of July, and if you don't have a buy until week fourteen, there's really no break from like August to that buy, just.
Sort of that one weekend.
But that one weekend is roster cuts, so you're not exactly relaxed.
Yeah, so it's a grind. That's one thing. It's totally fair to categorize it as that.
Yeah.
The other thing I would say is that the league is going to have to give up a little something to get something here. And if that's the concession, we get a full another week of games and we get all of that payout, then the players are gonna want something in return. Now they're not gonna get out a lot because it's the NFLPA notoriously gets real role.
I also think it's just good for the league to have a second bye week.
I don't think that's just for the players.
You've been harping on the NBA calendar being too long because all these players are getting hurt.
It's not at all a green team or take. It has nothing to do with the Celtics injuries.
Fair but well you were saying it after Halburn. But no, but like you don't want guys getting hurt. That's bad for the league. If guys are getting hurt, so another week to recover and rest. They didn't add a bye week when they went fourteen to sixteen games. They didn't add a bye week when they went sixteen to seventeen, so the one bye week was designed for fourteen weeks. You've now almost added like another third onto that.
Yeah.
So yeah, having another week to rest and recover, it's not just about the players wanting that so they can go on vacation. I think would benefit the league because with the longer season, you're gonna have more injuries. You don't want that give these guys an extra week to rest up in the season and get right. That's the main reason. If I'm the league, I want a second bye week.
That's a great point. And it's not like it's a to have the best product out on the field.
And you know what a second bye week also gives you. So if you go to eighteen games, right, and you have one bye week, you have nineteen weeks.
You know what happens. If you go to eighteen games and two bye weeks, you have twenty weeks. That's a whole other week. You can sell ads and sell tickets and you're getting talked about NonStop on TV and radio in the internet, like, of course the league wants another week. Of course they do. That should be the biggest win win.
A second bye week with eighteen games twenty weeks is a win for the players, it's a win for the league. There is zero reason for that not to happen, zero reason for it. And if you do that, you can probably go back to the bye week after the international game, which means you can schedule more international games, which is not good for the players, but something that the league can do that they want to do.
It's all good points all right, Tim is in Boston. What's up? Tim?
Hey, guys, I'm not trying to claim any authority on the matter, but like, as part of my job, I build and interpret like a lot of analytical models. I have a degree in math and data science, so I wanted to weigh in on this analytics debate. Models are really good at like pattern detection, determining correlation, and I think Alex you had a really good example. Like if a model says that this corner has a really bad EPA against twin targeted on goballs, Like that's a fact,
that's indisputable, that's correlation. But what it doesn't tell you is the causation. Like you can't claim that the performance is bad because it's goballs. You know, if you just went against your marchase and justin Jefferson, that's the cause, that's the causation. But the model can't tell you that.
So like if Drake May has a ten percent higher completion percentage when he wears blue socks rather than white, no analyst is going to claim that it's because of the socks and just you know, put them in blue sox the whole time. Like the models can give you that correlation, but any analyst worth their salt knows you have to go and check for causation. And that's not something i'm models can provide to you.
Yeah, it's a good point, Tim and Dad, thanks for the call. This is a difference between somebody like me who just digests the stats and people like Tim who actually creates status.
Well so, and this has been my case.
I think this maybe the take that I have has kind of been skewed. It's I understand there are people using it correctly. I think a lot of people are using correctly are behind closed doors because it's a lot easier to use correctly when you don't have to generate a take out of it.
I think there's a lot of people who if.
You're using it and you also know football, fine, I think there are people who use it in place.
Of knowing football, and that's what bothers me.
Fair enough, all right, one last email here, and I like this.
I love the socks example. There's some like famous baseball one where this one player was like elite.
I don't remember exactly what it was. It's like a while ago. This one player was like unbelievable.
On Tuesdays, he was like elite on Tuesdays, and so there was like this whole push battom clean up on Tuesdays and it was just like it just for whatever reason that day they kept facing sucky pitching.
There you go, all right, this is from Dylan. He emails and he says, Evan, I'm with you. I don't care about all the Patriots, Bulls, Yankees fans kick rocks. As a Boston sports fan, the Celtics are all I want to talk about right now. Hater's gonna hate my very underrated not going to happen move going forward. Is Stefan Castle a great two way player that will fit into the Celtics system and the Spurs are looking to have one too many shooting guards. Also, the backcourt would
be called white Castle. It doesn't get better than that. I do like that. So Stefan Castle. We've seen that American Stefan go to White Castle. We've seen that trade proposal out there. But unfortunately the trade proposal is something that to me as a Celtics fan, is off the table, which is trading Jalen Brown. It's Jalen Brown for the number two overall pick in Stefan Castle and some other pieces from San Antonio coming back to Boston, but our takes on the Celtics move.
We'll give you this a little update here that I think you're gonna be disappointed. By God, it's not trading Jalen Brown. I guess Sham said on McAfee that I.
Don't I'm gonna I'm gonna fight with Shams right now.
The Celtics may look to flip Anthony Simons.
Okay, so that makes sense.
I know you like Simons. I like Simons. I also wouldn't hate if they flip them.
But I have a I have a beef with Shams And this isn't where I wanted to go with this, but is where we're going.
No, we say we're gonna do draft talk. You have to make this quick. I have a beef with Shams. I understand.
I understand that you are trying to sell, just like we're trying to sell this show. You're trying to stir up drama. We don't do that, but that's what you're trying to do. And I get it. You get paid to do that. When you say that the Celtics are taking calls on all players and you don't put names to the players. That they're taking calls on That is infuriating, Like are they actually seriously taking calls on Jalen Brown
and Derek White or not? Well, but tell me that we don't sit there and tell me yesterday before Porzingis gets Dell that they're listening to calls on all their players when we all know that Porzingis is getting traded, Just say it's porzing They're trade and trade Porzingis. No, but we do this all the time in football, where like you know, the team's taking calls on this player, but they're never really going to trade them.
They're just looking to see if somebody. It's really stupid. I would want them taking calls on on Jays calling off. Don't give it? What if the Nuggets calling off for Yoka?
Don't give the take? If you're not going to put a name to it, because all you're doing well isn't all play. You're just driving us all.
This is a weird take from you. All players implies all players. Why do you need a name? It's ever you want them to list the entire roster?
No, because my I don't.
It's all players. It's all players.
Because I don't think the Celtics are in any serious way considering trading.
So you just think you lied. Basically.
I don't think he lied. I think that he's stretching the truth to strum up drama because it's more interesting for the show and more interesting.
They're taking calls on all players. They're taking calls on all players. He doesn't say how seriously they're taking those calls.
I think that it's we're telling half true.
We say this all the time the phone and there.
You might hang up that lass. But there's a huge difference between taking calls on Sam hows Er and taking calls on Jalen Brown. So you had as as an insider, I need to know what we're talking. Who were we talking about here?
Like, I think it's right, but we did considered overall pick we did this a third overall pick two years ago. You take the call. If somebody's gonna get dumb, you take the call. You might laugh and hang up, but you take the call.
So that's just being a good gave and Brad Stevens a good GM.
On the moves they've actually made really quickly with Porzingis and Drew Holliday a necessary evil. Now I'm not sitting here to tell you that it's a good thing for this cell, except they had to make these moves. They got worse that we all know that, and they had to do it. But at the same time, they had to do it. And I think, what the one big thing that needs to be said, because I think a lot of people are chogging this up to just a taxpayer savers, you know, saving money on the repeater tax,
and it's more money in Bill Chisholm's pocket. That No, the restrictions of the second Apron on what you can do from a roster building standpoint are substanct.
They actually limit your ability to assign free agents, what you can do in trades.
It's like it actually it's not raft.
It freezes your draft.
It freezes your draft PA, which is huge.
The biggest thing that getting out of the second Apron does is it allows you to aggregate salaries and trades, which is extremely important because now you can trade in theory three players for one player. Right, So now it puts the Celtics back into those conversations to trade for a star, which they could not do before unless they match the salary one in one out. So essentially you would have had to have traded. I'm not saying they're
going to trade for him. Let's say Yanni says I want to come to Boston and that that he just get me to the Celtics. That's his mindset. You would have had to have traded Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum for Giannis because you only could be one in, one out. Now you could aggregate salaries, So Anthony Simmons, who's making twenty seven million on an expiring contract, you could put him and Yang and Houser and package all these players together to get to the sixty million that Yannis is owed.
When you're over the second apron, you couldn't do that. So in theory, this puts the Celtics back in play to make major moves, and that's where they need it to be.
What do you want to see him do in the draft tonight.
I know that there's rumors that they might move up into the lottery. I don't think they're gonna be able to get up there.
If you could flip Houser to get into the late lottery, I would do that.
Yeah, I would do it too. They have those two picks.
Or Simons if you could flip because those guys to me, are redundant. I know they play different positions, but that's your bench spark shooter guy, right, not a lot of defense, but it's gonna put the ball in the basket if you can flip one of those guys to get into the mid lottery and ideally at a big which is what I would like to see them do, especially if we don't know what Luke Cornett's future is. That's what I want. I don't like Ryan Kulkbrenner, I don't like Creighton. He makes a lot.
Of sense for the Celtics. I'd probably come around.
They also need a wing because Tatum is not coming back this season, I don't think, and they're gonna need depth at that pick I want.
I don't want them to have this narrow focus. We've talked about this, like the Brady off when Brady towards Ac and they kind of set around him. I don't want them to have this narrow focus. Though, of these are the movie we need to make to plan without Tatum. I want them to bring guys in that when Tatum comes back, this guy's gonna compliment Tatum really well.
I would honestly rather that be the preference.
I'd rather they build for twenty seven to twenty eight, twenty nine to thirty than just twenty six. Well, that's why I like Simons, because I think Simons is just Simons does both.
He's a volume scoer, he's a microwave, he's a bucket getter, and you just put him out there and this next season it makes them more watchable frankly as a fan, but also if he's around in the long term, he's another guy kind of like porzingis, who could just drop thirty.
I think if you flip Houser right and move up in the draft, it would be, you know, Peyton Pritchard and Anthony Simons is your backcourt on your second unit? Yeah, that plays, that plays. That would be a lot of fun.
Well that's your Celtics s mint. But I want to stress because I see it a lot about that this is just about cutting taxpayer dollars, and I mean NBA taxpayer. Do you think this is the second Aprons of death set?
Let me ask him to be in the second if we wrap it up, because I think there's a report sort of along these lines recently, like the NFL was looking at the NBA's salary cap structure.
It's a joke.
Do you think it would ever come to the NFL?
I hope not. I think that this is gonna ruin the NBA. I've had this take off the air with you. I know it's a Celtics homer take, but I really strongly believe it. I think the Apron system is going to ruin the NBA. I think it's horrible for the league. I understand that you're trying to make all thirty teams relevant and spread the talent around, but what I think you're doing is you're actually going to dilute the entire product. Yeah,
because you're not gonna have any great teams anymore. Everybody's just gonna kind of be no offense. Indiana and Oklahoma City, who I think Oklahoma City is probably closer to that great enchelon. Maybe they get there eventually, but I think you're just gonna have a lot of like good, not great across the league. And I would much rather watch heavyweights than watch that. So I think that's gonna be
a big problem for the league. Before we go. Based right here in New England, Brent Work where makes work boots in apparel, that are built for the job site. Their gear is comfortable, durable, and named after the real workers and the trades that help design them. You can even try Brunt on the job and if it doesn't
blow you away, they let you send it back. Save ten dollars on your first order at brontworkwear dot com, Forward slash Pats or with coupon code PA t S and Hey, Patriots fans, you want to see Toyota's best offers, including those not seen on TV. Go to buy a Toyota dot com as Toyota's official website for deals for the official vehicles of the New England Patriots. Toyota. Let's go places, NBA Draft, NHL Draft this week. Not a whole lot going on in patriot Land, so we'll see
what happens between this week and next week. But we'll see you guys then.
Bye.
Hey, this is Deuce. Thanks for tuning into the show. If you really want to help us, make sure you like us wherever you get your podcasts like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Also make sure you follow us on the New England Patriots YouTube channel to see this show and everything else that we do here at the Patriots.
Thanks a lot,